Theoretical Frameworks and Models Supporting the Practice of Leveraging Workforce Diversity

2014 ◽  
pp. 266-283
Author(s):  
Aileen G. Zaballero ◽  
Yeonsoo Kim

This chapter will include a brief description of the history of diversity; advantages of being culturally competent; paradigms/perspectives of diversity management; and a summary of the business case for diversity. In addition, theories and models of organization development and change management are further explained as a way to understand the organizational context surrounding diversity interventions.

Author(s):  
Aileen G. Zaballero ◽  
Yeonsoo Kim

This chapter will include a brief description of the history of diversity; advantages of being culturally competent; paradigms/perspectives of diversity management; and a summary of the business case for diversity. In addition, theories and models of organization development and change management are further explained as a way to understand the organizational context surrounding diversity interventions.


Author(s):  
Judith K. Pringle ◽  
Glenda Strachan

This chapter presents a history of diversity management through the use of dichotomies that cross-cut the field. These are used as a framework to organize the evolution from equal opportunity policies and practices to managing diversity in organizations. We trace the shift from the social justice case for equality to the business case for managing diversity; from practitioners’ initiatives to academic research, from the US diversity discourse to many country contexts, from an emphasis on gender to ‘other’ demographic diversity dimensions, and from quantitative to qualitative research methodologies. The discussion demonstrates the complexity of combining historical and socio-political country contexts on organizational policies and practices. The resulting influences on an individual’s experiences of diversity management are as complex as are the partiality of theoretical explanations. We urge researchers to move beyond dualisms combining their strengths, to create transformative approaches. Altogether the continuing debates add to a vibrant field.


2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Ivancevich ◽  
Jacqueline A. Gilbert

There are now more new faces and diversity among the workforce than ever before and this trend is expected to continue into the 21st century. Managers in public and private organizations are searching for and experimenting with various approaches to more effectively deal with increasing workforce diversity. This article briefly reviews the history of diversity management and calls for a new agenda that encourages more collaboration between scholars and administrators, increased researcher on-site observation of workplace reactions to diversity management initiatives, more informative and rigorous case studies, and more third-party evaluations of diversity management initiatives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiwen Li ◽  
Marijana Oljaca ◽  
Saba Fazal Firdousi ◽  
Umair Akram

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of workforce diversity management on employee job performance in the Chinese organizational context, considering the mediating effect of person-job match and employee commitment and the moderating effect of structural empowerment. Data were collected from 400 telecommunication sector employees in China. All hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings of the study illustrated that workforce diversity management has a positive and significant impact on employee job performance. Furthermore, the results indicated that person-job match and employee commitment partially mediate the relationship between workforce diversity management and employee job performance. Moreover, structural empowerment directly affects employee job performance, whereas a moderating effect is also found in the relationship between workforce diversity management and employee job performance. Finally, implications and limitations are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Ellen Moore

As the Spanish-speaking population in the United States continues to grow, there is increasing need for culturally competent and linguistically appropriate treatment across the field of speech-language pathology. This paper reviews information relevant to the evaluation and treatment of Spanish-speaking and Spanish-English bilingual children with a history of cleft palate. The phonetics and phonology of Spanish are reviewed and contrasted with English, with a focus on oral pressure consonants. Cultural factors and bilingualism are discussed briefly. Finally, practical strategies for evaluation and treatment are presented. Information is presented for monolingual and bilingual speech-language pathologists, both in the community and on cleft palate teams.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (V) ◽  
pp. 252-266
Author(s):  
Hellen Kanaiza Barang’a ◽  
Chrispen Maende

Embracing and managing diversity in today’s business world is an essential part of successful business practices as it brings various voices to a team, improves morale and increases overall productivity. However, manager face difficulties in understanding the value of each person’s unique abilities or voice, there may arise some instances where certain employees still have conflicts. Ineffective communication of key objectives results in confusion, lack of teamwork, and low morale. In the office of the attorney general and department of justice now going through a massive influx of young workforce in both gender with diverse educational background and from different ethnic groups have brought a challenge of having different sets of values, expectations, and work styles in the work place and also understanding the other’s culture has been a heavy task on managing work force in the organization. It is due to this regard that this study sought to investigate the influence of workforce diversity on employee performance in the office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study specific objectives were to examine the influence of educational background diversity, ethnicity diversity, age diversity and gender diversity on employee performance. The theories guiding the study were the human capital theory, social identity theory, social exchange theory and social categorization theory. This study will use descriptive survey research design. The unit of observation was office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice in Nairobi City County, Kenya and the unit of observation was 5 Human Resource Managers and 50 Support Staff from HRM department. A census of 55 respondents was carried out. Primary data was collected using questionnaires. Quantitative data was analysed with the use of descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviations and presented using tables, graphs, charts and figures. Content analysis was used to test data that was qualitative in nature or aspect of the data collected from the open ended questions. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the extent to which the variables relate to each other. The study examined that educational background diversity, ethnicity diversity, age diversity and gender had a positive and significant relationship on employee performance. The study concluded that employees with diverse educational background promote higher levels of consistency, creativity because of their unique perspectives. Ethnicity diversity management improve gains in worker welfare and efficiency, leads to reduced turnover costs, fewer internal disputes and grievances, prevention of marginalization and exclusion of categories of workers, improved social cohesion and so on. Age diversity in the workplace provides a larger spectrum of knowledge, values, and preferences. Having a diverse gender within the organization leads to a wider talent pool, encourages different points of view and approaches that come from different life experiences and the organization to challenge gender stereotypes. The study recommended that the organization should employ people of different backgrounds in education so as to improve creativity and innovation. The organizational management has responsibilities when it comes to promoting and monitoring ethnic diversity policy in the workplace. It is highly essential for the organization to find effective ways to meet the challenges of age diversity because both the old and the young employees can make tremendous contributions to the organization, in their own unique way. The organization should encourage team leaders to select diverse groups for projects to ensure the genders do not naturally separate.


Author(s):  
Usha Iyer

Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema, an ambitious study of two of South Asia’s most popular cultural forms—cinema and dance—historicizes and theorizes the material and cultural production of film dance, a staple attraction of popular Hindi cinema. It explores how the dynamic figurations of the body wrought by cinematic dance forms from the 1930s to the 1990s produce unique constructions of gender, stardom, and spectacle. By charting discursive shifts through figurations of dancer-actresses, their publicly performed movements, private training, and the cinematic and extra-diegetic narratives woven around their dancing bodies, the book considers the “women’s question” via new mobilities corpo-realized by dancing women. Some of the central figures animating this corporeal history are Azurie, Sadhona Bose, Vyjayanthimala, Helen, Waheeda Rehman, Madhuri Dixit, and Saroj Khan, whose performance histories fold and intersect with those of other dancing women, including devadasis and tawaifs, Eurasian actresses, oriental dancers, vamps, choreographers, and backup dancers. Through a material history of the labor of producing on-screen dance, theoretical frameworks that emphasize collaboration, such as the “choreomusicking body” and “dance musicalization,” aesthetic approaches to embodiment drawing on treatises like the Natya Sastra and the Abhinaya Darpana, and formal analyses of cine-choreographic “techno-spectacles,” Dancing Women offers a variegated, textured history of cinema, dance, and music. Tracing the gestural genealogies of film dance produces a very different narrative of Bombay cinema, and indeed of South Asian cultural modernities, by way of a corporeal history co-choreographed by a network of remarkable dancing women.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 667-688
Author(s):  
Shreyashi Chakraborty ◽  
Leena Chatterjee

PurposeThe Indian context is marked with weak anti-discrimination laws and patchy implementation of protection of civil rights of women at workplaces. The purpose of this paper is to unearth the rationales of the adoption of gender diversity management policies and practices in India, in the absence of laws and regulations.Design/methodology/approachInspiration is drawn from previous studies on diversity management in other national contexts, and a survey methodology was adopted. The lead researcher administered the questionnaires personally to all respondents to ensure that the understanding of the questions is uniform across respondents as gender diversity management is a relatively new concept in India.FindingsSize of the organisation (number of full-time employees), the influence of external organisations and perceived enhanced organisational flexibility were found to explain the adoption of gender diversity management policies and practices in the Indian IT/ITeS industry. Findings also indicate that Indian subsidiaries of foreign multinationals tend to adopt more gender diversity management policies and practices as compared to Indian-owned organisations.Research implicationsThis study provides evidence that organisations do not always enact structures or behaviours in the pursuit of normative rationality and also consider the economic value of them, establishing an organisational agency in adopting legitimated norms or practices. The study also shows that gender diversity management policies and practices are not only dependent on the enactment of laws but also are adopted because of the economic benefit perceived.Originality/valueDiversity management policies and practices have been mostly studied in national contexts with anti-discrimination laws or affirmative action programs and have been claimed to be a successor of equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies. In the absence of stringent laws to reduce or eliminate discrimination against women employees in Indian workplaces, this study contributes to the literature by determining whether the business case for gender diversity drives the adoption of gender diversity management in the Indian context.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ylva Fältholm ◽  
Cathrine Norberg

Purpose The purpose of this study is to gain increased knowledge about gender diversity and innovation in mining by analyzing how women are discursively represented in relation to these two concepts, and in doing so establish how diversity management is received and communicated in the industry. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on analysis of texts including references to gender diversity and innovation in mining found on the web. The tool used to retrieve the data has been WebCorpLive, a tool designed for linguistic analysis of web material. Findings Although increased female representation is communicated as a key component in the diversity management discourse, based on the idea that diversity increases innovation and creativity, closer analysis of texts on diversity and innovation in mining shows that what women are expected to contribute with has little explicit connection with innovation. Research limitations/implications The study contributes with increased knowledge about diversity management by providing an example of how it is received in a traditionally male-dominated industry. Practical implications The findings indicate that for diversity management to have a real effect in mining, it needs to be based on gender equality and social justice motives, rather than on a business case rationale – the principal motive today. To enable this change, stereotypical gender patterns, as shown in this study, need to be made visible and problematized among policy makers, practitioners and actors on all levels of the industry. Originality value The study contributes with new knowledge about gender in the mining industry previously not attended to by using a method which so far has been sparsely used in discourse analysis, although pointed out as promising.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Edmund C. Stazyk ◽  
Randall S. Davis ◽  
Jiaqi Liang

A considerable body of research substantiating the importance of workforce diversity to public organizations has accrued over the past two decades. However, research on workforce diversity has also been narrow in scope and frequently fails to link diversity to important individual and organizational outcomes. Using data (n = 1,109,134 employees from 500 sub-agencies) collected in three waves (2010, 2011, and 2012) of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), this study examines whether (1) increased diversity influences organizational goal clarity, (2) diversity and goal clarity, in turn, influence employee job satisfaction, and (3) diversity management policies influence job satisfaction by clarifying organizational goals for workers. FEVS is administered yearly by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and is designed to assess whether and to what extent federal employees believe the characteristics of successful organizations are present in their agency. Results from a multi-level structural equation model (MSEM) suggest diversity is associated with greater goal clarity and that diversity management policies, by clarifying organizational goals, positively affect job satisfaction. Findings also indicate that the type of diversity matters.


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