Diversity Management in The Work Place Reading

Question 1

What is Diversity Management?

Answer 1

Organizational Commitment that’s beyond legal compliance.

Question 2

Effective Diversity Management

Answer 2

incorporated into the strategic business goals, proactive and encourages organizational inclusivity.
Requires commitment from organizational leadership

Question 3

Leaders in Diversity Management Must

Answer 3

• clearly define diversity and what role it plays in their corporate culture
• commit to recruiting and retaining diverse employees
• encourage diverse perspectives into the main work of the organization
• implement supplier diversity initiatives
• link diversity to financial success
• use metrics to measure outcomes of diversity initiatives

Question 4

Diversity Management Challenges

Answer 4

• causes misunderstandings and conflict in orgs.

- effectively teaching the business case of diverse work forces

Question 5

Business Case of Diversity

Answer 5

• a diverse workforce creates a competitive advantage by decreasing overall costs while enhancing creativity, problem solving capability, recruitment and marketing strategies, overall productivity, leadership effectiveness, global relations and organizational flexibility.

Question 6

Business Case of Diversity Challenge

Answer 6

• it fails to take into account the challenges associated with a diverse workforce such as the potential of more conflict and misunderstanding because of peoples differences

Question 7

3 phase pedagogical Framework to help diversity educators navigate through complexities consists of…

Answer 7

1st phase - definition of diversity
2nd phase - understanding of diversity management from an organizational leadership perspective
3rd phase - present detail arguments for business case for diversity and encourage examination of validity of the supporting assumptions

Question 8

Society for Human Resource Management

Definition of Diversity

Answer 8

diversity encompasses an “infinite range” of unique characteristics and experiences (communication styles, physical characteristics, learning comprehension, etc).

Question 9

Marilyn Loden’s The Diversity wheel

Answer 9

“everyone’s diversity is valued”
- diversity has primary (visible to others around us via our beaviours, dress, and physical characteristics)
and
- secondary dimensions (less constant/less visible/more individualized - family status, work style, etc).

Question 10

Anita Roe and Lee Gardenswartz’s Four layers of Diversity

Answer 10

• diversity consists of 4 layers ….
  1) personality,
  2) internal dimensions (ethnicity, physical ability, gender, age, etc)
  3) external dimensions (marital status, physical appearance,
  4) educational background) and organizational dimensions (work/organizational designation)
• collectively/holistically are one’s “diversity filter”

Question 11

Roosevelt Thomas Jr Diversity Definition

Answer 11

Diversity is broad and all encompassing.
diversity is any mixture of items characterized by differences and similarities.
- diversity must be inclusive - ex. concern about racism? you must include all races. concern about gender? include both genders.

Question 12

Myrtle P Bell Diversity Definition

Answer 12

• characteristics with historical disparities, strong sources of identity (include only race, ethnicity, sex, religion, age, physical and mental ability, seual orientation, work and family status, weight and appearance)
• all of the above are based on power and dominance relations between identity groups - which are used to categorize others or themselves

Question 13

Thomas & Ely’s Diversity Definition

Answer 13

• diversity is based on the various backgrounds and experiences that create peoples outlooks, not just cosmetic differences
• this will enable employees to identify more with the work that they do
• allows diverse employees to challenge basic assumptions about an organizations inner workings

Question 14

Mor Barak Diversity Definition

Answer 14

• the division of the workforce into distinction categories that have
  a) a perceived commonality
  and
  b) impact potentially harmful or beneficial employment outcomes (job opportunities/treatment) not related to job qualifications.

this definition works globally because it…

a) provides a broad umbrella that includes any distinction categories that may be relevant to specific culture or national environments
b) highlights consequences of distinction categories

Question 15

5 principles for an improved definition of Diversity

Answer 15

1) diversity is expansive but not without boundaries (too narrow vs too broad).
2) diversity is fluid (complex and variable)
3) Diversity based on differences and similarities (having qualities in common rather than focusing on solely how they are
different)
4) diversity is rooted in nonessentialist thought (essentialist thinking - categorizing people based on their characteristics and associating certaing behaviours with that as well).
5) Diversity is directly related to how one experiences work

Question 16

Leadership based organizational paradigms for managing diversity

Answer 16

• Resistance Paradigm
• Discrimination and Fairness Paradigm
• Access and Legitimacy Paradigm
• Integration and learning paradigm

Question 17

Resistance Paradigm

Answer 17

rejection and evasion of diversity and diversity promotion initiatives due to race/gender because of prejudice and/or belief that minority groups might gain power and influence

Question 18

Discrimination and Fairness Paradigm

Answer 18

based on accommodating the legal responsibilities of diversity - federal mandates.
weakness - organizations tat embrace this paradigm expect minorities to conform to the expectations of the organization

Question 19

Access and Legitimacy Paradigm

Answer 19

• bottom line reasons for incorporating diversity, monetarily motivated
• diversity within the organization helps business access to these different groups
• EX - employees who speak different languages help organizations understand and serve customers better by gaining legitimacy with them

Question 20

Integration and learning paradigm

Answer 20

• leaders who practice this note that employees draw upon their identity group affiliations
• org, leaders tend to be proactive about learning from diversity
• encourage people to use their cultural experiences at work, fight forms of dominance and subordination bade on demographic categories

Question 21

The business case for diversity

Answer 21

• cost savings - reduce costs through employee retention, productivity and strong accountability based on feeling respected.
• winning the competition for talent - attract and recruit the most talented regardless of ethnicity
• driving business growth - marketing, creativity and problem solving and flexibility and global relations

Question 22

The business case for diversity Critique

Answer 22

• naive and overdone
• no strong, positive or negative efects of gender or racial diversity on performance.
• poorly managed diversity programs (higher turnovers, greater conflict) can be harmful as well run ones can be beneficial
• executives do not provide enough documented evidence about the bottom line benefits - limited/no data