Gender Diversity And Job Satisfaction In Organizations: A Critical Review

HLSC4300 : Critical Literature Review

Part 1: Critical Literature Review and Research Question(s), Aim(s) and Objective(s)

Critical Literature Review: Gender Diversity and Job Satisfaction in Organizations

Part 1

Gender diversity refers to the activity of organization employing the people coming from different parts of the world. Under the activity of gender diversity in human resource management, the organization gets to employ people by maintaining equality in all the genders. This aspect of diversity explains the equitable distribution of work and fair representation between all the genders (Joshi, et. al., 2015). In the current environment, employees dissatisfaction rate is increasing with a maximum speed, as the human resource manager are unable to understand the needs of the employees and maintain healthy working environment as well. Low job satisfaction makes the organizations pay heavy loss in terms of knowledge, resources and manpower as well. Further, the critical literature review is going focus on the aspects of gender diversity along with its importance on job satisfaction of employees as well (Tabvuma, Georgellis, and Lange 2015).

In an organization, it is always looked that one section is weaker and other section is comparatively stronger at workplace. The actions initiated by the management are also initiated to satisfy the majority section of the organization, due to which the weaker section is all the time confronted with threat of leaving the job. Resulting in which, they attain high degree of job dissatisfaction in the market as well. Even, at the times of conflicts, the major section of the society is more prone to get insulted at workplace (Nielsen, et. al., 2017). Thus, looking at these aspects, it can be clearly seen that there is strong requirement of equality at workplace otherwise few groups in the organization would always feel avoided and dissatisfied as well. Stazyk, Davis, and Liang 2012, found out that effective diversity management strong leads to positive organizational effectiveness.

If all the organizations present in the environment start to preach this type of activity then they will effectively reduce the problem of majority and minority section on a whole. According to these authors, it is not good to treat the organizational diversity as a generic characteristic. They further also conclude that increasing gender diversity also decreases the level of job satisfaction in the organizational environment. In addition to it, Ali, Metz, and Kulik 2015, also stated that managing workforce diversity helps the employees to perform the job in a better. So, it can be said that gender diversity increases the job satisfaction as well.

Gender Diversity and Job Satisfaction in Organizations

Whereas according to Schwab, et. al., 2012, it can be seen, that gender diversity is slightly different from the other aspects and parts of diversity present in an organization. In some industries, like, construction industry where there are few female workers and all the other employees are mostly male. So, in such industries it’s difficult to attain gender diversity and if organizations tries to do so, the employees that are satisfied also get dissatisfied in the business environment. In some parts of the world where male chauvinistic practices are still followed, gender diversity in such areas is looked as a dream because people do not women work or reach upto their position in the industry.

However, Badal, and Harter 2014, said even if women start to work, practices like glass ceiling etc. weigh them down. Further, not specifically talking about gender diversity, but diversity on a whole can affect the growth of the organization in a negative way if not followed adequately. Diversity is a practice that is initiated by the human resource management at the workplace, so if the human resource management of the company is not capable enough to manage diversity then ultimately they will hire the employees but they won’t be able satisfy them completely (Lu, et. al., 2016).

Now coming up to the aspect of job satisfaction for an employee in an organization, there are few and simple aspects that motivate the employees to work better and satisfies them to the maximum extent as well. The biggest motivator for an employee is optimum amount of pay, other are recognition in society, bonus, appraisals, and esteem need etc. In many organizations, the management follow the practice of hiring the employees by considering the aspects of gender diversity but no providing equal pay to the male, female and transgender in the society (Guillaume, et. al., 2017).

The employees getting lower pay at same designation will ultimately get dissatisfied in the environment due to the wrong practices of the HRM. Further, talking about esteem need and recognition in the environment, it should be noted that every employee in an organization wants respect and recognition. They want their management to provide appraise them if they perform better, however this practice is also not initiated in many organization as HR manager only appraise the male employees they known that these employees will stay with them for comparatively longer period of time without asking for leaves (Theodorakopoulos, and Budhwar 2015). Thus, the fact should be noted that it is not important to start the activity of gender diversity at workplace, what more important is that the human resource management activities regarding gender diversity should provide job satisfaction to all the employees as well. Without having job satisfaction at workplace, no employee will continue their job. Thus, the most important part is to satisfy the employees.

Previous Research on Gender Diversity and Job Satisfaction

Further, Okoro, and Washington 2012, said that increasing gender diversity will also increase the level of intellectual communication at workplace. The employees in the organization will indulge in various new and innovative activities that will ultimately provide greater level of growth to the organization in the external market. Gender diversity also increases the level of healthy competition in the market as it involves different types of people with diverse thinking to come together and work collectively.

Lastly, the facts should be noted that gender diversity plays a vital role in satisfying the employees at workplace. According to Tanwar, and Prasad 2016, Gender diversity in some ways increases the level of satisfaction of employees as well as it create a friendly environment. Nevertheless, it holds the power to ruin the environment as well by ineffective HRM practices. As the companies are getting global, so it is becoming as a need for the organization to employ diverse people at workplace and attain their qualified output as well. Positive working environment will bring out the potential among people and motivate them to work effectively as well. Problems in job satisfaction occurs only when the HR management of the companies do not providing equal attention to all the employees or equal working conditions as well. Thus, in can be concluded that diverse teams make better teams and better teams provide high quality work to the employees and ultimately high quality work provide high level of growth to the companies. Thus, in this was gender diversity works in favour of employees as well as organization in the society.

Research Question: How gender diversity is linked to job satisfaction and performance of employees at workplace?

Aim: The aim of the literature review is to analyse the impact of gender diversity on job satisfaction of employees.

Objective: The objective of literature is to critically analyse the different aspects of gender diversity and ways in which HRM practices affect the job satisfaction in the environment.

Gap: the gap in the literature is that it was unable to recognize the aftermath of gender diversity and what with additional positive actions it can benefit the companies as well.

Part 2

• The topic chosen for the research is that how gender related issues affect the job satisfaction and performance of the employees at workplace. The literature review was completed using research methodology that helped in attaining various important information about the topic. Qualitative mode of research is being implemented in the essay that helped in attaining optimum information to fulfil the requirements of the task. The qualitative mode of research helped in attaining analytical and critical description about the theories that directly linked to the research question as well. Most of the authentic secondary sources like, Human Resource Management, Organization Management etc. are used and questionnaire as a primary source is being used.
• The strength of the chosen research methodology is that it helped in analysing the real meaning and definitions about the terms and their relationship with each other as well. However, the methodology was limited to critical factual descriptive information only, no calculative data was mentioned in the essay. But, the topic was more related to the theories like diversity and job satisfaction so other methodologies would not be successful if implemented.
• The study was based on the impact of gender diversity on the performance of employees and job satisfaction as well. The population targeted for this piece of literature are companies present in global market and their employees and human resource management as well.
• For the questionnaire, a group of around 30 people was selected from an organization and questionnaire was filled by them. Questions about job satisfaction, HRM, performance, workplace diversity were asked from the employees which further helped in preparation of the literature.
• Secondary sources like journal, books etc. and questionnaire as primary source was used to prepare the literature.
• One of the ethical issue in gathering data like making survey was biasness while sampling. It was very important to consider the crucially of the information and it should not be tampered anyhow. The results were also present using all the authentic resources. The research was carried out under the profession code of conduct.

References:

Ali, M., Metz, I. and Kulik, C.T., 2015. The impact of work–family programs on the relationship between gender diversity and performance. Human Resource Management, 54(4), pp.553-576.

Badal, S. and Harter, J.K., 2014. Gender diversity, business-unit engagement, and performance. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(4), pp.354-365.

Guillaume, Y.R., Dawson, J.F., Otaye?Ebede, L., Woods, S.A. and West, M.A., 2017. Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.

Joshi, A., Neely, B., Emrich, C., Griffiths, D. and George, G., 2015. Gender research in AMJ: an overview of five decades of empirical research and calls to action: thematic issue on gender in management research.

Lu, L., Lu, A.C.C., Gursoy, D. and Neale, N.R., 2016. Work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions: A comparison between supervisors and line-level employees. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(4), pp.737-761.

Nielsen, M.W., Alegria, S., Börjeson, L., Etzkowitz, H., Falk-Krzesinski, H.J., Joshi, A., Leahey, E., Smith-Doerr, L., Woolley, A.W. and Schiebinger, L., 2017. Opinion: Gender diversity leads to better science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(8), pp.1740-1742.

Okoro, E.A. and Washington, M.C., 2012. Workforce diversity and organizational communication: Analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of Diversity Management (Online), 7(1), p.57.

Schwab, A., Werbel, J.D., Hofmann, H. and Henriques, P.L., 2016. Managerial gender diversity and firm performance: An integration of different theoretical perspectives. Group & Organization Management, 41(1), pp.5-31.

Stazyk, E.C., Davis, R. and Liang, J., (2012) Examining the Links between Workforce Diversity, Organizational Goal Clarity, and Job Satisfaction [online]. Retrieved from < file:///C:/Users/Laptop04011/Downloads/SSRN-id2107330.pdf> [accessed on 10 October 2018].

Tabvuma, V., Georgellis, Y. and Lange, T., 2015. Orientation training and job satisfaction: A sector and gender analysis. Human Resource Management, 54(2), pp.303-321.

Tanwar, K. and Prasad, A., 2016. The effect of employer brand dimensions on job satisfaction: gender as a moderator. Management Decision, 54(4), pp.854-886.

Theodorakopoulos, N. and Budhwar, P., 2015. Guest editors’ introduction: Diversity and inclusion in different work settings: Emerging patterns, challenges, and research agenda. Human Resource Management, 54(2), pp.177-197.