38 Part One Environmental and Organizational Context
The international arena is not a threatening place for diverse firms, a fact that is partic-ularly important because of the major role that international operations and sales will play in the growth, and even survival, of companies in the global economy. The percentage of overall revenues from international operations and sales continues to increase dramatically.
The advantage of multinational companies that have and value cultural diversity becomes abundantly clear in this global environment discussed in the previous section.
Chapter 2 Environmental Context: Globalization, Diversity, and Ethics 39
services. The redefining organization not only deals with but recognizes the value of a diverse workforce; it engages in visionary planning and problem solving to tap the strength of the diversity. This approach involves both developing and implementing policies and practices that distribute power among all diverse groups in the organization.
5. Multicultural organization. The true multicultural organization is characterized by core cultural values and an ongoing commitment to eliminate social oppression and promote dignity and respect for everyone throughout the organization. All members of diverse cul-tural and social groups are involved in the decisions that shape the mission, structure, tech-nology, psychosocial dynamics, and products and services of the organization.
The true multicultural organization as defined is the stated ideal of an increasing num-ber of organizations, although most are still in transition to this fifth stage. If carefully stud-ied and objectively analyzed, most of today’s organizations would still be best described by one of the other preceding forms discussed. A high-profile exception would be a generally recognized multicultural firm such as Microsoft. It has a Diversity Department and Diver-sity Advisory Council that is charged with upholding the vision of “maximizing the com-pany’s performance through understanding and valuing differences.” As the Microsoft Diversity Director declared:
We need to stress that all human cultures have common needs, a common sense of humanity.
But there are differences, too. How in the world do you please a customer, for example, if you don’t know what he or she values? That’s what culture is all about, that’s what differences are all about. Diversity assumes not only that people are different—we know that—but that their difference is value-added. If you know how to harness that difference, you’ll be more competitive as a corporation than those firms that don’t, whether in the domestic marketplace, and certainly in the global marketplace.37
Moving toward and building a truly multicultural organization, as Microsoft has done, is perhaps the most important, but there are also some individual- and organization-level steps and techniques that can be used to effectively manage diversity. Unfortunately, to date, most of these diversity programs have fallen short of their objectives. For example, one study by the New York–based research organization Catalyst asked African American women if diversity programs were effective in addressing subtle racism. A large majority (64 percent) said that they were not, and only 12 percent said that they had benefited from these programs to a great or very great extent.38The following sections provide some individual and orga-nizational approaches that may help make managing diversity more effective.
Individual Approaches to Managing Diversity
Individual approaches to managing diversity typically take two interdependent paths:
learning and empathy. The first is based on acquiring real or simulated experience; the sec-ond is based on the ability to understand feelings and emotions.
Learning
Many managers are often unprepared to deal with diversity; because of their inexperience they are unsure of how to respond. Even those who think they are knowledgeable may actu-ally need, but not seek, diversity training. For example, one recent study revealed an inter-esting counterintuitive finding. Those with low competence in the diversity domain were unaware of their deficiency and therefore were not motivated to participate in diversity training, while those who were relatively competent expressed more interest in additional diversity training and the opportunity to attend a voluntary session.39In other words, those who may not think they need to learn about diversity must work especially hard to learn and experience as much as they can about developing appropriate behavior.
40 Part One Environmental and Organizational Context
At the heart of this learning process is communication. Managers must openly commu-nicate one-on-one, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, religion, or those challenged with a disability, in order to determine how best to understand and interact with them. In this way managers can learn more about a diverse group’s personal values and how the individuals like to be treated.
Managers can also begin to develop a personal style that works well with each member of a diverse group. For example, to their amazement, many managers have learned that people who are challenged with a disability do not want special treatment. They want to be treated like everyone else, asking only for equal opportunities in employment. Many man-agers are unaware of their biased treatment of these employees. For example, after a review of the research literature in this area, the following conclusion was drawn:
It should be noted that several of these studies have found that the physically challenged workers were more intelligent, motivated, better qualified, and had higher educational levels than their nonphysically challenged counterparts. While these findings may help account for the superior performance of those physically challenged, they may also reflect hidden biases whereby a physically challenged person must be overqualified for a specific job. In addition, they may reflect hesitancy to promote physically challenged individuals: the physically chal-lenged may stay in entry-level jobs whereas similarly qualified nonphysically chalchal-lenged individuals would be rapidly promoted.40
In this learning process, managers can also encourage diverse employees to give them candid feedback regarding how they are being treated. In this way, when the manager does something that an employee does not feel is proper, the manager quickly learns this and can adjust his or her behavior. This form of feedback is particularly important in helping orga-nizations gain insights to effectively manage diversity.
Empathy
Closely linked to the individual learning strategy is empathy, the ability to put oneself in another’s place and see things from that person’s point of view. Empathy is particularly important in managing diversity because members of diverse groups often feel that only they can truly understand the challenges or problems they are facing. For example, many women are discriminated against or harassed at work because of their gender, and, despite surface efforts to discourage these problems, discrimination and a negative climate for women have become institutionalized through male-dominated management. Discrimina-tion and harassment may become the way things are done. A recent meta-analysis of 62 studies of gender differences in harassment perceptions found that women perceive a broader range of social-sexual behaviors as harassing. In particular, women were most dif-ferent from men on perceptions involving a hostile work environment, derogatory attitudes toward women, dating pressure, or physical sexual contact, but women and men were closer on their perceptions of sexual propositions or sexual coercion.41These problems have sometimes resulted in sex bias or sexual harassment suits against organizations, and in recent years, the courts have favorably ruled on these charges.42
Empathy is an important way to deal with more subtle problems because it helps the manager understand the diverse employee’s point of view. For example, many women in business offıces say that they are willing to get coffee for their male counterparts or bosses if they are on their way to the coffee room, but, importantly, they feel that they should be given similar treatment and have coffee brought to them on the same basis. Similarly, many managers try very hard to promote minorities into management positions and to give them work-related experiences that can help their careers. At the same time, however, these man-agers need to empathize with the fact that some minority members may be ambivalent or
Chapter 2 Environmental Context: Globalization, Diversity, and Ethics 41
have mixed emotions about being promoted. They may like advancement in terms of pay and prestige, but at the same time they may be concerned about receiving special treatment, failing, or not living up to everyone’s expectations. By learning how to empathize with these feelings and by offering encouragement, guidance, and after-the-fact backup support, the manager can play an important individual role in more effectively managing diversity.