| Abstract: | This paper considers increasing international interest, both academic and professional, in the implications and strategic significance of workforce diversity. Drawing on research that has been undertaken principally within the field of human resource management, as well as the experiences of museum sectors internationally, the paper explores the rationale behind, and potential efficacy of, recent initiatives to enhance cultural diversity within the UK museum sector through an approach characterised by the use of positive or affirmative action. It is argued that workforce diversity will become increasingly important to the sector as, in response to changing socio-political agendas, museums are required to assume new roles as agents of social inclusion. The paper concludes by broadening the concept of ?diversity management' (which has emerged from the field of human resource management) to take account of the museum's unique goals and functions and presents a conceptual framework within which the dynamic interrelationships between diversity within a museum's workforce, audiences and programmes can be considered. |
