T.Cox

Managing diversity within organizations is no easy task. The two assigned pieces from the books of Dr. Taylor Cox Jr., "Cultural Diversity in Organizations," written in 1993, and "Creating the Multicultural Organization: A Strategy for Capturing the Power of Diversity", written in 2001, gives insight into what organizations can do to successfully manage their diverse workforce and environment. The interesting thing is that they were written eight years apart, offering perspective of how organizations have changed in that time frame. Even so, although change is inevitable, many things have remained the same. First, I will discuss how managing diversity has remained the same. Then I will give my overall impression of what I thought about the two pieces. "If it ain 't broke, don 't fix it", I believe is how the saying goes. Obviously, this is in reference to things that are working fine, should be left alone. To some extent that philosophy applies to the common themes found in both pieces. Although there were quite a few similarities between the two pieces I have decided to focus on just a couple of them. Human Capital and Marketing Strategies, Creativity and Innovation, and The Direct Effects of Diversity, are the common themes that I will discuss further.
Human Capital and Marketing Strategies Organizations have recognized the importance of investing in their employees. They are realizing that in order to remain competitive in such a global economy they have to attract the best, brightest, and most diverse workforce. In the 1993 piece Cox states, "A major competitive factor for organizations is attracting and retaining the best available human-resource talent in the context of the current workforce demographic trends."(1)The other piece, from 2001, there is also a statement regarding human capital. "Given today 's increasingly diverse labor market, organizations that are best at attracting, retaining, and using the skills of diverse workers

Cited: (1)(3) The piece titled, "Diversity and Organizational Performance", pg. 27 (2) The piece titled, "The Challenge of Managing Diversity", pg. 9 (4)(6) The piece titled, "Diversity and Organizational Performance", pg. 32 (5) The piece titled, "The Challenge of Managing Diversity", pg. 7-8 (7) The piece titled, "Diversity and Organizational Performance", pg. 34 (8) The piece titled, "The Challenge of Managing Diversity", pg. 4-5 (9-11) The piece titled, "The Challenge of Managing Diversity", pg. 12-13 (12-13) The piece titled, "The Challenge of Managing Diversity", pg. 15