Author: Oumou Azika

1. In her article ” The Impact of Organizational Policies on Minority Employees” Gundemir has concluded that multiculturalism and value-in individual differences policies are preferred red by minorities because they make them feel safe in their environment as well as motivate them to do their best work. This conclusion seems valid when taking into account that in the studies conducted, minority groups were more likely to strive for leadership positions when they felt included and valued in their organizations, which also increases the overall productivity of the organization as a whole.

I included Gundemir’s conclusion as the they say and then for my I say I supported the “they say” since I agree with Gundemir’s findings. I’m not sure if I did this correctly since I didn’t see any templates for supporting the “they say” in the chapter. I think the framing is fairly simple to follow but I’m confused on how it would be formatted if we are supporting the they say claim.

1. After reading the articles by Gundemir et al and Austin and Pisano I am left with a deeper understanding of the importance of diversity and inclusion when it comes to the workplace. I’ve noticed that really intrigues me is in this weeks articles as well as last weeks articles there was a very prominent connection between diversity and the overall improvement of organizations. The article by Austin and Pisano was very enlightening to me. Something that stood out to me was that companies and organizations have been trying to be more inclusive to people with autism but then it was mentioned that there these accommodations haven’t been adapted to include people with other neurological abilities. I think that although these organizations are trying to take things one at a time, it is also important that they at least begin including people with other neurological abilities as well even if it is on a small scale. In the Gundemir studies both times the minority groups favored the multiculturalism and value-in individual differences policies because they made them feel more included and valued in the organization. This connects to the Austin and Pisano article because in both articles I have seen that when accommodations are put in place to guarantee the inclusion of everyone, then the organization will overall be more successful as well as motivate the individuals to do their best. Also I find it very important that both articles mentioned that diversity also means that you will have multiple ways to reach a goal since people will have different ideas based off of their own experiences.

I can think of a few ways that I am able to connect my experience to the bigger idea of diversity and inclusion presented in these articles. Prior to coming to SU’s campus, I was nervous because I didn’t know anyone and I also didn’t really understand how college worked because I am a first gen student. I was afraid that I would feel left out, however once I got on campus I soon realized that the school does a lot to make sure that each student feels included. I would always get emails about zoom events for the first generation students which allowed me to find a community I related to and have people I could go to if I ever had any questions. This did in a way motivate me because I realized that it was possible for me to survive in this new and challenging atmosphere. I honestly believe that if I did not have these people around me trying to help me, my first year wouldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did.

Highlight of my week

On Monday I had a picnic at Roosevelt Island with my sister and cousin. We also went and got ice cream from Surreal Creamery afterwards. Sadly I didn’t take any pictures but I had a really fun time.

1) In the article “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” I found the idea that culture is a product of compensation to be very interesting, in that paragraph it was mentioned that the best predictors of what people will do is what they are incentivized to do. I also connected this to the article “Why Diversity Matters” where it was mentioned that more diverse companies have been shown to be 35% more likely to out perform and have higher returns. The question I kept wondering about was Would companies be trying to improve their diversity if there were not statistics such as these to support the change?

3)Both articles “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” and “Why Diversity matters” have provided me not only with new insight on these topics as well as allowed me to make connections to things that go on around us in the world. In “What is Organizational Culture and Why Should We Care?” a few definitions stood out to me. The first two were from the article “Organizational Culture is Civilization in the Workplace” in the paragraph that followed, the author went on to describe that Organizational Culture is derived from the societal norms that are behind upheld around the organization. The author writes about how the success of an organization can be determined by how willing the organization is to adapt to new cultures. It is mentioned that ” …established cultures can become impediments to survival when there are substantial environment changes.” This interested me because I believe this to be true, the more willing institutions and organizations are to rebrand their cultures, then the more successful they will be in the long run. The second was that “An organization is a living culture… that can adapt to the reality as fast as possible.” the author mentions that since the society is constantly changing it is hard to establish a set organizational culture which I completely agree with.As time passes we are changing as a society which also means that the things around us should change as well so they are able to keep up with current times. This made me reflect back on the importance of allowing room for improvements, and a large component of having this space is not to have a set in stone organizational culture.

In the article “Why Diversity Matters” It was said that The United Kingdom does better when it comes to diversity than The United States in senior leadership programs. At first I was wondering why this could possibly be but then it reminded me of something I learned in one of my college classes back in high school. In America where you live determines the types of jobs and schools you attend. Many minorities are confined to redlined neighborhoods and do not have access to the resources needed for them to leave. When they do they have a hard time finding jobs because they may not fit certain unspoken requirements. For instance a while back I read that when hiring, people are more likely to hire someone who went to a prestigious or well known university in comparison to someone who attended a community college or a lesser known university. This all can be a factor to why there is not as much diversity in senior positions in the U.S than in the U.K.