Robbins & Judge

Organizational Behavior
14th Edition

Diversity in Organizations

Kelli J. Schutte
William Jewell College

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Chapter Learning Objectives
 After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
– Describe the two major forms of workforce diversity.
– Define the key biographical characteristics and describe how
they are relevant to OB.
– Define intellectual ability and demonstrate its relevance to
OB.
– Contrast the two types of ability.
– Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively.
– Show how culture affects our understanding of biographical
characteristics and intellectual abilities.

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Diversity

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DIVERSITY
 Everybody brings differences to an organization where
they work. These differences can create energy and
excitement in the workplace, but they can also cause
conflict.
 So it is important that we have an understanding of
how diversity works in organizations.
 When we look at the workplace we can recognize two
levels of diversity.
 1. Surface-level diversity: represents the characteristics
that are easily observed such as race, gender, age etc.
 2. Deep-level diversity: represents the aspects that are
more difficult to see at first glance such as values,
personality, and work preferences.
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DIVERSITY

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EXAMPLE:
 Luis and Carol are co-workers who seem to have little in common
at first glance. Luis is a young, recently hired male college
graduate with a business degree, raised in a Spanish-speaking
neighborhood in Miami. Carol is an older, long-tenured woman
raised in rural Kansas, who achieved her current level in the
organization by starting as a high school graduate and working
her way through the hierarchy. At first, these co-workers may
experience some differences in communication based on their
surface-level differences in education, ethnicity, regional
background, and gender. However, as they get to know one
another, they may find they are both deeply committed to their
families, share a common way of thinking about important work
problems, like to work collaboratively, and are interested in
international assignments in the future. These deep-level
similarities will overshadow the more superficial differences
between them, and research suggests they will work well together.

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EXAMPLE:
 Steve and Dave are two unmarried white male college
graduates from Oregon who recently started working
together. Superficially, they seem well matched. But
Steve is highly introverted, prefers to avoid risks,
solicits the opinions of others before making decisions,
and likes the office quiet, while Dave is extroverted,
risk-seeking, and assertive and likes a busy, active, and
energetic work environment. Their surface-level
similarity will not necessarily lead to positive
interactions because they have such fundamental, deep-
level differences. It will be a challenge for them to
collaborate regularly at work, and they’ll have to make
some compromises to get things done together.

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Discrimination:
 Organizations need to engage in Diversity Management
to eliminate unfair discrimination.
 Helping employees with training and development
opportunities, the negative impact of discrimination
can be minimized.

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DISCRIMINATION

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Biographical Characteristics
Objective and easily obtained personal characteristics.
Biographical characteristics represent many of the surface-level
aspects of diversity.
These are characteristics that are very easy to identify.
Biographical characteristics typically include age, gender, and
race. It can also include tenure, religion, sexual orientation, and
gender identity
Age
– Older workers bring experience, judgment, a strong work
ethic, and commitment to quality.
Gender
– Few differences between men and women that affect job
performance.

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Biographical Characteristics (Continued)
Race & Ethnicity
– Controversial issue: differences exist, but could be more
culture based than race based.
– Related to employment outcomes and tendency to favor
colleagues such as employee selection, promotion, pay
raises, performance evaluation and work place
discrimination.

Tenure
– People with job tenure (seniority at a job) are more
productive, absent less frequently, have lower turnover, and
are more satisfied.

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Other Biographical Characteristics
 Religion
– May impact the workplace in areas of dress, grooming and
scheduling
– Religious and non – religious people question each other belief
system – but lot of conflict as well on religious faiths.
– Countries law prohibit employers from discriminating against
employees based on religion (safe environment).
 Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity
– Relatively new issue – transgendered employees.
– Number of employees are implementing policies and practices
protecting the rights of transgendered in the workplace.
– Companies policies to govern how their organization treat
employees.
– For example IBM is having a strong transgender and gender
identification policies as part of their corporate culture.
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Ability
An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a
job.
 Intellectual and Physical Abilities

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Ability
Made up of two sets of factors:
– Intellectual Abilities
• The abilities needed to perform mental activities.
• General Mental Ability (GMA) is a measure of overall
intelligence.
• Wonderlic Personnel Test: a quick measure of intelligence for
recruitment screening.
• No correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction.
– Physical Abilities
• The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar characteristics.

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Dimensions of Intellectual Ability

E X H I B I T 2–1

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Dimension Description

Number Aptitude It is an ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic.

It is the ability to understand what is read and heard and the

Comprehension
relationship of words to each other.

It is a dying ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly

Perceptual Speed
and accurately.

It is the ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then

Inductive Reasoning
solve the problem.

It is the ability to see the logic and assesses the implication of the art
Deductive Reasoning
argument.

It is the ability to imagine how an object would look like its position in
Special Visualization
space was changed.

Memory It is the ability to retain and recall past experiences.

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Nine Basic Physical Abilities

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Flexibility Factors

Flexibility Factors
•Extent flexibility
•Dynamic flexibility

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Other Physical Factors

Other Factors
•Body coordination
•Balance
•Stamina

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Factor Description

Dynamic Strenght Ability to exert muscular force continuously over time.

Trunk Strenght Ability to exert muscular using trunk muscles.

Static Strenght Ability to exert force against external objects.

Ability to expand a maximum of energy in one or a series of explosive

Explosive Strenght
acts.

Extent Flexibility Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible.

Dynamic Flexibility Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements.

Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the

Body  co-ordination
body.

Balance Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance.

Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged efforts over

Stamina
time.
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Role of Disabilities
 When focusing on ability, it can create problems when
attempting to develop workplace policies that recognize
diversity in terms of disabilities.
 It is important to recognize diversity and strive for it in
the hiring process.
 An organization needs to be careful to avoid
discriminatory practices by making generalizations
about people with disabilities.

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Implementing Diversity Management Strategies
 Making everybody more aware and sensitive to the
needs of others.

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 Global Implications
 Biographical Characteristics
– Not much evidence on the global relevance of the
relationships described in this chapter.
– Countries do vary dramatically on their biographical
composition.

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Additional Global Implications
 Intellectual Abilities
– Structures and measures of intelligence generalize across
cultures.
 Diversity Management
– Diversity management is important across the globe.
However, different cultures will use different frameworks
for handling diversity.

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Summary and Managerial Implications
 Summary:
– Ability
• Directly influences employee’s level of performance.
• Managers need to focus on ability in selection, promotion, and
transfer.
• Fine-tune job to fit incumbent’s abilities.
– Biographical Characteristics
• Should not be used in management decisions: possible source
of bias.

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 Summary and Managerial Implications
– Diversity Management
• Must be an ongoing commitment at all levels of the
organization.
• Policies must include multiple perspectives and be long term
in their orientation to be effective.

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 Publishing as Prentice Hall

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