Managing Diversity Dissertation

Dissertation on Managing Diversity

Factors Affecting the Employment of People of the Black and Minority Ethnic Population
Introduction

Affirmative action, mandated by Executive Order no. 11246 in 1965, was a huge step forward in the promotion of employment of minorities and females (Leonard, 1984). Due to the events that transpired the factors affecting the employment of the black and minority ethnic population have changed for the better, but not completely. The management of diversity allows for the resting circumstances, which differentiate from those of regular management to be analyzed and responded to.

We can write a custom dissertation on Diversity for you!

It is wise to say that there is importance in paying attention to the methods of management of diversity in order to run a successful business. This is evident in today’s society, as one company can employ people who were born, educated and raised in countries all over the world. As a manager, how does one accommodate to an ethnically diverse staff? The changes in the workplace that have occurred over the past century have been drastic and many changes have been set in order to accommodate those who have been systematically excluded.

This dissertation will focus on the roles that factors such as race, ethnic background, and cultural differences can play in one’s career path and choices. It can be argued that it is more important for a potential employee whose people have been historically disadvantaged to understand these barriers.

However, finding the answers to these questions is vital to organizations as well. This can be attributed to reasons such as the growth of internationalization and the labor market’s impact on organizational strategies, reasons we will explore later on. This dissertation will also attempt to realize the ways in which an organization can acquire a competitive advantage while treating employees of ethnic minority fairly.

Historical Analysis

From a social standpoint, Western civilization has made huge leaps in human rights and equal opportunity employment. In reference to the employment of Black people, Norgren and Hill stated the following: “…It is evident that the non-discrimination clause in government contracts was virtually unenforced by the contracting agencies during the years preceding 1961.” This is because, on March 6th, 1961, President John Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which mandated federal contractors to take affirmative action and respect the clauses and sanctions with which this intervention was associated (Leonard, p. 48, 1990).

From this point onwards, there was little debate on the obligation not to discriminate with regard to sex, race, color or religion. This undertaking, along with others of similar nature, had positioned the United States as a pioneering country in the diversity movement. Due to recent large-scale population movements, the rest of the world, including Europe, Asia and the Middle East followed suit shortly thereafter (Konrad et al., p.1, 2007).

Nevertheless, the plan to stimulate the certainty of equal opportunity employment through affirmative action was exceptionally controversial. The use of the words goals, timetables and quotas irked people the wrong way (Leonard, p. 48, 1990).  Even so, this was a necessary endeavor that ensured affirmative action was indeed an action and not just a theory.

1990 United States Census data indicated that less than 5% of African-American men and only 2% of African-American women were self-employed. Meanwhile, Korean-American men and women experienced a 28% and 19% self-employment rate (Fairlie and Meyer, p.758, 1996). One could gather from this that the resting population is either unemployed or employed by an organization. As the percentage of African-American self-employed people is rather small, it is important to consider the factors and dynamics that affect the employment of this group.

Although many injustices were eliminated with the development of affirmative action, there were still alarming statistics and trends that affected the black and ethnic minority United States population. As hiring practices became more diversity-sensitive, different problems arose. Research indicated that African-Americans were at a great disadvantage in regards to upward mobility in the workplace (Davidson, p.12, 1997). Although the quotas and goals were being met, there were many cases of problems within the office, once a black or ethnic minority person was in power. The problems included social mobbing, continual racism, which led to feelings of loneliness and a lack of motivation to improve (Davidson, p.5, 1997).

The Employment Process

Every company has a human resources department and most of the time, follows a standard process of recruitment, screening, hiring, and training. In order to understand which factors affect black and minority ethnic populations, we must briefly review the general employment process first. Factors such as education- of business etiquette and academics, motivation and will and access to transportation, are just some of the obvious factors that can determine the employment of any individual. It would be illogical to ignore the obvious factors just because they apply to all people instead of only to the black and minority ethnic population. It is important to analyze these factors and apply them to the circumstances with which our public must comply. To exemplify this point, let us analyze the costs of employment.

  

An organization must incur expenditures in the hiring process that allows the aforementioned activities associated with hiring an employee to transpire. The costs of training a productive staff include explicit and implicit costs. For instance, explicit costs in training include hiring trainers and the costs of materials used during training. Implicit costs derive from the use of an existing employee to train the new employee, the trainee’s time spent in training, and the resulting loss in productivity (Ehrenberg and Smith, p.132-133, 1994).  In the case of a minority ethnic population, this can be especially applicable. Many managers and administrators in charge of hiring may assume that even with experience, the training that an immigrant received in his or her home country was different and therefore requires more of an investment than a native of that country. This, along with other traditional labor practices, may create an unwarranted barrier in the employment of the subjected public.

Exploring Barriers

Understanding the barriers that come along with diversity is a difficult task on its own. However, it is also vital to identify which barriers are the most crucial and which ones warrant attention. Essentially, the term diversity refers to matters of difference and inclusion (Konrad et al., p.1, 2007). The task at hand is to differentiate between the factors that are detrimental and those that are beneficial to people in the workplace. One factor that is clearly detrimental is the concept of wage inequality. This refers to the variance in earnings people who have attained the same level of education receive based on their race/ethnicity. A research study completed by the Minesota Private Colleges proved that the patterns in the United States show a gap exists depending on race (Boyles, n.d).

Difference in race and ethnic origin possess different levels of importance depending on the subjected country. The trend is that various countries attribute value to certain aspects of diversity in diferent ways. Being North African in Western Europe may pose greater obstacles than being North African in Canada, where linguistic differences are the major cause of prejudice (Konrad et al., p.3, 2007).  As we defined diversity as a matter of inclusion, we can also conclude that there may be different types of inclusion, with assimilation and cultural pluralism being two favored avenues of thought. Both routes offer solutions and at the same time, can pose problems (Konrad et al., p.4, 2007).

  

Therein lies a problem. One who is a visible minority does not have a choice whether or not they are seen as a minority. The invisible minority, which includes Natives and some ethnic and minorities, is faced with a dilemma of a decision whether or not to make their differences public. This group of people is not limited to ethnic differences as religion, sexual orientation, or mental health and disability issues are also factors that contribute to the invisible minority. One can have a skin tone that does not indicate any particular ethnic origin and this person’s cultural identity is often overlooked. Sometimes, people feel being able to hide these invisible traits is an advantage. At other times, these types of people can feel excluded or neglected because of their own unwillingness to make their differences public.

The decision to announce one’s own differences can be faced with critique depending on the philosophy of the receivers of any given message. A manager who is an assimilationist may value and affirm diversity, but as a supporter of assimilation, may perceive the announcement as unnecessary and get the wrong image of the potential employee. This manager can be referred to as colour blind and most probably focuses on shared humanity. On the contrary, a manager who supports cultural pluralism but is merely tolerating diversity can accept this announcement and refer to an employee program catered to this ethnicity (Konrad et al., p.8, 2007).  There is a fine line between these two approaches and it is difficult to determine which one, if either, is of greater moral value. It is the reaction of the hiring manager that can affect the potential employee.

The Advantages of Diversity in the Workplace

Until now, we have mostly spoken about the tribulations and obstacles that coincide with diversity in the workplace. However, it is not all bad. There are also many advantages that can come out of effectively managing diversity, as well as disadvantages of not doing so. For example, an employee who prefers to work for a firm that values diversity will also prefer to purchase products from this organization (Cox and Blake, p.49, 1991). This concept is vital for community leaders, current and prospective employees and social workers to know and point out to employers.

More specifically, this work dynamic can attribute to a firm by providing a competitive advantage in six areas:

1. cost,
2. resource acquisition,
3. marketing,
4. creativity,
5. problem solving
6. and organizational flexibility (Cox and Blake, p.45, 1991).

To exemplify this hypothesis, let us look at a few of these arguments, particularly the marketing, creativity, and organizational flexibility arguments. In terms of marketing, an ethnically varied staff can help both multinational and domestic operations. Cultural sensitivity and insights prove to be useful in marketing to sub-populations as well a in the internationalization process. The level of creativity should improve as the level of diversity of perspective rises. A diverse perspective creates less emphasis on the norms of the past and conformity (Cox and Blake, p.47, 1991). As for organizational flexibility, the knowledge of native language can help in business deals. In this case, visible minorities may have an advantage when doing deals with other visible minorities of the same origin. Furthermore, scheduling of shifts may be easier due to the flexibility provided by different customs and traditions in association to work. For instance, a Jewish employee would have no problem working on Christmas and a Muslim employee would have no problem working on Hanukkah.

A 2005 research study performed by the Society for Human Resource Management explores this idea in greater detail. It goes on to strongly affirm that differences in the workplace are assets and not liabilities. The study, summarized in “Figure 3” explored the ways in which more than 300 organizations see diversity as an advantage in the quest for competitive advantage. The affected areas included employee recruitment, access to new markets, and the integration of diversity into the organization’s business strategy (Lockwood, 2005). The following graph goes into more detail in regards to this subject.

(Lockwood, 2005)

Diversity Management: Employer Policies and Practices

There are various policies and practices that are associated with human resource management to which a manager must adhere. These policies and practices determine the way in which factors such as culture, work structuring, performance management and resourcing will be utilized (Sparrow et al., 1994). Diversity management is a concept which results from the creation of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action law. It has seen many policies and practices that have helped minorities in the workplace to be instated. When management addresses diversity, it is usually due to government requirements as oppose to an initiative taken by the management in the quest to add organizational value (Gilbert, 1993).

  

One of these practices is called anti-discrimination enforcement, which is coupled with anti-discrimination law. The most prevalent dealings affected by this include grievance procedures, formal hiring and promotion systems, and systematic recruitment schemes (Kelly et al., p.88, 2001).  When these requirements first came into being, these changes did not go unnoticed and were sometimes heavily criticized and companies’ did the bare minimum in order to comply with government standards. However, it is now widely accepted that it is in everybody’s best interest when diversity management policies create an inclusionary philosophy in the organization. These inclusionary measures usually include a regulatory address of fairness, empowerment, and openness and are executed through multiple efforts, constant reinforcements, and broad-scale change initiatives (Gilbert, 1993). Restructuring jobs, modifying training materials, engaging unions, and changing supervisor and co-worker attitudes are just some of the initiatives that can be taken in order to maintain good diversity management.

Conclusion

The past experiences of the black and minority ethnic population can suggest that there is still inequality and prejudice in the workplace. In order to understand how these inequalities come to fruition, one must analyze labor economics and the general employment process and apply its factors individually to the public in question. With the proper management and understanding of these factors, the firm will benefit and so will the employees. The largest threat that the black and minority ethnic population faces stems from the lack of education of managers in terms of the benefits of managing a diverse staff. Although much progress has been made in the administrative sector, these are still factors that affect the subjected public at heart and within the working environment. This is mostly a humanistic variable that, with assistance from community leaders, can be resolved by the people themselves.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is a small excerpt from dissertation on Managing Diversity topic. As free dissertation samples and dissertation proposal examples are plagiarized we recommend you not to use it in your own dissertation or thesis paper. Why not to get online dissertation writing help on Diversity from professional dissertation writing company? Top-rated PhD academic writers will write a custom dissertation on any topic and discipline from scratch!

__________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________ Enjoy our Dissertation Writing Service! ________________________