Edinburgh Napier University

  Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on diversity training and examine the effect of power, privilege and politics on diversity in organisations.Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper examining the arguments in favour and against diversity training in organisations. It identifies the presence of dominant groups in society leading to the marginalisation and oppression of minority diverse groups. It introduces the papers to the special issue under the three themes of: organisational impacts and outcomes; identify and self‐presentation and resistance to diversity.Findings – The value of diversity training to promoting inclusivity, equality and fairness in organisations is underlined as is the importance of the human resource development community adopting a more proactive role in addressing the issue of diversity through research and course cirricula.Originality/value – The paper introduces this special issue in “Diversity training in organisations” by examining the background concepts and providing an overview of the contributions to the issue.