Making Differences Matter - Review
Making Differences Matter
Abstract and background of the article
In order to investigate that what will it take for organizations to reap the real and full benefits of a diverse workforce, a research effort taken by the article author’s team. In order to understand three management challenges for Diversity, it conducted its research over a period of six years. The challenges undertaken were: a) How do organizations successfully achieve and sustain racial and gender diversity in their executive and middle management ranks? b) What is the impact of diversity on an organization’s practices, processes and performance? c) How do leaders influence whether diversity becomes an enhancing or detracting element in the organization?
This research done with involvement of three organizations that had attained a high degree of demographic diversity, a small urban law firm, a community bank and 200 people consulting firm. It also studied nine other companies in varying stages of diversifying their work forces. The group included two financial services firms, three Fortune 500 manufacturing companies, two midsize high technology companies, a private foundation, and a university medical center.
Diversity initiatives to date have been guided by two perspectives. (1) The discrimination and fairness paradigm and (2) Access and legitimacy paradigm. This research has emerged with the third paradigm for managing diversity, and recommended abandoning old and limiting assumptions about the meaning of diversity in order to realize the true potential of diversity in a powerful way to increase organization effectiveness. The article cites several examples of how connecting the new definition of diversity to the actual doing of work has led some organizations to markedly better performance. Their leaders realize that increasing demographic variation does not in itself increase organizational effectiveness. They realize that it is how a company defines diversity and what
Abstract and background of the article
In order to investigate that what will it take for organizations to reap the real and full benefits of a diverse workforce, a research effort taken by the article author’s team. In order to understand three management challenges for Diversity, it conducted its research over a period of six years. The challenges undertaken were: a) How do organizations successfully achieve and sustain racial and gender diversity in their executive and middle management ranks? b) What is the impact of diversity on an organization’s practices, processes and performance? c) How do leaders influence whether diversity becomes an enhancing or detracting element in the organization?
This research done with involvement of three organizations that had attained a high degree of demographic diversity, a small urban law firm, a community bank and 200 people consulting firm. It also studied nine other companies in varying stages of diversifying their work forces. The group included two financial services firms, three Fortune 500 manufacturing companies, two midsize high technology companies, a private foundation, and a university medical center.
Diversity initiatives to date have been guided by two perspectives. (1) The discrimination and fairness paradigm and (2) Access and legitimacy paradigm. This research has emerged with the third paradigm for managing diversity, and recommended abandoning old and limiting assumptions about the meaning of diversity in order to realize the true potential of diversity in a powerful way to increase organization effectiveness. The article cites several examples of how connecting the new definition of diversity to the actual doing of work has led some organizations to markedly better performance. Their leaders realize that increasing demographic variation does not in itself increase organizational effectiveness. They realize that it is how a company defines diversity and what