Cox: Challenge of Managing Diversity What is diversity? Disadvantages of Diversity Advantages of Diversity Why Diversity Efforts can Fail

What is Diversity? Diversity is Differences in social & cultural group memberships among people in an employment, market or educational setting Group memberships (e.g. gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc) influence people’s major life experiences Pie Chart Exercise Backgrounds Exercise

Disadvantages of Diversity Lowers Performance Increase conflict Lower commitment in work groups Increase harassment and discrimination

Advantages of Diversity Improves/increases Problem solving Creativity & innovation Organizational flexibility Quality of Human Resources Marketing strategies

Advantages of Diversity in Groups Improves Problem Solving Approach problems from multiple perspectives Increases critical analyses in decision making due to differences in opinion Need to train diverse groups on how to best utilize their differences Improves Creativity Evidence: Innovation, performance in marketing tasks How?

Advantages of Diversity in Groups Organizational Flexibility Diverse people have different ways to organizing and reacting and reacting to information Women score higher on tolerance for ambiguity which is linked to cognitive complexity Bilinguals show more cognitive flexibility Having broad policies, reducing standardization improves fluidity allowing org to respond to external changes faster and cheaper

Advantages of Diversity in Groups Quality of Human Resources Diversifying pool of potential employees increases org performance Marketing Respond effectively to cultural differences in marketplace Public relations adv of managing diversity well (e.g, IBM) Understanding consumer behavior Improves customer relations But remember warning by Brief et al!

Why Diversity Efforts can Fail Incorrect diagnosis of problem Incorrect solution Misunderstanding rate of return on diversity efforts

Why Diversity Efforts can Fail Incorrect diagnosis of problem Need to change org culture (of conformity) to capitalize on differences in world views Increasing representation or increasing sensitivity of current employees not sufficient Incorrect Solution Alignment of all systems within organization needed e.g., Recruiting and hiring not sufficient if barriers in mentoring, appraisal, compensation systems not removed

Why Diversity Efforts can Fail Misunderstanding rate of return on diversity efforts Institutionalizing diversity competency takes several years of intense effort Most org expect results in a year, change focus and withdraw attention from diversity efforts

Cox: Challenge of Managing Diversity What is diversity? Disadvantages of Diversity Advantages of Diversity Why Diversity Efforts can Fail