Includes bibliographical references and appendices.

Introduction
The last three to four decades have seen a rapid increase in numbers of womenin the workplace worldwide,with more women also entering managerial ranks.However, despite legislation in many countries aimed at furthering women'scapacities to move to the top of their organizations,the phenomenon of the 'glassceiling' persists (Davidson and Burke, 2004; Ryan and Haslam,2005). Publicpolicy documents,academic research and popular books advocating goverment,industry and organization-level policy initiatives to facilitate women's advancementcontinue to be published.So-called 'business case' arguments,that is, argumentsto the effect that organizations that fail to acknowledge and use the skills of allmembers of their workforce will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage,seem to have had much less effect than similar arguments for other kinds of businessand organizational change.Nevertheless,over the past decade or so,there has beena shift from equal opportunities(EO) initiatives aimed at reducing discrimination inorganizations to the phenomenon of managing diversity in the workplace (Cassell,1997; Liff and Wajcman, 1996). Failure of 1980s policies and practices was oftenlinked to degrees of 'backlash' and resistance from majority groups (often whitemales) who felt excluded and the unrealistic expectations placed on employees ofdifferent gender and backgrounds (Davidson and Burke, 2000). Conversely, theconcept of managing diversity both values and harnesses the talents of individualdifferences.These differences,in turn, transform the varying sets of skills that everyemployee possesses into a business advantage.According to Davidson and Fielden(2003: xxii):