Author: Bryan Cordova

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Week of 6/29 – Discussion

  1. For me one of the most significant pieces Wong adds is found under the ‘Starting with Better Question’ section.  By prompting the audience to reflect and ask more targeted, meaningful questions, she’s teaching others how to welcome more people to be apart of the conversation. In doing so it creates a more hospitable discussion and overall enables one to reach larger audiences. One of the biggest difficulties for entering any controversial issue is learning where to start. From personal experience I found this become true whenever I tried to enter political discussions. Given the vast amount of media coverage, events, and body of literature, I felt overwhelmed never knowing how to approach an issue. Because of that, I found myself often shy away from discussing these topics, unsure of how my perspective could ever add to what other enlightened perspectives already knew. Wong acknowledges how overwhelming this can become whilst pointing where to begin. She not only addresses the incomplete and thoughtful questions one could ask but adds how it can begin to shift our thinking on the issue. Instead of having a corporate company ask ‘who else can we bring on board,’ for example, she proposes a deeper alternative that looks at ‘who is not being represented at the table and in what ways how have we kept out?’ As Wong puts it, “these questions invite examination of potentially exclusionary aspects” targeting the deeper source of the issue, rather than merely scratching over the surface. It places responsibility on the organization which in turn is more likely to move an organization to be more inclusive. Emphasis is added to what questions we should ask versus what we might (negatively) assume.

2. Immediately following that last paragraph, Wong makes a compelling argument on the distinction between equality vs equity. Smoothly transitioning from counters to claims, she first does so by recognizing the issues specific groups of people then and even now have had (identifying ‘it’ is a recurring argument in her article). The extra note saying people “continue to experience” disproportionate harm, hardships, and disadvantages adds a dimension of time and scale signaling that this issue is problematically static.

She later explains how assumptions, such as believing that equality associates sameness for everyone, can become the root of these issues. While the idea that we’re “treated the same and get the same things” may entertain groups of people, Wong discredits it immediately in the following sentence by saying “however,  treating everyone the same is a surefire way to exacerbate and reproduce inequalities.” Not only will it continue reproducing inequalities, but she adds it will more negatively aggregate the issue.

Wong goes further in explaining where this logic may come from which is powerful because it helps the reader or the naysayer identify an incomplete evaluation or assumption they might have made. As she puts it, while it “may seem counterintuitive, there are many examples that demonstrate how treating everyone the same is often more unfair…” Here she is backing up her claim by providing concrete examples on how all parties of the discussion can reevaluate themselves and instead, “actually have more equal opportunities to succeed.”

 

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Week of 6/22 – Discussion

  1. As I’ve begun researching my topic further I found myself struggling to filter notable sources. This may be because I was looking through too many databases (Google Scholar, Syracuse Libraries: Proquest, JSHOR, etc.) without refining my search engine. Instead, I was sifting through quick content searches with conflicting and indecisive interests. Because of this it took me a while to finally settle on just one source but eventually I found an appropriate article written on language diversity in the international workplace. Given my topic of interest it helped to look through a database that was pertinent to the field. For this reason I chose the LLBA: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts  however it did become intense handling numerous related articles. One tip I guess I would suggest would be to work more with less (instead of continuously trying to find the perfect source)!
  2. Some of the research topics I had in mind came about from my unit one assignment. From the article I chose the authors addressed limitations to their study and suggestions for further areas of future research. As of now I’m trying to find relevant work under this scope though I am a bit uncertain with concluding if a source is outdated (i.e. an article writing about the state of research then in 2006 compared to the research now) and if it can still be of value. Apart from this, I hope to find which voices are especially important to represent.
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Week of 6/15 – Discussion

1. I really found myself appreciating many of the topics our peers shared this past week. One thing I found myself noticing was being able to make connections across different posts or subjects. The media element Samantha shared on religious diversity, for instance, brought up the notion of integration when combatting religious stereotype threats. This pairs along with some of the arguments Bogost raised when sharing the various perspective he and his colleagues had on distinguishing integration with diversity. Similarily it also touched on the idea of embracing valuable differences which were overlapping themes between Aaron, Dominique, and  Mikayla’s post. The general message each author argued for was in taking the time to learn from others and embrace the differences we all share. Whether that be in one’s disability, educational or experiential intelligence, or the perceptional age and influence from minority populations, all three articles respectively umbrella under the same goal. Like many of the other canon articles and media links shared, I gained valuable insight in expanding my line of thinking opening up targeted groups and larger, untapped audiences.

3. Bogost starts his argumentation with a particular and relatable but problematic situation at the airport involving the university professor Webb to create an interesting and intelligible beginning to the topic of discriminatory environments in technological fields. Here, he uses quotes to zoom out the specific situation and to identify the problems in a bigger picture that have been created by the non-representative Tech industry. After that, he puts the focus on some approaches in that area to ameliorate the issues in diversity. For the link between the individual paragraphs, the author applies transitional connectors into the syntactical structures like “even though” or “but” for a better reading flow and to maintain coherence between the different passages. Besides that, he includes various opinions of other experts, giving them a voice to substantiate his reasoning. Webb also plays a role throughout the argumentation to generate a connection between the anecdote of the beginning and the passages. Giving her point of view, the article ends by pointing out the general problems of Computing in the Tech industry.

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Week of 6/15 – Bogost Rhetoric

A recurring rhetorical strategy Bogost applies is in crafting a descriptive narrative. The earliest example we see is when he describes NYU professor and author Amy Webb looking at a TSA security screen with her “cast, head, and breasts [as] big blocks of yellow.” Any immediate response in reading this would itch for an explanation serving to keep the audience curious and invested in the storyline.

Bogost signals that “she had other problems with the machines, too, including that her mop of thick, curly hair confuses them.” He even goes onto mention that another colleague too received similar treatment issuing a “cranial patdown.” This conversational tone keeps a reader-friendly framework to appeal to his intended audience of a publishing blog/ journal webpage. More importantly, however, is understanding that Bogost’s decision to introduce more people/ issues into the eclectic mix suggests that maybe the issue with tech, as we come to find out, isn’t a specific a lone case, but rather a familiar situation recognized by many others.

Later on we begin to understand where Bogost stands on the issue which is best interpreted under one of TSIS’s template of “Okay, but…” It’s evident when he mentions the “Tech industry diversity is improving but it’s still pretty terrible.” Acknowledging what they (the tech industry) say moves the anecdotes Bogost gave with a larger subject the readers can process in mind. In doing so the rhetoric behind the title of his article gains scale presenting the issues and insufficient solutions we’re currently at.

Following the ‘they say’ format, Bogost is also seen challenging the conventional wisdom of diversity and inclusion. He’s explicit in saying “the thinking goes…” when describing how the people with the right educational background, connection, and  access will, “produce the workforce that Webb and others are calling for.” This claim reinstates the negative consequences a lack of computational diversity presents with its logistical train of thought.

And finally, he rounds out his argument sharing insight of his own experience on the subject. By introducing himself as a faculty position holder at Georgia Techs Constellation Center for Equity in Computing, Bogost appeals to audiences who may have questioned his accountability or reason to write on the subject. He adds to the conversation sharing data, statistics (such as the one on Google), and other scholarly directors/ leaders  perspective in the field opening lines for a fruitful discussion and strengthening his credibility with broader audiences.

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Unit 1 Assignment: Expanding the Canon

The standard way of thinking about diversity has it that ethnicity, gender, and race are the predominant merits companies need to consider at the workplace.  Where they often fall short, however, is in fully realizing the impact language diversity has amongst its employees. 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 multilingual backgrounds more as a way to leverage diversity in our increasingly globalized society. Their article “Language Diversity, Non-native Accents, and Their Consequences at the Workplace” addresses the type of challenges native and nonnative speakers face, how a lack of linguistic diversity can negatively affect intraorganizational dynamics, and why it has been overlooked these past few decades.

Many studies in the past have shown how one speaks, being a leading social force in communication, can stigmatize those especially with nonnative accents and in turn create negative perceptions of the speaker. While Kim et al attest to this past research, they point out that it often only ever examined how nonnative speakers are or were evaluated from the perspective of native speakers. As a result, Kim et al study look at giving more attention to understanding the cognitive and emotional experiences between both native and nonnative speakers in an organizational workplace setting. Their research design and data collection approach involved inquiring 99 respondents’ experiences through in-depth semi-structured interviews and open-ended survey question formats.

The study’s strength lays in its inclusive ability to hear from all ends of the spectrum. It allows the reader to empathize with the point of view from many others and at a greater personable scale because of the various detailed, first-hand accounts given. From both parties, they found that language diversity resulted in two challenges at work which included the real difficulty of communicating amongst varying levels of a speaker’s fluency, and the perceived difficulty in communicating that cues one to assess a speaker’s competency, regardless of their actual competence.

Since language and communication ultimately pervade every facet of organization life, having different linguistic backgrounds will inevitably present challenges between employees. Cognitive scientist and professor at UCSD, Lera Boroditsky, expands this horizon of thinking in a TED Talk she delivered explaining how linguistic diversity reveals just how ingenious and flexible the human mind is. Giving cultural, mathematical, and everyday case by case scenarios, she highlights how language can influence and have big effects on how we perceive even the most basic perceptual decisions such as color. She connects these ideas to bigger implications within our daily lives giving examples of how speakers from varying backgrounds can process ideas and remember eyewitness events differently. Applying this to our topic of diversity and inclusion, the greatest takeaway we can note is how different language abled people can think or conceptualize events not seen by another individual, group, or organization in a workplace setting. Failure in recognizing the value this brings can create obstacles in creating an inclusive environment that performs at its best. Worse yet, Kim et al argue that it can create subtle forms of discrimination, the undervaluation of foreign employees, and fewer opportunities in careers for nonnative speakers.

Towards the end of the article the authors openly discuss the importance this sort of diversity has in the workplace. Here it becomes evident that the data this publication presents is consistent with many of the readings we’ve had including Gundemir et al take on the impact of minority employees’ self-perception at the workplace and Kaplan and Donovan’s call for a better level of systems framework. Similarly, they address how language diversity can serve as source of competitive advantage like Austin and Pisano go on to describe with neurodiverse populations. By accommodating a space both native and nonnative speakers feel safe to express fears, concerns, and emotions, encouraging openness and inclusion will become the set norm. The bigger picture of their argument, I find here, aims to expand who/ what we consider when discussing diversity at a deeper level.

While documented research has shown organizational culture playing an important role in promoting diversity (Shore et al 2009), Kim et al extend this conversation addressing that language diversity continues being overlooked despite its ability to elicit more forms of discrimination at work compared with other diversity attributes. In publishing their research, they are bridging a gap in diversity and literature that has glossed over the role language plays in our conscious and unconscious actions. They provide concrete reasons as to why these issues are critical to address and the potential it has to improve organizational performance and therefore, benefit everyone in the organization. At its cores these discussions make us pause to reflect on the organizational systems and persistent inequalities we have ongoing today.

Scholarly Article:  

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

Media Artifact: A better understanding of how language shapes the way we think and the impacts it has on the culture, society, and organizations we create.

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Week of 6/8 – Discussion

1. The most engaging approach I found this week came from Jason Freid. Throughout his presentation he gave a very logistical and linear narration on why work doesn’t (always) happen at work. He begins with a line of credibility addressing an ongoing and relatable question he’s been asking everyday people for ten years. Prompting those in the audience to speculate where they go to ‘get work done,’ Fried draws out that they seldom say the office. He gives support to why this is never the case listing reasons whilst drawing comparisons and adding a bit of comical charm to his argument. The examples he gives, such as comparing sleep with work, helps explain how the two processes are interrelated and that in order to achieve its fullest potential, they require uninterrupted. Managers and meetings, or “M&M’s” as he jokingly calls it, are directly apart of the issue. These anecdotal scenarios go further serving as statistical tradeoffs when he makes the point that a manager’s meeting with ten employers doesn’t consume an hour of time, but rather ten hours of productivity. What I found interesting was his ability to reason or look at things in an alternative way. Explicit about being manager himself, Fried furthers his connection with the audience making them feel as if he is on ‘their’ side. He offers a point of reason appealing to listeners who may not have looked at it that way in the past. Finally, he rounds out his argument debunking beliefs of those opposed to alternatives at the office by adding recommendations from whats worked based on his own and many other company experiences

3. For this discussion I wanted to continue elaborating on Jason Fried’s argument. For starters its necessary to understand Fried’s perspective which is based around developing and reframing the nature of work with practical tools and collaborative platforms. As an entrepreneur he continuously looks for growth thus requiring him to be relatable across broad audiences. He has co-authored publications and found companies that focused on productivity. Knowing this we’re able to relate his background with the larger body of knowledge around organizational culture. From our class readings we’ve begun to understand how diversity and inclusion policies can influence the perception of its employees especially with minority groups. Similar discussions included embracing those less well known such as neurodiverse and disabled populations. Rethinking the levels of systems Kaplan and Donovan describe coincides with the theme Fried is trying to address in his TedTalk. Where I see Fried’s message fit is in between the category of an organizational and individual level. His approach to reworking the systematic organizations we have today, such as those in greater leadership positions (i.e. managers),  is key to fostering an environment that has better lines of communication and productivity amongst its employees. By reducing distractions taken from trivial matters (i.e. meetings), Fried is empowering individuals to have more time to focus on themselves which in turn can have positive effects on the overall pool of sustaining diversity. The point I want to make is that his talk reinforces the idea that ones actions have running impacts and feedback loops to many issues at large.

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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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Week of 6/1 – Discussion

1. For our unit 1 assignment I found myself diving further into the Syracuse database. My initial research began by looking up the topics we had already been reviewing for over the past two-three weeks. I found linking scholarly and academic articles with keywords such as homogeneity, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., helpful in narrowing down targeted interests. From here, I came across a few articles that opened a topic of conversation I at least had not considered yet. Language and the effect multilingualism has in the workplace particularly caught my eye. My preliminary understanding from the briefs I read suggested this form of diversity is an emerging topic worth further scholarly investigation. As the workplace becomes increasingly global, challenges in communication between employees with different linguistic backgrounds are inevitable. Topics worth following up on include case studies and understanding the dynamics between native/ nonnative language speakers. Seeing the effects this has from an individual, team, and organizational level overlaps with a few of the readings we’ve had such as  Kaplan and Donovans ‘level of systems’ framework. Similarily, Gundemir’s take on leadership, goals, and perceptions coincide heavily with how minorities can find comfort in communicating in other languages at work.

3. Kaplan and Donovan’s intent was to place readers in a position of judgment where they could reassess the impact one’s words and actions have at the workplace. From the narrative of executive employee Kim, readers follow vignettes of her day to day schedule prompting readers to think about how her decisions stand with concurrent issues of diversity and inclusion. The storyline is broken down in the latter half of the chapter addressing solutions or alternative ways Kim could have better-approached a work-related scenario.

Kaplan and Donovan develop these sections speaking on the distinction of good intent versus impact, the importance of recognizing unconscious bias, and the problems with insider-outsider group relations. They’re able to reach a broad audience because of the familiarity Kim’s everyday anecdote presents, however, the extent of their writing only comes across as far as the simplicity of their solutions. The sometimes overly perfect measures Kim could have taken suggest ‘quick’ fixes for an otherwise complex system. Still, Kaplan and Donovan’s approach at its core reopens a lingering discussion dissectable for readers to understand the perspective of those who fall short of being included. The best use their key takeaways realize is that the reevaluation of systematic views at various scales only marks the beginning.

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Week of 6/1 – Summary K&D

From a chapter excerpt written in “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity and Inclusion Pays Off,” managing partners Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan bring to public light the cognitive and ever-present yet rarely discussed behavioral effects diversity and inclusion can take at the workplace. Through the day-to-day operations of the protagonist character Kim, readers are able to relate and sympathize with the perspective of a company executive as she goes about her busy work schedule. Kaplan and Donovan go on to discuss in detail the impacts Kim’s words and actions may have created or at large, contributed to a bigger crisis of mismanaged events.

The issues they present here ask one to reflect on our humanly inherent biases which commonly create unfair advantages and dividing insider-outsider work relations. Specifically addressing the need for systematic views at various scales, their argument stands to reduce micro-inequities that oftentimes goes unrealized and creates obstacles for underrepresented people. Kaplan and Donovan reinforce the idea that an individual’s good intent, while it may as well be in everybody’s agenda, is not enough to create lasting impacts a company should learn in order to move themselves forward. The goal of inclusion, as they put it, “should be apart of our daily decision.”

 

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Week of 5/25 – Discussion

1. When it comes to the topic of organizational diversity policies in the workplace, most of us will readily agree that said policies bring beneficiary values.  Where the agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of “whether and how these can play a pivotal causal role in shaping minority group member’s leadership-related perception” (p 173). Whereas some are convinced that we should explicitly value the characteristics of diverse minority members, others maintain that suppressing the categorization of people into distinct groups will eliminate negative consequences such as prejudice or conflict. My own view is that ideologies of colorblindness will always influence a time and place for assessing the best possible workplace type and climate based environment.

For this exercise I worked off a template that introduced an ongoing debate. Where I decided to expand off this template was in the last sentence of the paragraph. Here I’m basically trying to say that the nature of colorblind theory (whether positive or negative) carries a be-all and end-all placement for determining the direction of diversity policies in the workplace. I think because my knowledge on the subject is fairly new and limited, the point I wanted to make may read a bit difficult, however, it is an area of research I’d be interested in exploring further. Overall I found this approach pretty useful for getting my thoughts to follow a logical process onto the page.

2. Something these weekly readings have began to do is expand my horizon for how I think about diversity in organizations. In my earlier views I always thought about diversity kind of as a black and white slate. The readings particularly on neurodiversity illuminated groups I had not fully considered. Even more so as I kept reading on the topic, it unveiled how widespread these organizations can be. Often times they’ll break up into further subgroups and subcultures within an already distinct body. Being a minority myself found me agreeing with a lot of the claims made especially in Gundemir’s reading. It made me reflect on conversations I’ve had in the past with family or friends alike whom identify as such. From our discussions we would talk about how being a minority places one on a constant pedestal (showcase) to society. As individuals we have a role and responsibility to live up our name or fall in either stereotypical category. Its sad to think like that though most would agree that if there were greater personal and leadership examples in the workplace, we would feel more motivated to excel. The reality is though with our current policy standards and systems in place, it isn’t as easy to progress. To say “yes we support diversity, here it is” is not enough. Theres a teetering and sensitive balance for how companies and individuals can work. As I’ve come to learn, instilling a new message requires discussing all grounds no matter how uncomfortable or confrontational they may be.