Managing diversity: Strategy and control in diversified British companies

Many large companies today operate in a range of different businesses. These companies need to fine tune their management styles to the specific requirements of each business in their portfolio. But they also wish to avoid unmanageable organizational complexity, and, as far as possible, to operate with a single, consistent, widely understood corporate culture throughout the company. Managing diversity therefore causes particular problems and conflicts. This article puts forward three alternative philosophies for managing diversity that the authors have encountered in extensive research on this topic with 16 large U.K. companies. It brings out the advantages and disadvantages of each philosophy and discusses the results that companies following each approach achieve.