Promoting Sustainable Work Environments through Diversity and Inclusion

Dear Colleagues,

Despite an increased interest in developing more sustainable and inclusive work environments, the persistence of poor working conditions, such as low wages, unrealistic job demands, discrimination, inequality, and mismanagement behaviors, especially for people belonging to minority groups, calls for the need for further research into the mechanisms involved and to suggest suitable strategies for sustainable change.

Research in this context indicates that employees can feel excluded from networks of information and opportunity because of their actual or perceived membership in a minority or disfavored identity group. More specifically, employees develop perceptions about the organizations’ stance regarding diversity and inclusion, as well as developing their own personal opinions about the value of diversity in a company, which has implications for organizational effectiveness, work attitudes, and performance.

The problem is not in the heterogeneity of workforce itself—individuals and groups who perceive themselves as different from others because of their gender, age, sexual orientation, culture, religion, or job function—but in the urgency for business leaders and HR managers to deeply understand these processes and to engage a company’s workforce in ways that give a competitive advantage to the company whilst keeping a focus on employees’ wellbeing and sustainable development.

Following the increase of diversity in the contemporary workforce, the past 35 years have been marked by a significant growth in empirical research on the effects of diversity on individual-, group-, and organizational-level outcomes, revealing numerous benefits such as increased access to new consumer markets; innovation; improved corporate image; reduced legal liability; greater creativity, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities; work performance; and market share, just to name a few. However, more research is needed to understand how and to which extent employees’ perceptions of being more or less included and treated equally can have some important effects on their health; on their wellbeing; and, ultimately, on their work performance (in terms of work-related stress, job satisfaction, work engagement, mental health, work-life balance, turnover, absenteeism, and more).

In view of this, this Special Issue invites the submission of high-quality conceptual and empirical papers from different perspectives on current trends in D&I in organisational psychology. Specifically, contributions to be addressed in the Special Issue include but are not limited to how to build inclusive and sustainable work environments that have a beneficial impact at the individual and organisational level, through diversity management, inclusive practices, psychological and organisational climates, and individual differences.

Dr. Silvia Platania
Dr. Anna Paolillo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• diversity
• inclusion
• psychological climate
• organisational climate
• individual differences
• empowerment
• work performance
• quality of life
• well-being
• health
• sustainable work environment