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THE CONTRIBUTION OF DIVERSITY TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Integrating diversity and organizational change efforts can enhance the success of most types of organizational change. All major organizational change involves a cultural change, and a diversity effort is cultural change at its core. It requires an organization to search its collective soul and focus on essential aspects of its culture: seminal values; organizational demands for conformity in thought, interpersonal style, and action; power structure and power dynamics; employee participation; and inclusion/exclusion issues, to name a few. ·          Cultural Differences In addition, most organizational changes involve diversity components. An organizational redesign, for example, may combine functions that have previously been separate, such as marketing and manufacturing. Certainly, marketing and manufacturing have two distinct "cultures" and a successful redesign needs to pay attention to those cultural issues involved. Diversity of...

Dimention of Diversity

A DEFINITION OF DIVERSITY Diversity, however, breaks the affirmative action framework and goes beyond race and gender (Thomas, 1990). In fact, the new diversity paradigm defines it as the process of creating and maintaining an environment that naturally enables all participants to contribute to their full potential in the pursuit of organization objectives (Thomas, 1993). The following model can be helpful to more fully understand what it means to enable all persons to contribute their full potential to their organizations. Primary Dimensions The inner circle shows the primary dimensions of diversity -- those that are fundamental to a persons' self-concept or core self. These dimensions, though not necessarily visible, are unchangeable in that they are not a matter of choice. They form the basis on which people make instantaneous judgments about one another, often through the process of stereotyping. Secondary Dimensions The middle circle consists of secondary...