The United States, France, and Britain use markedly different kinds of industrial policies to foster economic growth. To understand the origins of these different policies, this book examines the evolution of public policies governing one of the first modern industries, the railroads. The author challenges conventional thinking in economics, political science, and sociology by arguing that cultural meaning plays an important role in the development of purportedly rational policies designed to promote industrial growth. This book has implications for the study of rational institutions of all sorts, including science, management, and economics, as well as for the study of culture.

Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age

Dobbin, Frank

History

Cambridge University Press

Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t

"This book has the potential to change CEO mindsets, human resource practices, manager behavior, and employee well-being--if only enough people grab it and heed its powerful messages." --Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of Think Outside the Building "Dobbin and Kalev have spent their careers studying why diversity initiatives fail and what it takes to fix them. Their data-driven book doesn't just spotlight the problems--it's packed with solutions." --Adam Grant "Essential reading for anyone who wants to learn which practices can actually improve managerial diversity in organizations."--Edward Chang, Science "Too many companies don't know how to walk the walk of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Getting to Diversity shows them how."--Lori George Billingsley, former Global Chief DEI Officer, Coca-Cola Company "This is the book all leaders need to read to achieve results."--Adia Wingfield, author of Flatlining Every year America becomes more diverse, but change in the makeup of the management ranks has stalled. The problem has become an urgent matter of national debate. How do we fix it? Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev draw on more than thirty years of data from eight hundred companies as well as in-depth interviews with managers to show just how little companies gain from standard practice: sending managers to diversity training to reveal their biases, then following up with hiring and promotion rules, and sanctions, to shape their behavior. Almost nothing changes. It's time, Dobbin and Kalev argue, to focus on changing the management systems that make it hard for women and people of color to succeed. They demonstrate how the best firms are pioneering new recruitment, mentoring, and skill training systems, and implementing strategies for mixing segregated work groups to increase diversity. And they argue that as firms adopt new systems, the key to making them work is to make them accessible to all--not just the favored few. Powerful, authoritative, and driven by a commitment to change, Getting to Diversity is the book we need now to address constructively one of the most fraught challenges in American life.

Business & Money

Kalev, Alexandra

Economics

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press

Inventing Equal Opportunity

Equal opportunity in the workplace is thought to be the direct legacy of the civil rights and feminist movements and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet, as Frank Dobbin demonstrates, corporate personnel experts--not Congress or the courts--were the ones who determined what equal opportunity meant in practice, designing changes in how employers hire, promote, and fire workers, and ultimately defining what discrimination is, and is not, in the American imagination.
 Dobbin shows how Congress and the courts merely endorsed programs devised by corporate personnel. He traces how the first measures were adopted by military contractors worried that the Kennedy administration would cancel their contracts if they didn't take "affirmative action" to end discrimination. These measures built on existing personnel programs, many designed to prevent bias against unionists. Dobbin follows the changes in the law as personnel experts invented one wave after another of equal opportunity programs. He examines how corporate personnel formalized hiring and promotion practices in the 1970s to eradicate bias by managers; how in the 1980s they answered Ronald Reagan's threat to end affirmative action by recasting their efforts as diversity-management programs; and how the growing presence of women in the newly named human resources profession has contributed to a focus on sexual harassment and work/life issues.
 Inventing Equal Opportunity reveals how the personnel profession devised--and ultimately transformed--our understanding of discrimination.

Business Culture

Princeton University Press

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