Exam 12: Managing Individuals and a Diverse Work Force

The Big Five dimension of conscientiousness is the degree to which someone is cooperative, polite, flexible, forgiving, good-natured, tolerant, and trusting.

Identify the three different methods or paradigms for managing diversity. Specify which level of diversity each paradigm focuses on. Explain which approach you personally believe will make the greatest contribution to helping U.S. companies manage diversity more effectively in the future.

As a German pharmaceuticals company decided to implement a diversity training program, its human resources managers discovered that Americans typically reach decisions very quickly. One German manager described them as "hip shooters." He said, "We [Germans] are more analytical. We're more logical and systematic." This discovery had to do with ____.

Unilever Unilever has operations in 150 countries. Recently, Unilever took 100 of these top managers on a jungle retreat to Costa Rica. To the dismay of Unilever's chair, there were no women in the group. Upon investigation, he learned that only one woman had even been invited. As the retreat progressed, its participants commented on the richness of diversity in nature and how everything needs diversity to grow. These comments caused Unilever's chair to establish an executive committee to examine practical ways to overcome barriers to women's promotion. They decided to avoid setting numerical targets because they encourage positive discrimination and instead examined recruitment and promotion practices. -Refer to Unilever. What are the potential benefits of this diversity program?

Wal-Mart It all started when seven female employees in San Francisco sued for employment discrimination. Then a federal judge granted class-action status to the suit, allowing 1.5 million women who have worked or now work for Wal-Mart to join the lawsuit and ordered the company to turn over 250 computer tapes containing payroll, performance, and promotion data for the last six years. When those data were analyzed by a statistics professor, here is what he found: Job Women Men Women Men Store Manager \ 89,300 \ 105,700 14.30\% 85.70\% Co-Manager \ 56,300 \ 59,500 22.80\% 77.20\% Asst. Manager \ 37,300 \ 39,800 35.70\% 64.30\% Mgt. Trainee \ 22,400 \ 23,200 41.30\% 58.70\% Cashier \ 13,800 \ 14,500 92.50\% 7.50\% Women were consistently paid less than men in the same jobs, especially store managers. And, while 65 percent of Wal-Mart's million-plus employees were female, a much smaller percentage of women held key management jobs, again especially store manager positions (just 14.3 percent). Even after controlling for seniority, part-time status, store location, and job title, women were still paid 34 cents less per hour than male workers. Consistent with these data, it took the average woman 4.4 years to be promoted to assistant manager and 10 years to become a store manager, compared to just 2.9 years and 8.6 years, respectively, for the average man. Of course, Wal-Mart appealed the judge's decision to expand the case from the seven original plaintiffs to the class-action suit with 1.5 million women. That appeal and then an eventual trial or settlement may take years. The question now is what does Wal-Mart do in the interim? Certainly, pressure is building for Wal-Mart to address these issues. Even Wal-Mart stockholders are not happy. A spokesperson for Libra Investments, which owns 30,000 shares of Wal-Mart stock, said, "We are increasingly concerned about the number of lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart and the number of negative articles in the press. We believe there is a long-term financial risk to shareholders, from community resistance to stores to [price-to-earnings] contraction." One of the things Wal-Mart decided in response is that it will promote women and minorities proportionate to how many apply for managerial jobs. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, said, "If 50 percent of the people applying for the job of store manager are women, we will work to make sure that 50 percent of the people receiving those jobs are women." Not everyone, however, believes this is an equitable or legal solution. Roger Clegg, a lawyer for the Center for Equal Opportunity in Virginia, said, "Based on what [CEO Lee] Scott said, that's fine if 50 percent of the people who are most qualified happen to be female, but if all the most qualified applicants are women, they should be hiring all women, not just 50 percent. And conversely, if less than 50 percent women are the most qualified, they shouldn't be hiring 50 percent women. Wal-Mart, in its panic to reassure people that it wouldn't discriminate against women and minorities, is saying it will be discriminating against men and non-minorities, and that's illegal." Wal-Mart, however, maintains that its approach is fair, legal, and does not constitute a quota for the promotion of women and minorities. The other significant change that Wal-Mart is making to its organizational structure and leadership is the addition of a corporate compliance department, which will be responsible for overseeing workers' pay as well as work hours and breaks (Wal-Mart has also been sued for allegedly not paying workers the overtime pay they deserved and for not giving workers the work breaks to which they're entitled on a daily basis), and for making sure that Wal-Mart's practices are in compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws wherever it does business throughout the world. CEO Lee Scott described the 140-person compliance office as "the eyes and ears of the board and management team." -Refer to Wal-Mart. What is the primary limitation of the paradigm Wal-Mart chose to use in its creation of an organizational structure in which discrimination will not be an issue?

What is organizational plurality? Define the paradigm for managing diversity with which is it associated.

Older workers ____.

Surface-level diversity refers to differences such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, and physical disabilities that are observable, typically unchangeable, and easy to measure.

The term ____ refers to the degree to which someone is cooperative, polite, flexible, forgiving, good natured, tolerant, and trusting.

The glass ceiling is the so-called invisible barrier that prevents women and minorities from advancing to the top jobs in organizations.

The Finnish government is working to change the perception of older workers and encourage Finnish companies to abandon mandatory retirement plans. What kind of surface-level diversity is the Finnish government hoping to achieve?

Which of the following paradigms for managing diversity is similar to the business growth advantage of diversity?

In the nursing home industry, pairing two younger workers with an older worker creates more job opportunities for the older workers. Furthermore, this pairing could be a significant advantage in nursing homes where an older worker may have more sensitivity to aging problems.  This would be an example of a type of mentoring called ____.

The primary benefit of the discrimination and fairness paradigm is that it generally brings about fairer treatment of employees and increases demographic diversity.

Which of the following paradigms for managing diversity not only takes into account surface-level diversity but also focuses on integrating deep-level diversity differences such as personality, attitudes, beliefs, and values into the actual work of the organization?

In diversity pairing, people of different cultural backgrounds are paired together for mentoring.

The fastest-growing population group in the United States is ____.

For which of the following positions would the hiring organization be most likely to require someone who has high degree of emotional stability?

Unilever Unilever has operations in 150 countries. Recently, Unilever took 100 of these top managers on a jungle retreat to Costa Rica. To the dismay of Unilever's chair, there were no women in the group. Upon investigation, he learned that only one woman had even been invited. As the retreat progressed, its participants commented on the richness of diversity in nature and how everything needs diversity to grow. These comments caused Unilever's chair to establish an executive committee to examine practical ways to overcome barriers to women's promotion. They decided to avoid setting numerical targets because they encourage positive discrimination and instead examined recruitment and promotion practices. -Refer to Unilever. By encouraging the promotion of more women to top management positions to better match the diversity of its stakeholders, Unilever was managing diversity through the ____ paradigm.

Which of the following might account for the disparities between the percentages of African, Hispanic, and Asian Americans among the general population and their smaller representation in management positions?