(Conditionally) Supporting polycultural organizations through bidirectional allyship

Abstract

Valenzuela and Bernardo ’ s (2023) focal article underscores the need to add polycultural ideology to existing diversity management perspectives in order to further enhance how organizations manage diversity. As the authors mention, despite an organization ’ s best efforts, reports across professional entities and policy institutes continue to indicate a prevalence of racial-ethnic discrimination and conflict within the workplace. To ease such challenges and improve intercultural relations within organizations, the authors outline the potential benefits of polyculturalism — which draws from a polycultural ideology that sees cultural values, traditions, and norms as fundamentally connected, dynamically intertwined, and ever-changing (Morris et al., 2015; Rosenthal & Levy, 2010). The authors offer examples of practice implications and strategies to create polycultural organizations (i.e., leadership, diversity training, and socialization). In this commentary, we highlight an additional strategy for creating a polycultural organization: bidirectional allyship.