Month: June 2020

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Article Summary for week of 6/1

The article titled “Employee Assistance Program Services for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems: Implications for Increased Identification and Engagement in Treatment” written by Jodi M Jacobson and Paul Sacco follows the study they conducted regarding the use of EAP in the workplace and the further effects that it had on the company and individual. In order to gather data, the researchers drew from the pool of individuals associated with NESARC from different backgrounds in all 50 states. To narrow their data, the researchers then separated participants into those who had access to EAP’s in their workplace and those who looked elsewhere for help. The researchers concluded that those who had used EAP’s in their workplace were less likely to foster feelings of negativity in the workplace for fear of being stigmatized compared to those who did not have access to an EAP. The influence of EAP’s on the vulnerable portion of the workforce reflected individuals who felt more comfortable reaching out for help, and did not feel they were outcasts. Individuals who suffer from an AOD addiction struggle to reach out and receive the help they need. However with the help of Employee Assistance Programs, those who are struggling have improved performance in the workplace.

Link for article: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=cc7cfb82-1e46-41b4-9c47-96bcce92c19f%40sessionmgr4007

 

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Exploring The Impact of Diversity in Professional Soccer- A Summary

Written by Keith Ingersoll, Edmund Malesky and Sebastian M. Saiegh, and published in the Journal of Sports Analytics, “Heterogeneity and team performance: Evaluating the effect of cultural diversity in the world’s top soccer league” is an academic study focused specifically on the impact cultural diversity has on the success of European soccer clubs. The authors focus on the clubs who competed in Europe’s top competition, the UEFA Champions League, during a ten year stretch from 2003-2013.

Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh collected data on 168 players across 41 clubs. Each of those clubs were given a cultural diversity rating based on a calculation referred to by the authors as “linguistic distance”. This, they explain, is to account for teams comprised with players who may be from different countries, but where the same language is spoken. (For example, South American players who play for Spanish clubs.)

Keeping in mind to address potential impacts to the results of the study, such as the financial resources of each club, Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh use the linguistic distance measurement, along with such readily available statistics such as goal difference, to determine the success rate of each club over each season of the annual tournament. Using data science, they find, much as I had very unscientifically, that the clubs with the greater cultural diversity rating did in fact have greater success on the pitch.

Heterogeneity and team performance

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Week of 6/1 – Expanding the Canon, Summary

The standards way of thinking about diversity has it that ethnic, gender, and race are the predominant merits companies need to associate at the workplace.  Where they often fall short of, however, is in fully realizing the effect language diversity plays in conversation. From the “Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,” researchers Regina Kim, Loriann Roberson, Marcello Russo, and Paolo Briganti stress why global leaders and managers should embrace multilinguist communication more in our increasingly globalized workplace. Their article “Language Diversity, Non-native Accents, and Their Consequences at the Workplace” contends that varying levels of a speakers fluency and the perceived difficulty of an employees’ competence, regardless of their actual competence,  creates subtle forms of discriminations, the underevaluation of foreign employees, and fewer opportunities for careers.

Since language and communication ultimately pervade every facet of organization life, challenges between different linguistic backgrounds are inevitable.  As a response the authors extend recommendations and intervention strategies based on conducted interviews and surveys. Their research illuminates lesser-known areas of language diversity approaching the actual experiences of nonnative speakers rather than how prior research merely evaluated subjects in the past. In doing so they make clear why organizations should reconcile these issues prior in order to create a more productive and inclusive work environment.

Link: https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0021886318800997?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider

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Expanding the Canon, Summary, Benjamin Fisch

In his article, “Dr. Ronit Molko,” explains how individuals with neurological issues, such as autism, should be more represented in the workplace, because of fairness, and because individuals with autism for example could greatly benefit companies. Molko touches on how big corporations such as SAP, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Ford, and IBM are starting to tap into the benefits of hiring employees with neurological disorders such as Autism. He notes that small business should also do the same. Hiring individuals with autism is not only fair, but it will also benefit the overall objective of the company. Individuals with autism, for example, have an ability to hyper focus on a topic or a task. This makes them valuable in the work space. What company would be opposed to hiring an employee who is able to hyper focus in on their assigned job or task? The answer should be none. That’s what ever company, small or large, dreams of, employees that are disciplined and able to hyper concentrate on their job. With all this being said, those with neurological disorders, such as autism, are perfect for the work place. Mary Ellen Smith, corporate vice-president of Microsoft, said that “people with autism bring strengths that we need at Microsoft.” This is an example of a huge step forward in the movement of having more individuals with neurological disorders in the work place.

The Benefits of Neurodiversity in the Workplace

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Summary of Diversity article

The Journal article/study titled “Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Classroom: Does It Promote Student Learning?” in The Journal of Higher Education from September-October 2001 conducted a study of 1,258 students spread out throughout seven four year colleges. The students were in the field of engineering, and were mostly white males.

Students completed a series of questionnaires upon completion of the course which shed light on their experiences- how they retained information, what their diversity experience was like, how well their problem solving skills grew, etc. The answers were on a basic 1-4 scale.

The numbers in this study show that while having a less homogenous, more diverse population in the classroom may have had a positive impact on class performance, it wasn’t enough to be considered statistically significant. Even more, there was virtually no difference in class performance in the classrooms where there was no diversity at all.

A valid reason for this is that the seven colleges represented in this study are not representative of higher education as a whole, and even more importantly, the field of engineering consists of students who already are performing at a high level academically and have high problem solving skills, and are mostly (73%) male who are non minority. Taking this into account, it’s very likely that the data is skewed. The authors of this study themselves even urge not to take this as gospel, and that more studies would be needed in order to come to a more concrete conclusion.

 

(I have attached the pdf version of this article below)

2672879

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Dan discussion week of 6/1

  1. The articles “Understanding Key D&I concepts” and “Neurodiversity as a competitive advantage” both identify many significant problems that we face in our modern-day workplace. The former article describes a fictional workplace that is the epitome of most work cultures. The manager is struggling in the chaos of too many urgent tasks and is falling into the common behaviors of many ineffective managers. Those that are not in the inside group of upper management get little attention from her although she intends to do right by them. The latter article discusses how neurodiversity can play a great role in increasing the profitability of our businesses. Austin and Pisano provided multiple examples proving the success certain companies obtained by including neurodiversity people. Though if we intend to reap the benefits of our neurodiversity friends like those few companies, we must make organizational changes to provide a safe environment for them to thrive in. The workplace culture described by Kaplan and Donovan would not be suitable for this community of people. We will have to change at the individual level as well as the our organizations and the marketplace as a whole.
  2.  I started my research for something to contribute to our cannon by exploring one of the tools I know about from work. Dale Carnegie training is something that many people are familiar with. I was curious to see if there were any whitepapers about D&I. This led to me finding a company called the center for generational kinetics. This looked promising to me; however, the company mainly focuses on delivering keynote presentations to deliver their information about generational diversity. Unfortunately, this means the information they do provide often includes many cliffhangers instead of fully formed ideas and examples. Though I will not be using this article, it helped me discover the topic that I will be researching which is generations collaborating in the workplace. I have since been using the Syracuse University library to find articles pertaining to this subject.
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Summary, Week of 6/1 Dominique

The article that I chose focuses on neurodiversity in the classroom. The author’s of this article use their experiences as students, educators, etc. in order to inform the reader. The article begins by explaining the importance of understanding that neurodiversity has many benefits, then lists ways that teachers can help students achieve their goals in the classroom. Although this article highlights so many important ideas for teachers who have students with autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia, in my view, one of the most important ideas that everyone should understand is that people who have disabilities do not need to be “fixed” or “cured”. However, teachers can do things that can help their students be successful. This includes presuming competence, which means setting high standards for all students, no matter what abilities they may or may not have. Another important thing that teachers can do is let students be themselves, and allow them to explore to find their strengths. This helps students to be less frustrated in the classroom. Teachers must be able to accommodate students who need certain things in order to be successful. Overall, the purpose of this article is to assist teachers in valuing their student’s differences, and allowing for diversity in the classroom. Students should always feel welcomed in the classroom, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to help make the classroom a safe space for everyone. 

 

https://www-jstor-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/stable/pdf/26388229.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6ff9e5192877af6900911459ca04e5c9

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Article Summary

In The Changing Definition of Workplace Diversity, Shackelford discusses today’s changing definition of diversity, while considering the diversity philosophies of several corporations and authors. Employers have broadened their concept of what diversity is. The case for broadening the definition is built on the changing labor force demographics. The majority of workers entering the workforce this decade will be women, minorities and foreign nationals. The labor shortage that began in the 1990’s will continue to grow and is projected to reach 10 million workers by 2010.

Employers have moved diversity from a “nice thing to do” to a business necessity, says Donna Brazile. It’s recommended to use your cover letter to highlight your diversity status, to include on your resume your fraternity or sorority membership, to mention any affiliation with prominent minority or diversity organizations, to include military service on your resume, to state any community service or other volunteer work, or to stress your willingness to apply your degree in non-traditional ways. Discrimination in hiring has taken a back seat to issues of homeland security, terrorism, war and economic security. These changing times present a window of opportunity for “equal opportunity” for diverse candidates.

For one example, Merck as a company takes extra care to attract, hire, develop and retain highly capable and motivated students. Merck provides strong foundations for their development (scholarships and workshops) and welcomes diversity. Because of this, students look at Merck as an “Employer of Choice”after college. These types of programs are becoming more and more common to not only seek diversity, but welcome it.

https://go-gale-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T003&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=2&docId=GALE%7CA108966746&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZAHW&prodId=PPDS&contentSet=GALE%7CA108966746&searchId=R1&userGroupName=nysl_ce_syr&inPS=true&ps=1&cp=2

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Week of 6/1 Discussion

  1. Through the Syracuse Library database, I have been able to search certain topics and find databases with many articles on that specific issue. On organizational culture, for example, I’ve been able to search one specific aim of research and find more studies about those type of findings. With my research this week, I have been looking further into neurodiversity, and diversity in general in the workplace, and how that can affect the success of a company. With this in mind, and in the midst of the world’s focus right now, I think it’s important to not only research and listen to the voices who talk about the importance of diversity in their company, but also the voices who are labeled “diverse.” In many corporations, diversity quotas are put in place for PR reasons as well, but it’s often not public knowledge how welcoming or healthy that culture even is for diverse employees. And this goes for racially, sexually, neuro etc. diverse people. The voice of the diverse is as important as the ones calling for diversity who may not be labeled as such. As the Austin and Pisano article stated, while adding diversity can help a company, there are accommodations that need to be in place to help the diverse employees as well.

3. The project of the writers in this case is to convince the reader of the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Through five sections, they begin at a smaller level and move into bigger concepts before concluding with takeaways from the chapter. The first section begins at the level of one person’s workday. This has the purpose of putting the authors in the reader’s shoes for relatability. They then move on to beyond this perspective and discuss intent versus impact, as in how the actions of one affect others, calling the reader to question their own. Through the next three sections the authors move on to systematic framework and how the company as a whole can affect its individual parts with all things considered, overall moving from an individual perspective to one that affects and intertwines with the bigger company in mind, before concluding with the main ideas from each section: A sustainable inclusion effort must include change at four distinct levels: individual, group/team, organization, and marketplace. Good intent is not good enough when the impact does not match the intent. Managing the impact of our biases is leadership. What the authors do/“work on” in this chapter is effective because they move between different perspectives and don’t place the author as an other they are simply talking at. They raise counter arguments with responses to follow, and work withrather than against the reader to get them to agree with their proposals by the end of the chapter.

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Austin & Pisano Article Summary

Companies are looking for “neurodiverse” talent, including people with autism spectrum disorder. The incidence of autism in the U.S. is now 1 in 42 among boys and 1 in 189 among girls. Neurodiverse people often need workplace accommodations, such as headphones to prevent auditory overstimulation. But to realize the benefits, companies would have to adjust recruitment, selection, and career data sets. Companies implementing neurodiversity programs have encountered challenges, authors say. Many are hard to identify, and potential candidates do not necessarily self-identify. Microsoft is working with universities to improve methods of identifying and accessing Neurodiverse talent.People are like puzzle pieces, irregularly shaped. Historically, companies have asked employees to trim away their irregularities. Wittenberg says Innovation is most likely to come from parts of us that we don’t all share. The work for managers will be harder, but the payoff for companies will be considerable.