Abstract.

Today, managing diversity is considered one of the main

challenges for HRM in modern organizations. In this article, a
framework is developed to suggest that the design and
implementation of HRM activities should be influenced by
strategic choices on the management of diversity which are
themselves shaped by environmental factors. The HRM
activities lead to four types of outcomes (affective, cognitive,
symbolic and communicative) that affect individual, group and
organizational performance. This framework is used to
explore the effects of workforce diversity in two cases and to
provide answers to three central questions: how does
diversity influence the interactions in and the performance of
diverse groups, and what is the relation between
management diversity and other HRM policies in the two
companies? The findings indicate that an organization's
strategy for managing diversity influences both the process of
meaning formation regarding diversity and the perception of
performance effects. The availability of an organizational
vocabulary and of instruments to interpret interactions in
terms of diversity make a crucial difference. The stories and
incidents from the two cases show how diversity affects both
the daily interactions and the functioning of diverse groups.
The