Question:
Discuss About The Diagnostic Indicator Diversity Management?
Diversity in a workplace or organization refers to the difference in mindsets and work culture of the people in the organisation based on the differences in their age, personality, education, gender, race, religion, tenure, cultural beliefs, and more. In the global business age transcending borders and developing a diverse workforce is imperative for organisations to succeed and gain a competitive edge in the business world. Managing the demographically diverse workforce in the best interests of the organisation is one of the key challenges confronting the managers today (Boehm, and Dwertmann, 2015). This essay will discuss the studies carried out in the three research articles to measure the effects of variables that help in marketing the effects of workplace diversity among the people on the well-being, social-integration, and the other performance related-variables and how the managers in an organisation can lead and manage a diverse workforce effectively. This essay will also discuss the diversity mindsets as the moderators of the relationship between performance and diversity.
The authors of the three articles mention the benefits of having a diverse workforce and the key issues and challenges that the organisations are facing in managing and leading the demographically diverse workforce effectively for better organisational performance. However, while diverse workforce is definitely a big asset to the organisations today with new ideas, creativity and innovation lending the company a competitive edge, the same diversity in teams can lead to dysfunction in organisations because of the communication barriers due to the diverse demographic backgrounds of the team members (Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye?Ebede, Woods, and West, 2017). Therefore, the management in modern day organisations have a challenging task to lead a diverse workforce in a manner that solicits the positive aspects of diversity and eliminate or mitigate the negative impacts of the diverse workforce. The managers are also faced with the task of identifying the attitudes, beliefs, climate, and the other factors which can help in enhancing the positive effects of diversity and eliminating the harmful effects of diversity like intergroup bias and interpersonal tension at the same time (Shaban, 2016). The diversity mindset theory proposed by the authors tries to understand and moderate the relationship that exists between effective performance and diversity of workgroups (Knippenberg, Ginkel, and Homan, 2013).
The authors Guillaume, et.al, use the CEM or Categorisation-Elaboration Model to explain the elements that work to moderate the impact of workplace diversity on the facets of performance, social integration, and the outcomes related to well-being (Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye?Ebede, Woods, and West, 2017). In the second study the author Shaban discusses how two specific leadership theories can help in enhancing the positive performance of the diverse teams and help the managers in leading the diverse teams effectively within their organisations (Shaban, 2016). In the third article the authors Knippenberg et. al., propose the use of three mindsets of accuracy, sharedness, and the awareness of the sharedness, as moderators in the relationship between performance and diversity (Knippenberg, Ginkel, and Homan, 2013). The three papers have used qualitative and secondary research to support their arguments and findings.
The authors Guillaume et.al. surmised in their study that social integration and performance of the individuals could be enhanced with the help of positive intergroup interactions and contacts. They also surmised that individual differences play the role of key moderators in demographically diverse group members (Brunow, and Blien, 2014). In the second article, the author Shaban proposes that using theories like the LMX theory and the Hill’s leadership model can help the managers in an organisation understand the diversity challenges and the differences in the culture and ethics of the different members of the teams (Lunenburg, 2010). The leaders can use this understanding of the individual differences to discern the means that can capitalise the diverse viewpoints, skills, and backgrounds to maximise the productivity of the team (Northouse, 2015).
In the third study the authors Knippenberg et. al. have put forward propositions based on the diversity mindsets that can help in providing a better understanding of the perplexing questions related to workforce diversity and performance benefits. While developing diversity mindsets the organisations should look at diversity as a source of information which can help in providing elaborated team information that result in performance benefits (van Ginkel, and van Knippenberg, 2012). Another key feature is that leadership in an organisation today has a crucial role to play in understanding and developing the right diversity mindsets, therefore, organisations need to develop their HR practices to develop an understanding of the diversity mindsets (Hajro, Gibson, and Pudelko, 2017).
The CEM Model describes the diversity as the differences between the people on any attribute or feature that can lead to the perception that one person is different from the other individual. According to the CEM model diversity works in two ways, the processes of information-elaboration and the processes of social categorisation that may result in intergroup bias (Joshi, Liao, and Roh, 2011). To moderate the impact of the workforce diversity on the overall organisational performance, diversity-management and growth-oriented strategies may help in promoting the concept of a greater value-in-diversity. This would help in facilitating the relevant information flow and which would, in turn, result in informed decision-making and promoting innovation (Podsiadlowski, Gröschke, Kogler, Springer, and Van Der Zee, 2013).
However, the innovation and creativity of the groups involved in complex task performance are dependent on the task-specific knowledge associated with demographic diversity. Therefore, principles of CEM can be used to augment the performance on innovative tasks to provide the right training for team building and leadership practices. Another crucial element that can help in positively augmenting the workforce diversity is the reduction of uncertainty between the demographically dissimilar groups in their interactions with one another (Patrick, & Kumar, 2012). The individual perceptions of the people on their attitude towards diversity, learning goal inclinations, and other personality oriented variables like openness have a positive impact on the workforce diversity (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg, and Van Dierendonck, 2013).
The research also highlights that in managing the workforce diversity leadership has a very crucial role to play. The leaders are the key players in creating the work environment where the benefits of a diverse workforce may multiply to benefit the organisation. The leaders need to be more inclusive and participative in their approach towards the demographically different workgroups, display individual consideration when required, offer inspiring suggestions, and motivate the employees to complete their tasks in an efficient manner. On the other hand, leaders who display outward biases in their interpersonal relations with the team members they lead, undermine the positive workplace conditions for accruing the diversity benefits (Ali, Kulik, and Metz, 2011).
The LMX theory of leadership promotes distributive and equal justice, therefore, this theory will help the leaders in focusing on adopting a fair and equal approach while dealing with all their followers and team members. The theory works on a simple principle that employees and workers who work more efficiently and productively will be rewarded more than the others who do not. Therefore, leaders while selecting the in-group members should avoid all the biases related to age, religion, gender, race, ethnicity and other such factors in their decision-making. The LXM theory would provide the outline to the leaders to evaluate the members of their team in a fair and just manner and the guidelines mentioned in the theory will help the leaders in eliminating the biases while taking their decisions which will help them in managing the diverse teams in a more efficient and effective manner (Lunenburg, 2010.).
On the other hand, the Hill Model approach for team leadership would help the leaders in identifying and assessing the problems of the team and taking timely and suitable action to mitigate those problems. Due to the differences in cultures, values, and traditions the diverse members of a workforce may face multiple numbers of problems while working with dissimilar people and the Hill Model provides an insight into the functional leadership role (Northouse, 2015). The leaders play a decisive role in monitoring the workgroups and teams to ensure effective productivity and this involves taking a decision whether the leaders should involve themselves by intervening in solving any kind of relational or task-oriented issues. While task oriented issues are related to planning and application, the relational issues are related to problems arising due to lack of cohesion, interpersonal conflicts, communication barriers among team members. The leaders also have to decide whether the problem can be solved by internal intervention or an external intervention from outside the team’s scope (Patrick, and Kumar, 2012).
However, there is a lack of clarity on the diversity-mindset concept as there is very little research done to shed light on what actually must be done by the diversified workgroups to reap the benefits of this diversity (Guillaume, Dawson, Woods, Sacramento, and West, 2013). One of the principal aspects of the diversity mindsets is that every team has a specific nature and there cannot be a universal or one-size-fit-all approach that can be applied to all diversified work groups (Tisserant, Lorraine Wagner, and Barth, 2012). However, there are core characteristics which are common to mindset accuracy like promotion-focused goals, exploration focused goals, and procedural knowledge of the team related diversity which can serve as a useful source of information (Guillaume, Dawson, Woods, Sacramento, and West, 2013).
To prevent miscommunication and coordinate the efforts of the team in the same direction, it is very important that there should be a similarity in the mental representations of the members of a diversified workgroup or team. Therefore, in the presence of accuracy of mindset, a sharedness or similarity of the mental representation works to enhance the team task performance. Diversity mindsets can have a more emphatic impact as a moderating influence on the work teams if they are shared by a larger number of the team members, as this will facilitate coordinated actions and prevent miscommunication. However, one of the big drawbacks in the propositions suggested by the authors is that many of the conceptual frameworks proposed her have yet to be tested in an empirical analysis (van Ginkel, and van Knippenberg, 2012).
The three articles emphasise the importance of leadership in developing the positive environments to manage the growing diversified workforce in the organisations effectively. The cultural differences represent one of the basic attributes to study and analyse the workforce diversity and the ways to shape it positively (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg, and Van Dierendonck, 2013). The three articles also emphasise that task-oriented knowledge, leadership strategy, and HR practices all have to work together to create an atmosphere where diverse workgroups can thrive and contribute positively to the organisation (Patrick, and Kumar, 2012).
The authors Guillaume et.al., stress on the elements of uncertainty reduction in workplaces among members of diverse workgroups, information-elaboration, and self-enhancement as the tools to improve the social integration, work performance, and the well-being of the people. On the other hand, the author Shaban emphasises on the leadership and training aspects to deal with the issues and challenges facing the organisations in growing diversified workplace environment (Brunow, and Blien, 2014). While the authors, Knippenberg et al., stress on the fact that a better understanding of the concepts of diversity and a favourable perspective in the mindset of the people about working in culturally diverse teams can result in the people associating and embracing the concept of diversity in a more positive manner (Boehm, and Dwertmann, 2015).
Conclusion
The organisations in the global business scenario need to devise approaches and strategies to harness the power and influence of diversity in giving the business a distinctive competitive edge in the market and to prevent organisational dysfunction from arising due to lack of cohesion between inter cultural workgroups. While research till now has been focused on the concept of preventing the negative outcome of cultural diversity in workplace, the future research should aim to develop concepts and approaches that can steer the influence of diverse cultural mindset towards innovation and ingenuity, that is beneficial to the individuals, team, and the organisation as a whole (Guillaume, Dawson, Woods, Sacramento, and West, 2013).
References:
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