Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Workforce Diversity
In quite a number of organizations there has been an increase in workforce diversity as compared to early times, this has been brought about by demographic factors such as immigration and economic factors including globalization (Christian et al., 2006). In many economies, the minority workforce is expected to rise as the years come and go. This expected shift in the workforce has brought a lot of interest in programs aimed at managing workforce diversity. The process of adopting such programs has been affected by various challenges especially regarding the change in organizational behavior. In order to manage workforce diversity effectively, it is vital that the distinction between functional and non-functional diversity is clearly identified. It should be understood that functional diversity has positive contribution to organizational behavior and effectiveness while non-functional diversity deter organizational performance, this is why it is important to understand the impact of diversity on organizational behavior.
Before discussing further on the impact of workforce diversity, it is significant that this term is defined. Hornby (2005) defines workforce as the "totality of the people working in an organization." This means that whenever workforce diversity is being discussed, both similarities and differences that there are among individuals must be taken into consideration. The other important factor is that workforce diversity encompasses all individuals that are part of the organization. Even though most of the times it is assumed that workforce diversity just considers demographic characteristics of individuals, this is far from the truth since all differences...
Therefore those who are tasked to manage workforce diversity must deal with both similarities and differences of individuals at one go, such a manager must examine, determine and establish such features with the aim of integrating them.
Discussion
There are a number theories attempting to define workforce diversity, these theories have given rise to various and sometimes contradictory hypotheses with regard to the impact of diversity on group process and performance. Social categorization and similarity-attraction theory predict negative effects, including reduction in inter-group communication, lesser satisfaction and commitment, and rise in labor turnover. However, from the perspective of information and decision-making, there is a hypothesis of positive effects of diversity, the major reason is that there is an expectation that work-teams that are diverse should process information in a different manner, since team members are naturally expected to bring forth differing opinions. With this it is expected that the outcome is more creativity and increased performance. There are cases where conflicts are provoked by diversity in work-team composition and there are several findings that have tried to explain this. There has been a proposal that identification of individual group members with distinct groups may lead to interruption of group dynamics (Pelled et al., 1999). Self-categorization theory has also used this line of argument to show that 'out-group' members evoke more abhorring, suspicion, and…
References
Christian, J., et al.,. 2006. Workplace diversity and group relations: An overview. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(4), 459-466
Fiske, S.T.; Neuberg, S.L. 1990. A Continuum of Impression Formation, from Category-based to Individuating Processes: Influences of Information and Motivation on Attention and Interpretation, in M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 23, pp. 1-74
Hambrick, D.C.; Mason, P.A. 1984. Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of its
Top Managers, Academy of Management Review, Vol.9, pp. 193-206
Diversity Law Enforcement Diversity in Law Enforcement The United States culture has had a level of diversity ever since it's founding. In fact, the U.S. would called to potential immigrants from all over the world to come and join the "melting pot" of individuals that had different beliefs, religious practices, unique trade skills, and inventiveness. Despite the way the American society was originally constructed, there are still issues with racism and inequality
Today, it is not uncommon for managerial leadership to be drawn from one pool and placed in the other in order to facilitate greater intimacy between operational aspects separated by geography and culture. Though this strategy brings with it a number of notable benefits with regard to the coordination of global operations, it does also bear with it a number of challenges which fall upon the Human Resources department
The importance of workforce diversity is broadly appreciated in management and organizational behavior literature (Yang & Konrad, 2011). Nonetheless, reaping the benefits of diversity management may not be as straightforward as often thought. Employers must have the right organizational design in place if they are to effectively reap the benefits of workforce diversity. First, it is important to have a broader vision of inclusion. It is often assumed that diversity
The Foundation called specific attention to the prospect of institutional and policy-level strategies to increase the participation of under-represented minorities in the health professions. In response, the Institute Committee on Institutional and Policy-Level Strategies for Increasing the Diversity of the U.S. Healthcare Workforce came out with a report, entitled "In the Nation's Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce." The Committee consisted mostly of academicians, two of
……How Veterans Can Make a Positive Impact on Workforce Development in the Construction IndustryABSTRACTThe U.S. construction industry faces significant workforce development challenges, mostly in terms of labor shortage. Addressing this challenge is important for meeting the present and future needs of the industry. Hiring veterans is a valuable way through which the construction industry may overcome the workforce development challenges it faces. In spite of the several initiatives introduced by
Kizilos and others showed that diverse organizations portrayed reduced pro-social organizational behavior compared to homogenous groups, and Pelled and others, showed proof that increased standards of ethnic diversity are linked to more emotional contradiction in organizations. Riordan and Shore showed that in diverse organizations, employees are less considered to be committed or view that they are prone to grow in the organization. (Pitts; Jarry, 2005) With this contextual understanding we