...ABSTRACT Workplace diversity exists when companies hire employees from various backgrounds and experiences. Many companies see workplace diversity as an investment toward building a better business. Although workplace diversity provides many benefits, it also poses many challenges to employees and managers. To reap the benefits of workplace diversity, employees and managers must understand the challenges and know how to effectively deal with them. Diversity is commonly interpreted in relation to ethnicity, gender and culture. Diversity also captures the differences and similarities between individuals and group, encompassing race, ethnicity, gender, culture, age, sexual orientation, religion, language, education, family status, physical and mental ability. These demographic variables are related to other important diversity characteristics such as values, attitudes, interaction styles, physical and cognitive abilities and non-work commitments. The impact of diversity is both positive and negative. The research questions was: How can diverse workforce affect the organization? Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction 4 Background of the Study 4 Statement of the Problem 4 Purpose of the Study 5 Research Questions 6 Chapter 2. Literature Review 6 Chapter 3. Methodology 12 Data Analysis 12 Final Results 14 References 15 CHAPTER 1. BACKGROUND Today, globalization has become...
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...Xerox Case Study Diana M. Orlando Palm Beach State College Abstract This case study discusses how Xerox makes diversity, equal success. As one of the world’s leading organizations in copiers and ink, Xerox has committed their leadership team to empower their employees to work collectively in bringing new innovative ideas, different view and knowledge to their organization. By creating such a successful diversified organizational team, and along with its leadership, it has allowed Xerox to be known as one of the most admired organizations in the computer industry (Schermerhorn, J. R., 2012). Diversity and Inclusion of Xerox Diversity is an essential part of Xerox’s corporate culture. It offers an equal opportunity to all employees, and allows leadership to take full advantage of different thoughts, views, knowledge and perspectives, which has created a strong workforce and its ability to stay in the top of their league. By creating an equal opportunity-based environment where innovative creativity happens, Xerox has the power fulfill its company goals to succeed. Diversity has changed over that last few decades and Xerox is using diversity to the best of their ability. As a global organization, its diverse workforce is with no question, strong. The thought of hiring people of color in organizations years ago would never be, however their idealism is more about striving for the ability to have a different way of thinking than their competitors. It established...
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...Cedar Technologies | | | | | Odessa BakerLisa BlochMelissa DanielsPaterno DubriaMelinda Tomenis | May 15, 2011University of La Verne | | Table of Contents Synopsis 3 Chapter 1: Organization mission/Goals/Strategies………………………………………………..5 Chapter 2: Effective Organizational Culture……………………………………………………...6 Chapter 3: Motivating Employees 8 Chapter 4: Training and Diversity 12 Chapter 5: Organizational Structure and Design 15 Chapter 6: Communication Effectiveness 18 Chapter 7: Group Decisions 21 Chapter 8: Leadership Style and Development 24 Chapter 9: Empowerment Plan 27 Chapter 10: Building Group Teams 30 Chapter 11: Managing Change 32 References 35 Synopsis Mount Cedar Technologies, Inc., also referred to as Cedar Tech, was founded in Los Angeles, CA in 1995 by John Curtis and Frank Mathew. More than 80% of Cedar Tech’s business comes from customers within California while less than 20% comes from other states. The company started off as an importer and distributor of computer accessories such as computer cables, audio/video cables, surge protectors, etc. In 1998, the company added new products by becoming a provider of third party technology, including hardware, software and services to corporate customers including computer and networking accessories, computers, peripherals, printers, displays, printer consumables, and software. They also offered services such as installing hardware and peripherals into systems, provided...
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...Does workforce diversity always result in better organizational performance? In today’s global competitive environment, workforce diversity became a competitive edge that helps firms better understand different cultures and different ways of conducting business globally (“Benefits and problems”). Taylor Cox emphasized that increasing workforce diversity for better organizational performance is still an essential business issue that receives great attention, as “most of today's small business owners and corporate executives recognize that attention to the challenges and opportunities associated with the growing trend toward culturally diverse work forces can be a key factor in overall business success”. Rob McInnes identified 7 factors that motivate companies to diversify their workforces: As a Social Responsibility: companies exercise corporate social responsibility role by diversifying their workforces and supporting their good living. As an Economic Payback: “diversifying the workforce, particularly through initiatives like welfare-to-work, can effectively turn tax users into tax payers”. As a Resource Imperative: companies shouldn’t be hindered from attracting best talents available in the markets because of discriminatory practices. As a Legal Requirement: law requires companies not to be discriminatory in their employment practices or they will be exposed to penalties, as “fines and loss of contracts with government agencies”. As a Marketing Strategy: companies...
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...TEAM COMPOSITION: IMPACT OF HETEROGENEITY AND HOMOGENEITY INTRODUCTION A team is a group which has a common goal or common objective. Unlike groups, a team focuses on their collective outcome. Usually, teams have members with higher skills which help them in maximizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses accordingly. Every member in the team need to understand how to help other team members to build unity amongst them. Unity and understanding create a sense of responsibility among team members to participate and generate greater performance to attain their main objective. There are certain differences which arise due to instability in the team or its members. These instabilities can be referred to as ego, jealousy between the team members and differences due to incapability in work capacity etc. Team work effectiveness does not come automatically. Teams have to be set up correctly in order to determine the goals. Proper team member selection is very important so as to ensure every member is focused and dedicated towards their target. Hence, mutual commitment is required in order to achieve the objective by all members of a team. To get the work done by team members, team composition must be present. Team composition relates to the overall mixture of characteristics among the members in a team. They interact interdependently to achieve their main objective. To achieve a common goal, performance of every team member must be optimum. Team composition is combined with...
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...Leading high-performance teams The team working is an important concept of the society wherein few people work together towards a common goal. In American culture, working in teams often considered contrary. Marvin Weisbord, author and organizational development expert, mentioned that, “Teamwork is the quintessential contradiction of a society grounded in individual achievement.” Still building, leading and organizing successful teams considered as a critical leadership task. It is always challenging to have people work together closely to achieve specific tasks in any team environment. The team is “a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable.” -- Mohrman et al. The team is “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” -- Katzenbach and Smith The team is “two or more people who must coordinate their activities to accomplish a common goal.” -- Shonk High Performance Teams are always working collaboratively and effectively across the organization to accomplish given team tasks and objectives, delivers the competitive results quickly enough to remain as top performers. There are challenges such as team conflicts, obtaining maximum results from the teams and managing highly diverse teams – maintaining teamwork mentality as well capitalizing on the diversity of talents...
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...Innovative changes and Managing Evolving Generations Wayland Baptist University Management 5305 Organizational Theory Course Instructor: Dr. William Cojocar, Ph.D. Herlinda Sifuentes (January 31, 2012) Abstract Building a culture for Innovation, creativity, smart technology, non-traditional work environment, business management and new strategies sum up the focus of innovation in todays’ competitive changing world . Todays’ economy brings opportunities, moves quickly, and marks innovation as the only way to stay ahead of fast-moving developments and increasing competitive pressures. In their book “Innovation, The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want” Curtis Carlson and William Wilmot (2006) provide a developed disciplined process of innovation. This paper will analyze challenges the business environment faces in developing new ways to lead, inspire creativity, innovation, and challenges in managing the evolving generational gaps in the workplace. Introduction For organization be successful in the current business world is not an easy task. A strong Corporate culture and efficient leadership is essential to face challenges that are presented by competitors and the changing environment. Todays’ organizations must keep themselves open to creativity and continuous innovation, not only to prosper but merely to survive in a world of disruptive change and increasingly stiff competition. These challenges usually make an organization engage...
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...MANAGING DIVERSITY The Managerial Implication of an Increasing Diversity in Workforce Author/Student Note:Bong joseph laila ,MBA Student; Frederick Taylor University Moraga CA USA. This Research paper was conducted independently without any funding support nor groupwork;all correspondences should be addressed to josephlaila86@gmail.com. Managing Diversity Abstract Diversity means different things to different organizations.True diversity management articulates and raises performance standards by requiring organizations to learn to recruit, train and support people. Finding ways of working with diverse people involves valueing and utilizing differences as well as finding a common ground for intergrating a mix of people into organizations.This paper shows that organizations more often prefer a more diversified workforce basically because it makes business sense.By maximizing talent,fostering innovation;and tapping into the creativity of a diversified workforce;the altimate result will be increased profits,increase competivity and organizational effectiveness as a whole. Managing Diversity Introduction Between the 1960s and the 1970s management approach layed emphasis on eliminating unfair discrimination through legal compliance for women and ethnic minorities.This was the affirmative action approach which “focuses on achieving equality of opportunity in an organization and...
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...into Team Players? Discuss each. Let’s begin with the definition of team: A team is two or more people who combine their talents and abilities to achieve a specific goal or strings of goals. Also, a team, by definition, is made up people who are different only in their areas of skill and who are equal when they sit down together as a work group, although all teams are groups, not all groups are teams. Team players can make a difference to the effectiveness of an organization. A team is formed to take advantage of the power of synergy. Synergy means that the total is greater than the addition of its components. For example, let’s say that a group of four will individually produce for units, the four individuals may produce six or seven or even more units of work when they work as a team (American Management Association, 2006). Moreover, an organization can be kept running and maximize profits if there is team work. A team is a group whose individual efforts result in a performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs. A team player is an individual that can be relied on to do his or her part of the work and be relied on to complete tasks and work cooperatively with others. Team players must possess complementary competence, committed to a common purpose to work together and accountable for doing any work that contribute to achieving organizational goals. These are considered as characteristics of team players. Any manager in turning individual to team players...
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...7 2.3. Sample Size & Sampling Technique:.…………………………………………………....8 2.4. Instrument Development;.………………………………………………………………..8 2.5. Data collection:.………………………………………………………………………….8 2.6. Data Analysis:…………………………………………………………………………...9 References 1. INTRODUCTION Increasing globalization, making organizations to be diversified in their work force and setting work force diversification as one of the key success factors that are available for any organization (Holtzman, 2011). Importance of diversification making such a impact on organizations that organization are now formally making diversity as one of their strategies to accomplish their goals (Black Enterprise , 2001). And it is also noted that most diversification success are enhancing through having work force with different experiences, knowledge, races, education and cultures (Friedman & Amoo, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between work force diversification and employee performance and to study factors effecting work force diversification towards employee performance in Pakistan and focal point will geographical area of Karachi. 1.1. Background of the Study: Under the Act of the 1964, Title VII Civil Rights, it is made unlawful for the organizations to stop employment practicing on the basis of...
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...How Successful Companies Manage Diverse Businesses How victorious business run different industry. Abstract Diversity is the result of past diversification or merger. In the global competition and slow growth context of the 1980s, highly diversified companies have to manage diversity in order to benefit from it and to avoid its drawbacks. The benefits are compensation effects and cross-fertilization and the draw-backs are dispersion of resources and internal inconsistencies. To balance integration and differentiation is the key success factor in managing highly diversified companies. Multiplicity is the result of history expansion or merger. In the global rivalry and slow growth background of the 1980s, extremely branch out corporation boast to direct variety in order to profit from it and to keep away from its weakness. The payback is costs sound effects and cross-fertilization and the draw-backs are spreading of wealth and inside discrepancy. To poise combination and separation is the key triumph feature in running extremely diversified companies. Diversification A portfolio strategy designed to reduce exposure to risk by combining a variety of investments, such as stocks, bonds, and real estate, which are unlikely to all move in the same direction. The goal of diversification is to reduce the risk in a portfolio. Volatility is limited by the fact that not all asset classes or industries or individual companies move up and down in value at the same time or at the same...
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...BUS*2090*03 Team Report Winter 2011 Thursday, March 31, 2011 Johnson & Johnson – Socialization and Culture, and Organizational Structure Mathew Baptista Cassandra Dingli Sophia Jefferson Jessica Mighton Hayley Summers Daniel Vijayakumar SUMMARY Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”), one of the largest, well-known organizations in the world, produces products for consumer health care and for use by medical professionals in care and diagnostics. Some of their most recognizable brands include Tylenol, Neutrogena, Listerine, Band-Aid and Reactine. These, along with their many other brands, are produced in over 60 countries by more than 250 different operating companies that make up the J&J organization. In total, more than 114,000 employees are part of the organization, and they are managed through a system of decentralized management with a wide span of control. J&J faces the unique challenge of trying to create one corporate culture that all parts of their organization believe in and adhere to. One of the strategies used to combat these obstacles is values-based leadership and linking employees and subsidiaries under a common set of values, as outlined in "Our Credo". J&J works extremely hard to uphold their Credo, which was written by Robert Wood Johnson – one of the founders of the organization – in 1943. It is a set of values that J&J vow to work by and which lend to the present culture that is so important in the organization today. J&J also attempts to induce a culture...
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...Table of Contents MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS & LEADING PEOPLE-BIP2 Task 2 2 Evaluation of my Personal Leadership Style 2 Reflection on the Results of my Seven Habits Profile 2 Self-Leadership Evaluation 4 Strengths and weaknesses identified 6 Recommendations. 7 Goals to improve my leadership practice. 8 References 9 MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS & LEADING PEOPLE-BIP2 Task 2 Evaluation of my Personal Leadership Style Reflection on the Results of my Seven Habits Profile The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) is a business and self-help book bestseller. The work brings up that success comes from developing personal leadership, from which leadership of others can follow. I had the opportunity to participate in a one day seminar with Mr. Covey, sponsored by my employer in 2010. At the time I took the seminar, I was an experienced software developer but I wanted to transition to the role of project manager. Covey’s work helped me to identify and work on some of my behaviors, which in turn helped me to take on the project manager role successfully to date. I executed a particular approach, I applied Covey’s teachings to my transition to project management, and then to a personal level. One of the good consequences at a personal level was obtaining my bachelor’s degree at Western Governors University, in 2014. Covey’s work proposes that just changing outward behaviors or attitudes is not the way to succeed. First, our principles, the way we perceive the...
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...HRM 560 – Managing Organizational Change June 1, 2013 A.Describe the organization in terms of industry size and history. The organization is Potter’s Peanuts. It is a family-owned business that has been operating nationally for 35 years. The company is in the food industry and has over 280,000 employees nationwide. Headquartered in the United States, the company has recently acquired two smaller processing and manufacturing facilities in Europe. Potter’s Peanuts is becoming increasingly aware of the rise in international competition, and is looking to maintain its market share domestically, while building it globally. B. Describe how the HR program/policy/process/procedure/initiative that has been proposed should be changed. Leadership, with major input from the HR staff, is aware that attracting and retaining the best and brightest in the agricultural and food processing arena is crucial to maintaining national and international competitive market share advantage. With that vision in mind, the leadership knows that it will have to be strategic in ensuring that all its HR initiatives are equitable, consistent, continuous, and mainstream. Potter’s Peanuts has been noted for its success in the marketplace, its values and vision, its diversity and inclusion efforts, but more publicly for its notable efforts in the training and development arena. The company believes strongly in training and development, as illustrated by the continuous and consistent launch of said...
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...INTRODUCTION: Leading is said to be a process in which the managers instruct, guide and oversee the performance of the workers to achieve predetermined goals. Leading is said to be the heart of management process. Planning, organizing, staffing has got no importance if leadership function does not take place. Leading initiates action and here actual work starts. Leadership is said to be consisting human factors. In simple words, it can be described as providing guidance to workers is doing work. In field of management, leading is said to be all those activities which are designed to encourage the subordinates to work effectively and efficiently. Leading is a key managerial function to be performed by the manager along with planning, organizing, staffing and controlling. From top executive to supervisor performs the function of directing and it takes place accordingly wherever superior-subordinates relation exist. Leading is a continuous process initiated at top level and flows to bottom through organizational hierarchy DEFINITION "Activating deals with the steps a manager takes to get sub-ordinates and others to carry out plans" - Newman and Warren. Leading concerns the total manner in which a manager influences the actions of subordinates. It is the final action of a manager in getting others to act after all preparations have been completed. Characteristics • Elements of Management • Continuing Function • Pervasive Function • Creative Function ...
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