Business case research

Title

Demonstrating framing choices as “relevant and real”: A content analysis of the diversity rhetoric used by Fortune 500 companies

Purpose

Creating a case study to demonstrate the importance for communicators to understand the impact of the frames and messages they share

Description

Since the 1980s, companies have increasingly turned to broad definitions of diversity (Akinola, 2016, 2017; Edelman et al., 2001; Mease, 2016) along with rhetoric emphasizing the direct and indirect companies gain from diversity (Georgeac & Rattan, 2023; Gutierrez & Kellar, 2023; Pasztor, 2019).

There are considerable concerns that this rhetoric “risks reducing people to resources, limits the possibilities for altering human interaction, and reinforces identity hierarchies” (Mease, 2012, p. 2). More recent research (Georgeac and Rattan, 2022) found that the use of business-centered rhetoric can have “detrimental consequences for the very applicants that companies seek to attract.”

This research is a quantitative content analysis examining the diversity case, definitions, and identities published by Fortune 500 companies to explain their diversity initiatives.

Type of Project

Quantitative research (currently), content analysis, secondary research

Research Status

Initial research was presented during a session at the Communicating Diversity Conference in Austin, Texas.