Chapter 2. Individual
Diversity in organizations,
Perception and Individual
Decision-Making
Learning Objectives
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Describe the two major forms of workplace
diversity
Demonstrate how workplace discrimination
undermines organizational effectiveness
Explain the factors that influence perception
Explain how individual differences and
organizational constraints affect decision
making
Diversity
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Demographic Characteristics
Levels of Diversity
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Surface-level diversity
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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.
Deep-level diversity
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Differences in values, personality, and work
preferences that become progressively more
important for determining similarity as people get to
know one another better.
Discrimination
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Noting of a difference between things; often we
refer to unfair discrimination, which means
making judgments about individuals based on
stereotypes regarding their demographic group.
Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of our perception
of the group to which that person belongs.
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Stereotype threat: The degree to which we agree
internally with the generally negative stereotyped
perceptions of our groups.
Discrimination in the Workplace
Biographical Characteristics
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Personal characteristics— such as age, gender,
race, and length of tenure—that are objective
and easily obtained from personnel records.
These characteristics are representative of
surface-level diversity.
Positive Diversity Climate
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In an organization, an environment of
inclusiveness and an acceptance of diversity.
Disabilities
A person as disabled who has any physical or
mental impairment that substantially limits one or
more major life activities
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An individual decides to disclose a disability that isn’t
easily observable, it can remain hidden at the
discretion of the employee. These are called hidden
disabilities
Other Differentiating Characteristics
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Tenure
Religion
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Cultural Identity
Ability
An individual’s capacity to perform the various
tasks in a job
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Intellectual abilities The capacity to do mental
activities—thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.
General mental ability (GMA) An overall factor of
intelligence, as suggested by the positive correlations
among specific intellectual ability dimensions.
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
Physical Abilities
The capacity to do tasks that demand stamina,
dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics.
Implementing Diversity
Management Strategies
Diversity management
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The process and programs by which managers make
everyone more aware of and sensitive to the needs
and differences of other
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Attracting, selecting, developing, and retaining diverse
employees
Diversity in groups
Expatriate adjustment
Effective diversity programs
Perception and Individual
Decision Making
Perception is a process by which individuals
organize and interpret their sensory impressions
to give meaning to their environment
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Factors affecting perception
Person Perception: Making Judgments
About Others
Attribution theory: An attempt to explain the ways we
judge people differently, depending on the meaning we
attribute to a behavior, such as determining whether an
individual’s behavior is internally or externally caused.
Common Shortcuts in Judging Others
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Selective perception
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Halo effect
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The tendency to draw a positive general impression about an
individual based on a single characteristic
Horns effect
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The tendency to choose to interpret what one sees based on
one’s interests, background, experience, and attitudes
The tendency to draw a negative general impression about an
individual based on a single characteristic
Contrast effect
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Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by
comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank
higher or lower on the same characteristics.
Specific Applications of Shortcuts in
Organizations
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Employment interview
Performance expectation
Performance evaluation
The Link Between Perception
and Individual Decision Making
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Decisions
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Chose made among two or more alternatives
Problem
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A discrepancy between the current state of affairs
and some desired state
Decision Making in
Organizations
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Rational
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Rational decision-making model
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A decision-making model that describes how individuals should
behave to maximize some outcome.
Bounded rationality
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Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices
within specified constraints.
A process of making decisions by constructing simplified
models that extract the essential features from problems without
capturing all their complexity.
Intuitive decision making
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An unconscious process created out of distilled experience.
Steps in the Rational DecisionMaking Model
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Define the problem.
Identify the decision criteria.
Allocate weights to the criteria.
Develop the alternatives.
Evaluate the alternatives.
Select the best alternative.
Common Biases and Errors in
Decision Making
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Overconfidence Bias
Anchoring bias
Confirmation bias
Availability bias
Escalation of commitment
Randomness error
Risk aversion
Hindsight bias
Reducing Biases and Errors
Individual Differences
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Personality
Gender
Mental Ability
Cultural Differences
Organizational Constraints
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Performance Evaluation Systems
Reward Systems
Formal Regulations
System-Imposed Time Constraints
Historical Precedents
Three Ethical Decision Criteria
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Utilitarianism
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Whistle-blowers
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An ethical perspective in which decisions are made
to provide the greatest good for all.
Individuals who report unethical practices by their
employer to outsiders
Deonance
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A perspective in which ethical decisions are made
because you “ought to” in order to be consistent with
moral norms, principles, standards, rules, or laws.
Behavioral Ethics
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Analyzing how people behave when confronted
with ethical dilemmas.
Creativity, Creative Decision Making,
and Innovation in Organizations
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Creativity refers to the ability to produce novel
and useful ideas
Three-Stage Model of Creativity in Organizations
Causes of Creative Behavior
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Creative Potential
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Intelligence, personality, expertise, and ethics
Creative Environment
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Motivation
Creative Outcomes (Innovation)
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Ideas or solutions judged to be novel and useful
by relevant stakeholders