Diversity in Organizational Behavior

Why Diversity Matters

• A tech company's project team, formed by selecting members solely on technical skills and overlooking surface-level (age, ethnicity, gender) and deep-level diversity (attitudes, values), struggled to generate innovative ideas, leading to stagnant thinking and inadequate solutions.
• Conflicts arose from differing work styles, causing frustration and subpar software despite missed deadlines.
• Innovatech Solutions manager Lisa leads a project team that develops a cutting-edge application by considering surface-level and deep-level diversity during team formation.
• A diverse group with varying ages, ethnicities, and genders was assembled, while also recognizing differences in values, attitudes, and work styles.
• Lisa fostered an open environment that encourages collaboration and innovation by assigning clear roles based on individual strengths, such as pairing a senior developer with a younger programmer focused on user experience.

Diversity in OB

• Workplace diversity refers to the degree to which an organization represents different cultures.
• Surface-level diversity describes easily perceived differences like age, generation, and race.
• Deep-level diversity encompasses verbal and nonverbal behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are not as easily perceived.
• Surface-level diversity includes age and generational differences, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and physical and mental ability.
• Deep-level diversity includes personality traits, values, attitudes, and beliefs.
• Individual differences influence emotions, attitudes, perceptions, and motivation.
• Team processes affect ethics, decision-making, creativity, innovation, and conflict negotiation.
• Leadership influences work satisfaction, team performance, and achievement of organizational goals.

Age/Generation Diversity

• Today's workforce includes five generations: traditionalists (born before 1946), baby boomers (born 1946–1964), generation Xers (born 1965–1981), millennials (born 1982–2000), and generation Z (born 1998-2016).
• Baby Boomers (1946-1964) number 75.5 million people, have a driven, ambitious work ethic, invented the 50-60 hour work week, and strive to do their best.
• Baby Boomers consider pay and benefits most important, value loyalty, respect, formal roles, and competition, prefer face time at work, and "play by the rules", leading to an imbalance between work and family.
• Generation X (1965-1981) number 65.7 million people, have a balanced work ethic, work smarter and are self-reliant and project-oriented, and want structure and direction in their careers.
• Gen X focuses on balancing pay/benefits with personal growth, are adaptable but only loyal to a point, resent living in the shadow of Baby Boomers, independent, and value diversity, and seek balance between work and family.
• Millennials (1982-2000) number 79.4 million people, are idealistic yet realistic, seek flexibility and control, want to have a say, and work from anywhere at anytime.
• Millennials value workplace culture more than pay/benefits, multitasking, meaningful work, collaboration, tolerance, being goal-oriented, and technology, seek fun in life and emphasize self-fulfillment over traditional work values.

Race and Ethnicity

• Race encompasses factors of physical appearance like skin, hair, or eye color.
• Ethnicity relates to sociological factors such as nationality, culture, language, and ancestry.

Gender Diversity and Sexual Orientation

• Gender diversity means equal representation of men and women.
• A glass ceiling is an invisible barrier limiting women's ability to progress to senior positions.
• Sexual orientation refers to a person's sexual identity.

Ability Diversity

• Ability diversity means representation of people with different levels of mental and physical abilities within an organization.
• Managing ability diversity begins with selecting employees with abilities to best fit a role, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

Diversity Initiatives

• Three diversity initiatives commonly implemented by most companies include: reducing bias, hiring tests, and grievance procedures.
• Reducing bias refers to the tendency to show unfair prejudice against another person or group.
• Approximately 40% of U.S. companies use hiring tests designed to fight bias, yet some managers use these tests selectively.
• The grievance system aims to provide employees who feel discriminated against a safe platform to air grievances against biased managers.

Positive Ways to Promote Diversity

• Implement college recruitment programs targeted at women and minorities.
• Facilitate mentoring to involve people from different races, ethnicities, and genders.
• Increase contact between diverse groups of people in the workplace.
• Encourage social accountability.

Cross-Cultural Diversity

• Managing cross-cultural diversity involves cultivating a deep appreciation for other people's cultural differences.
• It requires willingness to change behavior and perspectives to communicate effectively with other employees, teams, and organizations.

The GlobalTech Transformation

• GlobalTech team transitions from cultural bias, defensiveness, and minimization to acceptance of Amina's invaluable contributions.
• This change allows adapted communication styles, active inclusion, and greater integration of multiculturalism into the work culture.
• Elevated creativity, innovation, and inclusivity in the workplace led to greater success.

Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)

• Consists of six stages to describe the way people experience cultural difference.
• By Dr. Milton bennett's, it starts form least developed to most developed.
• Denial: People do not really believe there are differences between people and aren't particularly interested in cultural differences.
• Defense/reversal: People recognize cultural differences, but feel threatened by these differences (defense).
• Minimization: Aware of cultural differences but focus on the human element; display a "live and let live" mentality.
• Acceptance: Involves a deep understanding of one's own and others' cultural identities, along with an appreciation for different cultural values.
• Adaptation: The ability to view a certain situation from a different cultural perspective and adapt behavior to be more effective in managing that situation.
• Integration: A deep understanding of one or more cultures and seamlessly integrate them into own identity.

Cultural Metacognition

• Cultural metacognition refers to the level of conscious cultural awareness we possess during cross-cultural interactions.
• Those who interact with others across different cultures have higher levels of cultural metacognition than those who communicate with those in the same culture.
• Characteristics of people with high cultural intelligence inclue openness to cultural diversity, flexibility and adaptability, emotional resilience, curiosity, tolerance and respect for differences
• They also possess patience, a nonjudgmental attitude, global identity, global leadership behaviors, and multicultural experiences.

Importance of Individual Differences

• Individual differences refer to the behavioral and cognitive similarities and differences among people.
• To understand these, one must have self-awareness, or awareness of our own feelings, behaviors, personalities, likes, and dislikes.
• Awareness of others means having a consciousness of other people's feelings, behaviors, personalities, likes, and dislikes.
• Self-concept is how we feel about ourselves, made up of two key components: self-esteem (own worth) and self-efficacy (ability to succeed).

Nature Versus Nurture

• Personality is a stable and unique pattern of traits, characteristics, and behaviors that gives an individual their identity.
• Personality traits are characteristics that describe our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
• A twin study showed that 40% of personality traits are attributed to inheritance, while 60% are attributed to environmental and situational factors.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• MBTI is a psychometric questionnaire that evaluates four psychological preferences that combine to describe 16 personality types.
• The four pairs of preferences are extraversion (E) versus introversion (I), sensing (S) versus intuitive (N), thinking (T) versus feeling (F), and judging (J) versus perceiving (P).
• Extraverts tend to be outgoing, talkative, and expressive, while introverts tend to be reserved and like to work by themselves.
• Sensing people prefer tangible, concrete, real-life information based on known facts, while intuitive people tend to be imaginative, creative, and insightful.
• Thinking people use reason and logic to make decisions, while feeling people draw from their own values when making decisions.
• Judging people prefer order, structure, plans, and rules, while perceiving people are flexible and adaptable and like to keep their options open.

Limitations of MBTI

• MBTI does not describe emotional stability or neuroticism.
• Emotional stability is the extent to which one can remain calm and composed.
• Neuroticism is a tendency to be tense, moody, irritable, and temperamental.

The Big Five Model

• Openness to experience: being curious, creative, and receptive to new ideas.
• Conscientiousness: being thoughtful, organized, responsible, and achievement-oriented.
• Neuroticism: being tense, moody, irritable, and temperamental.
• Extraversion: being outgoing, sociable, assertive, and talkative.
• Agreeableness: being trusting, good-natured, tolerant, forgiving, and cooperative.
• Core self-evaluation (CSE) refers to appraisals that people make of their own abilities, self-worth, control, and capabilities.
• CSE involves four main personality dimensions: locus of control, emotional stability, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.
• Locus of control is the extent to which people believe they have influence over events.
• Internal locus of control: The belief that people control events.
• External locus of control: The belief that performance is a product of circumstances beyond immediate control.

Other Personality Attributes

• Machiavellianism: the behavior of people who manipulate others and use unethical practices for personal gain.
• High levels of Machiavellianism: tend be pragmatic, may be prone to lying to achieve goals, are good at influencing others, and have the ability to distance themselves from conventional morality.
• Self-monitoring is the degree to which people adjust their behavior to accommodate different situations.
• High self-monitors might hold back on expressing their true feelings, whereas low self-monitors do not disguise their behaviors
• Proactive personality refers to how much individuals take the initiative to change their circumstances, with high proactive personalities looking for oppurtunities to change events.
• Proactive personality is generally more accepting of the status quo with low level taking action.
• Type A orientation: competitive, impatient, aggressive, achievement oriented.
• Type B orientation: relaxed, easy-going, patient, less competitive.
• Risk-taking propensity includes engaging in behaviors with positive or negative outcomes, and high risk-takers make fasted decisions based on less information.
• Low risk-takers require more time with descision making.