The impact of diversity management on the enterprise competitiveness: analysis on reports of fi nancial institutions and consulting companies - selected aspects

Abstract

Globalization, as well as regionalization in the period of economic deceleration, and exhausting of "simple" reserves of economic growth cause the need to pay more attention to social, environmental and ethical issues. The strategy of sustainable development, which ensures equilibrium of three elements - economy, ethics and ecology, is becoming increasingly signifi cant. Development of this tendency is particularly visible in Western Europe countries, with high GNP per capita values. One of the effects of a sustainable approach towards economy is that fact that enterprises take into wider consideration social aspects, in respect to both theirown employees (taking care of the balance between work and private life, ensuring development opportunities, equal treatment), as well as other interested parties, e.g. clients, suppliers, universities, media, local authorities, and in case of network companies, e.g. transport-forwarding tradelogistics, also territorial units where the terminals are situated. Social responsibility also means taking care of natural environment and comply with legal standards obligatory in a particular country, as well as eventuating from international treaties ratifi ed by a particular country. The issue of social responsibility was fi nally regulated. Its normative regulation was included in the ISO 26000 norm, published in November 2010. According to this norm, social responsibility means obliging organization (business, non-governmental or administrative) to implementation of social and environmental aspects into the decision making process and assuming responsibility for their effects on society and environment. The presented paper indicates various aspects of diversity management, mainly the enterprise's fi nancial indicators. The analysis used reports of financial institutions in order to prove the thesis that gender diversifi cation on corporate boards allows obtaining higher proceeds and profi t, particularly during economic stagnation and recession.