Reports

The Superdiversity Institute undertakes research and analysis on key superdiversity trends, challenges and issues, and how they affect particular aspects of New Zealand’s law, policy and business. You can read all of our reports here.

CALD White Paper

The Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CALD) White Paper drafted by Mai Chen and Dr. Andrew Godwin, was launched on the 12 September 2022 with the support of The University of Melbourne, Super Diversity Institute, and the Asian Australian Lawyers Association. CALD parties have long faced barriers that disrupt their access to justice. The CALD Issues Paper seeks to identify these barriers and suggest ways of addressing them. 

  Read More. 


Cultural Capability and Business Success Report:

5 top business leaders making cultural capability a cornerstone of their success

The Superdiversity Institute is proud to launch the “Cultural Capability and Business Success” report. The report signals the start of a serious conversation about what the S in ESG means. In the 21st century, we’ve caught up to the fact that business ‘success’ must incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) imperatives, as well as financial ones. But much of the focus has been on environmental and governance imperatives, and it has not always been sufficiently clear that ‘social’ imperatives include cultural considerations. The reality is that businesses that fail to put a proper cultural framework on ESG will compromise their ability to relate to culturally diverse staff and customers and this will detrimentally impact their bottom line. In this report, we hear from five business leaders who are part of a vanguard who understand that cultural intelligence and capability (CQ) is critical to business success:

  1. Rob Hennin – CEO of nib New Zealand
  2. Kiri Nathan – Director and Designer of fashion label Kiri Nathan
  3. Shayne Walker – Group CE of Ngati Porou Holding Company
  4. Scott Pritchard – CEO of Precinct Properties New Zealand
  5. Angela Lim – CEO and Co-Founder of Clearhead

Read more


How to grow a culturally competent organisation: Case study of nib’s CQ Tick journey

nib’s CQ journey shows that:

  • Recognition of diversity in a superdiverse Aotearoa New Zealand is essential,
  • It’s good for customers, good for employees, and good for business,
  • It takes clear, decisive, and committed leadership, and transparency to build CQ,
  • Organisations may be more diverse and culturally capable than we think,
  • Organisations can build on existing diversity and CQ reserves to create change,
  • Where there is a genuine will, organisations can create change almost overnight,
  • nib’s CQTick audit process has given the organisation the intelligence, direction, and structure needed to create transformational change in growing CQ.

The case study covers:

  • About nib
  • The CQ journey begins
  • The CQ journey continues
  • 2021 CQ Audit
  • Where to from here

Read more


Culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse parties in the Courts: a Chinese case study

The Superdiversity Institute of Law, Policy and Business report, Culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse parties in the Courts: a Chinese case study, was developed with the support of the Ministry of Justice, the Law Foundation and the Borrin Foundation. The report is the first major study that has been conducted into the unique issues and challenges faced by courts, judges, lawyers, prosecutors and interpreters to ensure equal access to justice for culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse (CALD) parties in the courts, and Chinese litigants and defendants in particular. Read more


National Culture and its Impact on Workplace Health and Safety and Injury Prevention for Employers and Workers

The Superdiversity Institute has put a Superdiversity Framework around health and safety and injury prevention and will present its key findings and recommendations. The report, “National Culture and its Impact on Workplace Health and Safety and Injury Prevention for Employers and Workers”, is developed with the support of ACC. The report impacts every employer and employee in New Zealand. It finds that the cultural and linguistic differences of different ethnic groups in New Zealand affects their view of risk, and directly or indirectly impacts their health and safety attitudes and behaviours. The report examines tools, tactics and strategies used in eight superdiverse countries (Canada, United States of America, United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, Kuwait, and Malaysia) to enable culturally diverse workers to effectively apply health and safety practices, and draws them together for ACC and other agencies to consider when determining how best to prevent workplace injury and promote workplace health and safety, among workers from diverse cultural backgrounds. The report is an example of how a Superdiversity Framework can be applied to areas of policy, legislation, and regulation to ensure that issues and challenges are properly understood and to ensure that policy, law, and regulation is fit for purpose for New Zealand’s superdiverse population.

Read more


New report on culture of workers and greater injury rates

The Superdiversity Institute of Law, Policy and Business released today a report for Worksafe, New Zealand’s primary workplace health and safety regulator, on Health and Safety regulators in a superdiverse context: review of challenges and lessons from United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

The report examines how regulators in three superdiverse countries are challenged by and are working to improve the health and safety outcomes for a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) population, which tend to have a significantly higher rate of injury. The Report provides recommendations and proposed actions for WorkSafe based on the challenges and the lessons to be learned from overseas regulators.

The report was commissioned by WorkSafe, with assistance from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). The report looks at United Kingdom, Canada and Australia because those countries are most like New Zealand when it comes to health and safety regulations, and have similarly high levels of superdiversity. The report draws on insights from interviews with staff from health and safety regulators in each jurisdiction. It also includes an analysis of the three countries’ legislative frameworks comparative to New Zealand, and a review of literature related to improving the health and safety of CALD workers in the various jurisdictions.

Our findings show that achieving good health and safety outcomes for CALD populations requires a strategic and joined up approach. However, ad hoc reactions to fatalities and serious injuries were too often the approach in other superdiverse countries.

This report makes 15 high-level recommendations for WorkSafe, on how they could improve health and safety for workers who are culturally and linguistically diverse including:

  • Prioritising mental health of CALD workers arising from discrimination;
  • Using inspections and investigations to improve outcomes for CALD workers;
  • Engaging and better educating CALD communities on health and safety and worker rights, and focusing on communication and language;
  • Providing more guidance to all employers on the challenges of keeping CALD workers safe and the best tools to do so; and
  • Applying a Superdiversity Framework to Worksafe including prioritising diversity in recruitment and training.

Download full report (PDF)


Diverse Thinking Capability Audit of New Zealand Board Rooms 2018

The Diverse Thinking Capability Audit of New Zealand Boardrooms 2018 is a global first that explains what “diverse thinking” really means for governance, how to increase diverse thinking , the predictors of diverse thinking beyond gender and ethnicity, and how to create a diverse thinking Boardroom culture and governance practice for peak performance and better decision making.

The report was launched by diverse thinking Hon Grant Robertson, Minister of Finance, Sport and Recreation, Associate Minister Arts Culture and Heritage on 22 August 2018 in Auckland. The report gathers insights, guidance and advice from over 60 top Chairs, Directors, and governance professionals about how best to attract, retain, and leverage diverse thinkers in the best interests of the company or organisation.

Read more


The Diversity Matrix

The Diversity Matrix: Refreshing What Diversity Means for Law, Policy and Business in the 21st Century is a follow-up publication to the Superdiversity Stocktake. It discusses how we need to refresh what the word ‘diversity’ means in 21st century New Zealand, so that it is not constrained to gender or ethnicity, and takes into account the multifaceted nature of every person’s identity. Properly defining diversity is critical to business, customers and employees, and will also affect how local and central government should tailor their approach to policy-making and citizen engagement, as addressed in the Superdiversity Stocktake.

The Diversity Matrix builds on this by examining the implications of undertaking a ‘matrix approach’ to diversity for the enforcement of our anti-discrimination laws, taking into account issues experienced by overseas courts in undertaking an “intersectional” approach to discrimination, and research on the compounded disadvantage experienced by certain groups.

Download full report (PDF)


Superdiversity Stocktake: Implications for Business, Government and New Zealand

The results of New Zealand’s 2013 Census were published and followed by many pieces of work describing present New Zealand demography and noting particularly the considerable and recent rise in numbers of new Asian and Pacific New Zealanders. Now comes this latest book by well-known public lawyer and author, Mai Chen, with a central thesis that many entities could do a great deal more to face what is termed superdiversity.

Superdiversity occurs when a significant percentage of the community are from overseas and when suburbs and workplaces, to take two examples, show this in their makeup. The book argues that there would be economic benefits from catering for this new set-up in a better way, such as higher levels of employee productivity and innovation, and a boosted demand for goods and services sought by new New Zealanders.

Click here to view the report in sections, or click below to download the full report.

Download full report (PDF)


Superdiversity, Democracy and New Zealand’s Electoral and Referenda Laws

This study, funded in part by the New Zealand Law Foundation, analyses the democratic implications of New Zealand’s superdiversity transition, given that voter participation in New Zealand is in decline, with Maori, Pacific peoples and new migrants overrepresented among those who do not vote.

“Superdiversity, Democracy and New Zealand’s Electoral and Referenda Laws” analyses the accommodations which New Zealand’s electoral laws already make for eligible voters with little or no English, and makes recommendations for improvements based on our review of the electoral systems of comparable superdiverse cities and countries overseas.

Download full report (PDF)

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