Diversity Issues in Organizations - Coursework Example

Diversity and Society This paper is prepared and submitted by [Client’s Name] In partial fulfillment of the course syllabus [Subject] Submitted to [Professor’s Name] [Date] Global communities move towards the elimination of discrimination based on gender, age, or culture (Dickie & Soldan, 2008). Even so, global communities promote the respect and appreciation of social diversity by allowing individuals from different cultures, gender orientation, or age brackets go about their daily businesses (Kennedy, 2008). Rich and prosperous countries are seat to a collection very diverse people. The increase in the number of people from diverse backgrounds is brought by the fact that economic activities, and hence opportunity to do business and get decent jobs, are centered on rich and prosperous global communities. More importantly in the context of this paper, the volume of people from diverse backgrounds allows successful and interesting interactions to occur. Social perspectives of individuals depend on their cultural backgrounds, gender, and familial roles (Canas & Sindak, 2008). Cultural dynamics in the social context also operates on the same level. People see different people differently, depending on how they are trained to see, accept, and interact with diversity. Moreover, people are usually unconscious and unaware of how they act their beliefs which, when taken into the context of organizations, can both be constructive or destructive. The effects of these characteristics of diversity towards organizations depend on how organizations handle them and apply them in workplace settings. The effects of workplace diversity are best understood from social interactions between and among individuals in the organization. Social interactions happen in two levels – formal (or professional) and informal (or personal level). People working for the same goals work together either by being grouped together through informal social interactions in the workplace or by being grouped together formally in a team designated to achieve common goals (Jarvis, 2000). The performance of such a group depends on many factors and the leading indicator of their performance is how closely knit they are to the group. This social closeness is collectively called group cohesion and is defined as the result of all the forces that drives members into the group and restrains them from leaving the (Dickie & Soldan, 2008). Understanding how group cohesion works is important in increasing the performance and productivity of the individuals in the groups. The same thing can be said when cultural diversity is integrated in group cohesion settings. Social interactions occurring in the workplace are very important, probably as important as organizational goals and objectives. The type of social interaction that occurs in the workplace determines the strength, speed, and endurance of organizations. As the workplace becomes increasingly diverse, conflicts and stressful situations become more common due to individual differences (Lorber, 2007). A workplace ridden with diversity issues is facing serious threats of instability, inefficiency, and unproductive behaviors (Konrad et al, 2006). For this reason, organizations pay particular attention to how diversity affects social interactions in the workplace and what to do to eliminate, minimize, or control the negative effects of diversity. Two of the most common causes of diversity issues in organizations are gender roles and gender power or authority in social settings. Gender Roles Gender can be defined as what the society makes of one’s sexuality. Gender no longer revolves around the human anatomy but has changed into something more complex than nature-defined identities. Society regards gender as the prototype of the expression of essence (West & Zimmerman, 2008) which is gained through constant and repetitive interaction with other people and the society in general (Hollander, 2001). Gender is a person’s perception of his or her sexual role in the society (West & Zimmerman, 2008). The more an individual interacts with a society that differentiates one gender from the other, the more likely the individual will mold himself or herself to the roles that the society insist they follow. This social process, in turn makes, social definition of gender true in every sense of the word. A substantial volume of gender-related conflict in the workplace is reported every year. Issues ranging from sexual harassment to gender-based discrimination and gender-based affirmative action threaten the internal tolerance of many organizations (Lorber, 2007). Both male and female cry foul whenever their socially-defined gender roles place them at a disadvantageous position. Understanding how gender roles play in the social context would allow organizations to devise plans to turn this potential threat to strategic elements of the organization. It was established in the observation log that male and female participants comfortably settle down to their expected social roles in informal settings. It was further noticed that personal space, body language, and overall interaction between the participants in the research setting differ according to gender. These gender-specific characteristics indicated their interests which the research observed to be the resultant of the present power mechanisms that exist in the social context where they belong. For example, in paired or group setting involving singles or couples, women almost always retreat to the powder room to fix their hairs or make-ups. Their male companions, on the other hand, take the role of making the order and (sometimes) footing the bill. The same passive acceptance to gender roles is observed in married couples with kids, and couples of different age brackets. This observation offers at least three interesting things: first, male and female are aware of their socially-defined gender roles; second, even if they are aware of concepts as gender equity, they easily settle to comfortable, expected, or natural roles especially if they are unaware of it; third, both males and females demand equal treatment of gender only when they are conscious or when they are made aware of the gender inequity that is taking place. These three observed characteristics of men and women on gender roles indicate that clear definition of gender roles only exist if individuals are aware of the trespass. Otherwise, individuals easily and unconsciously fall into their expected social roles. Gender Power/Authority in Social Setting Gender roles and gender authority are very similar concepts. While gender role is the extent of social functions genders play, gender authority refers to the scope of the influence of gender (Hollander, 2001). Social situations centered on gender and gender definition has shaped the path one takes in the determination of the gender role he or she has to play (a) in order to appease the society and (b) to conform to the moral conducts determined by social norms (Canas & Sindak, 2008). In the recent years, gender has become a social performance, a social institution, rather than the sincere expression of innate qualities. Understanding gender power or gender authority in the workplace setting is very important. As organizations aim to balance gender power by giving the same level of treatment to individual contribution to the organization regardless of gender, power distribution of gender in workplace settings needs to be kept in check. Unlike some 70 years ago where men dominate the management positions, women are gaining more power in the workplace these days (Freibery, 1997). Any slight done towards gender distribution in the workplace translate to pressure and conflict, particularly if lawsuits against harassment or gender discrimination is involved (Kennedy, 2008; West & Zimmerman, 2008). The observation noticed two important things: first, gender authority is less obvious when families are alone and second, gender authority is more pronounced when other people are involved. Couples and parents observed show no significant reaction to socially defined gender roles they or their partners settle into unaware. This was established when mothers easily get into the disciplinarian role and the fathers dealing with funny moments. When no one is minding their roles, or none that the parents are aware of, it appeared as if they do not care of who takes what role. Expectedly, both mother or father insist on equal gender authority when someone points the observed inequality, or when the power inequality is difficult to ignore. Societies have various reasons why societies held their views towards gender and gender roles – political struggle, social hierarchies, etc – and all of these reasons have been valid enough to cause strong pressure to conform to the gender roles defined by the society. The more an individual departs from these definitions through the establishment of his or her identity not necessarily that detailed by the society, the more he or she will find it hard to get acceptance and even respect from the society (Hollander, 2001). Individuals typically find it hard to get acceptance and even respect from the society (Lorber, 2007). On the other hand, conforming to the socially-defined gender roles can lead an individual to uneventful ending as he or she becomes just like everybody else that needs to follow the socially-defined strictures and formalities required of their gender. In other words, individuals are trapped within the system created and honed by societies for generations and there is no way for them to successfully elude the pressure exerted by such dogma than to play their roles and play it right. Management Implications These observations underscore the importance of respecting gender roles and gender authorities in social settings. In a society where gender-related barriers are broken down to allow gender equity to flourish, traditional gender roles are hard to find. However, the observation noted that gender roles and gender equity in power or authority become a major issue to individuals, regardless of gender, only when any third party that is not welcome in the existing relationship between the male and the female is present. That is to say that if people who are unfamiliar with how the personal relationship between participants work, both of them insist on gender equity and care less about which socially-defined gender roles they have to play. The management implications of these observations are as follows: (a) Out-groups in workplace settings, or individuals that are not welcome to either formal or informal social networks in the workplace, are more likely to notice issues on gender equity and gender roles compared to in-groups. This explains why inside jokes on sexuality, work performance, and casual matters are root causes of gender-related law actions against individuals and groups. It is possible that the misunderstanding about gender roles and gender authorities stems from the failure to connect or establish strong connections to social networks. (b) Workplace management should allow individuals from both genders to settle to their workplace-determined social roles. Any changes or alterations in the expected social roles in the workplace, especially if these are perceived as threats to one’s gender identity, are met with strong resistance. When the management fails to allow ample time for individuals to settle to their work-specific gender roles or gender authorities, conflicts and pressures are sure to start. Paradigm Shift With the observations, I am led to believe that handling workplace conflicts related to gender is relatively easy to do. Organizations needs more than care around issues and situations that may potentially call for gender-related issues; they would need to create programs or implement gender-related policies and regulations that would allow individuals from both genders to settle comfortably. Moreover, organizations can still execute gender-sensitive policies as long as the negative effects are not obvious, or at least not felt by individuals affected by such decisions. By placating the worries and addressing possible gender-related concerns, organizations can avoid serious workplace conflict and at the same time can increase their productivity outputs. Conclusion The need for organizations to become more productive has increased significantly as the adverse effects of a diverse affect more and more organizations each day (Anshori & Suhariadi, 2007). Organizations are forced to become more aware of their processes and how much time, effort, and money they spend for these processes and the ability of these processes to bring productivity to the organization. By paying close attention to their internal processes that may be potentially harmful to genders, either by allowing change in gender roles and gender authorities to take ample time to be integrated by individual and social networks into their existing systems. By letting these workplace-specific gender roles be adopted by individuals and social networks, potential conflicts can be avoided and existing ones can be resolved. References Anshori, Muslich & Suhariadi, Fendy. 2007. Forming Values of Productive Behavior. 13th Asia Pacific Management Conference. Pp 1256-1262 Canas K.A., & Sindak H. (2008). Opportunities and Challenges of Workplace Diversity. Pearson Prentice Hall NY Data-collection in Qualitative Research (DQR). (2006). www.ssrc.hku.hk/er/qr0204.doc Dickie, C & Soldan, Z. 2008. Diversity Management. Tilde University Press Freibery, K. L. (1997). Human development: a life span approach. Boston: Jones and Barlett Publishers Inc. Hollander, J.A. (2001). Doing “Studs”: The performance of gender and sexuality on late-night television. In M.S. Kimmel & M.A. Messner (Eds.), Men’s lives (pp. 477-493). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Kennedy, D. (2008). Putting Our Differences to Work. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco Konrad, A.M., Prasad, P & Pringle, J.K. (2006). Handbook of Workplace Diversity. Sage Publications London Lovat, T., Follers, J., Parnell, V., Hill, B., & Allard, G. (2000). New society and culture. NSW: Social Science Press. Lorber, J. (2007). “Night to his day”: The social construction of gender. In V. Taylor, N. Whittier, & L.J. Rupp (Eds.), Feminist frontiers (7th ed., pp. 41-56). Boston; McGraw-Hill.  West, C., & Zimmerman, D.H. (2008). Doing gender. In M.S. Kimmel & A. Aronson (Eds.), The gendered society reader (3rd ed., pp. 147-164). NY: Oxford. (Reprinted fromGender and Society, 1,1987, pp.125-151)   Read More