B&Q is the UK’s largest home improvement chain of stores, selling materials and equipment for the home and domestic gardening market. The founders, Richard Block and David Quayle, opened their first store in Southampton in 1969, then in 1980 the company was acquired by FW Woolworth and in 1982 it became part of Paternoster the former name for the Kingfisher Group, which is currently Europe’s leading home improvement retail group. In addition to B&Q in the UK and Ireland, Kingfisher also owns Brico Depot with stores in France, Spain and Poland, Castorama with stores in France, Poland and Russia, Screwfix in the UK, Koctas in Turkey and B&Q China. It also has a 21% stake in Hornbach, Germany’s leading DIY warehouse retailer. B&Q UK’s headquarters remain in Hampshire.

In 1996, the Kingfisher group opened a B&Q store in Taiwan and in 1999 it moved into mainland China; the outlet opened in Shanghai on the eighth day of the eighth month (a lucky day according to Chinese tradition) of 2001 was the largest B&Q store in the world. The Kingfisher group now runs 48 Chinese stores, including one of the world’s largest, B&Q Beijing, which also sells furniture and furnishing materials. The nature of the Chinese property market has also made it viable for the company to offer a fitting and decorating service for customers moving into newly built apartments, thereby expanding its business opportunities through a strategy of vertical integration. In 2009 B&Q employed around 34,000 people nationwide in 330 stores across the UK. Despite being affected by the drop in the housing market during 2007–9, the organisation is currently planning to double its profits by 2012. It proposes to do this by re-focussing on its core values, which place a strong emphasis on its people.

Your tasks

1. Why did B&Q adopt its present approach to diversity? How far do you agree or disagree with these reasons for its action, and why?

2. Review B&Q’s approach in the light of theories about personality. Which of the theoretical approaches do you think might best explain the company’s approach to its staff and customers?

3. How might the B&Q approach to diversity encourage individuals (both staff and customers) to contribute to the organisation’s performance?

4. B&Q operates in a very specific sector: retail home improvement building and gardening materials and equipment. Would its approach to diversity translate to other types of organisation, for example an on-line or telephone retail insurance company (for example selling motor, travel or home insurance), a car maker, or a state-run school or hospital?