Managing and Valuing Diversity
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0091026013487048 |
| Author | Andrew I. E. Ewoh |
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2013
Article
Public Personnel Management
42(2) 107 –122
Managing and Valuing
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487048
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Managers in the 21st Century
Andrew I. E. Ewoh1
Abstract
This analysis explores some of the challenges facing public managers in managing
and valuing diversity in the 21st century. It begins with a discussion of the underlying
conceptual values on the need for diversity in organizations. This is followed by an
examination of different approaches to managing and valuing diversity. As managing
a diverse organization is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach,
the analysis concludes that every diversity initiative must be in consonance with
organizational missions to be successful. That is, it must become integrated into the
agency’s overall operating plans and strategies with the aim of creating an institutional
environment where every person who is different, in terms of human characteristics,
feels not only accepted but also respected and valued.
Keywords
managing diversity, valuing diversity, cultural diversity, workforce diversity,
multiculturalism, affirmative action, equal employment opportunity
Introduction
Over the past three decades, the need for private and public organizations to embrace
diversity has been echoed. The rationale for this need is that a number of desirable
positive outcomes occur when groups or work teams include diverse perspectives and
value that diversity. Diversity as a lexicon in human resource management furnishes
immediate access to a large pool of knowledge, skills, and abilities required in the
accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives. Indeed, if diversity has many
strategic advantages as observed by Robert Golembiewski (1995), then there are
many important questions to be examined. Among these questions are the following:
1Kennesaw State University, GA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Andrew I. E. Ewoh, Kennesaw State University, 1000 Chastain Road, MD 2205, Kennesaw, GA 30144-
5591, USA.
Email: aewoh@kennesaw.edu
108
Public Personnel Management 42(2)
(a) Why should public managers adopt managing and valuing diversity to public
personnel systems? and (b) Will diversity create any major challenges for public
managers in the coming decades? Answers to these questions will avail themselves in
the analysis under review.
Of course, much of the attention in recent years on the need for organizations to
embrace diversity was triggered by Hudson Institute’s Workforce 2000 (Johnson &
Packer, 1987), and a study of state personnel directors (Hays & Kearney, 1992),
among others, that predicted the future shortage of potential human capital and its
consequential impact on American competitiveness. Recent studies suggest that
Hudson Institute’s predictions were less dramatic, and unlike the private sector, con-
temporary public-sector organizations in the United States are more diverse in terms
of race and gender, but workers are becoming older (Pitts, 2005; see also Cornwell &
Kellough, 1994; Foldy, 2004; Riccucci, 2002). Although there has been increased
workforce diversity through legal provisions, the overall proportion of White non-
Hispanic workers will decline, as predicted by previous studies, and workers of other
ethnic groups would either hold their own share of the labor force or increase.
The changing color, gender, and ethnicity coupled with a shrinking labor pool
would create numerous challenges to both private and public organizations. To be
sure, the real opportunity to new potential workers would depend on having access to
high-paying and meaningful jobs, as African Americans and Hispanics are less likely
than their White and Asian counterparts to be employed in management and profes-
sional jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006). Nonetheless, the first major chal-
lenge to employers of labor is, and will continue to be, managing and valuing diversity
by transforming the European American male culture of most organizations into mul-
ticultural entities that nurture and sustain all employees. In fact, multicultural under-
standing is very crucial for public managers who supervise the work of employees
from diverse backgrounds, and such understanding can be enhanced through programs
designed to bridge cultural gaps (Pitts, 2009; see Adler, 2002).
This analysis explores some of the challenges facing public managers in managing
and valuing diversity in the 21st century. The article begins with a discussion of the
underlying conceptual values on the need for diversity in organizations. This is fol-
lowed by an examination of different approaches to managing and valuing diversity.
The last section concludes the analysis and speculates on the future of managing and
valuing diversity in public organizations.
Managing and Valuing Diversity: Perspectives on Conceptual
Values
Constitutionally, all American institutions are built on a foundation of the protection
of minority rights, and diversity contributes a major defense against a coercive major-
ity coalition. In the Federalist 10, James Madison shows that American pluralist
model helps guarantee individual rights through the interplay of factions. Also, almost
every coin in the United States displays the spirit of E pluribus unum—a sense of
national unity and cohesion which can be loosely translated as “unity and strength in
diversity.”
Ewoh
109
Normatively, many scholars have made a strong case for progress toward diversity
as a value or as a public administration imperative (White, 1997; see also Dobbs,
1996; Fine, 1995; Golembiewski, 1995; Loden & Rosener, 1991; Soni, 2000), while
others supporting the same idea specifically emphasize individual rights, equity, the
“golden rule” of doing unto others as you would have them to do unto you (Gallos &
Ramsey, 1997; see also Golembiewski, 1995; Kossek & Lobel, 1996). Basically,
diversity deals with the issue of how society wants organizations to look like, and that
implies fundamental values as well as normative choices. Every president, from Bill
Clinton to Barack Obama, has promised that his administration “would look like
America” during presidential campaigns. That is, having political appointees that
would be more diverse than previous administrations.
One of the fundamental barriers to managing diversity is the language and termi-
nology that scholars use to discuss it. Also, politics has made discussions of a cultural
diversity suspect in academic circles. The problem here as many scholars (Arredondo,
1996; see also Fine, 1995; Rangarajan & Black, 2007; Wise & Tscharhart, 2000) see
it is one of definition. The challenge this poses for human resources managers is how
to distinguish the concept of diversity from affirmative action (AA) as well as equal
employment opportunity (EEO). Diversity is seen as the collective, all inclusive, mix-
ture of human differences and similarities, including educational background, geo-
graphic origin, sexual preference, profession, culture, political affiliation, tenure in an
organization, and other socioeconomic, psychographic, and ethnic-racial characteris-
tics (Cox, 1993). In view of this, managing diversity is not an entitlement or race-
conscious program. It is a process that involves creating a positive environment where
employees’ attitudes and behavior are altered through training and awareness, which
is not possible through AA. Table 1 summarizes the three different perspectives on
workforce diversity to provide a clear distinction between diversity and AA/EEO.
Colleges and universities in the United States were among the first organizations to
respond positively to the principles of AA. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these
institutions pursued minority faculty and students, especially African Americans.
However, those institutions of higher education that were unable to recruit faculty of
color were able to attract minority students to their campuses in large numbers to cre-
ate diversity among the students. Furthermore, this presence was increased during the
1980s when the number of eligible college students began to decline, compelling
admission directors to broaden their clientele base by recruiting extensively from non-
traditional groups, especially international students (Fine, 1995).
To support recruitment efforts, some administrators in higher education started to
create programs, curricular activities, and environments that prepare all students living
in a multicultural world. Multiculturalism is now the term used to refer to campus
initiatives designed to broaden the curriculum to include all cultures. Of course, these
changes are designed more accurately to reflect the lives of all students and to prepare
them to live and work in an ever-increasing diverse global society.
Despite these novel efforts, critics (Lynch, 1997; see also D’Souza, 1991; Shalit,
1995) have shifted the grounds of the public debate by redefining the term. To them,
multiculturalism refers to a strategy designed by left-wing scholars and sympathetic
administrators to impose their ideological position on everybody. By labeling its own
110
Public Personnel Management 42(2)
Table 1. Comparing Three Perspectives on Diversity in the Workforce.
EEO
AA
Diversity
Source
Statute
Executive order and
Human resources...
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