Does Having an Ethnically Diverse Workforce Increase Organisational Productivity - Research Proposal Example

Does having an ethnically diverse workforce increase organisational productivity? BY YOU YOUR NUMBER HERE area of proposed study: ABSTRACT Ethnic diversity is becoming a hot topic in business theory, especially in multinational firms. With increased globalisation, MNEs are sustaining workforces that consist of disparate ethnic backgrounds. How team members of different ethnic descent work collaboratively and productively is of concern to management of these companies as it can theoretically bring competitive advantages and produce better innovations. However, there is a gap in knowledge research on whether ethnic diversity improves productivity within the organisation. This proposed study is designed to determine whether maintaining ethnically diverse work teams improves organisational productivity. Drawing on the literature which shows mixed findings, with many research studies showing non-productivity and others indicating there are some benefits, this proposed study could theoretically provide recommendations for MNE leadership to improve productivity amidst ethnically diverse organisations. The study asks the research question: Could it be that ethnically diverse work teams actually can hinder organisational productivity as a result of sociological and psychological factors related to discriminatory prejudice and discrimination? To test this hypothesis, a mixed methodology consisting of interviews with representatives of real-world MNEs and the Semantic Differential to measure attitudes on the phenomenon will provide new knowledge about the dynamics of ethnic diversity and its relationship with productivity. 1.0 Introduction The proposed benefit of having an ethnically diverse workforce is becoming a common topic of interest and study for organisations. Due to increased influence of globalisation and foreign investment opportunities throughout the world, many multi-national companies have labour forces that hail from different continents. As a result, a variety of different cultural influences pervade the organisation and the workforce is becoming more ethnically diverse. Organisations that want to establish a cohesive organisational culture and build human capital advantages must be considerate of the impact of having ethnically diverse workforces and the potential benefits or challenges that come from this phenomenon. Multi-national organisations must have human contribution and dedication if they are to achieve strategic objectives and build a productive work culture. Hence, the ability of diverse workers to collaborate effectively is critical to ensuring positive organisational outcomes. 1.1 Aims and objectives The aim of the study is to determine whether having an ethnically diverse workforce actually leads to better organisational productivity or whether this could potentially be a detriment to productivity. The study maintains three specific objectives: Uncover what serves as the drivers for performance or lack of performance in ethnically diverse businesses. Determine whether ethnic diversity enhances collaboration or serves as a detriment to collective work teams. Provide a series of potential recommendations for today’s organisational leaders to improve collaboration between ethnically diverse team members. 1.2 Research rationale With the development of equal opportunities legislation both domestically and internationally, companies must ensure they comply with diversity policy. As a result, it is highly probable that multi-national companies will maintain very ethnically diverse workforces. In a less diverse organisation, the ability of organisational members to work collectively is crucial for problem-solving, innovation production, and generation of creativity. However, it has been researched that members who share the same ethnic characteristics often work together competently and productively in team environments. Hambrick, Cho and Chen (1996) discovered that when managers share the same ethnic characteristics of the workforce, it produces better relationships and enhances team performance. However, there is a lack of research literature regarding the value of heterogeneous group structures that share disparate ethnic backgrounds. This research can fill the knowledge gap that currently exists on the potential value of ethnic diversity and its relationship to organisational productivity. 1.3 Proposal outline To provide a framework of understanding about what contemporary literature states on ethnic diversity, the following chapter (Chapter Two) will provide a brief literature review which details the potential hindrances or advantages of ethnically diverse work environments. Chapter Three provides a justification for the methodological approaches to research that will be utilised as the foundation for a competent primary study. This chapter provides information on proposed recruitment of respondents, the instruments utilised in the proposed study, and the ethical implications of the research. Based on the findings identified in the literature review, the proposal concludes and offers a hypothesis on which the research study will be based. 2.0 Literature review 2.1 Potential hindrances in ethnically diverse work teams One of the most essential needs of organisational members is to ensure they belong within the organisation. This leads to self-esteem development and assists in becoming self-actualised as an organisational contributor. Without this sense of belonging, employees do not develop the appropriate esteem needed to be competent group members. However, Taylor and Brown (1988) identified that humans have a tendency to genuinely want to believe that they are superior to others in the social environment. People make social comparisons to others when assessing the self and their unique identities and find self-esteem when they believe others are less important. This phenomenon serves as the foundation for out-group membership, which are those who are not part of one’s personal group and are usually perceived to be significantly inferior. People determine who is part of an in-group or out-group based on a variety of different characteristics, including ethnicity (Messick and Massie 1989). When a person becomes part of a perceived out-group, in-group members develop very potent and measurable stereotypes about the out-group. These stereotypes include a fictitious belief that out-group members are dishonest, incompetent, unable to be trusted, and generally non-cooperative (Stephan 1985). These false stereotypes, however maladjusted, inhibit building trust between organisational members and reduce one’s motivation to work collaboratively with those perceived to be out-group members. Research has shown that members of ethnic minority groups that had received the label of out-group membership had significantly less organisational dedication than others, were often absent from their jobs, and sustained a larger intention to seek other employment elsewhere (Tsui, Egan and O’Reilly 1992). This is due to the fact that they had been the victims of out-group stereotyping that created a hostile environment in terms of collaboration and team-working. Pelled (1997) found that conflict was often present in work teams where there was considerable ethnic diversity. Emotional responses in the work teams were the foundation for this conflict which could, theoretically, be a result of out-group stereotyping. It is not necessarily just the employee population that stereotypes. Research has found that managers often provide inferior performance evaluations when working with ethnically diverse workforces (Greenhaus, et al. 1990) and found that ethnic minorities often believe their ability to be promoted is directly related to ethnic stereotyping (Zerbinos and Clanton 1993). Hence, there is evidence that existing stereotypes in both the employee and management population in the organisation can create a very negative or even hostile environment. Whether based on perceptions or measurable discriminatory behaviours, it is likely that out-group status as a minority could substantially reduce work team productivity. Other studies have shown that there is a trend for those of similar ethnic characteristics to seek out friendships and relationships with other co-ethnics (Mehra, et al. 1998; Ibarra 1995). This shows that people of the same ethnic background are more motivated to develop important connections with co-ethnics rather than with a more ethnically diverse organisational population. This tendency to seek the opinion and sentiment of others with homogeneous ethnic characteristics could, in theory, reduce organisational productivity and collaboration among disparate organisational members. Out-group membership is known as tokenism, whereby perceived out-group members are excluded from the informal networks that exist within the organisation as a matter of their ethnic background. It would appear that tokenism is a legitimate phenomenon based on socio-psychological traits and behaviours which could theoretically erode team performance in large work groups. 2.2 Potential advantages of ethnic diversity Watson, Kumar and Michaelsen (1993) found that when an organisation has high levels of ethnic diversity, it provides better group creativity, enhances innovation creation and provides greater knowledge management benefits in the organisation. At the management level, it was identified that governance teams produce better strategic outcomes when the Board of Directors is ethnically diverse (Eisendardt and Bougeois 1988). Hence, there is evidence that work teams can benefit from the talents and perspectives of ethnically diverse group members that have significant productivity outcomes for the organisation. Fearon and Laitin (1996) found that inter-ethnic cooperation can be enhanced for two specific reasons. First, which is labelled by the authors as spiral equilibrium, involves coercion of cooperation between diverse group members when the group maintains an expectation that conflict will spiral throughout the entire work group, hence inducing cooperation as a proactive conflict management tool. Secondly, referred to as group policing, involves having majority ethnic group members ignore other ethnic groups. In group policing, ethnic group members create sanctions on their group members. The sense of well-being that stems from cooperating whilst only focusing on building relationships with homogeneous group members is what coerces productivity in the group. 2.3 Discussion There is much more concrete research evidence showing that productivity is diminished in the presence of ethnically diverse work groups instead of the reverse which suggests a productivity increase. The research question for this study is: could it be that ethnically diverse work teams actually can hinder organisational productivity as a result of sociological and psychological factors related to discriminatory prejudice and discrimination? The next chapter describes a primary study to measure this hypothesis. 3.0 Methodology Because the research indicated a substantial influence of sociological and psychological dimensions that drive attitudes about heterogeneous ethnic characteristics, this study will adopt a mixed methodology approach to research. Attitudes are difficult to measure only directly (Henerson, et al. 1987). This approach is most appropriate for providing the in-depth investigation of these complex and intricate attitudes that might drive negative or positive sentiment about ethnic diversity in the workplace and providing legitimate statistical findings. The researcher will approach administration in a selected, local multi-national organisation to gain permissions to conduct the research study. The study will utilise a random sampling method to ensure a broader set of perspectives and attitudes. The instruments will consist of the use of the Semantic Differential, a method of effectively measuring an individual’s attitude toward a specific object by allowing respondents to rate this attitude against bi-polar scales. Figure 1 illustrates a sample Semantic Differential and its rating scale. Figure 1: The Semantic Differential The rationale for using this instrument is to more effectively measure the opinion of a broader sample group which can be limited by conducting only a handful of interviews with select recruited respondents. The sample recruited should be between 25 and 40 respondents which will give a greater perspective on attitudes. In addition, the Semantic Differential will collect basic demographic information, including ethnicity, to determine whether there are any attitudinal correlations existing with certain ethnic groups over that of heterogeneous peers. Any identified correlations will be notated and charted to illustrate whether specific ethnic profiles maintain similar attitudes about ethnic diversity. To supplement the findings, three interviews will be conducted with a member of management and two employees of different ethnicity which will be selected with assistance of the organisation’s administrative group. Interviews will consist of open-ended questions and will be scheduled for 45 minutes with each participant. This will provide the important depth of examination needed to compare statistical attitudes with emotional attitudes. The researcher had initially considered surveying a recruited sample using an alternative quantitative methodology, however the ability to understand the complexities of behaviour would be hindered by the structured and mathematical approaches. It would require a survey likely consisting of between 50 and 100 questions to gain a richness of knowledge regarding attitude which would be defied by human attitude about such a complex survey and it could potentially disrupt the operations of a real-world organisation by asking participants to engage in its fulfilment. Hence, this approach was rejected. The only notable ethical consideration is ensuring anonymity to the participants recruited for the study. Ethnicity and race are very volatile and provocative concepts. Hence, all participants will be presented with a consent form which will indicate no compensation for participation and guarantees that personal information will not be published in the study’s final results. The Semantic Differential is a proven and reliable method for measuring attitudes (Himmelfarb 1993). The ability to provide this instrument to another recruited sample should return similar reliable results. Validity of the study is enhanced by using the mixed methodology that measures emotional versus non-emotional attitudes using dual instruments to effectively measure the criteria intended to be measured. 4.0 Conclusion Research may uncover the fundamental catalysts for what drives negative or productive behaviours in collaborative groups. This would assist in developing more relevant soft human resources policies for organisations struggling to be productive with ethnically diverse work groups. The only likely barrier to research could be getting approvals to conduct the research using a broad sample of existing employees. Fear of disruption to operations could drive having to approach multiple multi-nationals to conduct a competent and rich study. In the event of non-approvals, the researcher will approach random consumers outside of local retailers, inquire of their employment experience, and have them fill out the Semantic Differential and interviews conducted with educators (rather than businesspersons) that have had experience working in ethnically diverse group environments to gain their perspectives. References Eisenhardt, K.M. and Bougeois, L.J. (1988). Politics of strategic decision-making in high velocity environments: toward a midrange theory, Academy of Management Journal, 31(4), pp.737-769. Fearon, J.D. and Laitin, D.D. (1996). Explaining inter-ethnic cooperation, American Political Science Review, 90(4), pp.715-735. Greenhaus, J., Parasuraman, S. and Wormley, W. (1990). Effects of race on organizational experiences, job performance evaluations and career outcomes, Academy of Management Journal, 33(1), pp.64-85. Henerson, M.E., Morris, L.L. and Fitz-Gibbon, C.T. (1987). How to Measure Attitudes. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Himmelfarb, S. (1993). The measurement of attitudes, in A.H. Eagly and S. Chaiken (eds.), Psychology of Attitudes. Thomson/Wadsworth. Ibarra, H. (1995). Race, opportunity and diversity of social circles in managerial networks, Academy of Management Journal, 38, pp.673-702. Mehra, A., Kilduff, M. and Brass, D. (1998). At the margins: a distinctiveness approach to the social identity and social networks of under-represented groups, The Academy of Management Journal, 41, pp.441-452. Messick, D. and Massie, D. (1989). Intergroup relations, Annual Review of Psychology, 40, pp.45-81. Pelled, L. (1997). Relational demography and perceptions of group conflict and performance: a field investigation, International Journal of Conflict Resolution, 22(1), pp.54-67. Stephan, W. (1985). Inter-group relations, in G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds.), Handbook of social psychology. New York: Random House. Taylor, S.E. and Brown, J.D. (1988). 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