The UK diversity management literature has tended to focus on its implementation in the public sector rather than in the commercial sector. Hicks-Clarke and Iles’’s work considers the links between gender diversity and organizational performance in both retailing and the National Health Service but found that survey analysis was not the most appropriate way of exploring diversity climates in the retail company. Initially, the study developed from an approach from the UK high-street operation which was seeking to create more innovative HR practices to support a marketing strategy of appealing to a more diverse customer base. The decision to participate in the study suggests that not only are diversity issues growing in significance for UK retailers but, arguably, point to an absence of guidance on how to achieve diversity management in practice. The retailer had three distinct businesses: the UK high street, its online business and the US retailing chain. The online business, selling products through its website and other interactive channels, employed approximately 100 people all centrally located in one UK premises. In contrast, the UK high street and US businesses were much larger and more widely dispersed. Both businesses had similar structures (head office, regional level and store level) and relied on formal documents to disseminate company policies. The UK high-street business had approximately 530 stores and 17, 000 staff, and has occupied a dominant position in UK retailing since its inception more than 200 years ago. Established in 1985, the US business employed 3, 600 staff and had a total of 570 stores in airports and hotels, predominately in North America. A case study approach was selected as the most likely means of gathering insights into understanding the concept of diversity management and how managers applied this in their working environments. Over 12 months, 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals holding managerial responsibilities in the UK business operations and with a small number of senior HR specialists from the relevant head office who were the architects of the equality and diversity policies and procedures. The majority of the samples were store managers but a number had wider regional or general managerial roles and not only had a responsibility for diversity issues but also experienced these as employees. Although an important consideration was the diversity of respondents, and every effort was made to ensure that they reflected a wide range of visible characteristics, the main priority of the study was to obtain the views of those staff with an organizational responsibility for the interpretation and application of equality and diversity policies. This meant that the diversity of the sample was constrained by the composition of the population in such roles. The result was a sample that was 70 percent female and 30 percent male, with an age composition ranging from mid-twenties to late fifties, although the majority were in their thirties or earlier forties. There was only one non-white manager in the UK sample, and one with a visible physical disability. It was difficult to select respondents on the grounds of their non-visible diversity, such as religion and sexuality, as these differences were not made known unless during the interview the respondent provided the information that they were, for example, Christian. The large numbers employed in the UK high street and US businesses, combined with the fluid nature of job roles in the online business, meant that snowball sampling was employed to select interviewees. This technique relies on respondents to identify other suitable people to interview. It is recognized that such an approach could have resulted in some bias in the selection of respondents. To try to minimize this, the list of interviewees and their roles were verified with the HR function both before and after the interviews took place as well as being checked against the documented organizational structures. In addition, each respondent was asked about their job role and supervisory responsibilities, their previous experience and working environment. During the interviews individuals were each asked to comment on a couple of scenarios describing employment situations where people could be treated either the same (an equal opportunities approach) or differently (a managing diversity approach). For example, one scenario related to an organizational benefits scheme where respondents were asked to consider the advantages and disadvantages of providing benefits for specific groups of employees, such as working parents, or for all employees, such as reduced rates for membership of a local gym. Providing an example of how these might operate in practice was intended to assist the interviewee to reflect more easily on the different approaches that could be taken to equality issues. In the last paragraph, what is the aim of the assumed scenarios put forward by the interviewer on those interviewees

A. These scenarios were designed to illustrate the situation in the online business was far more fluid.
B. These scenarios were designed not only to identify what they would do in particular circumstances but also to describe critical incidents that illustrated their own approach to managing diversity.
C. These scenarios were designed to be a supplement to the interviews, and each attempted to illustrate the essence of managing diversity and the equal opportunity approach as described in the literature.
D. These scenarios were designed to clarify the extent of managerial responsibilities for diversity management within the different operations.