This paper presents a research proposal for studying workplace diversity employment practices at IBM. Drawing on DiversityInc's award methodology and U.S. Census precedents, the proposal outlines a survey instrument designed to measure IBM's hiring, retention, earnings, and promotion outcomes across demographic groups including race, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, and disability status. The paper justifies IBM's selection as a case study based on its historical leadership in equal opportunity employment, addresses limitations arising from overlapping federal race and ethnicity categories, and explains each of the ten survey questions developed to assess whether a local IBM facility reflects the corporation's broader diversity commitments. An annotated bibliography supports the methodology with peer-reviewed and government sources.
This paper demonstrates operationalization — the process of translating abstract concepts (like "workplace diversity") into measurable, concrete survey questions. By tracing each question back to a recognized framework (DiversityInc or U.S. Census), the author shows how researchers convert policy claims into empirical data points, a fundamental skill in social science and business research methodology.
The paper follows a standard research proposal structure: it opens with case selection and justification, then establishes the methodological framework, addresses limitations, walks through the survey instrument question by question, and closes with an annotated literature review. This logical progression moves from "why IBM?" to "how will we measure it?" — a pattern well-suited to undergraduate business research or organizational studies coursework.
DiversityInc recognizes corporations with awards for workplace diversity, where diversity is defined by a number of characteristics describing employment for all demographics not included in the group with the highest absolute employment and highest earnings (DiversityInc, 2011a). The fifty top companies for employment, earnings, retention, and seniority, among other categories, are compared across demographic characteristics such as race and ethnicity, sex and gender, age, disability, and educational background, among others.
This proposal selects IBM as a case study because of the historical leadership that firm has shown in implementing equal opportunity in employment, as supported by a review of the literature (below). IBM promotes its hiring, promotion, and retention diversity on its corporate website (IBM, 2011), and the academic and business literature appears to support that assertion.
DiversityInc's webpage "Methodology" describes their general approach to measurement but does not set out exhaustive criteria (DiversityInc, 2011b). Compiling the top three winners' categories alongside IBM's merit categories demonstrates that DiversityInc recognizes employment for Black, Latina/Latino, Asian, senior, disability, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and/or Queer (LGBTQ) workers, and other demographic groups. These are then compared per earnings group, representation in management, promotion, duration of employment, and similar measures.
These characteristics are used as precedent from which specific research questions are derived to identify these characteristics at the nearest IBM work site. If the IBM facility employs workers who identify with certain demographic markers at a higher rate than the local population, or if the firm pays these workers more or less than in the surrounding labor force, researchers can assess whether that particular IBM branch is living up to the corporation's vision, claims, and track record of leadership in equal opportunity employment.
This approach points to a potential complication, because the federal government applies overlapping categories of race and ethnicity (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011). Workers can indicate "Black" or "Asian" as their race while simultaneously identifying as "Hispanic" or non-Hispanic in terms of ethnicity. This gives rise to various combinations — such as Hispanic Black, Black Non-Hispanic, Hispanic White, or Native American — as well as Hispanic workers without a specified race categorized as "other." The U.S. Census Bureau's approach to race and ethnicity classification informs the handling of these overlapping categories throughout the survey instrument.
Appendix 1 presents the ten survey questions, derived from the DiversityInc award and U.S. Census precedents, explained and justified in specific detail.
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