Development and Preliminary Validation of the Workplace Diversity Climate Scale

Abstract

Diversity climate captures employees’ subjective experiences of their diversity-related work context. However, the diversity climate literature highlights past inconsistencies in its conceptualization and challenges in its operationalization. The present research aims to develop and validate a new scale for workplace diversity climate based on a novel conceptual framework. Across five studies, we adhered to current best practices to create a new scale of diversity climate and provide initial evidence of its construct validity. Studies 1, 2, and 3 provided evidence that the scale items were in line with our proposed definition and distinguishable from related constructs. Studies 4 and 5 investigated the scale’s factor structure and provided evidence of its internal consistency. Study 5 further provided evidence of the robustness of the scale’s factor structure across historically marginalized and non-marginalized employees. Together, the present set of studies gave rise to the 16-item Workplace Diversity Climate Scale.