Organizational Behavior Diversity as the Key Towards

Organizational Behavior

Diversity as the key towards achieving a highly-cohesive and high performance teams in business organizations

Increasing diversity and cultural differences among individuals in the society has affected the manner in which the business sector has dealt with the issue of multiculturalism in its social environment. Where before, organization members are dominated by one race, nationality, and culture, the influx of new cultures in American society has made it possible for people from various cultures and societies to be integrated with the dominantly white American culture of the country.

Diversity presents a challenge to the business sector at present. On one hand, diversity is detrimental to establishing easier social ties and relationships among members of an organization, primarily because these differences are, more often than not, contradictory in nature. On the other hand, diversity can also be an opportunity that organizations should take advantage of, mainly because increased diversity means there is also an increased opportunity for the organization to generate new ideas and propositions that will prove to be beneficial to the performance and productivity of the organization.

It is in this note that this paper posits that demographic differences and cultural diversity in the organizational setting and level are advantages and factors that contribute to the creation and development of a high performance team. In the texts that follow, examples of these demographic differences and cultural diversity are given, with an analysis of how these factors serve as catalysts for the development of high performance within a (business) team.

Demographic differences, primarily in terms of race and nationality, age, gender, and educational attainment are ultimate determinants that increase an organization's diversity. Differences in terms of demographic characteristics are generally considered detrimental, and in fact, a hindrance towards achieving cohesion and high performance in teams. Differences are detrimental especially if opposing groups want to assume control within the team. A senior member of the team would, naturally, want to assert control and leadership within a team composed of new and younger members of the organization. A female team member may also assert control to her team if she feels that resolutions and decisions formulated benefit only the male members of the team. Furthermore, members of different races and nationalities may clash with each other as they try to introduce ideas that are unique and sometimes, understandable only to their culture and society.

Despite these inherent conflicts within a team that is highly diverse, Kreitner (1995) asserts that this kind of team has the potential to become high-performing. Demographic differences should be treated not as a hindrance, but essential elements that complement each other in order to optimize the potential of each member to become productive for the team. He contends that although conflict is inevitable, organizations should channel this inherent quality in teams as a positive or functional factor -- that is, by creating a healthy competitive atmosphere wherein each member is given an equal chance that she or he is able to use his/her characteristics and convert them to become something that is useful or productive not only for the team, but also for the organization s/he belongs to. In effect, demographic differences complement each team member's characteristics, resulting to high performance and potentially, social cohesion.

Cultural differences such as differences in personality, attitudes, beliefs, and values is perhaps a more complex issue compared to dealing with differences among team members in terms of demographic characteristics. Cultural differences provide a more in-depth look at the personality and character of the individual, hence, the probability for conflict to occur is greatly increased. In addition, cultural differences go beyond the physical appearance of the individual, and conflict may occur between people of the same race because of conflict in their beliefs or attitudes. Thus, cultural diversity, in this case, becomes harder to reconcile. An organization's inability to create an effective way or method to alleviate conflict due to cultural diversity forfeits the chance of having a high performance team.