International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Dimensions of Workforce Diversity: A Conceptual
Study
Bhumika Rathore
Research Scholar, FMS, MLSU, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Abstract: Workforce is defined as a group of people who work for a particular organization or business and today diversity has been
identified as one of the key factor for sustaining competitive advantage. Organizations are experiencing success through diversified
work culture by identifying innovated ways of problem solving and facing challenges. Management practices usually refer to the
working methods and innovations that managers use to improve the effectiveness of work systems. Common management
practices include: empowering staff, training staff, introducing schemes for improving quality, and introducing various forms of new
technology. It is an entity of instruments to support implementation of concepts and ideas at all levels of conceptualization and
realization of concepts, ultimately aiming to support organizational processes. In general, workforce diversity includes gender, age,
religion, race, education or it is heterogeneity with mix of people, where every person is different from another. In this era of
globalization, the organizations are far more varied in its composition than ever before. So dimensions like gender, age, religion, race,
are not enough to study workforce diversity management. Several other dimensions are added like sexual orientation, disability (mental
or physical), beliefs, attitudes, values, emotions, personality, lifestyle, family background, caste, economic class, work style and many
more in different researches. It is also observed that a well managed diverse organization can easily sustain, on the other hand an
unmanaged and chaotic organization is not able to sustain in competitive environment. The organizations must involve the best practices
to manage workforce diversity, e.g. top leadership commitment, diversity linked to performance, measurement (qualitative and
quantitative), accountability, succession planning, diversity training etc. The purpose of this study to understand different dimensions of
workforce diversity as it is in form of visible and invisible.
Keywords: Workforce Diversity, Competitive Advantage, Human Resources Management, Accountability, Succession Planning,
Diversity Training etc
1. Review of literature
The center of the wheel represents internal dimensions that
(Loden & Rosener, 1991) defined diversity as which are usually most permanent or visible. The outside of the
differentiates one group of people from another. They wheel represents dimensions that are acquired and change
divided diversity into two dimensions: primary and over the course of a lifetime. The combinations of all of
secondary dimension. According to the researchers Primary these dimensions influence our values, beliefs, behaviors,
dimensions are, those which play an important role in experiences and expectations and make us all unique as
influencing the identity and personality of an individual and individuals.
secondary dimension are, those which though are less
visible, exert a more variable influence on personal identity Gardenswartz and Rowe (1998) built upon the primary and
and add a more subtle richness to the primary dimensions of secondary dimensions and added two more layers to the
diversity. diversity wheel. According to them, diversity consists of
four layers. The core of the wheel is the personality of a
person and it has all those aspects which constitute the
personal style of the person. Internal dimensions and
external dimensions are similar to the primary and secondary
dimensions explained by Loden and Rosener. The outermost
layer is of the organizational dimensions. These are
corporate or institutional affiliations and are associated with
past and present experiences.
Figure 1.1 Diversity Wheel
Source:
http://web.jhu.edu/dlc/resources/diversity_wheel/in
dex.html
Volume 8 Issue 8, August 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2020365 10.21275/ART2020365 1653
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Figure 1.3 Diversity Iceberg
Primary Dimension: race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability
Secondary Dimension: religion, culture, sexual orientation,
Figure 1.2: Four layers of Diversity
thinking style, geographic orientation, family status,
Source: https://www.umassmed.edu/dio/about/layers/
lifestyle, economic condition, political orientation, work
experience, education
According to (Bhadury, Mighty, & Damar, 2000) many
social, economic and political factors have contributed to the
Tertiary dimensions: beliefs, assumption, perceptions,
increasing diversity of today's workforce. They assumed that
attitudes, feelings, values, group norms
the population comes partitioned into `families' with a high
degree of intra-familial similarity and inter-familial
(Maier, 2005) argued that previous researches on diversity
dissimilarity. The way of dealing with this heterogeneity is
have focused on limited dimensions and out of these, a few,
to make people of different backgrounds work on common
such as ethnicity, race and gender, are over-emphasized.
projects so as to facilitate understanding and communication
According to him, an individual can be modeled by a
between them.
kaleidoscope. Just as a kaleidoscope contains certain
(Lorbiecki & Jack, Criticle Turns in the Evolution of
amounts of particles of various shapes and colors, an
Diversity Management, 2000) identified four overlapping
individual is a composition of various diverse attributes.
turns in the evolution of diversity management :
demographic, political, economic, and critical turns in
The following diagram shows the kaleidoscope perspective
humanities and social sciences. According to the authors
of individual:
diversity management programs have been introduced into a
wide range of public and private sectors in UK. They have
been introduced increasing rate of women and minorities’
participation, improving career opportunities but their
success rate is still fragmentary. They argued that diversity
management initiatives can be seen to perpetuate rather than
combat inequalities in the workplace, diminish the legacy of
discrimination against historically repressed minorities in the
workplace.
(Rijamampianina & Carmichael, 2005) indicated that
diversity has many dimensions. The dimensions interact
with and influence one another, and emerge or are displayed
differently in different contexts, environments and
circumstances, making analysis and management complex.
As an analogy to the iceberg, these dimensions have three Figure 1.4 Kaleidoscope Perspective of the
facets. Above the water line are the most visible dimensions Individual
or the primary dimensions (race, ethnicity, gender, age, Source:https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-of-
disability). Just below the surface, lie the secondary Kaleidoscope-compositions-of-an-individual-Source-
dimensions(religion, culture, sexual orientation, thinking Diversity-at-Workplace-HRM_fig1_320267611
style, geographic orientation, family status, lifestyle,
economic condition, political orientation, work experience, (Shore, et al., 2009) studied the dimensions of diversity to
education etc) which are revealed with time, and the tertiary describe common themes across dimensions and developed
dimensions(beliefs, assumption, perceptions, attitudes, an integrative model of diversity. They examined following
feelings, values, group norms) lie much below the surface. six dimensions of diversity:
The following diagram shows all three dimensions in Race and Ethnicity Diversity
diversity iceberg: Gender Diversity
Age Diversity
Disability Diversity
Social Orientation Diversity
Volume 8 Issue 8, August 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2020365 10.21275/ART2020365 1654
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Cultural and National Origin Diversity and Gender diversity respectively. Initiatives like
‘ASCEND’, ‘Stepping Stones’, ‘iBelieve HCL Women
According to (Beechler & Woodward, 2009) Because of Connect’ , ‘Feminspiration’, ‘BlogHer, WoW(for gender
rapid global demographic forces, the mobility of people and diversity), CREATE (For disabled
organizations has been increased immensely and hence, employees),NGOs/Foundations LEAD and MOSAIC etc
organizations are becoming more complex, diverse and are taken by these companies. But it is observed that in
demanding. There is much wider diversity in culture, India, people are still stick to the old beliefs and still not
gender, modes of employment, working generations than focusing on diversity management as a critical factor in
ever before. success of businesses.
(Shore, Randel, Chung, Dean, Ehrhart, & Singh, 2011) Managing diversity in multinational companies is becoming
argued that management researchers have only recently a strategic issue but diversity at international level has not
focused on inclusion. As a result, the inclusion literature is been studied effectively. It is observed that some of the
still under development, with limited agreement on the MNC’s are using cloud based web meeting platform to
conceptual underpinnings of this construct. They use diminish any kind of discrimination regarding to the
Brewer’s optimal distinctiveness theory to develop a diversity issue.
definition of employee inclusion in the workforce as
involving the satisfaction of the needs of both belongingness References
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managed, it can go against productivity and effectiveness.
India is the most diversified country in the world. So it is
quite challenging to manage diversity because of its
diverse culture, geographical factors, religions, legislations
etc. The other reason why India is facing diversity issue,
because of more and more global companies are showing
their interest in locating their operations and business in
India. Some leading Indian companies like Infosys, TATA,
Wipro, HCL Technologies are focusing on dimension
physical disability, gender diversity, Gender, disability,
nationality, cultural sensitivity, under privileged employees
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Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: ART2020365 10.21275/ART2020365 1655
