20134: DEI Within Business Schools: Collaborating to Hold Our Institutions Accountable

Organizational scholars understand the importance of organizational DEI as it continues to come under attack and many are contributing strong scholarship to make sure DEI remains an important part of organizational life. Additionally, it is important not to lose sight of how the business academy is talking about, teaching, and otherwise signaling DEI. After all, business schools are where organizational trends often originate, where they are legitimized, perpetuated, or even dissipated. This PDW will allow participants to brainstorm and form collaborations to study DEI within the business academy. So our goals with this PDW are four-fold: First, we hope to generate excitement among DEI researchers to explore DEI within the business academy, as opposed to our typical inclination to explore phenomena more broadly in the workplace. Second, we will introduce participants to a database we created of U.S. business schools’ rhetorical DEI commitments and encourage them to generate research questions using this data and to volunteer to participate in collaborative research projects using the database. Third, we will generate participant-led research collaborations separate from the database, to study DEI in the business academy. Fourth, we hope to generate a significant conversation about the state of DEI in the business academy and whether it is or can actually include racial and social justice.