Managing Diversity in Organisations Literature review

Managing Diversity in Organisations - Literature review Example The study will try to analyze the literature on selected topic from the view point of strategic human resource management. Literature Review Taylor Cox, who is a renowned US diversity scholar, has expressed both annoyance and frustration on issues like misuse of the term diversity in the field of management. Cox (1994) has argued that, managing diversity in organization was never an American issue because in today’s world, organizations of other countries face the same challenge as American companies do when it comes to managing a diversified workforce. According to Cox (1994), non-American companies need to understand the importance of key issues associated with managing diversity such as knowledge sharing, team work, lattice communication path etc. According to Seidl and Becker (2006), organizations need to take help of guidelines or best practices suggested by other successful companies in order to maintain diversity in business place. The scholar duos have stated that the term â€Å"managing diversity† should be used in order to address complexity and cross culture perspective of business practices. Research works done by various management scholars on the topics like diversity management have influenced the researcher to write this literature review. Equality at work: Global Perspective Many companies across the globe face challenges regarding maintaining provision of equality in the workplace despite the presence of national legislative frameworks in many countries. There are evidences regarding the gender discrimination in the workplaces in many countries across the world, such examples are not good sign for management researchers and managers who are supporters of the agenda named as â€Å"managing diversity in the workplace.† According to Singh and Vinnicombe (2003), pie for women in the management position is comparatively low in comparison to male counterparts. Becker and Haunschild (2003) have pointed out that many companies ign ore the complex issues regarding managing diversity in the organization. According to recent survey, rate of termination for disabled people is twice in comparison to able-bodied people in the UK. Such examples are showing that organizations need to rethink about discriminations related to gender, race, disability, colour and nationality in order to match steps with global trend of bringing and managing diversity in the organizations. Research scholar Korabik and Abbondanza’s (2004) have stated that women are equally capable of modifying organizational policies and taking part in business policy determination. Hence, it is evident from the above discussion that managing a workforce which is diversified in terms of gender, race, physical ability, nationality and colour can help organizations not only to achieve equality but also to improve their service quality. Equal Opportunities and Managing Diversity During early 1990s, management researchers have introduced the term †Å"managing diversity† in order to define characteristics of equal opportunities (EO). Research scholars such as Jackson and Schuler’s (2003) have stated that organizations need to adopt the managing diversity strategy in order to use potential human resources available in the global marketplace. Definition of managing diversity in organization can be stated as â€Å"understanding that there are differences among employees and that