- One question that this week’s reading has raised for me is, what can we do as a society to add more diversity to different businesses? I understand that it is in a company’s best interest to hire qualified people who also have diverse backgrounds. However, I wonder if there is a way to go about diversifying without making it too difficult. In Watkins article, “What is organizational culture and why should we care?”, the author talks about culture and how it is shaped by stating that “Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives. The best predictor of what people will do is what they are incentivized to do” (p. 1). In this case, the incentive is money. According to the article, “Why Diversity Matters”, companies will gain more money if they have more diversity in their staff. So, why does it seem like there is still not enough diversity in many companies and businesses?
- In the article, “Why Diversity Matters”, there are many important and interesting statistics included. The main purpose of this article is to get readers to understand that diversity matters in business One of the statistics that struck me was “In the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior executive team, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent” (p. 2). This is important to know because it shows that without diversity, it is difficult to succeed. This statistic was interesting to me because I did not realize that this was a fact. However, it makes a lot of sense because companies need all types of life experiences and backgrounds in order to reach others with whatever they are doing. At the end of the article, the author says that achieving more diversity is not going to be easy. However, it is extremely important that we do our best to include as much diversity as possible.
Writing and organizational cultures
I really enjoyed reading your response. The point you make about diversity in the workspace actually leading to more revenue for an organization is very interesting to me, and like you said, why are organizations still not diverse if its been proven that companies with higher diversity rates generate more revenue? It’s hard to come up with an explanation for this other than institutional racism. I thank you for making this point, because this is a topic I am very intrigued by and would like to hear more about.
Sadly, I think you’re right–if the evidence points us clearly in a certain direction and yet we refuse to move in that direction, there has to be something else in play. And here that something else sounds an awful lot like institutionalized discrimination.
Now, let’s acknowledge that it’s not so simple as “hiring managers are racist.” Nobody is suggesting that. Rather, we’ve got much more complex mechanisms in play here–the under-representation of people from marginalized groups in certain fields, over-reliance on certain kinds of hiring practices that favor traditional networks of influence (where marginalized people are under-represented), implicit bias that goes unrecognized, and, of course, the legacy of centuries of educational gaps, inequitable public school funding, and discrimination in college admissions.
We’re not just talking about individual decisions here but about systems that have historically privileged some groups over others, both intentionally and incidentally.
I thought this statical was very powerful as well and really shows how diversity is really important in the workforce in order to get financial returns and succeed. With more people from different backgrounds and cultures, it allows the company to reach a bigger population of customers which in turn, helps them succeed financially. Although it will be hard to diversify, hopefully these statics get across to companies and there will be more diversity in the future.
I think that your response to the first question was rather intriguing for myself. To think of how can we as a society impact companies was an approach I have never seemed to consider. Likewise, I am also not sure as to how we can do that as a society inflicting change in businesses we may not have a stance in. The statistic you focused on for the answer to the third prompt was one that I was also fascinated by, that there is evidence to show a company’s diversity has positive impacts on their success rates.