Diversity, in essence, has been around from the beginning of time. But it has only been recently picked up by society. And firms, in particular, as a factor that requires attention, and as an element that needs to be managed. And even more recently, as a concept with potential. In the US, where this brief history starts, as early as the 1940s, President Roosevelt had issued executive orders concerning equal employment. At first preventing employment discrimination for government defense contracts, followed by desegregation of armed forces. The particular needs created by the war effort required a mobilization of populations that had been previously denied access to certain jobs and opportunities. We see here already, that one of the motivators for encouraging diversity in business, that of increasing production capacity and performance. However, it was in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement that the country started to make headway in terms of addressing segregation and discrimination in the society overall. The main objectives of the movement were to end racial segregation and discrimination. And to ensure legal recognition of minority citizenship rights. With the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, it became illegal for businesses to practice discriminatory hiring or firing practices. At this stage, the focus was to make it a moral obligation for firms to correct previous abuse. The motivation being to promote equality through legal means with costs for those who do not comply. It is interesting to note that the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee came into being also with the Civil Rights Act. As a preview of a global comparison on diversity issues. If we take case of France La Halde and Le Defenseur des Droits recreated in 2006 and 2011, respectively. While in Brazil, which is considered to be one of the most diverse societies, the Ministry for the Promotion of Racial Equality, that deals with similar issues, was established in 2003. In Asia, Malaysia has been dealing with ethnic and religious diversity since its independence in 1957. But as the country moves towards its vision 2020, a call for unity in diversity has been emphasized in order to achieve this objective. Going back to the US, this focus on moral obligation to address the impact of traditional discrimination led to affirmative action programs that were introduced in the 1970s. Affirmative action is any measure beyond simple termination of a discriminatory practice. That permits the consideration of race, national origin, sex, or disability, along with other criteria. And which is adopted to provide opportunities to a class of qualified individuals who have either historically or actually have been deprived these opportunities. And to prevent the recurrence of discrimination in the future. For example, educational institutions may consider race in their admission criteria. In countries such as Brazil, China, Israel and New Zealand, affirmative action has been implemented to encourage minority students in universities. Starting with Norway in 2004, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and more recently, Germany have implemented gender quotas for corporate boards ranging between 30% and 40%. In 1987, the report Workforce 2000 by the Hudson Institute sent shock waves through the business world. The report projected the nature of the US industrial environment at the beginning of the 21st century and assessed the scale of requirements in supply of that environment. The report estimated that 1, the US economy will more quickly transition from a manufacturing to a service orientation. 1, there will be an increasing demand for skilled labor, but the supply will diminish. 3, the new workforce entrants will be women, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants. And 4, there will be an aging of the workforce population. This demographic estimation in hand with the need for talent was interpreted by firms as a warning. That if they did not start to open up to new populations, they would very soon lose out to the competition in terms of attracting and maintaining the best talents. If we focus on the US situation, we can see that there are two major categories of drivers for diversity. One is the push element, as embodied in legal requirements, such as the Civil Rights Act. The push factors encourage firms to bring diversity into the workplace through obligation and the sanctions attached to noncompliance. They may be in the form of quotas of affirmative action programs. The other is the pull element, such as the needs imposed by the war when Roosevelt first introduced non-discriminatory requirements for government contractors and the armed forces. Or the workforce 2000 report highlighting the future shortage of a skilled workforce. Firms feel directly impacted by such pull factors, generating an inherent need to diversify for future survival and performance. It is interesting to note that until recently, IT firms in Silicon Valley such as Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Oracle had turned down requests for diversity information. Only in 2014 did Google and Apple make through the risky information public and started actively to work on diversity issues. Making it a very recent preoccupation for such firms. Affirmative action and related policies have significantly impacted workforce diversity, particularly at the entry level. There's a tendency to look at the numbers and to gauge the evolution of diversity quantitatively, the idea being that the workplace should somehow reflect the general society. From a compliance perspective, this is important for equity reasons. From a business perspective, this is important to understand market trends as well as developing new markets and products or services.
