The Sound of Silence. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Discrimination in ‘Inclusive Organizations’
| Date | 01 July 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12043 |
| Author | Diego Lasio,Vincenza Priola,Francesco Serri,Silvia De Simone |
| Published date | 01 July 2014 |
The Sound of Silence. Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender Discrimination
in ‘Inclusive Organizations’*
Vincenza Priola, Diego Lasio,1Silvia De Simone1and Francesco Serri1
Aston Business School, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK, and 1Department of
Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy, University of Cagliari, via Is Mirrionis 1, 09123 Cagliari, Italy
Corresponding author mail: C.Priola@aston.ac.uk
Most studies on diversity and discrimination in the workplace have focused on ‘visible’
minorities such as gender or race, often neglecting the experiences of invisible minorities
such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) workers. In this paper we explore
the practices of inclusion/exclusion of LGBTs in the workplace in Italian social coop-
eratives, which are specifically founded to create employment for people who are disad-
vantaged in the labour market. The study examines how organizations, which have an
ethos focused on inclusion and mainly employ workers from specific social minority
groups, manage the inclusion of LGBT workers. We also explore the experience of
LGBT workers within these organizations. The paper reports that the culture of silence
existing in the five organizations studied prevents LGBT employees from constructing a
work identity which encompasses their sexual identity and prevents the organizations
from achieving their aim of being fully inclusive workplaces.
Introduction
Research into diversity and inclusion in the work-
place has focused on the further understanding of
processes such as diversity management policies
and practices (e.g. Bell, 2007; Healey et al., 2010;
Konrad, Prasad and Pringle, 2006; Özbilgin,
2009), minority employees’ management of iden-
tity (e.g. Bell and Nkomo, 2003; Bowring and
Brewis, 2009) and employee voice and silence (e.g.
Rank, 2009; Trau, Härtel and Härtel, 2013)
among others. Although such research has more
recently widened its scope, we can still observe
that most studies have focused on ‘visible’ minori-
ties in the workplace, such as gender or race, and
have neglected researching the experiences of
invisible minorities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender (LGBT1) workers. Not only is
sexuality an under-researched area within diver-
sity at work but it is also one of the most difficult
to research because LGBT people have to play an
active role in the ‘acknowledgement’ process
through coming out with the researcher and/or
colleagues (Ward and Winstanley, 2005). Such a
process, though, is fraught with complexity due to
the fact that organizations have traditionally been
represented as rational, sexless realms (Hall, 1989;
Martin, 1992), where any reference to gender
The author would like to thank the participants in this
research for their collaboration and honesty.
*A free Video Abstract to accompany this article is
available at: http://youtu.be/H2KHGYljQ4M.
1The expression LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgen-
der) is only one of the many terms/acronyms used;
different categories (such as asexual, pansexual and poly-
sexual) and new acronyms such as QUILTBAG (queer/
questioning, undecided, intersex, lesbian, transgender,
bisexual, asexual and gay) are emerging. We used the
acronym LGBT because it is widely used and the homo-
sexuals we talked to defined themselves according to the
categories included here. We consider it important that
research on sexuality embraces the varieties of people’s
sexual orientations.
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British Journal of Management, Vol. 25, 488–502 (2014)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12043
© 2013 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
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