Workplace Diversity

Issues & Perspectives

A few years ago I had a discussion with several colleagues about how little investigative and intellectual attention is given to the notion of diversity as an organizational change process and to organizational efforts to encourage diversity. We expressed concern about the lack of research and substantive scholarship that could provide a basic framework for addressing the problems of increasing diversity now emerging from formal organizations. We observed that there is no integrative framework for conceptualizing the effects of diversity on the variables that organizational management uses in strategic planning and prediction.

The change process we envisioned would involve the following steps: (1) learn about the history and cultural experiences and attributes of various groups, (2) identify areas of need and address these areas with supportive workplace policies and procedures, (3) examine organizational structure and processes to find barriers to inclusion and identify interpersonal supports for communication, information processing, and feedback, and (4) identify organizational development needs and implement change to supply those needs. Realizing change as ongoing, steps 3 and 4 should contain information feedback mechanisms so that policies can be adapted to address emerging needs as they become apparent.

Open systems theory posits change and conflict as inevitable in organizations: Change in any part of a system eventually will affect all of its parts. It follows, therefore, that any organizational change that develops more staff diversity will alter many organizational variables. We need paradigms to lead us to fresh understandings of diversity and its dynamic interactions with those variables.

My colleagues and I discussed the need for a book comprising a series of frameworks that might be useful in managing the range of issues that emerge in contemporary organizations and the environments in which these organizations operate. Because my particular interest is in human services organizations and the delivery of services in dynamic environments, those interests are reflected throughout this book.

Workplace Diversity: Issues and Perspectives presents state-of-the-art theory, research, and practical guidance generated by some of the brightest scholars in the United States. Each chapter provides context for understanding workplace diversity as a change process. Taken together, the chapters yield a perspective on diversity viewed through a wide-angle lens that suggests the range and complexity of the issues diversity raises. Overall, the book contributes to an understanding of the dynamics of change as organizations move toward more inclusive systems.

Acknowledgments

This book is a reality because of the support and encouragement of many people. With Glenda Dewberry Rooney of the Department of Social Work at Augsburg University, Minneapolis; Katherine Giscombe, research director for Catalyst, New York City; and Sylvia Bittle, doctoral candidate in organizational psychology at the University of Maryland and cofounder and codirector of the Center for Strategic Community Development, Charlotte, NC, I discussed the need to look beyond diversity training in making the workplace truly supportive of diversity.

Clayton P. Alderfer of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, R. L. McNeely of the School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Nan Van Den Bergh of Humboldt State University, and Lee See of the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia encouraged me in many ways. R. B. Leashore of Hunter College provided not only wise counsel but also that most precious commodity—time; he was unfailingly affirming in more ways than I can count.

I am particularly grateful to each of the expert contributors. Many had arduous situations to manage—births, weddings, reconstructive surgery, and submissions of tenure packages—and each saw the project as significant and persevered in completing their chapters. Their expertise is awesome.

For me, Murphy’s Law applied during the last nine or 10 months of this project. Everything that could go wrong did—several times. I want to recognize as my birth coach Chanté Lampton, acquisitions associate for NASW Press. She saw me through the difficult beginning of a very hard labor, and I am grateful for her focus and quiet assurances. Senior editor Christina A. Davis and project manager Christine Cotting were prodigious in providing gentle guidance through the major work of bringing the book to completion. I thank them both for working through numerous problems and always teaching me as they did. I am very grateful for the skills of copy editor Cinci Stowell, proofreader Caroline Polk, and indexer Bernice Eisen. I also thank Linda Beebe and Nancy Winchester, former executive editors at NASW Press, for their guidance and capable assistance.

I am also deeply grateful for the many excellent mentors I have known, particularly Dr. Henry J. Meyer. He can take pride in the accomplishments of all the people of color who completed the joint doctoral program in social work and social sciences at the University of Michigan, because he encouraged, guided, and supported us in so many ways. He is a peerless mentor.

—Alfrieda Daly Introduction

Diversity issues have spawned many diversity management programs and initiatives—not all of which are effective. Some workshops have actually resulted in more serious problems than they solved (Murray, 1993; Swisher, 1995). An oversimplification or lack of understanding of diversity’s complexity can intensify pre-existing problems (Murray, 1993). The lack of an integrative framework derived through theoretical arguments and epistemological discussions around diversity’s effects on organizational variables means few consistent guidelines exist for implementing diversity programs. Little attention has focused on structural responses to efforts to promote a climate more supportive of diversity.

Systems changes affect all parts of a system—frequently in unanticipated ways. To better foresee diversity’s effects, organizations need an enhanced understanding of workplace processes that occur in response to diversity. This understanding is particularly crucial for public and volunteer institutions whose major endeavor is the delivery of services to a larger system. How will diversity and its challenges affect organizational practices and services delivery? How are organizational members affected by the confluence of cultural and diversity issues in the larger system from which they come? Unlike the private sector, outcomes for human services are frequently ambiguous and value driven, and core technologies are indeterminate—cause-and-effect relationships between intervention and outcome are not reliable. Thus, studying the processes and effectiveness of diversity efforts in human services can be difficult.

A change process that can lead to organizational systems truly inclusive of diverse groups is needed. Three underlying assumptions are identified for any organization looking for an effective response to diversity: (1) Diversity should be approached as a change process that requires investment of resources and time, (2) any diversity intervention should focus on the context for the needed change, and (3) the intervention plan should be based on an assessment of the particular situation in the target system.

Why is workplace diversity an issue now? Among the reasons for a growing interest in it are immigration and global migration patterns, the increasing presence of women in the workplace, and extension of civil rights to people living with disabilities and equal rights to gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people. These external factors prompt an organizational response because diversity in staffing and related issues affects organizational practices. These factors will become issues in human services organizations because social issues shape public policy. For example, societal concern gave rise to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and to changes in affirmative action legislation in Texas and California. Public policy affects internal organizational policy related to managing diversity. Communication and interpersonal relationships are vital contributors to successful, supportive management of diversity in the workplace. Organizations have to assess workplace factors that hinder or promote diversity goals to ensure that reporting and communication structures are clear. Organizations also must develop policies and reward systems that support the integration of diverse groups into the organizational culture.

Research literature about racial, ethnic, and gender effects on organizational variables is scarce and narrowly focused. Methodologic flaws, such as the assumption of race or gender neutrality in organizations, have led to faulty and inappropriate generalizations. Why would objective scientists perpetrate what Nkomo (1993) called "noninclusive universalism"? In his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Kuhn (1970) defined a core reason: Problem selection and methods used to search for answers are influenced by the social and political conditions of the times. There is considerable evidence of a prevailing hegemony of white males in the workplace, and they are in the majority in positions with legitimate authority and decision-making responsibility. Organizational members who are not white males are generally members of marginalized groups (such as women or people of color) and research into these nondominant groups has been of little interest in terms of organizational needs.

Furthermore, philosophical underpinnings of Western thought have resulted in an axiology that seeks order to end chaos and uncertainty, suppress contradictions, and find the one perfect truth. Organizational research has, for example, shied away from questions that might reveal privileges enjoyed by dominant members or the oppression of the other members (Nkomo, 1993; Scott, 1992).

Before 1990, few journal articles addressed diversity issues, and the few that did were tightly focused on such matters as racial demographics and performance appraisals (Cox & Nkomo, 1990). Overall, there is a paucity of published theory from which to derive integrative frameworks for implementing organizational diversity. Among the issues we discuss in this book are the factors that shape the social and cultural terrain of diversity, the perspectives of some subjugated voices who point to their strengths and needs, and the centrality of communication and information processing throughout an organization for any successful resolution of diversity problems in the workplace.

Traditional paradigms for addressing organizational dynamics focus on uncovering the one correct or most efficient way to achieve goals, but the thrust of contemporary organizational research suggests those paradigms are too rigid to respond appropriately to new dynamic demands. For that reason, this book looks to alternative paradigms for implementing workplace diversity.

Theoretical Underpinnings

Postmodernism

For a deeper understanding of the present reality and meaning of diversity we turn to postmodern theory. This framework emphasizes the social role in the development of knowledge. It is interdisciplinary in its approach to examining social theory. It crosses the fields of anthropology, history, philosophy, women’s studies, and sociology. Postmodern theory concerns the reconceptualization of theory to reveal false knowledge that serves reality poorly. Foucault (1980) identified the development and institutionalization of "global unitary knowledges" that subjugate and disqualify whole sets of knowledge as beneath the required level of validity. More recently, he identified two aspects of subjugated knowledge: (1) historical contents that have been buried and disguised in a systematic way and (2) an entire set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to the task, insufficiently elaborated, or naive (Foucault, 1994). As those who carry this subjugated knowledge work to reclaim the validity of their history and knowledge, Foucault (1994) perceived this as "an insurrection of subjugated knowledge" (p. 41). In this book, chapters 5, 6, 13, and 28 are among several chapters that are clearly examples of this insurrection of knowledge.

Embeddedness

"Embeddedness" is a term used to conceptualize the notion of attitudes and behaviors as fixed within a culture. That is, many of our ideas and responses to "others" derive from the culture by which we are surrounded; many responses are not cognitively derived. This concept comes out of intergroup theory (Alderfer, 1987).

There has been a propensity for viewing race dichotomously—as a black and white issue. Before the 1990s, research on race was predominantly about black people in white America (Cox & Nkomo, 1990). This partialized thinking can be attributed largely to the enslavement of African people. The striking physical and immutable differences combined with vastly different cultural perspectives served as justification for the enslavement and the dehumanizing treatment of slaves. To a large extent, immutable physical and cultural differences resulted in other marginalized groups and other peoples of color facing varying degrees of dehumanization as well. People with immutable differences continue both to experience differential treatment and to differ in what they expect from interpersonal interactions in the workplace. Even when immutable differences are minimal or not immediately apparent, any number of messages are perceived differently among various groups, and these contribute to problems in many subtle ways. For example, no one is identified as black on a U.S. passport except native-born African Americans. Because whiteness is the standard in the United States, this status can be psychologically confusing to all people of color and can reinforce the status of "otherness" among African Americans.

These issues move the discussion to intergroup theory, the discipline most concerned with otherness and thus thought to be most appropriate for cross-level analysis. Alderfer (1987) has suggested that some theories in this area are shaped more by national ideology than by good conceptual thinking because the national ideology pits individuals against the group. He offers a conceptualization of embeddedness to explain cultural and demographic factors that operate on individuals and affect what those people bring into a group interaction. There also is an organizational level of embeddedness that operates through structure and other variables. These attitudes and responses may be so embedded in the culture of the individual or the organization that they are not cognitively perceived. Thus, one needs to become aware of how individual and group factors (for example, gender relations or socioeconomic status differences) may interact in a diverse work group.

Another important issue in the matter of embeddedness is the power differential among organizational members in their work groups. When one discusses diversity among members, particularly when there are demographic differences, power differences among members are assumed. Even if people do not differ on underlying attributes, members from dominant groups are vested with more power than are those members from nondominant groups. Dominant-group members are more likely to have greater access to resources that symbolically represent power, and thereby are more likely to have greater influence on decisions. Values and professional ethics are most likely to be those of the dominant group, and privileges they hold and exercise are unlikely to be a part of any real discourse. Communication patterns and procedural norms help sustain power with the dominant-culture members. Most often, privileges are perceived as earned or inherited, and cultural dynamics at play are denied or are attributed to inherently negative attributes of the "other." Thus, power dynamics are deeply embedded in the processes of incorporating diversity.

Brain Structures

The actual structure of the brain depends in part on environmental input. For example, an enriched environment will affect neurotransmitters and certain neural pathways to form more connections with the cortex so that more complex thought can be achieved. Brain structures also can be influenced by the schema the brain forms. Schema are integrated patterns of knowledge stored in memory; they guide the acquisition of new information. Schema make perception more efficient. The way in which a person from one culture comprehends and remembers a story from another reflects the schema used by that person, and this may differ greatly among cultures.

Finally, language affects brain structure. The French /r/, Hebrew /ch/, and South African "click" sounds are difficult to learn as an adult because enhancing our neural machinery is difficult. Chinese is a tonal language in which the pitch of a spoken word defines the word. In the West, speech is a function of the right-brain hemisphere, but for Chinese people some functions of speech shift to the left hemisphere. These examples of the effects of cultural environment on the morphology of the brain are further evidence of the embeddedness of culture and why change can be so difficult. Although this is not presently codified as theory, it has a place in a paradigmatic approach to understanding diversity in an organizational system. The retraining of thinking patterns can occur with effort and with motivation to participate in a pleasant and supportive workplace.

How This Book Is Organized

The book is divided into six parts. Part I, "Construction of Diversity Paradigms," explores explicit and tacit theories in their historical and current contexts. Examples illustrate how adherence to a particular paradigm, which may be subjected to cultural and political influences, can frustrate adaptive responses and progress. Implications of new approaches and perspectives for intergroup relationships are presented.

Part II, "Origins of Diversity and Its Influence in the Workplace," examines a range of factors that have contributed to increasingly intense diversity issues in the workplace (for example, wars causing major emigration from Asia and Africa and issues of American Indians and people living with disabilities).

Part III, "Policy Issues," looks at emergent changes in society and how they influence policy toward diversity. One focus is on identifying the organizational policies that intergird programs that support diversity effectively.

Part IV, "Organizational Structure and Communication," looks at structural arrangements in organizations and their implications for managing diversity. We approach interpersonal structure and its effect on organizational variables when diversity is an issue by looking at multicultural communication and culturally derived linguistic variations among Latino groups. We also address adaptive structure, which facilitates the interactions among an organization and the diverse groups in a community.

Part V, "Organizational Development Efforts as Change Processes," presents several models of organizational development that enhance support for diversity. These models include structural supports and the use of racial identity scales in assessment and intervention. This section also covers the use of mentoring to support diversity.

Part VI, "Emerging Issues in the Workplace," presents several concerns that will require attention as present trends continue to unfold. Women’s issues and family concerns are among the unresolved workplace issues that are driven by changing demographics and public policies. The last four chapters address issues emerging from people of color and involve power shifts in organizational practices. These chapters do not exhaust the changes that will emerge from a more diverse work force in which formerly disadvantaged groups gain self-esteem as they find their voices in the changing workplace.

References

Alderfer, C. P. (1987). An intergroup perspective on group dynamics. In J. Lorsch (Ed.), Handbook on organizational behavior (pp. 190–222). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cox, T., Jr., & Nkomo, S. M. (1990). Invisible men and women: A status report on race as a variable in organizational behavior research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11, 419–431.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. New York: Pantheon Press.

Foucault, M. (1994). Geneology and social criticism. In S. Seiman (Ed.), The postmodern turn: New perspectives on social theory (pp. 39–45). New York: Oxford Press.

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolution (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago.

Murray, K. (1993, August 1). The unfortunate side effects of "diversity training." New York Times, p. D-1.

Nkomo, S. M. (1993). The emperor has no clothes: Rewriting "race in organizations." Academy of Management Review, 17, 487–513.

Scott, W. R. (1992). Organizations: Rational natural and open systems (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Swisher, K. (1995, February 5). Diversity’s learning curve: Multicultural training’s challenges include undoing its own mistakes. Washington Post, pp. H-1, H-4.