Why you need to understand pros and cons of diversity before choosing it as a HRM strategy

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 22nd of April 2014

Although diversity ranks high amongst most discussed topics in recent years when it comes to management, it is still important to understand what it really means. Diversity is not just being different, instead it is compositional construct (Harrison and Klein, 2007). Therefore, one must first study the nature and composition of differences before actually exploring diversity. There are few studies on the topic that are based on specific nature of group composition (cf. Moreland et al., 1996) and majority of these studies have defined diversity as “variety” or some numerical count in terms of nationalities of members in a group (cf. Harrison and Klein, 2007). A group can be diverse when it has members from different nationalities, but a group of members from India, Russia, Egypt and China might not have the same kind of dynamics with a group comprising of Japan, China, America, and French national. Although both of them have equal numerical values, differences in culture and nationalities actually affects the nature of composition of such groups. It was noted by Moreland et al. (1996) that the number as well as types of people in a group can have significant influence on the performance and dynamics of such group. Thus, one could expect such influence to be either negative or positive.

In accordance with Harrison and Klein (2007) as well as hypothesis on values in diversity (Jehn et al., 1999; Watson et al., 1993), the presence of more nationalities in group means that more tasks can be debated on, variety of information can be gathered and, creativity and performance is increased because these members from different nationalities are expected to contribute to the knowledge and experience of the group.

However, Van Knippenberg and Schippers (2007) noted that diversity can influence social categorization, which will mean a subsequent increase in ingroup favoritism and outgroup rejection. Such is definitely negative for any business because it will result to lack of knowledge sharing, conflicts, organizational politics and other negative social vices that will eventually affect the company negatively.

Thus, while we appreciate the beauty of diversity, one should also take time to understand and study the negative effects in order to better control such effects. This is because negative outcome will affect the company negatively, producing the opposite result of what set objectives are meant to actually do.

References

Harrison, D.A. and Klein, K.J. (2007), “What’s the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations”,The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 1199-1228.

Jehn, K.A., Northcraft, G. and Neale, M.A. (1999), “Why differences make a difference: a field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in workgroups”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 441-463.

Moreland, R.L., Levine, J.M. and Wingert, M.L. (1996), “Creating the ideal group: composition effects at work”, in Witte, E.H. and Davis, J.H. (Eds),Understanding Group Behavior: Small Group Processes and Interpersonal Relations, Vol. 2, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 11-35.

Van Knippenberg, D. and Schippers, M.C. (2007), “Work group diversity”, in Posner, M.I. and Rothbart, M.K. (Eds), Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 58, Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 515-541.

Watson, W., Kumar, K. and Michaelson, L.K. (1993), “Cultural diversity’s impact on interaction process and performance: comparing homogeneous and diverse task groups”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36, pp. 996-1025.