Chap 4

Diversity in Management
MAN101: Principles of Management Class 4

What is Workplace Diversity?
 Textbook:
 “The ways in which people in an
organization are different from and
similar to one another.”
 American Psychological
Association:
 “The wide range of variation of
people and population groups in the
context of occupations and
employment.”
What is Workplace Diversity?
 Surface-level diversity:
 “Differences in easily perceived
characteristics, such as gender, race,
ethnicity, age, or disability, that do not
necessarily reflect the ways people think or
feel but that may activate certain
stereotypes.”
 Deep-level diversity:
 “Differences in values, personality, and work
preferences that become progressively more
important for determining similarity [or difference]
as people get to know one another better.”
Individual vs. Demographic Diversity
 Individual diversity:
 The ways in which people differ in terms of their individual minds, bodies,
experiences, personalities, values, thinking styles, emotions, etc.
 Demographic (group) diversity:
 The ways in which people differ in terms of their membership in
population-level group categories e.g. sex/gender; race/ethnicity.
The Global Business Landscape
 Today’s organisations require leaders who can adjust to

different environments quickly and work with partners and
employees of other cultures. It cannot be assumed that a leader
who is successful in one culture will be successful in another.
11-5
 As organisations move from regional to trans-global models, leadership

must provide the bridge between cultural diversity and the
achievement of business objectives. In a fast-paced business
environment, developing a richer understanding and sensitivity to other
cultures is a skill that effective leaders must possess.
11-6
 Effective cultural leadership involves the ability to influence and

motivate people’s attitudes and behaviours in the global community
to achieve common organisational goals, despite - or more
importantly because of - their various cultural differences.
11-7
International Values:
Hofstede’s Five Value Dimensions of National Culture
 Power distance: The extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and
organisations is distributed unequally.
 Individualism vs Collectivism: The degree to which people prefer to act as individuals
rather than as members of groups (individualistic) or expect others in their groups to look
after them and protect them (collectivistic).
 Masculinity vs Femininity: Masculinity emphasizes traditional masculine roles (e.g.
achievement, power, materialism). Femininity emphasizes no difference between male and
female roles, and women are treated as the equals of men.
 Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and
ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them.
 Short-term vs long-term orientation: Greater emphasis on tradition and respect for
the past (short-term) or persistence and vision for the future (long-term).
International Values:
The GLOBE Framework for Assessing Cultures
 Retains power distance, collectivism (institutional and in-group

collectivism), uncertainty avoidance, gender differentiation (gender
egalitarianism), and long-/short-term orientation, and also adds:
 Humane orientation: The degree to which a society rewards individuals
for being altruistic, generous, and kind to others.
 Performance orientation: The degree to which a society encourages
and rewards group members for performance improvement and
excellence.
 Assertiveness: The degree to which people in a culture are determined,
assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their social relationships.
GLOBE Leadership Behaviours and Culture Clusters
 Charismatic/value-based leadership reflects the ability to inspire, to motivate, and to expect
high performance from others based on strongly-held core values. This kind of leadership includes
being visionary, inspirational, self-sacrificing, trustworthy, decisive, and performance-oriented.
 Team-oriented leadership emphasizes team building and a common purpose among team
members. This kind of leadership includes being collaborative, integrative, diplomatic, not
malevolent, and administratively competent.
 Participative leadership reflects the degree to which leaders involve others in making and
implementing decisions. It includes being participative and non-autocratic.
 Human-oriented leadership emphasizes being supportive, considerate, compassionate, and
generous. This type of leadership includes modesty and sensitivity to other people.
 Autonomous leadership refers to independent and individualistic leadership, which includes
being autonomous and unique.
 Self-protective leadership reflects behaviours that ensure the safety and security of the leader
and the group. It includes leadership that is self-centered, status-conscious, conflict inducing,
face-saving, and procedural.
11-10
Increasing Your CQ
1.Be curious and interested in learning about other cultures.
2.Develop an awareness of yourself and your culture in
relation to other people and their culture.
3.Make your mind a clean slate.
4.Develop an awareness of your biases towards other cultures
and traditions.
5.Put yourself in situations with people from different cultures.
11-11
Why is managing workplace diversity so important?
 People management:
 The skills, abilities, and experiences of people make an organization successful.
 Teams with diverse backgrounds often bring different and unique perspectives to
discussions and decision-making, which can result in more creative ideas and solutions.
 Organizational performance:
 Organizational performance can be enhanced through workforce diversity because of
an enhanced range of potential problem-solving abilities, which in turn drives
innovation and adaptability (and makes organisations more productive and profitable).
 Ethics:
 All people should have reasonable access to equal opportunities and be treated fairly
and justly at work, and should be provided with the relationships and opportunities that
allow them to be productive and successful members of the workforce.
Challenges in Managing Diversity
 Bias = a tendency or preference toward a particular perspective,
person, or thing (not always bad!).
 Prejudice = a negative pre-conceived belief, opinion, or judgement
toward a particular kind of person.
 Stereotyping = judgements made about a person on the basis of
perceptions of the group to which they belong (correct or incorrect).
 Discrimination = selectively disadvantaging certain people or
groups based on prejudices or negative stereotypes. Includes e.g.
discriminatory policies + practices; exclusion; incivility, mockery and
intimidation; sexual harassment.
Initiatives for Promoting Diversity
 Top management commitment to diversity:
 Ensuring that diversity and inclusion are part of the organization’s purpose, goals, and
strategies, as well as its overall organizational culture.
 Mentoring:
 When an experienced organizational member (a mentor) provides career development
advice, social support, and guidance to a less-experienced member (a mentee or
protégé).
 Diversity skills and awareness training:

 Specialized training to educate employees about the importance of diversity and teach
them skills for working in a diverse workplace; including awareness of
biases/assumptions and increased sensitivity to difference.
 Employee resource groups:
 Groups where employees are connected by some aspect of diversity e.g. gender.
Neurodiversity / Brain Diversity
 Our brains are highly diverse in the ways that they cause us to think,
feel, and behave (including e.g. people with autism).
 Companies that embrace neurodiversity in the workplace can gain
competitive advantages in many areas — productivity, innovation,
organizational culture and talent retention.
Sex
 Males and females differ in numerous biological characteristics.

 Sex is binary: with rare exceptions (e.g. intersex people), everyone is either assigned
male (XY) or female (XX) at birth. This influences how a child’s brain develops over time.
 Biological differences between the sexes — such as differences in hormones — influence
some differences in psychology (e.g. higher empathy and verbal abilities in females;
higher risk-taking and visuo-spatial abilities in males).
 Sex interacts with gender to influence differences between males and females in
temperament, personality, motivation, and interests (e.g. STEM fields).
Gender
Gender identity refers to how the individual defines and views themselves, and expects others to
view them, with respect to gender.
Gender expression refers to the external appearance of an individual's gender identity through
e.g. behaviours, presentation.
The overwhelming majority of people (~99.5% in Vietnam) are sex-gender synchronous
(“cisgender”): their sex at birth matches their gender identity and expression.
Although gender itself is non-binary, the vast majority of sex and gender differences in organisations
relate to people who are categorized by themselves and others as either male or female.
Women’s Struggles in Senior Leadership
• Women are just 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs (despite being 23% of CEOs among
all American companies).
• Women are only 7% of top executives in the Fortune 100 companies.
• Women occupy only 10% of top management positions in S&P 1500 companies.
• They hold just 19% of S&P 1500 board seats.
• They are just 26.5% of executive and senior officials and managers, 11%of top
earners, and 4.8% of CEOs in S&P 500 companies.
• They are only 6% of all venture capital board representatives and lead only 9%
of venture capital deals.
• They are just 20% of executives, senior officers, and management in U.S. high-
tech industries. 43% of the 150 highest-earning public companies in Silicon
Valley had no female executive officers.
Sexual Orientation / LGBT
 Gay men and women comprise ~1.5—4% of most countries’ populations.

 ~0.5% of the Vietnamese population identifies as transgender or gender-fluid (0.6% in
USA; 1.2% in New Zealand).
 46% of US LGBT workers are still closeted at work (2018).
 30% of LGBT respondents in Vietnam reported being denied employment based on sexual
orientation or transgendered identity (2016).
Age
 Companies that employ workers in wide ranges of age have
the advantage of creating a dynamic, multi-generational
workforce.
 Young employees likely have a strong grasp on the use of
high-tech business mediums such as social networking and
online marketing.
 More mature professionals often have exceptional
interpersonal skills and perform well in environments where
traditional in-person communication is used.
 In a mixed-age workforce where companies value knowledge,
experience and skill, employees of all ages have the
opportunity to teach, share and learn from one another.
 Older workers train younger professionals in the ways of the
company; passing down accumulated years of experience.
Younger workers set the tone for how the company can
change and adapt in the future.
Race, Ethnicity, Regionalism
 Ethnically heterogeneous societies
such as Western countries are
steadily becoming more racially and
ethnically diverse with increased
emigration and societal demographic
changes. Vietnam Ethnic Breakdown (2018)
 But even in ethnically homogenous

societies such as Vietnam, people
still bring differences from their
regional background and upbringing.
USA Predicted Racial Breakdown (2045)

People With Disabilities
 In Vietnam, 66% of people with disabilities said they had never even attended a job
interview, and of those who had, 54% said they had been denied a job because of their
disability (2018).

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Diversity in Management

MAN101: Principles of Management Class 4

 Today’s organisations require leaders who can adjust to

 As organisations move from regional to trans-global models, leadership

 Effective cultural leadership involves the ability to influence and

 Retains power distance, collectivism (institutional and in-group

 Diversity skills and awareness training:

 Males and females differ in numerous biological characteristics.

 Gay men and women comprise ~1.5—4% of most countries’ populations.

 But even in ethnically homogenous

USA Predicted Racial Breakdown (2045)

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