Title Affiliations Abstract "Biocultural diversity of herpetofauna in South Africa: State and relevance as a science-based policy tool for conservation and social inclusion" "Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology" "Globally, there is coincidence in the occurrence of biodiversity and cultural (e.g. linguistic) diversity. A growing body of transdisciplinary research is investigating the link between the two diversities as a phenomenon called biocultural diversity. This study recognises that this growing research field is often too broad in its focus and biased in its selection of taxa chosen for analysis. As a remedy for the above-mentioned shortcomings, the current study will investigate biocultural diversity at a national level (in South Africa) and relating to groups of animals previously excluded from analyses: amphibians and reptiles. The project contributes to biodiversity conservation and human development objectives through its alignment with multiple South African and international sustainability strategies." "The promise and perils of diversity and inclusion management for firm performance." "Kim De Meulenaere" Management "It has long been recognized that organizations can reap the productive informational benefits of workforce diversity if they can effectively manage their diverse employees. In this project, we want to contribute to the limited research on diversity and inclusion management – that is, all management activities of firms that ensure the diverse perspectives of employees are being valued and used and that everyone feels involved in the firm. We do so by exploring (1) the mechanisms underlying the effects of D&I management on proximal workplace outcomes such as perceived discrimination and inclusion and (2) the moderating factors that influence these mechanisms and, in turn, determine when the impact of D&I management initiatives on these proximal outcomes is positive and helps firm performance. The main goal of this project is to unravel how and when D&I management affects firm performance." "Productivity and genetic diversity of Wild coffee (Coffea arabica) in its center of origin, southern Ethiopia, in relation to forest management and land use." "Bart Muys" "Forest, Nature and Landscape, Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation" "Wild coffee (Coffea arabica L.) is a shrub native to the Afromontane forests of southern Ethiopia. It is the crop wild relative of Arabica coffee, one of the most important commodities in the world. Highly valued for its exquisite taste, this crop is still traditionally grown under forest canopy. Wild populations in these forests also serve as a source of genetic diversity for selecting and breeding more productive and more disease resistant races. Unfortunately, forest fragmentation and degradation are threatening the high forests of southern Ethiopia, and thus, also the wild coffee populations. We expect that forest fragmentation is affecting pollination and seed dispersal and therefore limiting the gene flow between isolated coffee populations. Small populations are also more susceptible to the loss of alleles due to genetic drift. The introduction of remote land races into the fragments furthermore threatens the genetic diversity of Wild coffee due to the potential effects of introgression and outbreeding. Aiming to support in situ conservation of the genetic diversity of Wild coffee, we will provide answers to the following research questions:Are the populations of Wild coffee in the Afromontane forests of southern Ethiopia susceptible to genetic erosion, and if so, can it be related to forest fragmentation, forest management or the introduction of remote land races?Is it possible to identify processes at the landscape scale that can be related to genetic erosion of Wild coffee (e.g. pollination)?Is genetic erosion also reflected in reduced productivity of Wild coffee? Field work is carried out near Jimma, Oromia Regional State, 280 km southwest of Addis Ababa, in collaboration with Jimma University and the Environmental Health and Ecology project of the IUC-JU program." "Diversity of cereal cyst nematodes (Heterodera spp.) and root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus spp.) in cereal fields of Morocco and their management using resistance" "Nicole Viaene" "Department of Crop protection, Biology" "Several species of cyst nematodes and root lesion nematodes were detected in Morocco. A qPCR was developed to detect and quantify Pratylenchus penetrans and P. thornei. Resistance of wheat to both species was found. The interaction between P. thornei and Heterodera avenae and the stability of the resistance of wheat lines in presence of both species is studied." "Diversity Management and performance" Diversity "The joint chair UHasselt-Ulg funds research on diversity in the sponsoring companies: NMBS Holding, GDF Suez and Mobistar. It covers one shared 4-year PhD research project, collaborations in the frame of other research projects, and shorter-term, policy-oriented projects related to the sponsors' policy priorities concerning diversity management." "The Quest for Global Talent: (Top) Management Teams, Nationality Diversity, and Firm Performance" "Innovation Management, Economics and Public Policy, Maastricht University" "In an increasingly competitive global environment, firms face the challenge to attract talented and highly skilled employees. Hence, firms often look abroad to hire talent. This also applies to the most important employees of the firm: the executives in its Top Management Team (TMT). In this project, we investigate if and when internationalization of the TMT affects corporate outcomes. In particular, we focus on TMTs ability to influence staffing policies and nationality diversity in the lower echelons of the firm: in management teams and the employee base of business units. Such staffing decisions may be crucial to firm performance: While the top management of an organization has the power to formulate strategies and allocate resources, whether this has substantial impact on firm goals depends on the alignment with the lower levels of organization. We focus on two interrelated corporate outcomes: export performance and productivity. We will construct a uniquely rich panel dataset at the corporate and business unit levels covering the population of firms in the Netherlands, in collaboration with the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Netherlands. We will employ dynamic panel data techniques allowing for multi-level analysis and mediation, and will complement the empirical approach by interviews with practitioners. Our findings will have managerial implications related to the ability of firms to recruit high skilled migrants for improved performance, and policy implications regarding the role of migration measures and local policies to attract migrants." "The power dynamics of managing ethnic diversity: A study of the emergence and effects of diversity management practices" "Koen VAN LAER" Diversity "Faced with growing ethnic diversity in the workforce, organizations in Europe have increasingly implemented diversity management (DM) practices, yet continue to struggle with the question of how to manage ethnic diversity effectively. This problem can be linked to important gaps in the scientific literature on DM, which has mainly explored organizations in the United States, focusing on a limited number of formal DM practices and on the influence of anti-discrimination legislation on DM. Drawing on resource dependence theory and institutional theory, this research aims to advance the scientific knowledge on DM in three ways. First, it explores the bundles of DM practices organizations adopt to deal with DM challenges in Belgium, the synergies and interactions between DM practices which are adopted simultaneously, and the relation of these practices to the broader organizational and societal arrangements in which they are embedded. Second, it investigates the way the emergence of bundles of DM practices in organizations is shaped by power relations between management and the (ethnically diverse) workforce, and the resource dependencies and institutional pressures underlying them. Third, it examines the effects of bundles of DM practices on the career opportunities and inclusion of ethnic minority employees. Methodologically, this project adopts a multiple case study approach studying four organizations in Belgium." "The process and effectivity consequences of knowledge diversity in management teams." "Christophe Boone" Management "Previous research has demonstrated that management team (MT) knowledge diversity acts as a two-edged sword: on the one hand highly diverse MTs will benefit from a broader range of relevant information and skills, on the other hand these teams often experience difficulties with the exchange and/or integration of the diverse knowledge within the team. In this study, we focus on the process and effectiveness consequences of MT knowledge diversity and we try to find out how internal MT processes are affected by knowledge diversity and how and in which circumstances MT knowledge diversity can boost firm performance. In various substudies, we investigate for instance the influence of the CEO in integrating diverse knowledge within the MT, the impact of MT knowledge diversity on innovation capacity, and the individual decision power of the MT members." "Religion and inclusion at work: Exploring the management of religious diversity in organizations" "Koen VAN LAER" Diversity "Religion and religious diversity remain understudied within research on inclusion in the workplace. Existing research has mainly focused on the specificities of the situation of particular religious employees, showing the religion-based discrimination they face, the importance of managing religious difference and the individual strategies of employees to deal with their religion in the workplace. In doing so, this research has treated religion as a form of difference to be managed, but paid less attention to the normative practices and structures which (re)produce religious inequality in the workplace. To contribute to emerging debates in Management and Organization Studies on religion at work, this PhD aims to understand the way taken-for-granted norms shape the management of religion in the workplace. As some existing research has highlighted the potential role of secular norms regarding religious neutrality and norms on performance and productivity, this research draws on deconstructivist theories of 'the secular' and theories on the organization of work within racial capitalism. Empirically, an ethnographic multiple case study approach will be adopted." "Study design, data management, analysis and interpretation for a multi-country study to refine the minimum dietary diversity women (MDD-W) data collection tool" "Carl Lachat" "Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health" "Minimum dietary diversity for women of reproductive age (MDD-W) was validated as a population-level proxy of micronutrient adequacy, with indicator data collection proposed as either list-based or open recall. This study assessed the measurement agreement of list-based and open recall methods as compared to a  reference method of individual quantitative dietary assessment for achieving MDD-W ."