Managing Diversity

How did Morgan Stanley restore its reputation after its gender, racial and age lawsuits in 2001 to 2007?

Introduction

Morgan Stanley is one of the world’s top leading global investment firms, maintaining top market positions in the businesses it operates in. Offices are spread out in more than 36 different countries, with over 60,000 diversified employers. In 2001 to 2007, Morgan Stanley received several major lawsuits on the case of sexual, race and age discrimination, one of which cost $54m to settle for unequal treatment and sexual harassment of women.

Diversity is used to describe “groups that refers to demographic differences among members” (Arrow, 1995) as well as underlying differences such as culture and behavior. The issue of identifying if diversity and inclusion produces more harmful or benefits to organizations is still an ongoing debate in literatures, though in this essay I will take the side of the advantages diversity brings to a company.

The essay addresses issues on discrimination, and discusses how Morgan Stanley established policies to improve its diversity management. The policies and practices will be compared with the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmark (GDIB), a measurement of organization’s performance in managing diversity. A high percentage suggests a high level of diversity management. This will then lead to suggestions and improvements for the company, including looking at theories and examples of other organizations.

Business Case (General)

In the competitive environment of modern business, especially in the business end of Wall Street companies, business case for diversity is increasingly favorable to enhance performances of organization. Firstly, organizations are competing for “best talent” (Konrad, 2003), where companies have to reach into different talents pools than they are used to. Secondly, markets and clients become more globalised, forcing companies to increase diversity in their workforce to understand...