Unit 8: Chapter 5–Managing in a Multicultural
Environment
→The Increasing Diversity of the Workforce and the Environment
• Diversity-differences among people due to the following:
• Age: Managers must ensure that the policies and procedures they have in place treat all workers
fairly, regardless of their age.
• Gender: Men and women must be treated evenly in the workplace.
• Race and Ethicality: The increasing racial and ethical diversity of the workforce and the population
as a whole underscore the importance of effectively managing diversity.
• Religion: A Key issue of managers in religious diversity is recognizing and being aware of different
religions and their beliefs, with particular attention paid to when religious holidays fall.
• Capabilities/Disabilities: Employers must accommodate people with disabilities to effectively do
their job.
• Socioeconomic background: Requires that managers be sensitive and responsive to the needs and
concerns of individuals who might not be as well off as others.
• Sexual Orientation: Organizations must have sexual harassment training.
• Reasons why diversity is a pressing matter in management:
1. Ethical imperative that diverse people must receive equal opportunities and be treated
fairly and justly.
2. Improve organizational effectiveness.
3. Still substantial evidence that diverse individual experience unfair treatment in the
workplace on a global level.
→Discrimination –SA Context
✓ Discrimination – To show favor, prejudice or bias for or against a person on any arbitrary grounds
such as biases, race, gender, pregnancy etc.
✓ Two types of discrimination in SA:
1. Fair discrimination
2. Unfair discrimination
1. Fair Discrimination –SA Context:
o By law discrimination is allowed on four grounds:
1.1 Affirmative action
1.2. Inherent job requirements
1.3. Compulsory discrimination
1.4. Based on productivity
1.1 Affirmative action:
❖ Designed to promote employment equity (fairness in favor of designated groups – race,
women, disabilities)
❖ Main aim–Representation in the workforce.
1.2 Inherent job requirements:
➢ Relates to a specific set of requirements needed to perform a specific job.
➢ Example – A person with poor eyesight cannot be employed as an airline pilot.
1.3 Compulsory discrimination:
▪ In certain cases, employers are not allowed to employ people.
▪ Example – Children under the age of 15 and pregnant women four weeks before giving
birth or six weeks after giving birth.
1.4 Based on productivity:
✓ An employer is allowed to discriminate against employees on the basis of productivity.
✓ Example - Increases based on merit (based on the fairness of criteria used)
2. Unfair Discrimination –SA Context:
o Two forms of unfair discrimination:
2.1 Direct discrimination
2.2. Indirect discrimination
2.1 Direct discrimination:
❖ Easy to identify and involves differential treatment between employees and job applicants
based on arbitrary grounds.
❖ Example–Paying female employees less.
2.2 Indirect discrimination:
• Not easy to identify and a more subtle form of discrimination and are seen as policies that
are neutral, but have a negative effect on individuals or groups.
• Examples – Sexual harassment, medical testing, phycological testing and HIV testing.
→Managers and the Effective Management of Diversity
Critical Managerial Roles:
➢ Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles and Diversity:
The Ethical Imperative to Manage Diversity Effectively:
▪ Two moral principles guide managers in their efforts to meet this imperative (responsibility towards
society):
1. Distributive justice:
✓ Dictates fair distribution of pay, promotions, job titles, interesting job assignments, office
space, and other organizational resources.
✓ Based on meaningful contributions that individuals have made to the organization (such as
time, effort, education, skills, abilities, and performance levels).
2. Procedural justice:
◦ Requires that managers use fair procedures to determine how to distribute outcomes to
organizational members.
◦ Applies to procedures such as appraising subordinates’ performance, deciding who should
receive a raise or a promotion, and deciding whom to lay off when an organization is forced to
downsize.
Effectively Managing Diversity Makes Good Business Sense:
❖ Diverse organizational members can be a source of competitive advantage, helping an organization
provide customers with better goods and services.
❖ The variety of points of views and approaches of problems and opportunities that diverse
employees provide can improve managerial decision making.
→Perception and Unfair Treatment
• Perception - Process through which people select, organize, and interpret sensory input— what
they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste—to give meaning and order to the world around them.
• All decisions and actions of managers are based on their subjective perceptions.
• When these perceptions are relatively accurate—close to the true nature of what is actually being
perceived—good decisions are likely to be made and appropriate actions taken.
• Bad decisions concerning diversity for reasons of age, ethnicity, or sexual orientation include:
1. Not hiring qualified people
2. Failing to promote top-performing subordinates, who subsequently may take their skills to
competing organizations
3. Promoting poorly performing managers because they have the same “diversity profile” as the
manager or managers making the decision.
Factors That Influence Managerial Perception:
➢ Several managers perception of the same person, event or situation are likely to differ because
managers differ in personality, values, attitudes and moods.
➢ These factors can influence how someone perceives a person or situation.
➢ Schemas- An abstracts knowledge structure that is stored in memory and makes possible the
interpretation and organization of information of a person, an event or a situation.
➢ Gender schemas- Preconceived beliefs or ideas about the nature of men and women and their
traits, attitudes, behaviors and preferences.
Perception as a Determinant of Unfair Treatment:
▪ Unfair treatment is likely to occur when managers and other members of an organization rely on
inaccurate information, such as gender schemas, to guide their perceptions of each other.
▪ Gender schemas are a type of stereotype - simplistic and often inaccurate belief about the typical
characteristics of particular groups of people.
▪ Stereotypes are based on visual characteristics (age, gender, race)
Overt Discrimination:
✓ Knowingly and willingly denying divers individuals access to opportunities and outcomes in an
organization.
✓ Its unethical and illegal.
→How to Manage Diversity Effectively
o Secure top management
o Increase the accuracy of perceptions
o Increase diversity awareness
o Increase diversity skills
o Encourage flexibility
o Pay close attention to how employees are evaluated
o Consider the numbers
o Empower employees to challenge discriminatory behaviors, actions and remarks
o Reward employees of efficiently managing diversity
o Provide training, utilizing a multipronged, ongoing approach
o Encourage mentoring of diverse employees