The significance of embracing diversity within an organization remains a contentious topic, with people holding dissenting views on whether it is a threat or a strength. Despite such a disconnect between proponents and opponents, corporations are gradually moving toward an overt acknowledgment of diverse teams within their structures (Danbold & Unzueta, 2020). Typically, these teams are classified into two broad categories, namely job-related and biodemographic diversities. Biodemographic multiplicity entails individual differences in terms of noticeable biological attributes such as race, age, and gender. On the other hand, job-related diversity entails differences among employees in unseen task-relevant features, including skills, tenure status, and functional background (Moon & Christensen, 2019). While the advantages of diversity are linked to better organizational outcomes, its disadvantages pose potential difficulties that need to be overcome for structural success.
The advantages of utilizing diverse teams within an organization are better explained through Information decision-making theory (IDT). According to IDT, diversity serves as a human capital means of divergent perspectives that enhance performance and decision quality (Moon & Christensen, 2019). In addition, this theory suggests that diverse workgroups outdo their homogenous counterparts. Organizational multiplicity is highly likely to provide a pool of task-related resources, including knowledge, unique ideas, and skills which improve structural outcomes than a homogenous workgroup (Moon & Christensen, 2019). Crucially, a diverse team expands the definition of task-related conflicts within a group, fostering exchange and communication. Moreover, multiple groups enable the integration of knowledge, ideas, and experience related to the achievement of organizational goals. The benefits of a heterogenous work structure are attributed to a mixture of expertise and unique perspectives, which motivate organizational staff to create more innovative and creative solutions to complex problems (Danbold & Unzueta, 2020). Furthermore, high levels of heterogeneity in workgroups increase organizational performance through the processing and exchange of diverse viewpoints and job-specific information specially designed for individual employees. Such benefits are instrumental in achieving better organizational outcomes.
The setbacks of diverse teams are associated with potential difficulties that require viable solutions for organizational success. According to the social categorization theory (SCT), people tend to categorize themselves and others into “out-group” and “in-group” members using dissimilarities and similarities in demographic traits (Moon & Christensen, 2019). As a result, they try to sustain their self-esteem by associating with individuals with whom they share common characteristics. By optimizing out-group and ingroup differences and perceiving out-group members as less attractive, individuals achieve, enhance, and protect a positive social identity for their ingroup associates and themselves. Such divisive actions lead to out-group bias and in-group favoritism, resulting in constant cases of interpersonal conflicts that amount to communication difficulties. Moreover, SCT suggests that group distinctions within an organization cause increased effective disagreements and decreased social cohesion within organizations (Moon & Christensen, 2019). These negative impacts are deterrent to structural success because employees focus on forming groups that attract “us” versus “them” organizational politics based on visible differences such as gender, age, and race. Such potential difficulties require preventive measures to ensure success with corporations and institutions.
Various methods and tactics can be utilized to overcome probable organizational setbacks associated with diverse teams. First, potential difficulties can be avoided through affirmative action, where every organization is mandated to embrace diversity climate within their internal environment (Moon & Christensen, 2019). Typically, such climate is described as employee’s shared viewpoints about various human resource practices that foster acknowledgment and appreciation of individual differences (Jeong & Leblebici, 2018). Second, diversity recruiting serves as an instrumental tactic of helping job candidates to perceive organizations as positive places of work, reducing the prevalence of in-group and out-group politics (Moon & Christensen, 2019). Third, programs of diversity training can play a critical role in alleviating relational conflict among employees, enhancing a competitive edge in a workforce characterized by diverse teams (Jeong, & Leblebici, 2018). Fourth, institutions can utilize diversity-oriented leadership, which is essential in encouraging workers to offer their contributions towards organizational performance by enabling the reduction of stereotypical thoughts and enabling the exchange of unique ideas (Soderstrom & Weber, 2019). Such approaches are instrumental in containing relational conflicts and group bias linked to difficulties of diversity.
In summary, it is worth the effort to attempt to overcome the probable difficulties associated with diverse teams within an organization because such efforts are crucial to achieving better structural results. The significance of employing diversity within an institution is better elaborated through IDT. This theory attributes a diverse group to such advantages as enhancement of performance and decision quality as well as the integration of knowledge, ideas, and experience related to the achievement of organizational goals. On the contrary, the disadvantages of multiplicity within institutions are connected to potential difficulties that need to be overcome for organizational success. These setbacks are characterized by out-group bias and in-group favoritism, which leads to constant cases of interpersonal conflicts that amount to communication difficulties. These problems can be overcome by utilizing numerous tactics and methods, which include affirmative action, diversity recruiting, diversity training, and diversity-oriented leadership.
References
Danbold, F., & Unzueta, M. M. (2020). Drawing the diversity line: Numerical thresholds of diversity vary by group status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(2), 283–306.
Jeong, Y.-C., & Leblebici, H. (2018). How professionalization and organizational diversity shape contemporary careers: Developing a typology and process model. Human Relations, 72(2), 298–321.
Moon, K.-K., & Christensen, R. K. (2019). Realizing the performance benefits of workforce diversity in the U.S. federal government: The moderating role of diversity climate. Public Personnel Management, 49(1), 141–165.
Soderstrom, S. B., & Weber, K. (2019). Organizational structure from interaction: Evidence from corporate sustainability efforts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(1), 226–271.