Sasin School of Management in Bangkok, Thailand became the first AACSB accredited business school in the country more than a decade ago.
Some 1,200 employees of a Thai company were asked what they thought about diversity. Dr. Drew Mallory, who led the survey, says more than 30% said that within their large organization it meant trees. Literally: trees.
There’s a good explanation for why, says Mallory, a faculty member at Chulalongkorn University’s Sasin School of Management in Thailand and the B-school’s “inclusion ambassador”: The term “diversity” simply lacks the same connotation it has in the West because it’s a Western invention.
“People are more and more aware that diversity is used to mean differences of all kinds, but the concept in Thailand is still really attached to the concept of ecological diversity,” Mallory tells P&Qs in an interview.
