Management case study - Essay Example

Organizations are also realizing the importance of ethical behavior in managing a diverse workforce. Diversity can be defined as the presence of members of different ages, genders, ethnic groups, and/or educational backgrounds in an organization. Since the composition of the workforce has been changing over the past few years, managing diversity has become a challenge to organizations. In the past, in many organizations in the United States, while male employees' occupied prominent managerial positions.

However, the situation today has undergone a radical change with people from diverse backgrounds occupying managerial positions. The reasons for the emergence of this kind of diversity may be changing demographic structure of the workforce, competitive Pressures, rapidly growing increase in International Business etc. A major reason for emergence of diversity is changes in the demographic structure. Government legislation against discrimination and the increasing globalization of the firms have also led to the diversity of the workforce.

In addition, modern organizations have realized that diversity should be encouraged because it enhances their competitiveness. Changing demographics is one of the most important reasons for the emergence of diversity. . The increase in skills and education levels across the entire population combined with legal provision of equal opportunity for all have led to an increase in the number of people from diverse backgrounds occupying managerial positions. Diversity will help organizations to remain competitive.

This fact is slowly being realized by organizations these days. Those firms that adopt a proactive, affirmative approach to recruiting people from diverse backgrounds generally have a talented and capable workforce. Moreover, organizations which hire people from diverse backgrounds are likely to gain a reputation as fair employers and are more likely to attract competent employees. Qualified employees in such organizations feel that they have better opportunities for growth as these organizations tend to follow fair and progressive policies.

Increasing globalization of firms An organization faces the challenge of blending different cultures when it expands its operations beyond its national boundaries. Managers and technical personnel who go to a foreign country to put an organizational system in place will have to change their leadership styles, communication patterns and other practices to suit the culture of the foreign country. By so doing, they assist in bringing about a fusion of cultures and increasing employee productivity for the benefit of both the organization and the country.

Those organizations which value diversity are in a better position to work with people from different cultures, customer and social norms when they go global. Therefore, in a business environment, where geographical borders no longer act as a constraint, organizations have to ensure that people of the host country are part of its workforce so that