Meeting the Challenge of Diversity

Chapter 13
 Meeting the Challenge of Diversity
Smart managers value diversity & enforce the value in decisions

 Diversity in the population, the workforce, and the

marketplace is a fact of life no manager can afford to
ignore
 Managing diversity today – recruiting, training, valuing,
maximizing potential of people
Gender Disability Sexual orientation
Race Ethnicity Education
Age Religion Economic level

Manager’s Challenge: Wal-Mart

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 Meeting the Topics
Challenge of Diversity Chapter 13

 Topic of Diversity
 Causes and Consequences
 Challenges Minorities face
 Ways Managers Deal with Workplace Diversity
 Organizational Responses to Value Diversity
 Other Diversity Issues in Today’s Workplace

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 Valuing Diversity

 Top managers value diversity

● Give organization access to broader range of
opinions and viewpoints
● Reflect an increasingly diverse customer base
● Obtain the best talent in a competitive
environment
● Demonstrate the company’s commitment to doing
the right thing

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 Valuing Diversity

 Job seekers value diversity

 90% of job seekers think diversity programs

make a company a better place to work
 Survey commissioned by The New York Times

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 Corporate Diversity in U.S.

 Many managers are ill-prepared to handle diversity

issues
 Many Americans grew up in racially unmixed
neighborhoods
 Had little exposure to people substantially different
from themselves

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6
 Workforce Diversity

 Hiring people with different human

qualities or who belong to various
cultural groups

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 Dimensions of Diversity

Secondary
Primary Dimensions Secondary
Dimensions Dimensions
Inborn Marital Education Acquired or
Religious
difference - Status changed
Primary Beliefs
Have an throughout
impact Dimensions one’s lifetime
throughout Age Have less
one’s life Gender Ethnicity impact – still
Parental Military
Person Sexual impact self
Status Physical Experience
Orientation definition
Ability
Race

Work Geographic
Background Location
Income

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 Monoculture & Diversity

 A culture that accepts only one way to do things

 There is only one set of values and beliefs

Experiential Exercise: How Tolerant Are You?

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 Attitudes Toward Diversity
Goal for organizations seeking cultural diversity is pluralism

 Ethnocentrism = belief that one’s own group

or subculture is inherently superior to other
groups or cultures
 Enthnorelativism = belief that groups and
subcultures are inherently equal
 Pluralism = an organization accommodates
several subcultures
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 The Changing Workplace

Globalization Changing
Competition Composition of
is intense Workforce
There are more
Dramatic women, people
Changes in of color, and
the immigrants
Customer seeking
Base opportunities

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 The Workplace & Bias
How It Shows Up
 Lack of choice assignments
 Disregard by a subordinate of a minority manager’s direction
 Ignoring of comments made by women & minorities at
meetings
A need to become “Bicultural”

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 Biculturalism
Means minorities use to deal with bias in the workplace

 Socio-cultural skills and attitudes used by

racial minorities as they move back and forth
between the dominant culture and their own
ethnic or racial culture

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 Challenges For
Organization Culture Management
Valuing differences
Prevailing value system
Mind-Sets about Diversity Cultural inclusion HR Management Systems
Problem or opportunity? (Bias Free?)
Challenge met or barely addressed? Recruitment
Level of majority-culture buy-in Training and development
(resistance or support) Performance appraisal
CHALLENGES Compensation and benefits
Promotion
OF
Education Programs CULTURAL
Educate management on DIVERSITY
valuing differences
Promoting knowledge and Higher Career
acceptance Involvement of Women
Taking advantage of the Dual-career couples
opportunities that diversify Heterogeneity in
Sexism and sexual harassment
provides Race/Ethnicity/Nationalit
Effect on cohesiveness,
y Work-family conflict
communication, conflict, morale
Source: Taylor H. Cox and Stacy Blake,”Managing
Effects of group identity on
Cultural Diversity: Implications For Organizational interaction (e.g., stereotyping)
Competitiveness,” Academy of Management Executive
5, no 3 (1991), 45-56
Prejudice (racism, ethnocentrism)

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 Affirmative Action Current Debate

 Affirmative action was developed in response to

conditions 40 years ago.
 Today more then half the U.S. workforce consists of
women and minorities.
 It is not the same as diversity
 Research shows that full integration of women and
racial minorities into organizations is still at least a
decade away

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 Glass Ceiling

 An invisible barrier separates women and

minorities from top management positions
 Fortune 500 Women Corporate Officers
– 2004 = 15.7%
– 2000 = 12.5%
– 1995 = 8.7%
– Only eight Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs

Ethical Dilemma: A Man’s World

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 Inclusive Practices in the Workplace
Current Responses to Diversity

 Building a corporate culture that values diversity

 Changing structures, policies, and systems to support diversity
 Recruitment
 Career advancement

 Providing diversity awareness training

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 Diversity Initiatives
 Recruitment
 Examine employee demographics
 Examine composition of the labor pool in the area
 Examine composition of the customer base
 Career Advancement
 Eliminate the glass ceiling
 Accomplish mentoring relationships
 Accommodating Special Needs
 Child care
 Non-English speaking training materials and information packets can be
provided
 Maternity or paternity leave
 Flexible work schedules
 Home-based employment
 Long-term-care insurance, special health or life benefits
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 Highest Level of Awareness Integration
Multicultural attitude-enables
one to integrate differences
Stages of and adapt both cognitively
and behaviorally
Diversity Adaptation
Able to shift from one cultural
Awareness perspective to another
Able to empathize with those
Acceptance of other cultures
Accepts behavioral differences and
underlying differences in values
Recognizes validity of other ways of
thinking and perceiving the world
Minimizing Differences
Hides or trivializes cultural
differences
Focuses on similarities among
all peoples
Defense
Perceives threat against one’s
comfortable worldview
Uses negative stereotyping
Assumes own culture superior
Denial
Parochial view of the world Source: Based on M. Bennett, “A developmental Approach to Training for Intercultural
No awareness of cultural differences Sensitivity,” International journal of Intercultural relations 10 (1986), 176-196.

In extreme cases, may claim other

cultures are subhuman Lowest Level of Awareness

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 Organizational Relationships
Two Issues of Concern of Close Relationships in the Workplace

 Emotional Intimacy
 Sexual Harassment - various forms defined
by one university:
● Generalized
● Inappropriate/offensive
● Solicitation with promise of reward
● Coercion with threat of punishment
● Sexual crimes and misdemeanors
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 Global Diversity Programs

 Expatriates = employees who live and work in a

country other than their own
 Global Diversity Program
– Employee selection
– Employee training
– Understanding high vs. low-context communication context

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 Leveraging Diversity

 Multicultural teams = made up from

diverse national, racial, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds
 Employee network groups = based
on social identity, and organized by
employees to focus on concerns of
employees from that group

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 Managing Multicultural Teams

 Advantages
– Enhanced creativity, innovation, and value in
today’s global marketplace
– Generate more and better alternatives to
problems
– Produce more creative solutions than
homogeneous teams
 Disadvantage - increased potential for
miscommunication and misunderstanding

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 Diversity in a Turbulent World

 Diversity in the workplace reflects

diversity in the larger
environment

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 Diversity in a Turbulent World
Smart managers value diversity & enforce the value in decisions

 Organizations that value diversity encourage

and support network groups to enable minority
organization members to
● reduce their social isolation
● be more effective in their jobs
● have a greater impact on the organization
● achieve greater opportunities for career
advancement

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