Cultural Diversity Management in organizations: psychological variables –- diversity trainings ; Magisterarbeit

Abstract

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: Diversity represents the 'multitude of individual differences and similarities that exist between people' (Treven Treven, 2007, p.29). It came into play as an organizational concept three decades ago, in the 1980s in the US as an initiative to create a more positive business perspective and provide equal employment opportunities for various minority groups. The initiative that started as a mere political correctness and legal compliance issue later on evolved into a complex business-orientated strategy in the area of human resource management and development, organizational culture and leadership, named by Gilbert, Stead, and Ivancevich (1999) the new organizational paradigm. Changing demographics and recent societal changes like extensive immigration and consequent increase in international workforce alongside with current economic metatrends such as internationalisation and globalisation are causing more exposure to Diversity, both in daily and in business life. Managing Diversity is becoming a strategic focus area of management in organizations and a resource, which enables companies gain competitive advantage on the modern market through company's most important asset - its people (Richard, 2000). Literature reviews (Cox Blake, 1991) and numerous surveys (e.g. The Second European Diversity Survey, 2004; Survey on Diversity in Corporate Annual Reports of Stoxx 50 Companies, 2009) show that the topic of Diversity and, eminently, the issues of cultural diversity and ethnicity are currently gaining prominence amongst human resource (HR) professionals. Consequently, cultural diversity trainings (CDTs) are becoming salient, e.g. researchers report (Sweeney, 2002 as cited in Jackson, Joshi Erhardt, 2003) that 67% of employers carry out ethnicity-related diversity trainings (DT). However, scholars (King, Dawson, Kravitz, Gulick, 2010, p.1) point out that 'prevalence of DT has not been matched by empirical research on its effectiveness'. The trend toward diversity trainings in organizations poses the question of their efficiency (Pendry, Driscoll, Field, 2007; Roberson, Kulik, Pepper, 2001), which can be operationalized as organizational business and individual-level outcomes, i.e. in form of psychological variables, relevant in that regard for both parties - employees and organizations. On the structural level of organizations Diversity is viewed as an organizational human resource development tool Diversity Management (DM). This tool enables acknowledging the differences between employees and helps to use diversity's positive contributions for strategic purposes of the company. Diversity management focuses primarily on organizational practices of recruitment, training and promoting underrepresented groups and is broadly defined by Cox and Blake (1991, p.45): 'Managing diversity refers to a variety of management issues and activities related to hiring and effective utilization of personnel from different cultural backgrounds'. Based on the so-called business case for diversity human resource management (HRM) models generally assume that there's a certain alignment between organizational human resource strategies, organizational performance, and competitiveness. Despite of somewhat contradictory results of empirical studies of diversity in teams and workgroups (Williams O'Reilly, 1998), the general stand is that managed the right way diversity brings benefits and improvements such as attracting the best minority personnel, enhancing decision-making, increasing team cooperation, and problem solving (Egan, 2005; Elsass Graves, 1997), reducing opportunity costs by cutting down turnover, absenteeism rates, increasing job satisfaction, improved commitment, and organizational flexibility (Cox Blake, 1991). Based on various literature reviews (Jackson et al., 2003; Shore, Chung-Herrera, Dean, Ehrhart, Jung, Randel, Singh, 2009), three main structural levels can be differentiated within Diversity research in organizations: organizational, group and individual (see 2.4. Diversity Outcomes). Focus of group diversity research clearly lies in the area of group performance (e.g. Chatman O'Reilly, 2004; Watson, Kumar, Michaelson, 1993). Quantitatively less attention has been devoted to individual-level psychological variables, such as employee attitudes (Montei, Adams Eggers, 1996; Nakui, Paulus, Van der Zee, 2008) and, in particular, attitudes towards diversity (Van Oudenhoven-Van der Zee, Paulus, Vos, Parthasarathy, 2009). Research of organizational Diversity lies in the area of economic company performance (Hollowell, 2007), whereas again the impact of company's Diversity management strategy influencing individual-level psychological variables, such as employee affective organizational commitment (Magoshi Chang, 2009) has been far less researched. Therefore, a research gap seems to be particularly apparent within the area of psychological outcome variables of cultural diversity in organizations, with central variables being affective commitment and attitudes towards diversity (ATD). This fact is somewhat paradoxical in the twenty-first century's age of knowledge work, where concepts like commitment HR strategy are key and where 'learning organizations' target at 'mobilizing worker commitment and sustainable competitiveness" (Bratton Gold, 2007, p.59). As literature research shows group diversity research has been mostly focused on the performance aspect of workgroup diversity (Chatman O'Reilly, 2004). Far less researched, but nonetheless not less important, are employee's affective reactions (e.g. commitment) and attitudes towards diversity (Van Oudenhoven-Van der Zee et al., 2009). Existing studies (Chang, 2006; Huselid, 1995) examine the effects of HR commitment practices and, using the logic of the commitment management approach, prove (Magoshi Chang, 2009) that attitudes towards diversity change as a consequence of company's exercising of Diversity Management and have far-reaching consequences on employee's affective commitment (AC). In other words: HR commitment practices have a positive effect on employees' organizational commitment. With change of attitudes being a common goal of diversity trainings, another research line has taken up the study of attitudinal changes as a result of employee participation in DTs. Speaking of the outcomes, many researchers (van Knippenberg Haslam, 2003; Van Oudenhoven, Van der Zee, Paulus, Vos Parthasarathy, 2009) have suggested that positive attitudes towards diversity in workgroups affect feelings and general work attitudes of participants in a positive way. Thus, research has suggested a strong link between the attitudes and organizational commitment. Multiple associations of commitment with such variables as performance, productivity, retention, citizenship behaviour have been documented in the literature (Meyer Allen, 1990, 1991, 1997) and have left no doubt about the concept's importance. Based on empirical research of commitment practices (Bae Lawler, 2000; Huselid, 1995), it has been suggested that Diversity Management Practices (DMP) can be seen as a reflection of commitment management philosophy. According to Magoshi and Chang (2009) commitment management approach foregrounds the reciprocity between the company and the employees (Kossek Block, 2000), views the relationship between them as exchanges of commitment (March Simon, 1958), and inherently implies devotion of the company practicing DM to the employees and their needs. In line with the abovementioned theory, company's adherence to Diversity Management Practices (e.g. in form of carrying out HR development initiatives like cultural diversity trainings) triggers positive effects on employees' organizational commitment and should, therefore, be treated as an important outcome, which implicates positive consequences for overall organizational performance. Research on both: commitment (Magoshi Chang, 2009) and attitudes towards diversity (Riordan, 2000; Strauss, 2007) indicates that the abovementioned effects vary for groups with different ethnic composition as well as for people with majority and minority backgrounds. This fact offers interesting basis for scientific debate and will be further on discussed in this thesis.