Chapter 2

Environmental
Context:
Globalization,
Diversity,
and Ethics

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2011 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Learning Objectives

 Discuss the impact of globalization as an

environmental context for organizational
behavior.
 Identify what is meant by diversity and how it has
become an important dynamic in the field of
management and organizational behavior.
 Examine diversity in today’s organizations and
the individual and organizational approaches to
effectively manage diversity.
2-2
 Learning Objectives (Continued)

 Discuss the meaning of ethics and the major

factors of ethical behavior.
 Describe major areas of ethical concern, including
“bottom-line” impact and some steps to
effectively address the major ethical concerns.
 Examine a specific ethical issue related to
organizational participants such as the right to
privacy.
2-3
 Globalization

 Today’s organizational leaders must develop and

use a global mindset.
 Global mindset is a set of individual attributes
that enable an individual to influence individuals,
groups, and organizations from diverse
social/cultural/ institutional systems.

2-4
Figure 2.1 - Major Reasons for Increasing
Diversity

2-5
 Developing the Multicultural Organization

 A multicultural organization:
 Reflects the contributions and interests of diverse
cultural and social groups in its mission, operations,
and product or service.
 Acts on a commitment to eradicate social oppression
in all forms within the organization.

2-6
Developing the Multicultural Organization
(Continued)

 Includes the members of diverse cultural and social

groups as full participants in decisions that shape the
organization.
 Follows through on broader external social
responsibilities to eliminate all forms of social
oppression.

2-7
 Developing the Multicultural Organization
(Continued)

 Stages leading to a multicultural organization:

 Exclusionary organization
 Maintains dominance of one group over all others on factors
like age, education, gender, or race.
 Club organization
 Maintenance of privileges by those who traditionally have
held power.
 Compliance organization
 Committed to removing some of the discriminatory
practices of exclusionary and club organizations.

2-8
Developing the Multicultural Organization
(Continued)

 Redefining organization
 Engages in planning and problem solving to tap the
strength of the diversity.
 Involves developing and implementing policies and
practices that distribute power among all diverse groups in
the organization.
 Multicultural organization
 Core cultural values and an ongoing commitment to
eliminate social oppression and promote dignity and
respect for everyone throughout the organization.

2-9
Individual Approaches to Managing Diversity

 Learning
 Encourages open communication with the diverse
groups to learn more about their personal values and
how they like to be treated.
 Encourages diverse employees’ feedback to help
organization gain insights to effectively manage
diversity.

2-10
Individual Approaches to Managing Diversity
(Continued)

 Empathy
 Helps deal with subtle problems better by
understanding the diverse employees’ point of view.

2-11
 Organizational Approaches to Managing
Diversity
 Testing
 Job-specific tests must be used to make tests more
valid for diverse employees.
 Tests should be able to identify whether the applicant
has the necessary skills for doing the job.
 Scientific norming techniques in a pencil-and-paper
or online tests ensures the tests are equivalent across
cultures.

2-12
 Organizational Approaches to Managing
Diversity (Continued)
 Training should involve:
 Entry-level skill training for a diverse group.
 Training managers and other employees who work
with diverse group.
 Diversity training programs to get the participants
directly involved.
 Use of training games to help participants focus on
cultural issues.
 Lack of confidence or self-efficacy can prevent
the transfer of training back to the job.
2-13
 Organizational Approaches to Managing
Diversity (Continued)
 Mentoring: Guidelines for establishing an
effective mentoring program:
 Top-management support for the program.
 Selection of mentors and their protégés.
 Orientation to mentors and protégés.
 Meeting the support staff of the program to see how
well things are going.
 Feedback about the mentoring program from both
mentors and protégés.
2-14
 Organizational Approaches to Managing
Diversity (Continued)
Work/Family programs
Flextime
Compressed workweek
Job sharing
Telecommuting

2-15
Table 2.1 - Innovative Work/Family Programs

2-16
Table 2.1 - Innovative Work/Family
Programs (Continued)

2-17
 Ethics and Ethical Behavior

 Factors that determine ethical behavior:

 Cultural influences: Family, friends, neighbors,
education, religion, media.
 Organizational influences: Ethical codes, role models,
policies and practices, and reward and punishment
systems.
 External environment: Political, legal, economic, and
international developments.

2-18
 Ethics and Ethical Behavior (Continued)

 Other factors leading to ethical problems in

organizations:
 Peer pressure on people to be less ethical.
 Difference in views from one person to another.

2-19
 Ethics and Ethical Behavior (Continued)

 Major ethical concerns:

 Protection of the environment (green or sustainability
issues)
 Use of bribes
 Price fixing
 “Creative” accounting

2-20
 Ethics and Ethical Behavior (Continued)

 Steps taken to address the ethical concerns:

 Legislation by the Sarbanes-Oxley (S-Ox) Act.
 Need for theory-building and basic research in the
study of organizational behavior.
 Newly created ethics officer positions, and control
systems to monitor ethical behaviors.

2-21
 Ethics and Ethical Behavior (Continued)

 Development of theory, research, and measurement of

corporate social responsibility (CSR) or performance
(CSP)
 CSR is defined as engaging in economically sustainable
business activities that go beyond legal requirements to
protect the well-being of employees, communities, and the
environment.

2-22
Questions

2-23