Diversity in human life

Business Ethical, Law And Sustainability

Arranged by :
● Dafry Reksavagita (29318045)
● Dewi Ayu Pritasari (29318136)
● Tigor Mulia Dalimunthe (218190112)
 ● Interesting and
Important Factors
Outline ● Provoking Ideas
● Sapiens and The Clash
of Civilization Books
● Contribution to The
Leadership
Interesting and
important factor
What is human revolution?

According to Mellars and Stringer (1989) Human revolution is a term used by

archaeologists, anthropologists and other specialists in human origins; it
refers to the spectacular and relatively sudden – apparently revolutionary –
emergence of language, consciousness and culture in our species.
Human revolution create diversity
Human revolution tend to create massive variety of language, consciousness and culture that lead
to diversity in society:
● There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those
languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most popular language in the world is
Mandarin Chinese. There are 1,213,000,000 people in the world that speak that language. 1
● Size of major religions groups in 2012: Christianity 32%, Islam 23%, Unaffiliated 16%, Hinduism
16%, Buddhism 7%, Folk Religion 5%, Other 1%.2
● There are more than 6.5 billion people in the world today. Nearly 2/3 of them are Asians living
on less than 1/3 of the land. Only about 5% of the world's people live in North America. Just
how many different societies, cultures, and ethnic groups make up the world's population is
not certain.3
Diversity terminology
Based on College of Liberal Arts Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies Bulletin, there are
several terminology related to diversity:
● Castania (n.d) stated that diversity is differences among people with respect to age, class,
ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and
other human differences.
● Oregon Government (n.d) stated that diversity means understanding that each individual is
unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious
beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.
● University of Michigan Health Systems (2002) stated that diversity refers to human attributes
that are different from your own and from those of groups to which you belong.
 Classification of Diversity

The categories for diversity can be classified into demographic diversity, organizational diversity and
socio-cognitive diversity:

● Demographic diversity such as age, gender, ethnicity, and nationality (Choy, 2007).
● Organizational diversity such as occupation and functions of the employees, seniority in the
firm, and hierarchical ranking within the organization (Shin and Park, 2013).
● Socio-cognitive diversity such as cultural and religious values, beliefs, knowledge level, and
personality characteristics (Jackson and Ranerman, 1995).
Diversity problem
Diversity is a problem since a long time ago in organization. Alison (1999) said throughout the past decade, many
organizations have grappled with issues surrounding workplace diversity. Alison (1999) retrieve from Hudson
Institute Report Workforce indicated that the representation of women and ethnic minorities in the workforce would
experience accelerated growth rates in the years ahead. As a result of the dynamic changes, some organizations
have willingly become more inclusive, integrating women, people of color, gays/lesbians, and individuals with
disabilities into their workforce at all levels. Other organizations and agencies have been drawn into court and
penalized because of blatantly discriminatory, exclusionary policies and practices. Diversity cases not only happen
inside the organization, but also in society as a big community. Here are some of recently cases of diversity problem:

● https://www.dw.com/id/meiliana-divonis-18-bulan-penjara-usai-keluhkan-volume-adzan/a-45155784
● https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/28/coffee-shop-racism-starbucks-arrests
● https://www.thoughtco.com/big-companies-sued-for-racial-discrimination-2834873
● https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/05/microsoft_ibm_settle_case_over_disputed_diversity_boss/
Why is diversity cases happen?
From our point of view, these are several causes that could trigger diversity cases:
● Stereotyping: An attitude for giving first impression towards with different background, for example:
○ Padang people are stingy
○ Black people are criminal
○ Chinese are crafty
○ Jews are greedy
○ Civil workers are lazy
○ Muslim are terrorist
● Language and cultural difference create unspoken intent and different standard. In multinational company
with english language as a standard language in communication, misunderstanding commonly happen
because not everyone has english as their first language. Another example, many people in Indonesia would
say batak, bugis, east Indonesia people area grumpy because they speak so loud and blatantly.
● Comfort level of differences to deal with other people. Not everyone is comfortable with differences, some
have a huge barrier and oftenly reject differences. Some are openly accept differences and embrace it in
organization.
Organization
According to Chandra (2016) an organization or organisation is an entity comprising multiple
people, such as an institution or an association, that has a collective goal and is linked to an external
environment.
The key word in organization reflecting diversity is multiple people. Human tend to be different, from
small scale organization as group syndicate in college to multinational company with thousand of
workers differences is inevitable. The challenge is how to manage those plurality become an
organization strength to achieve organization goal. This is a big challenge for organization, some
leader might fail to manage it such Kalanick who is unable to manage gender discrimination and has
to give up his position as Uber CEO.
Diversity in workplace
According to ThisWay Global Ltd UK,4 top diversity issues in the workplace are:
● Acceptance and respect: Conflicts arise when there is a lack of acceptance of culture diversity and beliefs
among employees.
● Accommodation of beliefs: Diversity in cultural, spiritual, and political beliefs can pose a challenge in a diverse
workplace.
● Ethnic and cultural differences: Some individual hold prejudice against people who have different ethnic,
cultural, and religious background as their own.
● Gender equality: Gender pay gap still exists.
● Physical and mental disabilities: Disable employees often have a difficult time navigating through thei
workplace because proper accommodations as simple as wheelchair ramps are not available.
● Generation gaps: In some companies, there are more diversified age groups, from teenagers to senior
citizens. As a result, social circles may be formed, and some workers may be isolated from the team.
● Language and communication: Language and communication barriers are ever-present in companies with a
diverse workforce.
Managing diversity

According to Edewor and Aluko (2007), there are several Shin and Park (2013) stated that big companies is
ways to managing diversity: seriously to manage diversity. Dell and Coca-Cola has
several programmes related to managing diversity:
● Setting a good example
● Communicate in writing Dell
● Training programmes
● Recognize individual differences ● Mandatory annual online training programs
● Actively seek input from minority groups ● Creating a framework for managing work-life
● Revamp reward system effectiveness
● Make room for social events ● Management buy-in for diversity programs
● Flexible work environment Coca-Cola
● Continuous monitoring
● Diversity Councils and Business Resource Groups
● Diversity Education and Training
Impact of diversity
From some previous studies, diversity has an impact to work quality, productivity, innovation and return. Here are
several studies about impact of diversity:

● Edewor and Aluko (2007) stated that diverse climate may influence individual and organizational outcomes as
either affective outcomes or achievement outcomes. These individual outcomes may influence organizational
factors such as work quality and productivity.
● Simons and Rowland (2011) stated that study used social diversity characteristics only, including age, gender,
ethnicity, and education. Education and gender were positively associated with innovation, age had a negative
association, and ethnicity had no effect.
● Shin and Park (2013) stated that of the 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 companies for diversity, these 42 companies
had a 24.8% higher return than the Standard & Poor's 500 when measured over 10 years with dividends
reinvested.
Challenges in the future
● The adoption of diversity training was positively statistically correlated with top management
support, organizational size, and prioritization of diversity based objectives and staffing
(Simons and Rowland, 2011).
● Diversity practice in organization is top down practice. Not all people in organization value
diversity moreover they tend to reject diversity. Lead by example is the right word to describe
key success factor for implementing diversity practice in organization.
● Cultural barrier is lead to discrimination such as in eastern world, woman should stay at home,
in carrer the old one will have bigger opportunity that the young one or in muslim
country/majority asian country, LGBT is forbidden practices.
Conclusion
● Human revolution lead us to a diverse society and basically human nature is tend to be
different each other. The differences create stereotyping and miscommunication in society
that could made a diversity problem in organization.
● Organization consist of multiple people who shared same goal. The leader challenge and
everyone involved in organization to manage those differences to become a strength.
● Common practice to manage diversity are training program and top management involvement
in diversity programme. Big company such as Dell and Coca Cola take diversity in serious
matter due the impact of diversity to company performance.
● Successfully managing diversity can positively influencing work quality, productivity and
innovation. Company that success to manage diversity on average had higher return than the
Standard & Poor's 500.
● The challenges in future for diversity are to actively convince people in organization for
accepting differences and also how to compromise diversity policy in multinational with local
culture.
Provoking
ideas
One ideology is a solution to conflicts

In his essay End of History, Fukuyama (1989) said that the driving force of conflicts in this world is having different
ideas. Different ideas often conflict one another which cause the conflicts. So to avoid conflicts fukuyama proposed
that all the nations of the world should follow western liberalism since he believed its the only true ideology and a
solution to conflicts. Until countries adopt western liberalism conflicts will always be there since people with the
same idea don't often conflict according to fukuyama.

Comment:
Human in nature is always different. Even twin that genetically is the same still have different in attitude and mindset.
Forcing people to have same ideology is violating the basic human right. According to Universal Declaration of
Human Right Article 18-21 said that human has Freedom of Belief and Religion, Freedom of Opinion and Information,
Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association and Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections. We think
that the solution is not to make everyone the same but to accept that everyone is not the same.
No country, no religion create peace

In his song Imagine,5 John Lennon said that if there’s no heaven live is easier. If there’s no country, no religion too, all
people will living in peace. If there’s no possessions, there will be no greed and hunger, and all people sharing all the
world.

Comment:

As the song title said “imagine”, John Lennon bring us to his dream about his ideal world. In reality, we think that even
if country and religion never exist there still will be differences because in nature human tend to be different. If
people share same country and religion in a whole world, there will be some other thing to debate. For instance, in
middle east a muslim territory. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is embargo Qatar because differences in political
preference. USA has a plan to create wall in the USA-Mexico border because USA feels that Mexican imigrant are
creating problem. Both USA and Mexico are christian majority country.
 Respecting LGBT practices in east culture

Comment:

Response regarding LGBT movement is various in whole world. In

general the western world is accepting it, even several is legalize
same-sex marriage. In other hand the eastern world in general is
refusing it, in fact in middle east LGBT performer will imprison or
punished by death penalty. Dilemma is raise when a multicultural
company that supporting LGBT such as IBM, Starbucks is operated
in anti LGBT country such as Indonesia. That would be a major
challenge to consistently applying such controversial policy in
Indonesia.

Personally we cannot accepted this practice. The reason is simple,

we cannot imagine how we will really disappointed, shame and feel
failed as a parent if our son/daughter following this practice. Is true
that selfishness drive this opinion. We are afraid society will judge
us and our family as amoral family. Maybe, if we grew in western
world our opinion would be different.
Worldwide laws regarding same-sex intercourse.6 and LGBT right at the UN.7
Sapiens and
The Clash of
Civilization
books
Analysis on Sapiens Book
Interbreeding and Replacement Theory
According to this book, there are two main theories explaining the human revolution, Interbreeding
Theory and Replacement Theory, both are conflicting with each other. According to Interbreeding
Theory, during the migration of Sapiens to a new place, Sapiens breed with Neanderthal. Today’s
humans are a mixture of Sapiens and Neanderthal. Meanwhile, according to Replacement Theory,
Sapiens replaced the Neanderthal. Under this view, Sapiens and Neanderthal are depicted genetically
different, making them also unable to produce children through sexual intercourse.
This book explained how the Cognitive Revolution on human brains have enabled Homo Sapiens to a
large-scale cooperation, including gossiping and conspiring each other to against other species (e.g.
Neanderthal), despite the fact that Neanderthals have a larger brain and more muscular, at the end
Sapiens became the only species predominant the earth. For this reason, the Replacement Theory
seems more acceptable rather than Interbreeding Theory.
Analysis on Sapiens Book
Human unity (and diversity) is based on myths
Most consensus among human is shaped by shared-myths (e.g. religions, laws, money, empires, etc),
humans tend to search for other humans who have similar preferences, and therefore these
shared-myths enable strangers to collaborate and unite under strong order. However, such order will
get collapsed once people dismiss their trust in collective myth.
The same manner has also justified diversity among human (such as racism and sexism) which
encourages one group to oppress other groups simply because they share different myth.
Analysis on Sapiens Book
Humans has ability to think and explain abstract ideas
Replacement Theory said Sapiens replaced the Neanderthal because Sapiens ability for socializing.
Socializing is a process that force human to communicate at each other, this ability for communicate
push human ability to think and explain abstract ideas. This ability can also explain “luxuries become
necessities” behaviour that human have explained in the book. Human will always think to have better
life than today, today luxuries become tomorrow necessities. Related to diversity, the ability to think,
explain abstract ideas, and unsatisfied behaviour, is supporting “human is tend to be different in
nature” statement. Human will always have different thinking, ideas and desire.
Analysis on The Clash of Civilizations Book

Eight "major" civilizations

Huntington divides the world into eight "major" civilizations, 1. Sinic, 2. Japanese, 3. Hindu, 4.
Islamic, 5. Orthodox, 6. Western, 7. Latin America, and Africa. From diversity perspective, he is using
demographic and socio-cognitive for classifying civilizations. Opposite with Francis Fukuyama,
Huntington does not believe with western culture hegemony. He is believe while the world is
becoming more modern, it is simultaneously becoming less western. This opinion is supported with
Harari statement on his Sapiens book that human has ability to think and explain abstract ideas and
“luxuries become necessities” behaviour that lead to different thinking, ideas and desire. Each
civilizations will try to develop its own civilizations according to it requirement.
Analysis on The Clash of Civilizations Book

Conflict caused by civilizations

Huntington's book emerged after fukuyama's end of history. The book said that conflicts are not
caused by the possession of different ideas but are caused by differences of culture, tradition and
religion. Huntington says that even if all the people adopt the same idea conflict will be there since
they are different in terms of civilization and culture. All the people cannot adopt western liberalism
since some people prefer their own way of life and other s religions contradict the western values
like islam. The world will be merged conflicts based on civilization not ideas. John Lennon song
“imagine” released in 1971 might be become inspiration for Huntington to elaborate his ideas.
Analysis on The Clash of Civilizations Book

The future of civilizations

Closing statement from the book is that, "A multicultural world is unavoidable because global
empire is impossible. These multicultural world are the product of centuries and the foundation of
different civilizations, meaning they will not be gone soon. The great clashes will occur among
civilizations, Huntington predicts the conflict between Islam and the West because of religious and
cultural differences and the conflict between the America and China in economic sector due to
China ability to develop its economic development massively. This prediction supporting cultural
barrier as a diversity challenges in future, organization have to prepare a plan to mitigate the risk due
to the great clashes that might happen in the near future.
Resume from the books
Both Sapiens dan Clash of Civilizations books are about diversity. Harari tell us about the history of
human. There are more than one species of human, although in the end only one species last but it
tell us even in the first place human tend to be different. Diversity in sapiens are driven by
shared-myths (e.g. religions, laws, money, empires, etc), ability to think, explain abstract ideas, and
unsatisfied behaviour.
In other hand, Huntington tell us about human society right now, precisely he tell us civilizations
after world war. He said that diverse civilizations that could cause society to conflict due differences
in civilization and culture and it is inevitable. The great clashes might happen between Islam vs West
and China vs America.
Contribution
to the
leadership
Contribution to the leadership

● Intelligence over physical strength

Male aggression, male strength, and male desire for competition, none of these are important for being a good leader.
Rather, it is ‘the diplomatic ability to forge ties amongst varied groups’ and be a servant leader that makes one
successful. Physical size, hot headedness, and ambition are only loosely correlated with this, while women’s ‘famed
ability to empathize, appease, and manipulate appears much better suited’.8
Contribution to the leadership

● Collaboration
In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo Sapiens to form larger and more stable bands (Harari,
2014). But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group
bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more
than 150 human beings.
From this story, we know that since a long time ago group collaboration is a big challenge. We think that sharing a
same fiction is not enough to determine success, buat also leader contribution to guide it group members to bring the
group reach that same fiction. Sapiens in this case we think successfully to did that according to Replacement Theory
that made them the winner instead Neanderthal.
Contribution to the leadership

● Flexible cooperation in large numbers

Clash of Civilizations book tell us The great clashes might happen between Islam vs West and China vs America.
Civilizations it self is consist of eight major civilization, even more clashes is possible to happen among them. We think
that this condition demanding leader to be flexible in order to keep peace in organization.

e.g. Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across
the world:9
Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane
means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral
influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilised world will probably be much more
lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of
such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational
works.
Contribution to the leadership

● Innovation
Harari said human has “luxuries become necessities” behaviour. It is mean that human has infinite desire, to
accomplish that human need to innovate. From sapiens we learn that human can innovate to create tools to go to the
war or processing food according. Business environment is always changing, today winner might become tomorrow
loser. Leadership innovation is needed to mitigate those risk, from Harari story basically human is more than capable to
do that.

E.g. Hard Rock Cafe :10

The main objective of Hard Rock Cafes restaurants is not only offering meals, but the restaurant also currently want to
convey a powerful practice through the music history.
The human resources of Hard Rock Cafes choose their employees cautiously. They look for individuals, who are love
music, people who adore to serve and able to express the experience to Hard Rock Cafes customers. Also, Hard Rock
Cafes' staff is maintained by the company and gets additional training.
 Contribution to the leadership
According to our practical experience working in multinational company, several programs have already been well-established
and implemented by company from global to regional / specific country level based on leadership characteristic mention before,
such as:

● Promoting inclusive leader. Company receive feedbacks from employees if any person deserves to be nominated as
inclusive leader within the organizations;
● Global group policy regarding diversity. Most global company have their own manual book / guidance / principles and
practices regarding diversity and inclusion matters;
● Continuous training on diversity, this can be held global, regional, or local level;
● Establishing dedicated functions (managed by Head of Department, which is one level under HR Director) focusing on the
“Diversity and Inclusion”;
● Promoting “minority” to be the leader on organization (e.g. female leader, people with disability, minor ethnicity, etc). Even
some company always allocate some positions up to BOD level to be filled by the minority;
● External or community relation (e.g. diversity campaign or advertisement, such as showing full team of a mix race,
Starbuck ‘sit-in’ policy, respecting LGBT, etc)
References

Alison, Dr. Maria. T. (1999). Organizational Barriers to Diversity in the Workplace. Journal of Leisure Research 1999, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 78-101.

Castania, K. (n.d). The Evolving Language of Diversity. University of Michigan. Retrieve from College of Liberal Arts Center for Multicultural and
Gender Studies Bulletin. Issue 1 Summer 2013.

Chandra, Das, Ramesh (2016-07-27). Handbook of Research on Global Indicators of Economic and Political Convergence. IGI Global.

Choy, William K W. (2007). Globalisation and Workforce Diversity: HRM Implications for Multinational Corporations in Singapore. Singapore
Management Review; 2007;29,2.

Edewor, Patrick. A. and Aluko, Yetunde. A. Stringer (2007). Diversity Management, Challanges, and Opportunity in Multicultural Organization. The
International Journal of Diversity in Organization, Communities and Nations. Volume 6 No 6.

Fukuyama, Francis (1989). "The End of History?". The National Interest (16): 3–18.

Harari, Yuval Noah. (2011). Sapiens : a brief history of humankind. Harper & Row.

Huntington, Samuel P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster.
References

Jackson SE and MN Ranerman (1995). Diversity in Work Team; Researching Paradigms for a Changing workplace. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.

Mellars, P. A. and C. Stringer, eds. (1989). The Human Revolution. Behavioural and biological perspectives in the origins of modern humans.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Oregon.gov (n.d). Definitions of Diversity and Cultural Competence. Office of Equity and Inclusion. Retrieve from College of Liberal Arts Center
for Multicultural and Gender Studies Bulletin. Issue 1 Summer 2013.

Shin, H. Y. & Park, H. J. (2013). What are the key factors in managing diversity and inclusion successfully in large international organizations?.
Retrieve from Cox, 1991; Cox and Blake, 1991; Jackson and Ruderman, 1995.

Simons, Starlene M. and Rowland , Kimberly N. (2011). Diversity and its Impact on Organizational Performance: The Influence of Diversity
Constructions on Expectations and Outcomes. J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2011, Volume 6, Issue 3. Retrieved from Stergaard, Timmermans, and
Kristinsson (2011).

University of Michigan Health Systems. (2002). What is Diversity? It’s More than Race or Gender. Duren and Associates, Inc. Retrieve from
College of Liberal Arts Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies Bulletin. Issue 1 Summer 2013.
References

Footnote:
1. Retrieve from https://www.infoplease.com/askeds/how-many-spoken-languages/
2. The Global Religious Landscape". The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Pew Research center. 18 December 2012.
3. Retrieve from https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/ethnicity/ethnic_5.htm
4. Retrieve from https://www.thiswayglobal.com/blog/diversity/top-diversity-issues-in-the-workplace/
5. Retrieve from Imagine. Songwriters: John Winston Lennon, Imagine lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights
Management
6. Retireve from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_laws_pertaining_to_homosexual_relationships_and_expression.svg
7. Retrieve from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LGBT_rights_at_the_UN_(2011).svg
8. Retrieve from Takeaways from Sapiens by Yuval Harari [Blog post]. (2016, April 16). Retrieve from
https://medium.com/@itscoreyb/takeaways-from-sapiens-by-yuval-harari-1ed12a875a32
9. Retrieve from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
10. Retrieve from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/hard-rock-cafe-operations-strategies-marketing-essay.php