Introduction:
Organizational Behavior is very challenging and interesting concept of modern era of business; it is relevant to the individuals and groups in the organization also it’s important for the managers to understand the behaviors of employees and manage it in a proper way. Diversity in organizations is also related to OB in many different ways. Different people come from different countries bring different traditions and attitudes. The world’s increasing globalization requires more interaction among people from diverse cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds than ever before. People are now part of a worldwide economy with competition coming from nearly every continent. For this reason, profit and non-profit organizations need diversity. However diversity has two sides negative and positive. What are the Benefits of Diversity Management? , what is the main Characteristics of Diversity? And how it can help or hurt group performance? To know more about our topic in this report I will discuss a lot of interesting points about diversity in organizations.
Organizational Behavior:
Normally we use a system approach for this purpose. This approach represents the relationship between people, group and even whole organization. The main purpose of this systematic approach is to achieve individual objective, organizational objective and social objective. Briefly Organizational behavior covered a number of different concepts i.e. Human behavior in entity, leadership and team working. (Kondalkar, 2007).
According to (P.Robbins, 2005)’the organizational behavior is the study of nature and behavior of the people within organization. It normally focused on the matter of practices and applications.”
Main elements of Organizational Behavior:
There are three main important elements of organizational behavior:
‘ Values
‘ Vision
‘ Goals
These three elements give a turn to the organizational culture. The organizational culture consists of formal, informal and social environment. Organizational culture provides help in order to understand leadership, ways of communication, and group structure within organization. (P.Robbin, 2006).
Benefits of OB:
Organization behavior helps in order to become more engaged organizational member, Reduce stress, Effective decision making, Effective work environment, Leadership Qualities, Team working and Work coordination and Improvement in efficiency (P.Robbin, 2006)
Challenges and Opportunities of Organizational Behavior:
‘ Organization behavior responds to the requirement of globalization of modern world.
‘ OB can help in order to reduce issue arising due to the diversity.
‘ OB provides support in order to improve productivity and quality of the work.
‘ Assist in the re-build of the organization structure.
‘ Increase the confidence of the workforce.
‘ Empower and encourage people to perform better.
‘ Improve decision making (P.Robbin, 2006).
Models of Organizational behavior:
The main important models of organizational behavior are as follows:
Autocratic:
In this model of organizational behavior, the major decision is taken by the top management. This model also leads de-motivation into the employees. Operational management involvement in decision making is very low in this model.
Custodial:
In this model, top management take opinions of operational management but ultimate decision is made by the strategic management.
Supportive:
This model of OB leads the participation of the operational employees into the decision making. Operational employee involve into the ultimate decision of the organization.
Collegial:
According to this model, the management work as a team. The level of motivation in this model is very high. All employees involve in to the final decision. (Cunningham, 1998)
Diversity in Organization
Diversity is considered as a big challenge in the modern world of business. Diversity is also termed as Workforce Diversity. It acknowledges differences arising due to different gender such as man or woman, different ethnic groups, and racing difference. In the Middle East especially in U.A.E, people come from different countries with different culture, languages, and traditions crate workforce diversity. Briefly, diversity creates a number of opportunities and challenges for the managers and employees within organization. According to (P.Robbins, 2005) ‘Individual characteristics such as race, gender, and ethnicity create work diversity”.
‘ Diversity is generally defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status’ (Esty, et al., 1995).
Benefits of Diversity Management:
We should have diversity in workplace to become more creative and open to change. Maximizing and capitalizing on workplace diversity has become an important issue for management today.
a) Remove Unfair Discrimination:
Effective diversity management removes unfair discrimination among employees within organization.
b) Remove Sexual Harassment
Proper management of diversity provides help in order to reduce sexual harassment.
c) Intimidation or Threats
Diversity creates intimidation or threat of a specific group within organization. So, proper management of this assists in order to reduce this type of intimidation.
d) Exclusion of People:
Exclusion of a specific group of people from certain activities is also considered as a big challenge within organization. Proper management of diversity reduces such exclusion.
Women in the Workplace
Today’s workforce has the highest levels of employment participation ever by women. The number of dual income families and single working mothers has increased. Change in the family structure means that there are fewer men and women in traditional family roles (Zweigenhaft and Domhoff, 1998).
Levels of Diversity:
There are different levels of diversity, such as:
1. Surface Level Diversity:
This level of diversity arises due to the demographic characteristics such as race, religion, disability status, region, and status.
2. Deep Level Diversity:
This level of diversity arises due to the values and personality differences.
Main Characteristics of Diversity In general, diversity in the workplace is regarded as a positive for companies that can manage it effectively. However, diversity can have also negative effects on the organizations.
Bio graphic characteristics:
1. Age:
It is an important element of biographic character tics. Normally a group of people believe that performance of the employees decline as their age increase. A second group of people believe that as age increase the people become more productive due to experience.
2. Gender:
Different gender is considered as a second important feature of the diversity. A group of individuals believe that man can perform better than woman and vice versa.
3. Race and Ethnicity:
Race is main important feature of the diversity. Different group of people do not like to with people of different race.
4. Disability:
Physical and mental disabilities are another important feature of the diversity of workforce. Disable individuals feel that they cannot perform better than able individuals.
5. Religion:
Mostly, people of difference religions create diversity issues within organizations.
6. Physical Abilities:
Physical abilities of different people also considered as an important feature of the workforce diversity.
Diversity in Groups:
When you build a workforce with employees from different cultures and countries, you increase the number of communication filters and language barriers that impact internal and external communication processes. Work cultures that are more heterogeneous usually find communication easier because employees do not have to work as hard to overcome language and culture issues. Some larger organizations hire interpreters and diversity trainers to help employees work through communication challenges of diversity.
Does diversity help or hurt group performance? The answer is ‘yes’. In some cases, diversity in traits can hurt time performance, whereas in others it can facilitate it. Whereas diversity or homogeneous teams are more effective depend on the characteristic of interest. Group’s individuals with different types of expertise and education are more effective than homogenous groups, also the important way is to emphasize the higher l- level similarities among members, in other word, groups of diverse individual will be much more effective if leaders can show how members have a common interest in the groups success, such that organization leaders determine whether target groups have been underutilized. If groups of employee are not proportionally in top management, managers should look for any hidden barriers to advancement. A to ensure the top- level management represents the diversity of its work-force and client base. According to Stephen P. Robbins. Timothy A. Judge (15th ed.), (2013).organizational Behavior.
Strategies for Diversity Management: There are a large number of strategies that can be implementing in order to manage diversity effectively. Some of the main important strategies are followings:
‘ Effective selection process should introduce in order to reduce diversity issues.
‘ Job responsibilities should match to the abilities of the Human resources.
‘ The management should accommodate disable personnel.
‘ The management should make diversity management as an ongoing commitment.
‘ The strategic management should introduce effective climate for diversity management.
‘ The organization should introduce Training and development programs for the employees.
‘ Management should follow legal framework for equal opportunities.
‘ Top management should encourage fair treatment among employees.
‘ A detail program should introduce to guide managers how to deal with diversity.
‘ Diversity must be defined from top to bottom of the organization.
‘ Strategic management should align resources to the diversity.
‘ The management should introduce leadership accountability system into the organization.
‘ The management should utilize diversity scorecard in order to reduce the issues relevant to the diversity.(P.Robbins, 2005).
Other Outcomes about Diversity
University’s students and diversity
In considering what the outcomes of diversity are for individuals, it is helpful to understand what is meant by outcomes. Patricia Gurin (1999) suggests a helpful method for describing diversity-related outcomes. Gurin proposes three major types of outcomes that are influenced by campus diversity. Learning outcomes refer to active learning processes in which students become involved while in college, the engagement and motivation that students exhibit, the learning and refinement of intellectual and academic skills, and the value that students place on these skills after they leave college. Democracy outcomes refer to the ways in which higher education prepares students to become involved as active participants in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. Gurin (1999) suggests that three major categories-citizenship engagement, racial/cultural engagement, and compatibility of differences-characterize democracy outcomes. Citizenship engagement refers to students’ interest and motivation in influencing society and the political structure, and, to students’ participation in community and volunteer service. Racial/cultural engagement refers to students’ levels of cultural awareness and appreciation and their commitment to participating in activities that help to promote racial understanding. Compatibility of differences refers to an understanding by students that there are common values across racial/ethnic groups, that group conflict can be constructive when it is used appropriately, and that differences do not have to be a divisive force in society. The last category of outcomes discussed by Gurin is related to the ability of students to live and work effectively in a diverse society. Specifically, this refers to the extent to which college has prepared students to be successful in their lives after college and the extent to which the college experience is successful in breaking a pattern of continuing segregation in society. To the categories of outcomes described by Gurin (1999), it is helpful to add two other types of outcomes. The first reflects the ways in which students perceive that diversity has enriched their college experiences. These can be labeled as process outcomes. Measures of student satisfaction, perceptions of campus climate, etc. are examples of outcomes that are included in this category. A final type of outcome reflects the material benefits that students accrue resulting from their attendance at diverse colleges. The most obvious example of material benefits would be higher wages. According to Milem, J. F. (2003)
Conclusion:
At the end of the report, we have highlighted important topics of the organizational behavior. The study of organizational behavior guides us in order to understand about the nature of individual or group in organizations. Briefly, Organizational behavior covered a number of different concepts i.e. Human behavior in entity, leadership and team working. (Kondalkar, 2007). On the other hand, diversity in organizations is very helpful and important way that can help the society more in many fields, working with employees from different countries can give employee good experience in less time, compared with normal employees from similar culture, no one can deny that diversity can had negative side also, it depend on the personalities of the employees, leaders and managers, for example some people cannot be socialize as well as they can be with people who have similar culture. The strategies of diversity in organizations should match to the abilities of the Human resources, management should accommodate disable employees, follow legal framework for equal opportunities. . I had learned that Supervisors and managers are the targeted audience because they need to recognize the ways in which the workplace is changing, evolving, and diversifying. Diverse work teams possess more information than homogeneous ones and they can bring high value to organizations. Respecting individual differences will benefit the workplace by creating a competitive edge and increasing work productivity. Diversity management benefits by creating safe environment where everyone has the access to opportunities and challenges. Management tools in a diverse workforce should be used to educate everyone about diversity and its issues, including laws and regulations. I hope that the information discussed in this report was beneficial.