Chapter 6: Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in the Digital Era: Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Leaders and Agents of Change

This chapter examines how digital transformation is impacting the ability of members of various identity groups to participate fully in the work of our organizations. Advances in digital technology are transforming the ways people in organizations connect, communicate, cooperate, and work. But while these advancing technologies have the potential to enable greater, faster, more productive, and more egalitarian participation in the work of today’s organizations, they have also served to reify and exacerbate existing societal and organizational inequalities. This chapter identifies barriers that must be addressed as digital technologies become more central to the way in which work gets done, considers the implications for organizations facing challenges of technology-driven competition for talent and market share, and explores how organizational leaders and agents of change can use the tools of digital technology to promote greater inclusion, diversity, and equity in our organizations and society.