Samenvatting

For decades, the policy in the Netherlands’ public sector has been to stimulate and leverage ethnic and cultural diversity in the workforce. Although there can be different motives for public organizations to take up the challenge of implementing a diversity policy, among the most common is to add value. For that reason, the arguments used to promote diversity have become more commercial and businesslike. Within the public sector, diversity in the workforce has come to be associated with improved performance levels across entire organizations. Whether it be education or the police, municipalities or the central government, almost all partsof the public sector want to use differences among the workforce to increase governmental effectiveness. Oddly enough, however, this effort has only slightly led to interventions that contribute to a government that can adequately solve the problems of society. This approach, known as the business case for diversity, forms the basis of this research.