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Management
of Diversity
Rationale
Diversity is the presence of a wide range of variation in the qualities or attributes under discussion.
A Workplace Diversity program (also known as a "diversity strategy") is designed to create an equitable employment system for all employees. Such a program includes both policies and practices. Globally, workforces have become more diverse because they have included increasing numbers of the following groups of people:
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Organizations who implement workplace diversity programs are concerned about the diversity of a global customer base. Foreign language and culture skills, ingenuity, humour, and careful listening, are examples of traits that workplace diversity programs typically require. It would appear that these evidence a general shift to the human capital point of view, and an acknowledgement that human beings do contribute much more to a productive enterprise than "work": they bring their character, their ethics, their creativity, their social connections, and in some cases even their pets and children, and alter the character of a workplace.
- Human context
- Ecological context
- Radio and telecommunications
- Business context
- Politics
- Texas Instruments Diversity Initiatives
External links
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course student will have
- enhanced their ability to recognise and understand the manifestations and impacts of all forms of diversity in the business context.
- enhanced readiness and ability to reflect upon our own reasoning tendencies around questions of diversity
- ability to identify and practice strategies and skills for maximising the potential benefits of operating in an increasingly diverse context
- enhanced our readiness and ability to take leadership roles in addressing diversity within business organisations.
Today's Videos
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- Google's Playlists
Teaching and Learning Resources
Introduction. Orientation to the relationships between diversity, diversity management, and individual and organisational outcomes
- The Model
- Managing Cultural Diversity
- Diversity in the Future
- 21st Century Pluralism and Business Demographics
What is Diversity Management?
There are many definitions of "diversity management", and numerous terms are used to describe essentially the same thing. For instance, there are various definitions of "diversity", "productive diversity", "diversity management" and "workplace diversity". In a pragmatic sense, the common ground in these definitions includes:
- they acknowledge the reality that people differ in many ways;
- they identify implications for the workplace, or society generally, that arise because of the diversity; and
- they suggest or imply strategies to ensure that these issues are addressed, in the interest of the workplace, or society generally.
Read more ...
Identities, Self and Culture. Individual Choices
The objectives are to understand individual cognitive processes as entailing economies of perception, judgement and evaluation. Students reflect on their own cognitive processes as they apply to groups, improve their diversity-related competencies.
Tutorials
Readings
In philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. The word "perception" comes from the Latin words perception, percipio, and means "receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses."[1]
Perception is one of the oldest fields in psychology. The oldest quantitative law in psychology is the Weber-Fechner law, which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects. The study of perception gave rise to the Gestalt school of psychology, with its emphasis on holistic approach.
What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including one’s culture, and the interpretation of the perceived.
- Paradoxical haptic objects. An example of touch illusions of shape. See also the MIT Technology Review article:
- The Cutting Edge of Haptics, by Duncan Graham-Rowe.
- Theories of Perception Several different aspects on perception
- Richard L Gregory Theories of Richard. L. Gregory.
- Optical Illusions Examples of well-known optical illusions.
Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. (The term is also sometimes used to refer to multiculturalism within an organization. This article does not currently cover that alternative meaning.) There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago.[1] Since then they have spread throughout the world, successfully adapting to widely differing conditions and to periodic cataclysmic changes in local and global climate.
The many separate societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other, and many of these differences persist to this day .As well as the more obvious cultural differences that exist between people, such as language, dress and traditions, there are also significant variations in the way societies organize themselves, in their shared conception of morality, and in the ways they interact with their environment. By analogy with biodiversity, which is thought to be essential to the long-term survival of life on earth, it can be argued that cultural diversity may be vital for the long-term survival of humanity; and that the conservation of indigenous cultures may be as important to humankind as the conservation of species and ecosystems is to life in general.
The General Conference of UNESCO took this position in 2001, asserting in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity that "...cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature"[2]This position is rejected by some people, however, on several grounds. Firstly, like most evolutionary accounts of human nature, the importance of cultural diversity for survival may be an understable hypothesis, which can neither be proved nor disproved. Secondly, it can be argued that it is unethical deliberately to conserve "less developed" societies, because this will deny people within those societies the benefits of technological and medical advances enjoyed by those of us in the "developed" world. In the same way it is unethical to promote poverty in underdeveloped nations as cultural diversity it is also unethical to promote all religious practices simply because they contribute to cultural diversity. Particularly, there are some practices that are recognized by the WHO and UN as unethical: Female Genital Mutilation, Sati (burning the widow on the husbands burial pyre), polygamy, child brides, human sacrifice, etc.
Some individuals, particularly those with strong religious beliefs, maintain that it is in the best interests of individuals and of humanity as a whole that all people adhere to a specific model for society or specific aspects of such a model. For example, evangelical missionary organisations such as the New Tribes Mission actively work to support social changes that some observers would consider detrimental to cultural diversity by seeking out remote tribal societies to convert them to Christianity;[3] and Islamic groups strategically buy up land in Papua New Guinea.[citation needed]Cultural diversity is tricky to quantify, but a good indication is thought to be a count of the number of languages spoken in a region or in the world as a whole. By this measure, there are signs that we may be going through a period of precipitous decline in the world's cultural diversity.
Research carried out in the 1990s by David Crystal (Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor) suggested that at that time, on average, one language was falling into disuse every two weeks. He calculated that if that rate of language death were to continue, then by the year 2100 more than 90% of the languages currently spoken in the world will have gone extinct.[4]Overpopulation, immigration and imperialism (of both the militaristic and cultural kind) are reasons that have been suggested to explain any such decline.
- Cultural heritage
- Defence
- UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005)
- UNESCO Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity
- International Network for Cultural Diversity
- Cultural Diversity in WikEd
- Broadcasting Regulation and Cultural Diversity
- CEN/ISSS Cultural Diversity Focus Group
- Across Cultures - films and articles on cultural diversity in Canada at NFB.ca
- Coalition for Cultural Diversity
- UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity
- [1]
Cognition is the scientific term for "the process of thought". Usage of the term varies in different disciplines; for example in psychology and cognitive science, it usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts; individual minds, groups, and organizations.
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Cognitive style or "thinking style" is a term used in cognitive psychology to describe the way individuals think, perceive and remember information, or their preferred approach to using such information to solve problems. Cognitive style differs from cognitive ability (or level), the latter being measured by aptitude tests or so-called intelligence tests. Controversy exists over the exact meaning of the term cognitive style and also as to whether it is a single or multiple dimension of human personality. However, it remains a key concept in the areas of education and management. If a pupil has a similar cognitive style to his/her teacher, the chances that the pupil will have a more positive learning experience is said to be improved. Likewise, team members with similar cognitive styles will probably feel more positive about their participation in the team. While the matching of cognitive styles may make participants feel more comfortable when working with one another, this alone cannot guarantee the success of the outcome. Some of the existing notions and measures of cognitive style are now discussed.
- Multi-dimensional models and measures Bipolar, one-dimensional models and measures
- A model and instrument which evidently measures cognitive style to the exclusion of cognitive level
- http://tip.psychology.org/styles.htmlhttp://www.personality-project.org/perproj/others/heineman/cog.htm
- [2] The Group Embedded Figures Test
Ways of Thinking. Presenting different way of thinking about diversity
Tutorials
Readings
Thoughts are forms conceived in the mind, rather than the forms perceived through the five senses. Thought and thinking are the processes by which these concepts are perceived and manipulated. Thinking allows beings to model the world and to represent it according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires. Similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, ideas, and imagination.[1]
External links
Reasoning is the cognitive process of looking for reasons, beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings.[1]
Different forms of such reflection on reasoning occur in different fields. In philosophy, the study of reasoning typically focuses on what makes reasoning efficient or inefficient, appropriate or inappropriate, good or bad. Philosophers do this by either examining the form or structure of the reasoning within arguments, or by considering the broader methods used to reach particular goals of reasoning. Psychologists and cognitive scientists, in contrast, tend to study how people reason, which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, how cultural factors affect the inferences people draw. The properties of logic which may be used to reason are studied in mathematical logic. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may be modelled computationally. Lawyers also study reasoning.
Activity In groups of three, review or write one of the following essays and present your work.
- Ways of Thinking About and Across Difference
- Gender Differences in Managerial Behaviour: the Ongoing Debate
- Race and Ethnicity
- National Culture and Management (also see: National Cultures in Four Dimensions)
- Global
Work Force 2000: The new world Labour Market
Cultural
Differences and Conflict
Students distinguish between difference and conflict and are critical about claims concerning their causal connections. Students understand group names as cultural categories. Students appreciate the identity consequences of group constructions. Student can identify how businesses, as an institutions, interact with governments and other cultural institutions globally to affect culture change, especially with regards to social definitions.
Tutorials
Readings
Cultures of the world is the aggregate of regional variations in culture, both by nation and ethnic group and more broadly, by larger regional variations. Similarities in culture often occur in geographically nearby peoples. Both summaries of each region's major cultural characteristics as well as links to individual national or group cultures can be found here.
- African Culture
- Anglo America (United States and Canada)
- Asia
- Europe
- Latin America
- Arab World and Middle East
- Oceania
Diversity and the Organization. Organisational Dynamics
This topic helps students to understand the organisation of work in economy as a source of group formation, identity construction, valued differences, and conflict; differentiate between these consequences and the attributes of individual members of the organisation. Also to understand how business practices responding to legislation create new diversity situations for people who work, basic demographic processes as institutional forces on cultural change. Individual issue examples:
- Managerial Effectiveness and Diversity: Organisational Choices Groups in the Workforce Sexual Harassment A Note on the Law of Sexual Harassment Spousal Equivalents
- Affirmative Action
Tutorials
- Diversity in the Organisation.
- Diversity in Leading-Edge Organisation.
- Diversity as a Business Strategy and Stakeholder Issues Common Ethical Problems - Recognising Issues
- Ethical Organisational Culture and Structure
Readings
Organizations have enormous power to focus efforts on collective goals, objectives, issues, problems, and results, if they so choose. It's the power of an organization's convergent effect -- people coming together in a planned way to accomplish something mutually beneficial for all involved. That's the theory of organization.
If organizations exist to unite diverse perspectives, capabilities, and talents in pursuit of common purposes and mutually beneficial results, why do they stifle diversity, seek sameness, discourage individuality, promote conformance, reward uniformity, and punish nonconformity? Because managing diversity is harder than managing uniformity -- managing diversity is more challenging, expensive, time consuming, demanding, stressful, and prone to fail.
Read more ...
Sex and Gender. Disability. Ageism
Tutorials
Readings
The distinction between sex and gender is a concept in feminist theory, political feminism, and sociology which distinguishes sex, a natural or biological feature, from gender, the cultural or learned significance of sex.
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A disability (or lack of a given ability, as the "dis" qualifier denotes) in humans may be physical, cognitive/mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.
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Disability, according to the World Health Organization, is "...an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives."[1] An individual may also qualify as disabled if he/she has had an impairment in the past or is seen as disabled based on a personal or group standard or norm. Such impairments may include physical, sensory, and cognitive or developmental disabilities. Mental disorders (also known as psychiatric or psychosocial disability) and various types of chronic disease may also qualify as disabilities. |
Some advocates object to describing certain conditions (notably deafness and autism) as "disabilities", arguing that it is more appropriate to consider them developmental differences that have been unfairly stigmatized by society.[citation needed]
A disability may occur during a person's lifetime or may be present from birth.
- Types of disability
- Sociology of disability
- Theory
- Management
- Discrimination, Government policies, and support
- Demographics
- Political issues
- Disability at the Open Directory Project
Ageism, also called age discrimination is stereotyping of and discrimination against individuals or groups because of their age. It is a set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values used to justify age based prejudice and discrimination. This may be casual or systematic.[1][2][3] The term was coined in 1969 by UK pianist Lucy M Grant to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism.[4] Butler defined ageism as a combination of three connected elements. Among them were prejudicial attitudes towards older people, old age, and the aging process; discriminatory practices against older people; and institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about older people[5] The term has also been used to describe prejudice and discrimination against adolescents and children, including ignoring their ideas because they are too young, or assuming that they should behave in certain ways because of their age.[6]
Ageism commonly refers to negative discriminatory practices, regardless of the age towards which it is applied. There are several subsidiary forms of ageism. Adultism is a predisposition towards adults, which is seen as biased against children, youth, and all young people who are not addressed or viewed as adults.[7] Jeunism is the discrimination against older people in flavour of younger ones. This includes political candidacies, commercial functions, and cultural settings where the supposed greater vitality and/or physical beauty of youth is more appreciated than the supposed greater moral and/or intellectual rigor of adulthood. Adultcentricism is the "exaggerated egocentrism of adults."[8] Adultocracy is the social convention which defines "maturity" and "immaturity," placing adults in a dominant position over young people, both theoretically and practically.[9] Gerontocracy is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population. Chronocentrism is primarily the belief that a certain state of humanity is superior to all previous and/or future times. Ageism may also lead to the development of fears towards certain age groups, particularly: Pedophobia, the fear of infants and children; Ephebiphobia, the fear of youth,[10] sometimes also referred as an irrational fear of adolescents or a prejudice against teenagers;[11] and Gerontophobia, the fear of elderly people.[12] |
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- Forms and manifestations of ageism
- Effects of ageism
- Measuring ageism
- Government responses to ageism
- Advocacy campaigns
Redefining Leadership
Redefining Leadership through Diversity Personal leadership in Diversity Typical Motivations that cause individuals to take Leadership positions around Diversity The barriers that prevent such position
Leadership skills/strategies that enable one to be effective in this arena
Tutorials
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Readings
Leadership has been described as the "process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task."[1] Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged. The following sections discuss several important aspects of leadership including a description of what leadership is and a description of several popular theories and styles of leadership. This article also discusses topics such as the role of emotions and vision, as well as leadership effectiveness and performance, leadership in different contexts, how it may differ from related concepts (i.e., management), and some critiques of leadership as generally conceived.
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- Leadership at the Open Directory Project
Ethnic discrimination
Tutorials
- Creating Ethical Culture
- The Cross-cultural Adaptability Inventory
- Communicating Across Cultural Barriers
- Managing Cross-cultural Diversity
- Ethnicity and Families
Readings
An ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and a tradition of common ancestry (corresponding to a history of endogamy).[1][2] [3][4]
Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness.[5][6]
Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis.
- Terminology and definition
- Conceptual history of ethnicity
- Ethnicity and race
- Ethnicity and nation
- Ethno-national conflict
- Ethnicity in specific countries
Macro-Institutional Factors. Affirmative Action and related legislative dynamics
Students can analyse the effects of government policy and action on group formation and on change in work organisations. They understand actions by economic organisations. and governments as cultural constructions that define groups, work, and appropriate economic conduct.
Tutorials
Readings
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, sex or national origin"[1] into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. “Affirmative action” is action taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded.[2]
- Achievement gap
- Affirmative action in the United States
- Affirmative action bake sale
- Angry white male
- Bumiputra
- Civil and political rights
- Discrimination
- Diversity (business)
- Economic discrimination
- Employment equity (Canada)
- Harrison Bergeron
- Human Rights
- Jewish quota
- Minority groups
- Minority rights
- Multiculturalism
- Legacy preferences
- Numerus clausus
- Political correctness
- Positive liberty
- Principle-policy puzzle
- Racism in the United States
- Reservation in India
- Reverse Discrimination
- Teaching for social justice
- White Guilt
- Women's rights
- Notes
- References
- Does the success of Barack Obama mean we no longer need affirmative action? NOW on PBS investigates
- Affirmative action entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Washington Post Section on Affirmative Action
- Substantive Equality, Positive Action and Roma Rights in the European Union, Report by Minority Rights Group International
- An interview with Professor Randall Kennedy about the presidency of Barack Obama and affirmative action Clifford Armion for La Clé des langues.
Making Diversity Work
Tutorials
Readings
Recommended Texts
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Managing Diversity in the Workplace Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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Managing
for the Future - Organizational Behavior and Processes 3rd Edition Deborah G. Ancona - Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thomas A. Kochan - Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Maureen Scully - Graduate School of Management, Simmons College John Van Maanen - Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology D. Eleanor Westney - Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 0324055757 696 pages Paper Bound 8 1/2 x 10 7/8Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.
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Successful
Diversity Management Initiatives - A Blueprint for Planning and Implementation Authored
by: Check
the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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The
Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management
of Change Check
the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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The Psychology and Management of Workplace Diversity Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
Resources
- Diversity and Multicultural Illusion
- European Institute for Managing Diversity
- Guide to Managing Human Resource
- Managing Diversity
- Managing Diversity
- Why Is Diversity Expertise Needed?