Ethnic Diversity at Workplace - Research Paper Example

? Ethnic Diversity at Workplace Introduction Historical overview of research related to the diverse population The meaning of ‘diverse’ is quite difficult to understand. For instance, the modern day human population often deciphers a distinct and inadequate construct of the socio-economic paradigm on the basis of race as well as ethnicity. In often instances, a diverse population is considered to be ‘special’ owing to their uniqueness in respect of the social, historical and cultural aspects (Henderson, 1998). It is worth mentioning in this context that diversity refers to the depiction of various social categories based on masculinity, race and ethnicity as persisting within a defined association reflecting a relational demographic context. Notably, the term ‘relational demography’ is often defined as the individual’s demographic similarity or dissimilarity observable in comparison to other members of the organization. It is in this context that the distribution of co-ethnic workers could have implications for the well-being of African American or Latino individuals. As stated by Kanter (1977), on the lower extreme of this distribution, one finds tokenism, a segregated work environment in which the minority group comprises less than 15% of the working group. These minority members would represent a “critical mass,” possibly reaching equal representation relative to the culturally dominant group (Henderson, 1998). The recent phenomenon depicts that the growing attention towards diverse population research has been increasing constantly and rapidly since the past few decades. However, guided by a philosophical and social point of view, insignificant number of diversity research focuses on the impacts of workplace racial as well as ethnic diversity at workplace. With the passing time, diversity concerns have deepened instead of fading away as intended with the implementation of anti-discriminatory policies and various other equal opportunity initiatives. Simultaneously, complexities have also increased by a significant extent in relation to diversity, especially within an enclosed and structured workplace setting. It is in this context that there are a few significant factors relating to ethnic diversity such as the biological sex concept, which is the only defining characteristic between a male and a female populace within the modern day workplace setting. Some feminist researchers recognized the essence of evaluating the distinction as well as historical and cultural features within women populaces in workplace setting categorizing them as a proportion of diverse population (Shore, Chung-Herrera, Dean, Ehrhart, Jung, Randel & Singh, 2009). Personal reflection There are many reasons behind choosing the diverse population at work place for performing this particular study. The underpinned philosophical context behind this study depicts that for the purpose of developing the public policy it is essential to recognize that workplace diversity is a critical variable to develop a stable, sound as well as progressive society. The significance of managing diverse workforce has been rapidly increasing since past few years owing to the diversification as well as the international expansion of the organizational boundaries. It is fundamentally due to this reason that a large variety of populace who differ in terms of gender, ethnicity, color and even race tends to be employed in a specific workplace setting. Simultaneously, with the increasing influence of globalization, customers groups are also emerging as widely diverse, which further increases the necessity of studying the issue of workplace diversity, especially in terms of ethnicity (Gandz, 2001). It is in this context that diversity at workplace is increasingly being considered as an essential factor which can assist to interpret into product as well as services which are effectively and efficiently provided by the organization. Consequently, many organizations have been realizing the need of providing better services to diverse customers owing to which organizations require employees from several backgrounds. Accumulatively, these factors depict the significance of studying ethnic diversity at workplaces in the modern day phenomenon. Supporting research Empirical studies on ethnic diversity at workplace Ethnic diversity at workplace proposes the relation of diversity and psychological performances that is commonly observed as nonlinear in nature. When considering the previously documented empirical researches, the findings of Riordan & Shore (1997) can be observed to reverse the u-shaped relation among positive outcomes as well as distribution of ethnic minority within a workplace setting. According to the findings generated by the empirical study of Riordan & Shore (1997), it was observed that only 3% to 4% of the African American populaces working in the US organizational setting acquired the managerial position, while the percentage of the ethnic group on labor forces counted 10%. To be precise, the US organizational culture studied by Riordan & Shore (1997) depicted that even though the total population of African American ethnic group accounted for 34% of the entire workforce population, among which only 18% of employees were hired in managerial posts. Segregation of workforce has also been observed in the later period, on the basis of ethnic diversity, even though the graph had been declining. This can be further illustrated with a diagrammatic representation below. Source: (Riordan & Shore, 1997) Furthermore, as stated by Enchautegui-de-Jesus, Hughes, Johnston & Oh (2006), during the 1990s, the total US workforce comprised of 77.7% of labors belonging to the European American or Latino ethnic group. The percentage however reduced to 73.1% in 2000 and later declined to 69.2% in the year 2010. Furthermore, studying 50 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Kopnina (2004) revealed that Singaporean workforce comprises both foreign and ethnic minority groups which further depict the diversity of labor forces within today’s global context. The research findings obtained from Kopnina (2004) also depict that as a developing nation, the Singaporean labor force attract a wide variety of ethnic groups from the global arena comprising Malays, Chinese and Indians among others which can be apparently observed with reference to the below diagram. Source: (Kopnina, 2004) Relevant research on ethnic diversity at workplace Visagie & Linde (2010) stated that all organizations should consider ethnic diversity within the workplace to gain better efficiency in people management and customer relations fundamentally owing to the impact of globalization and increasing versatility in the economic setting of a particular region. Hence, it has emerged as the obligation of organizations to manage all employees fairly irrespective of their diverse features in terms of identity and background. Moreover, Visagie & Linde (2010) confirmed that a serious attention should be given to the value of having ethnic diversity in the leadership team. Consequently, retaining, attracting, and connecting diverse workforce in a dynamic business environment is quite likely to lead towards the evolution of interactive leadership competency requirements for leaders so as to ensure that equal opportunity are provided to all the employees at a particular workplace setting even if they belong to different ethnic culture (Visagie & Linde, 2010). According to Gardenswartz & Rowe (2012), managers and leaders are responsible for assisting organizations in developing and creating ethically responsible councils that attempt to align all the organizational behavior with ethical standards. Jackson & Alvarez (1992) further postulated that tackling the challenges offered by the managerial concerns of ethnic diversity at workforce is a key responsibility of the modern day Human Resource Management (HRM) professionals. Accordingly Jackson & Alvarez (1992) advocated that leaders or the managers at workplace must be aware of the importance of working through diversity and channelize the efforts of the diverse workforce towards immediate actions or organizational goals. With reference to the view point presented by Williams (2001), it can be affirmed that managing workforce diversity is an important component as it plays a vital role in assisting the organization to realize the full potential of its employees and thereby achieve the organizational goals with greater competency stressing on the aspect that leaders should value and promote diversity for attaining and retaining a diverse workforce (State Government Victoria, 2011). According to Patrick & Kumar (2012), workplace diversity comprises varieties of differences including differences in race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality and cultural background among others. In a workplace environment, the organizational diversity strategies should be able to combine the creative, cultural and communication skills of the employees and further mobilize those skills to improve the organizational policies, products, and customers experiences to earn long-run productivity and sustainability (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). Based on a similar concern, Patrica (2007) argued that organizations are significantly interested in surviving, attaining growth and ensuring long-term retention of business productivity in the 21st century context. Hence, organizations must be able to create competitive advantage through diverse workforces that will be eligible to identify and correspondingly satisfy the vivid demands of the targeted customer groups. It is also ascertained that efficient management of workforce in an organization is associated with competitive advantage enjoyed by the organizations over rival competitors (Patrica, 2007). According to Cunningham & Green (2007), emphasizes that increasing global competition requires organization to develop strategies relevant to workplace diversity. The organizations are required to manage its staff from variety of cultural background. They stressed that organizational leaders should implement diversity initiatives as an effort to motivate employees to work effectively with others at the workplace (Cunningham & Green, 2007). Personal Reflections of Field Experiences A leadership perspective to field experiences In this paper I have addressed a wide range of empirical studies and researches related to ethnic diversity at workplace from organizational and leadership perspectives. I have thus prepared a questionnaire (refer to appendix) that I used for conducting interviews with Human Resource Managers, supervisors, team leaders and employees so as to understand the current phenomenon related to ethnic diversity at the modern day workplace. Many respondents conveyed that ethnic diversity has become a critical factor at workplaces that needs to be considered by Human Resource Managers and leaders while leading their team towards a specified goal. It was observed that every employee recruited in an organization have some uniqueness present in him/her which contributes to workplace diversity. Notably, this uniqueness is much visible in diverse ethnic groups working collaborating in a particular working environment. Consequently, the observation reveals that such uniqueness of every employee needs to be valued by their leaders and peers as well. I found that organization that values the diversity of workforce have dedicated employees and are much self reliant. The observation revealed that modern business requires cultural differences among the workforce to be valued and respected. It was ascertained from the interview responses that organizational leaders play a crucial role in managing and solving problems relating to ethnic diversity at workplace. Contextually, it was also observed that leaders influence, and support the workplace diversity towards directing the varied skills of the workforce towards attaining the common organizational goals. However, it was also observed that the major causes behind the internal conflicts was not due to ethnic diversity but poor management styles adopted by managers and poorly structured working environment. I found that leaders failing to understand the ethnic diversity in their workplaces often fail to motivate and inspire the workforce and simultaneously become unable to achieve the potential contribution of the workforce. Furthermore, I observed that the globalization process have motivated many organizational leaders to understand the complexities associated with the management of ethnic diversity and attracted serious attention towards developing and improving leadership skills offering the best solution to the issue. Comparisons and contrast of findings It was identified that information obtained from research findings and my field experiences do not vary considerably. However, I found certain conflicting aspects between the two findings relating to leadership and ethnic diversity at the modern day workplaces. The research findings obtained state that all organizations should consider ethnic diversity at their workplaces while my observation reveals that even though all organizations are concerned with the issue related to ethnic diversity, only few organizations pay serious consideration towards the phenomenon. The research findings also revealed that integrating the efforts of diverse workforce requires leaders to develop interactive competency. Similarly, my observations advocate that the traditional leadership do not provide much emphasis towards ethnic diversity. Hence, with the expansion of national trade across the international borders, traditional forms of leadership needs to be modified focusing upon both the productivity and cordial working environment by recognizing and valuing the workplace ethnic diversity. The research further postulated that racial diversity, particularly in white communities in developed countries, such as USA have led to racial conflicts. However, my observation depicts that poor working conditions in organization are often related with conflicting situations within the management and workforce. In other words, my observation argues that poor working conditions in organizational working environment are often related with conflicting situations among the management and workforce rather than the issue concerning ethnic diversity. Summarizing both the findings, it can be stated that ethnic conflicts at workplaces tend to exist due to the presence of ethnic differences; however, it may have varied impacts on the organization. My observation identified that leaders are close to workforce; hence, they are responsible for promoting strategies that ensures flexible working conditions. To a certain extent my observation also depicts that leaders are yet lacking in rendering adequate significance towards ethical diversity hardly indulging or taking actions that prevents discrimination and harassment at workplaces. Conclusion It is not an easy task to define ‘diversity’. The simple definition of diversity inculcates differences among the various individuals. In the modern business context, organizations are becoming more and more diversified due to various reasons such as globalization. Every employee in an organization possesses a degree of uniqueness that separates him/her from other employees. The organizational leaders or the Human Resource Managers are responsible for managing diverse workforces and direct their efforts in the best possible way towards achieving the objectives of the organization. A few research studies in this context postulate that presence of ethnic diversity may lead to conflicting situations within the organization. Simultaneously, it was identified that conflicting situations are not effects of ethnic diversity, as other factors such as poor working environment and inappropriate way of managing human resources are also responsible for workplace conflicts. Nonetheless, it was identified that the role of organizational leaders is a crucial factor for ensuring cordial workplace environment eliminating disparity. References Cunningham, D. D. & Green, D. D. (2007). Diversity as a Competitive Strategy in the Workplace. Journal of Practical Consulting, 1 (2), pp: 51-55. Enchautegui-de-Jesus, N., Hughes, D., Johnston, K. E. & Oh, H. J. (2006). Well-being in the context of workplace ethnic diversity. Journal of Community Psychology. 34(2), pp. 211-223. Gardenswartz, L. & Rowe. A., (2012). The effective management of cultural diversity. Understanding the Evolving Role of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace, pp: 35-59. Gandz, J. (2001) Business Case for Diversity. Richard Ivey School of Business. pp. 1-54. Henderson, K. A. (1998). Researching Diverse populations. Journal of Leisure Research. 30(1), pp. 157-170. Jackson, S. E. & Alvarez, E. B. (1992). Working Through Diversity as a Strategic Imperative. Diversity in the workplace: human resources initiatives, pp: 13-29. Kopnina, H. (2004). Cultural hybrids or ethnic fundamentalists? Discourses on ethnicity in Singaporean SMEs. Asian Ethnicity. 5(2), pp. 245-257. Kreitz, P. A. (2007). Best Practices for Managing Organizational Diversity. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, pp: 1-32. Patrick, H. A. & Kumar, V. R. (2012). Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges. Sage Journals, pp: 1-15. Riordan, C. M. & Shore, L. M. (1997). Demographic diversity and employee attitudes: an empirical examination of relational demography within work units. Journal of Applied Psychology. 82(3), pp. 342-358. Shore, L. M., Chung-Herrera, B. G., Dean, M. A., Ehrhart, K. H., Jung, D. I., Randel, A. E. & Singh, G. (2009). Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we going? Human Resource Management Review. 19, pp. 117–133. State Government Victoria. (2011). Managing Diverse and Inclusive Workplace. Human Resources, pp: 2-7. Visagie, J. C. & Linde, H. (2010). Evolving Role and Nature of Workplace Leaders and Diversity: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach. Managing Global Transitions, 8 (4), pp: 381-403. Appendix Questionnaire used for interview:- 1. Do you think ethnic diversity at workplace should be valued? a. Yes b. No c. Partially 2. Does ethnic diversity has any effect on the performance of workforce? a. Yes b. No c. Cannot say 3. Does ethnic diversity has positive influence on organizational performance? a. Yes b. No c. Cannot say 4. Do you think that present day leadership and managerial approach towards managing diversity at workplace does not need any rectification? a. Yes b. No c. Partially 5. Do you think ethnic diversity at workplace is responsible for many of the internal conflicts? a. Yes b. No c. Unsure 6. Do feel ethnic diversity is a major challenge that needs an immediate attention from business leaders? a. Yes b. No c. Cannot say 7. Are you being treated fairly by your seniors and leaders? a. Yes b. No c. No, not all the time 8. Does your organization provide you with equal opportunities irrespective of your identity and background? a. Yes b. No c. Marginally Read More