Category: Discussions/Homework

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Discussion week 6/1

  1. I find that the stereotypes and schemas individuals use to guide their understanding of the world have a very strong, unconscious impact on our judgements and decisions. Specifically, I am curious to follow up more with the different studies that involve focusing on individual’s opinions or perspectives on group diversity within the workplace. I will most likely hope to find a study performed by someone who is an expert with group interaction and the effects of how different demographics can change the group mentality. From these experts, I would hope that they would open up discussion as to why some people are more inclusive than others, why some pride themselves on their uniqueness while others try to blend in. I think it would also be worth the time to find research done by I/O psychologist, who have worked within companies to help improve organizational diversity, maybe shedding some light onto which means of action taken by a company create longer lasting impacts. I am primarily going to be looking into studies done within companies and groups of people, as case studies would insufficient, and potentially researching some survey results taken from groups pertaining to topics like “inclusivity” and “diversity”.

3. In thinking in terms of Harris’s approach focused on in Rewriting, it was simple to use when focusing on Kaplan and Donovan’s article. After reading the text, I think it was easiest to define the intended project; in this case, I would define the project to be “Kaplan and Donovan delve deeper into the unsaid conversations about the key concepts pertaining to workplace diversity and inclusivity. Utilizing these key concepts, although there are plenty of other concepts that are also involved, they set up an example of an employee work day, further analyzing the day through each of the key concepts to create a “visual map” for the audience.” I think that this article is mainly to show how in everyday situations, these concepts can be found. Through their deeper analysis, the pair seem to have found ways to jog the mind of the audience, to have them also consider the concepts they have intended for identifying means of diversity and inclusion.

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Week of 6/1 A&P Summary

The lack of neurodiversity in the workplace has become a talked about topic recently. Austin and Pisano’s article, “Nuerodiversity as a Competitive Advantage” highlights the issue of representation, describes the cause of it, then further explains how to resolve this problem. In the article, Austin and Pisano enforce the idea that everyone has different abilities based on how they were raised, and many business owners understand the positive effect that can have on a person’s work. Unfortunately, people who have disabilities are not represented in the workplace as much as they should be. In Austin and Pisano’s view, “Because neurodiverse people are wired differently from “neurotypical” people, they may bring new perspectives to a company’s efforts to create or recognize value” (Austin & Pisano 2017, p. 99). These new perspectives and backgrounds could be especially beneficial to companies because it allows new ideas to be brought to the table. Although accommodations may be difficult to set up, it is important that businesses become more diverse. Overall, this article by Austin and Pisano is extremely important because of the message it displays: people who have disabilities are talented, valuable, and can be a real asset in the workplace. 

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week 6/1 Isaac haseltine prompts

  1. While reading the assigned articles for this class I’ve noticed the main piece of information we are not focusing on is the true perspective from people in minority groups in an organizational culture. Most of the articles address minorities and subgroups that are excluded in some way, although none of the articles actually come from these subgroups. I believe our canon needs a source of information that is less about who and what these subgroups and are more about the perspective from these groups and what they believe is necessary. Using the SU Library and typical research practices I plan on finding an article from that disadvantageous side of the same central topic: How inclusion and diversity are necessary for an organization. I have not started my search yet, but an article written by someone who is part of a minority group facing challenges will stand out to me more since they have firsthand knowledge of how the issue can have negative effects on the people and the organization.

 

  1.   In the article “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off” there is a central example situation that the authors configured to help the reader comprehend their key points and how small variations can bring a larger impact than what is intended. The project that Kaplan and Donovan address is the importance of inclusion and diversity in a work environment, but it gets more complex than that. The standard level of inclusion and diversity is shared by the majority of organizational cultures; everyone with the qualifications should have an equal opportunity and prejudice in the workplace should be combated. Even though this statement is correct, there is a much deeper side to the idea of inclusion and diversity. The amount of actual focus that is given to this matter can be quite low, and the unconscious bias that takes place typically goes unspoken because the majority of workers are included. The articles main purpose is not to tell you why diversity is important, but to share with you the simple mistakes that go unnoticed that can have a devastating impact on the morale and performance of a company.
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K&D Week 6/1 Isaac Haseltine

When it comes to diversity and inclusion in an organizational culture everybody intends to Have a positive and healthy workplace. The article ‘The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off’ uses a highly realistic fictional story to convey the difference between somethings intention and the actual impact. An example-manager the authors named Kim worked her way through a typical busy day and included how her actions and words can have a larger impact when you take a second glance. The article’s key points include unconscious bias that occurs in most decision-making settings, as well as the systematic levels and insider-outsider dynamics that form in every organizational culture. These are consequences that are formed when aspects of a culture don’t receive enough attention. For an organization to have a fully equal workplace the executives and staff must turn their focus to themselves and the people around them rather than just the company.

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Overview of Week of 6/1

Now that we’re getting our feet under us in terms of what organizational culture is, why diversity and inclusion are part of the conversation, and how thinking about rhetorical situation can help us to engage with complex texts, it’s time for us to build on that.

As a group, we’ve all been working with the same set of texts, and that gives us a shared foundation of knowledge. What I’ve tried to assemble here is a set of texts that function as a canon–works that are essential to an understanding of the subject matter, important and influential works. But there’s so much more out there to explore, and that will be your primary work for the week–looking around to locate an additional text that you think should be part of the canon.

Canonical works are substantive–building on careful and thoughtful research. They provide new insights and ideas, and don’t simply re-present known information. They work well for their audience, so that they can contribute to the world of knowledge.

Chances are you’ll need to look at several articles to find one that does all this and that meets the particular criteria that are set forth on the unit 1 assignment sheet . The SU libraries’ website is a good place to start here. You can use the Advanced Search functions there to help filter the results so they meet some of the basic criteria to start with. You’ll find a number of useful tutorials on the library site if you’re not already familiar with using it. This search tips page is a good place to start.

(A quick note on using SU libraries vs. Google Scholar–you’ve already paid for the SU services and won’t ever bump into a paywall; on Google Scholar, you often will. The library also provides free research support, which you can’t get on Google.)

So, where to begin? Here’s an overview of your tasks for the week:

Reading assignments:

  • chapters 2 and 3 of TSIS
  • chapter 1 of Rewriting by Joe Harris (PDF on Blackboard)
  • “Understanding key D&I concepts” (PDF on Blackboard)
  • your selected article (that you plan to contribute to the canon)–to write an effective summary, you will need to read this carefully and probably more than once. Be sure to consult the close reading handout and the handout on summary.

Discussion/writing assignments:

  • write a 100-200 word summary of either the Kaplan and Donovan article from this week OR the Austin and Pisano article from last week, and submit this on the blog (categorize as “Discussions/Homework”; tag with “K&D” or “A&P” as appropriate, along with “week of 6/1,” and [your name] (due Weds., 6/3) 
  • respond to 2 of this week’s discussion questions (available here). Categorize as “Discussions/Homework”; tag with “week of 6/1,” “unit1,” and [your name]. (due Thurs., 6/4): 

    Discussion prompts for Week of 6/1

  • respond to at least 2 of your classmates’ discussion posts on the blog (due Sat., 6/6)
  •  write a 200 word summary of your selected article. Include a link to or PDF of the article you’re working with, and reference the author and title of the text you are summarizing. Categorize this as “Expanding the Canon”; tag it with “summary,” “week of 6/1,” and [your name]. (due Sun., 6/7)
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Discussion prompts for Week of 6/1

This week you’ll begin injecting into this conversation about diversity and inclusion that we’ve been reading about. Each of you will suggest an article to add to this body of information, so that we can all continue to expand our understanding of the issues. Please be sure to reread the last page of the  unit 1 assignment sheet.

First, a quick refresher on rhetorical situation. This is the idea that everything is written by someone, for someone, for some purpose, and within some broader context. Considering these different elements of a text can give us a window into how the text works, why it looks the way it does, whether it is likely to be successful for its intended reader, etc. You’ve already seen rhetorical situation represented in visual form like this:

Just a little something to keep in mind as we move into discussion for the week–we’ll be thinking a lot this week about how authors respond to their writing situation in order to produce successful communications, and in particular about how an author’s audience connects to his/her purpose in writing.

On to the prompts–this week everyone should respond to the 1st question and then select 1 of the other 2 to answer. Responses should be >150 words each. Please tag your responses with “unit1,” “weekof6/1,” and [your name]. Categorize as “Discussions.”

  1. It’s time to get moving along with your unit 1 assignment. For this assignment, you will be adding to the set of sources we’re reading about diversity and organizational culture (which amount to a canon of sorts–a collection of important texts). We’ll expand this canon by suggesting additional valuable resources. So, for your first discussion post this week, please tell us a little about how you’re doing that: what kinds of material are you looking for? what topic are you following up on? what sort of expert(s) do you think we need to hear from? how are you looking (i.e. what particular databases or search tools are you using)? what techniques or strategies are proving helpful?
  2. This week’s readings move from the theoretical conversation about diversity that unfolds in the pages of scholarly journals to the practical–consideration of what is actually involved in creating and maintaining a diverse workforce, this time through the lens of (dis)ability. Let’s start to put the pieces together, as we’re adding to our growing foundation of knowledge: construct a they say/I say sentence (or series of sentences) that connects one of this week’s readings about disability inclusion with one of the readings from the last 2 weeks. (There are a number of templates in chapter 2 of TSIS that might help you with this work.) You are welcome to include yourself as an I in this formulation, but you may also choose to use 2 theys here–i.e. While Austin and Pisano contend that…. Kaplan and Donovan suggest that… Be creative, and use this work to further your understanding both of the texts you’re employing, as well as your own perspective.
  3. In chapter 1 of Rewriting, Joe Harris asks us to consider a writer’s project when we’re trying to make sense of a particular text. That is, he encourages us to think of “something far more complex than a main idea, since it refers not to a single concept but to a plan of work, to a set of ideas and questions that a writer ‘throws forward (Latin, pro + jacare)” and to recognize that “a project is something that a writer is working on–and that a text can only imperfectly realize” (Harris 17). Thinking in these terms, how would you characterize the project that Kaplan and Donovan undertake in “Key D&I Concepts”? That is, what do you think they are “working on” in this article? (Review Harris’s steps at the bottom of page 15.)
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Week 5/25

1. When it comes to the topic of organizational diversity policies, most of us will readily agree that these policies have some relation to the success of an organization. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how these policies affect minorities. Whereas some are convinced that these mission statements pursue means of promoting multiculturalism, others maintain that they may pursue means of value-in-individual differences or value-in-homogeneity within an organization. 
For this approach, I first focused on choosing one statement, one that still aligned with the article but was challenging. I found it difficult to represent the article while still following the statement’s foundation with the blanks. This proved to of course be challenging, but manageable, and with this challenge I was able too further dive into my interpretation of Gundemir’s means of experimentation when it came to organizational diversity policies. I found this framework to be useful, and one that I can see myself using more often. I would use these statements in the particular case that I am having trouble understanding an article. I feel that the frameworks given are ones that are not too complicated to fill in but are also just difficult enough to jog some though into and encourage myself as a reader to analyze the text even deeper.
2. I believe my understanding of organizational diversity has expanded since reading these two articles. The first, Gundemir’s article focusing on minority representation and diversity, was fascinating to myself in ways I had not expected. The results of the two experiments were intriguing, seeing how different policies can produce an outcome from the participants. Seeing that when mutliculturalism and value-in-individual differences are endorsed, the participants perceived this as a more diverse approach in comparison to the value-in-homogeneity. Little did I think, until reading Austin and Pisano’s article, that those who suffer from neurological disorders fall into the diverse category and indeed they do. These individuals see the world from a different perspective, one that should most certainly be represented but I would assume is most certainly not the case when observing organizational diversity. From my perspective before being so definitional, I did not think to question what diverse would mean in this instance, how it would pertain to anyone who is not considered the majority or privileged. Through both articles, they present the positives to this diversity, and why it should be incorporated in the business world more often than it is. The stigmas and issues surrounding being a more inclusive company are presented, but after reading both articles there is a clear understanding that the positive outcomes outweigh the worries some may have.
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Discussion post – week of 5/25 (Dan)

1)           According to the findings of the Gundermir article, Organizations should strive to create diversity policies focusing on multiculturalism and value-in-individuals. Gundemir defined the former as policies that explicitly acknowledge the positive characteristic of diverse social groups. The latter is defined as a policy that acknowledges each individual for their characteristics without explicitly addressing ethnic groups. Though I agree that our society must focus on developing company mission statements that vocalize inclusion, I believe that there may be more effective ways to increase the morale of all employees and create an open-minded environment without focusing most of our attention on mission statements.

Using the writing technique of framing what “They say” first has certainly helped me organize my thoughts and formulate my argument in a way that has set me up for further explanation. I agree that writing in this manner will help me stay on track and keep me from straying away on tangents.

 

 

2)           My reading of the Gundemir et al article and the article on neurodiversity has been very thought provoking for me. I understand that our society needs to strive for continuous improvement in inclusion to become more accepting of everyone’s differences. This, I agree, will be beneficial to our society on many levels. I also acknowledge that there is still much work to be done as certain groups may be underrepresented in leadership roles in companies. Though I found it interesting, for example, that the Gundemir article states that African Americans hold around 10 percent of board seats in fortune 100 companies. This doesn’t seem to be drastically far off from the percentage of African American population in the United States of around 13 percent. On the other hand, the article on neurodiversity possesses a fact that is truly startling to me. That is that the unemployment rate for these individuals runs as high as 80 percent! At my company I work with and am good friends with people from many different parts of the world. But I can say that I do not know a single person that I work with who would be classified as non-neurotypical. I know that my company often addresses the importance of ethnical inclusion, though they have never once discussed the issue of minimal representation of the nuerodiverse community in any level of the business. I would be very interested to further explore this topic as I have some close ties with this. I have a great relationship with my fiancées cognitively impaired brother. He struggles to understand how to interact with others in certain situations and he does learn at a slower pace. Though I know that he could make positive contributions to organizations if more of them will adopt the practices at SAP, HPE, Microsoft and others included in Austin and Pisanos article.

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Responses week of 5/25

  1. One approach from Chapter 1 of They Say / I Say which I will be taking is: In discussions of organizational diversity, one controversial issue has been if having organizational diversity policies show any changes among employee minorities’ self perceptions and goals, and if these changes are positive or negative. On the one hand, Gundemir argues that Mulitculturalism and Value-in-Individuality Differences prove to have a positive effect on the self perceptions and goals of minorities. On the other hand, the Value-in-Homogeneity policy emphasizes equality and uniformity of treatment rather than individual uniqueness, which is what several companies may choose to follow. I definitely found this approach to framing quite useful because it made me think outside of the box. Now I understand what the preface / introduction was talking about when they mentioned templates. I feel as though having this guide made me reference back to the article by Gundemir and dive much deeper into the content and comprehend it, rather than just read the paragraphs over and over again without understanding the information displayed.
  2. The readings for this week strengthened my thoughts on why diversity is so important, and why I look forward to reading more passages in this class. As I was reading Gundemir’s article, I associated the connection to improving the minorities’ self perceptions and goals just with overall self confidence, and what this can do for a person. By using the policies of Multiculturalism and Value-in-Individual Differences, there is so much room for self growth which can they be carried into a work environment. As a result, these policies make it easier for those not belonging to majority groups to feel more comfortable in who they are, radiate happiness, and boost their self – esteem. In just the two weeks that I’ve enrolled in this course, I already have become way more educated on the topic of diversity which I am very grateful for. Having a company that includes many different mindsets / outlooks / perspectives on life that people of all races and ethnicities can bring to the table is much more beneficial than just a bunch of employees doing every single task with the same idea, which is hopefully a bold step that more businesses are looking to take in the near future.
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Discussion Post, Week of 5/25 [Toni]

Formal organizational diversity policies and how they affect minorities’ self-perceptions and goals in leadership, seem to be based on statistics of findings through the lens of subcategories of multiculturalism, valuing interindividual differences and valuing homogeneity.  These three subcategories seem to increase perceptions of an open diversity climate, which in turn enhances leadership self-efficacy. I feel ill-equipped to analyze or even summarize these findings I attempted to follow throughout this article. It’s incredibly well researched and documented.  It’s made clear that many sources are out there to say that, “minority leadership is crucial to optimally utilize the talent of all employees for competitive advantage,” but it’s also stated that such initiatives, such as affirmative action, are often accompanied by unintended negative consequences.  Further attempting to study if cultural intervention in the form of diversity policies can be instrumental in stimulating minority leadership and impacting leadership self-perceptions, they manipulate the environment to see the extent that such policies succeed in creating a climate for diversity, and if they will positively influence minority employees.  However, without the manipulations in place, one might wonder what the real life impacts these cultural interventions actually have? And is the real goal diversity? Or apparent diversity so long as it benefits the company at large?