Leadership in Action: Issues and Observations—Gaining a Critical Edge in Mastering Globalization

DIVERGING PATHS

There are three key differences between diversity practitioners and intercultural consultants.

An obvious difference is that diversity practitioners have focused primarily on diversity within the United States and U.S. organizations. (Recently, European organizations as well have begun addressing diversity.) But for fifty years the work of interculturalists has spanned the globe.

A second difference is that diversity practitioners are heirs to a tradition of in-the-streets activism. They're associated with a tumultuous and celebrated period in recent U.S. history, the stuff of headlines, books, films, songs, petitions, poems, and prayers. Interculturalists continue a research tradition. The Peace Corps' predicament during the ...