HND – 2. Diversity in Organizations
Lim Sei Kee @ cK
What’s happening now?
• The predominantly white, male managerial workforce
gave way to a gender-balanced, multiethnic
workforce.
• Women today are much more likely to be employed
full-time, have more education, and earn wages
comparable to those of men.
• Workers over the age of 55 are an increasingly large
portion of the workforce.
Diversity
• Effective diversity management increases an
organization’s access to the widest possible pool
of skills, abilities, and ideas.
• Managers also need to recognize that
differences among people can lead to
miscommunication, misunderstanding, and
conflict.
Two levels of diversity
• Surface-level diversity
• Differences in easily perceived characteristics, such
as gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability, that do
not necessarily reflect the ways people think or feel
but that may activate certain stereotypes.
Two levels of diversity
• Deep-level diversity
• Differences in values, and personality, and work
preferences that become progressively more
important for determining similarity as people get to
know one another better.
Discrimination
• To discriminate is to note a difference between
things, which in itself is not necessarily bad.
• Rather than looking at individual characteristics,
unfair discrimination assumes everyone in a group is
the same.
Forms of Discrimination
Discriminatory
policies or
practices
Actions taken by representatives of the organization
that deny equal opportunity to perform or unequal
rewards for performance
Sexual
harassment
Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or
physical conduct of a sexual nature that create a
hostile or offensive work environment
Intimidation
Overt threats or bullying directed at members of
specific groups of employees
Mockery and
insults
Jokes or negative stereotypes; sometimes the result of
jokes taken too far
Exclusion
Exclusion of certain people from job opportunities,
social events, discussions, or informal mentoring; can
occur unintentionally
Biographical Characteristics
• AGE, GENDER, and length of service (TENDER)
are some of the most obvious ways
employees differ.
• It is easily definable and readily available –
data that can be obtained, for the most part,
from an employee’s human resources (HR)
file.
AGE
• Older workers bring to their jobs, such as
experience, judgment, a strong work ethic, and
commitment to quality.
• Older workers are perceived as lacking flexibility
and resisting new technology.
Relationship with AGE
• Age – turnover: The older you get, the less likely you
are to quit your job.
• Age- absenteeism: In general, older employees have
lower rates of avoidable absence than do young
employees.
• Age – productivity: It is often assumed that skills like
speed, agility, strength and coordination decay over time
and that prolonged job boredom and lack of intellectual
stimulation contribute to reduced productivity.
Relationship with AGE
• Age- satisfaction: Older workers tend to be more
satisfied with their work, report better relationships
with co-workers, and are more committed to their
employing organizations.
• Satisfaction tends to continually increase among
professionals as they age, whereas it falls among
nonprofessionals during middle age and then rises
again in the later years.
GENDER
• Few issues initiate more debates,
misconceptions, and unsupported opinions
than whether women perform as well on jobs
as men do.
• There are no consistent male-female
differences in problem-solving ability,
analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation,
sociability, or learning ability.
• Working mothers are more likely to prefer part-time
work, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting in
order to accommodate their family responsibilities.
• Women are more likely to turn over than men. Women
also have higher rates of absenteeism than men do.
• Regardless of gender, parents were rated lower in job
commitment, achievement striving, and dependability
than individuals without children, but mothers were
rated especially low in competence.
Other biographical characteristics
• Tenure: work experience.
• Tenure- absence: Seniority is negatively related to
absenteeism.
• Tenure- turnover: The longer a person is in a job, the
less likely he or she is to quit.
• Tenure- job satisfaction: Tenure is positively related
to job satisfaction.
Ability
Contrary to what we were taught in grade school, we
were not all created equal in our abilities.
Definition: An individual’s current capacity to perform
the various tasks in a job.
• Made up of two sets of factors:
▫ Intellectual Abilities
▫ Physical Abilities
Intellectual Abilities
The abilities needed to perform mental activities- for
thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.
General Mental Ability (GMA) is a measure of overall
intelligence.
Examples: IQ (Intelligence quotient) tests, GCE ‘O’ level.
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
• Number Aptitude
Accountant: Computing the sales tax
• Verbal Comprehension
Plant manager: Following corporate policies on hiring
• Perceptual Speed
Fire investigator: Identifying clues to support a charge of
arson
• Inductive Reasoning
 Market researcher: Forecasting demand for a product in the
next time period
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
• Deductive Reasoning
Supervisor: Choosing between two different
suggestions offered by employees
• Spatial Visualization
Interior decorator: Redecorating an office
• Memory
 Salesperson: Remembering the names of customers
Physical Abilities

The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina,
dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics.
Nine Basic Physical Abilities
• Strength Factors
▫ Dynamic strength: Ability to exert muscular force
repeatedly or continuously over time
▫ Trunk strength: Ability to exert muscular strength
using the trunk (particularly abdominal) muscles
▫ Static strength: Ability to exert force against external
objects
▫ Explosive strength: Ability to expend a maximum of
energy in one or a series of explosive acts
Nine Basic Physical Abilities
• Flexibility Factors
▫ Extent flexibility: Ability to move the trunk and back
muscles as far as possible
▫ Dynamic flexibility: Ability to make rapid, repeatedly
flexing movements
• Other Factors
▫ Body coordination: Ability to coordinate the
simultaneous actions of different parts of the body
▫ Balance: Ability to maintain equilibrium despite
forces pulling off balance
▫ Stamina: Ability to continue maximum effort
requiring prolonged effort over time
Ability-Job Fit
• Jobs make differing demands on people and
that people differ in their abilities.
• Employee performance is enhanced when
there is a high ability-job fit.
Learning
Any relatively permanent change in behavior
that occurs as a result of experience
• Learning components:
- Involves Change
- Is Relatively Permanent
- Is Acquired Through Experience
Theories of Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• A type of conditioning in which an individual responds to
some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such a
response.
• Operant Conditioning
• A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary
behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment.
• Social-Learning Theory
• People can learn through observation and direct
experience.
Classical Conditioning
Experiments to teach dogs to salivate in response to the
ringing of bell, conducted in the early-1900s by
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
Meat: Unconditioned stimulus
Reaction that took place: Unconditioned response
Bell: Conditioned stimulus
Behavior of the dog: Conditioned response
This is a passive form of learning. It is reflexive and not
voluntary – not the best theory for OB learning.
Examples of Classical Conditioning
# Your romantic partner always uses the same
shampoo. Soon, the smell of that shampoo makes
you feel happy.
# You have a meal at a fast food restaurant that causes
food poisoning. The next time you see a sign for that
restaurant, you feel nauseous.
# The nurse says “Now this won’t hurt a bit” just
before stabbing you with a needle. The next time you
hear “This won’t hurt” you cringe in fear.
Operant Conditioning
• B. F. Skinner’s concept of Behaviorism: behavior follows
stimuli in a relatively unthinking manner.
• Key Concepts:
▫ Conditioned behavior: voluntary behavior that is learned,
not reflexive.
▫ Reinforcement: the consequences of behavior which can
increase or decrease the likelihood of behavior repetition.
▫ Pleasing consequences increase likelihood of repetition.
▫ Rewards are most effective immediately after performance.
▫ Unrewarded/punished behavior is unlikely to be repeated.
Operant conditioning
• Behavior is a function of its consequences.
• People learn to behave to get something they want
or to avoid something they don’t want.
Examples of Operant Conditioning
• A child learns to clean his/her room after being
rewarded with TV time, every time he cleans it.
• A person stops teasing his fiance about an issue after
she gives him the silent treatment.
Social-Learning Theory
• Based on the idea that people can also learn
indirectly: by observation, reading, or just
hearing about someone else’s – a model’s –
experiences.
Examples of Social learning
• Advertisements are prime examples of Social Learning
Theory. We watch them, then copy them.
• If your a new person to IGS and it's lunch time, and
you finish with your lunch but you don't know where
to put the tray you would follow someone who knows
what their doing.
• So you learn off of other peoples examples.
Shaping Behavior
• Systematically reinforcing each successive step that
moves an individual closer to the desired response
•
-
Four ways
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
Extinction
Methods of Shaping Behavior:
Positive Reinforcement
Following a response with something pleasant.
Negative Reinforcement
Following a response by the termination or withdrawal of
something unpleasant.
Punishment
Attempts to decrease the probability of specific behaviours
being exhibited (eliminate undesirable behavior.)
Extinction
Eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining a behavior. its
purpose is to reduce unwanted behavior.
Schedules of Reinforcement
• Two Major Types:
▫ Continuous Reinforcement
 A desired behavior is reinforced each time it is
demonstrated
▫ Intermittent Reinforcement
 A desired behavior is reinforced often enough to make
the behavior worth repeating but not every time it is
demonstrated
 Multiple frequencies.
Types of Intermittent Reinforcement
• Ratio
▫ Depends on the number of responses made.
• Interval
▫ Depends on the time between reinforcements.
• Fixed
▫ Rewards are spaced at uniform time intervals or after a
set number of responses.
• Variable
▫ Rewards that are unpredictable or that vary relative to
the behavior.
Reinforcement
Schedule
Nature Of
Reinforcement
Effects On Behavior
Example
Continuous
Reward given
after each
desired behavior
Fast learning of new
behavior but rapid
extinction
Compliments
• Schedules
Of Reinforcement
The timing
of the behavioural
Fixed
Interval
Reward given at : Average
and irregular
Weekly
consequencesfixed
thattime
follow a given
behavior.with
performances
Paychecks
intervals
rapid extinction
Variable Interval
Reward given at
variable time
intervals
Moderately high and
stable performance
with slow extinction
Pop Quizzes
Fixed Ratio
Reward given at
fixed amounts of
output
High and stable
Piece-rate Pay
performance attained
quickly but also with
rapid extinction.
Variable Ratio
Reward given at
variable amounts
of output
Very high
performance with
slow extinction
Commissioned
Sales