Business Research Methods: Diversity and Demographics
Diversity and demographics have been examined extensively within the business environment as a way of enhancing organizational performance. However, a few factors have been considered in regard to how the employees are affected when a business organization opts to embrace diversity within its workforce. In order to establish how employees are affected by organizational diversity, this study will use a phenomenological approach to interview diverse employees and establish how they feel about being within their respective organizations. The various interviews are to be held in person via video chats and then recorded to be transcribed and analyzed afterward. The findings are expected to be of great significance in the business environment because they will inform organizations on how being a part of the diverse workforce actually impacts the productivity of the employees. The study will be carried out in a span of 6 weeks where the participants will be employees in business organizations that are known to implement organizational diversity and diversity management.
Introduction
The concept of diversity continues to attract the interest of business organizations all over the world. The prime reason for this is the fact that rather than deterring cohesion, differences are known to widen the abilities of the organization by increasing the basis of their knowledge. Diversity presents an organization with the opportunity to bring together various perspectives that have been formulated through experience within the various contexts applicable to that particular organization. As a result, most organizations are looking into ensuring that they are diverse and that they support every possible demographic category within their ranks. However, there is a limitation in this field in that most studies are encouraging diversity within the workplace and associating it with improved organizational performance but rarely have any study sought to explain how diversity affects the individual employee within the workplace. There are a great number of contexts, within which diversity can be explored. However, when considering the business environment, the four main categories that people are defined by our ethnicity, age, gender, and religion. This study will seek to establish how each of these aspects affects the individual and their output in the business organization. The end goal is to establish what impact each kind of diversity has within the workplace so as to establish whether organizations really need to be diverse in order to be successful.
The Relevance of the Proposed Research to Business Research
Business organizations are under great pressure to practice diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and religion, among other aspects. There are several employment laws that caution against discrimination on account of any of these aspects meaning that the business environment is in most cases restricted and justification is provided when studies indicate that diversity leads to better organizational performance. It can be noted that in most cases, diversity is an expensive venture, and thus, organizations must be able to benefit from it if it is to be considered as a viable concept (Brief et al. 2005). Therefore, this topic is relevant to business research because it offers an insight into the concept of organizational diversity seeking to establish whether or not it is helpful to set goals and objectives of a given business organization.
Justification of the Chosen Topic
In order to optimize organizational performance, cost efficiency is a very important concept for any business organization. It can be appreciated that living up to the acceptable standards of organizational diversity is often an expensive venture, and in most cases, companies have had to seek the approval of their shareholders before implementing some of the programs that are meant to support organizational diversity (Oliver 2005). These often include training programs and team-building efforts aimed at allowing the employees to bond and get to know each other better. Other companies have had to hire employees from other parts of the world thus having to cover relocation expenses for entire families in some cases. This means that generally, diversity costs much, and it is important for companies to fully understand how diversity works within the workplace in order for them to make informed choices next time they have to spend an extra dime.
Value of This Research
There have already been a significant number of studies examining the subject of organizational diversity and its impact on organizational performance. However, little has been done in terms of research concerning the specific mechanisms, through which these aspects of diversity affect the individual employee within the workplace. Most of the academic concerns have been focusing on how having a diverse workforce will affect the performance of the organization, but the employees are the basic units of the organization (Hubbard 2012). This means that in order to really appreciate how diversity works within the business environment, there is a need to fully grasp the impact of diversity on the individual employee. It is important to realize how their age, ethnicity, religion or gender influence their perceptions, attitudes, needs, and expectations of the workplace; how they feel about working with people from other ethnic groups, religions, age groups and gender; how this affects their perception of the workplace, and how it influences their concentration or motivation at work. Generally, this research is very of high importance for organizations that intend to use diversity as their competitive advantage.
Research Question and Research Objectives
This study seeks to establish the specific impacts of ethnicity, age, gender and religion on employees within their workplace. As such, the research questions will be aiming to guide the research process into establishing how these aspects of diversity work with respect to their impact on the workforce. The research question is thus How do ethnicity, age, gender, and religion affect a business organization?
To lead the study into answering this question, the set research objectives will include:
- Establishing the impact of Ethnicity on the individual employees and their perspectives, attitudes, and motivations at the workplace
- Understanding how age affects the individual employee’s perceptions and attitudes as well as expectations within the workplace
- Determining the implications of gender in regard to the employees’ expectations, perspectives, attitudes, and motivations within their workplace
- Defining the impact of the employees’ religion on their perspectives, expectations, and motivations within the workplace.
Literature Review
In her analysis, Fitzsimmons (2013) explores the impacts of multicultural employees in their respective workplaces. This article indicates that an organization with multicultural employees is likely to benefit from their inclusion if they understand their various strengths and weaknesses and thus capitalize upon their specific contexts in a way that is relevant to the set goals and objectives of the organization as a whole. The theoretical framework proposed here indicates that the concept of diversity is only relevant within organizations that have fully grasped diversity management and are thus able to capitalize on the differences within their task force. An example here would be Fujitsu, which uses the knowledge gained from its cultural diversity to attend to the needs and expectations of its customers across the globe (Grosch 2012). The reason for this is the fact that the company has been able to take their time to study their employees and understand their diversity aspects. The interesting aspect of this article is in the way the authors indicate that the individual contexts of the multicultural employees are responsible for their perceptions and attitudes, and thus, they determine how these employees respond to certain motivations and challenges.
Pieterse, Knippenberg, and Dierendonck (2013) established that there is a correlation between diversity and performance within a work environment where goal-setting is a real practice. This indicates that organizational diversity does not automatically result in improved organizational performance. Business organizations have to find a way to make diversity work for them, and in most cases, it is only possible with clear goals and objectives to guide the interpersonal relationships within the workplace. In this case, team performance is seen to depend on the perspectives and attitudes of the individual employees; thus, each team member brings on a unique set of influences based on their cultural background (Hubbard 2012). This explains why different teams are often faced with different sets of challenges. The cultural composition of a given team will determine the way the team members interact, set goals, create motivations and face challenges, among others (Grosch 2012). It is these details that determine the performance of the team in the end thus highlighting the importance of the cultural contexts in determining the performance of the individual within the workplace.
In his research, Hiranandani (2015) examines the idea of diversity management, with a special focus on the Canadian workplace. The author here establishes that advocating for workplace diversity is an inadequate move for organizational success unless it is complemented with programs that seek to make the minorities comfortable within the workplace. This means that seeking organizational diversity does not guarantee improved organizational performance unless the organization is fully knowledgeable about the unique aspects of the minority groups and how they are affected by the organization. For this reason, this study seeks to establish the impact of religion, age, gender and ethnicity on the individual employees. In doing this, they will be able to ascertain the factors that affect their employees uniquely within their specific settings and thus introduce real solutions to improve organizational performance (Brief et al. 2005). This article simply highlights the importance of understanding the specific impacts of diversity within the business organization in order to find effective ways to improve performance.
On the other hand, Harvey (2015) provides a different perspective, which can be used to look at organizational diversity. This article analyzes the impact of one’s diversity in information elaboration, which in this case is how members of the workforce share their unique experiences and knowledge with the rest of the team. It was established here that members who are very different within the workplace less likely to share information with the others since they can barely feel like a part of this workforce. This simply disputes the notion that the diverse workplace is in any way at an advantage when it comes to organizational performance. Seeing how the differences limit the employees from sharing the unique knowledge, the argument that a diverse workplace is unique and thus has a wider basis for organizational knowledge is nullified. However, it has been established that organizations with diverse workforces have some sort of advantage over their monotonous counterparts (Hubbard 2012). This means that there must be something about diversity that works to the advantage of a given organization although there must be a number of other factors at play, as well. Thus, it is important to establish the real functions of the aspects of diversity and how each of these contributes to organizational success.
Methodology
Research Design
In order to meet the set research objectives, there was a need for this study to embrace a qualitative methodology that focused on the issue of diversity within the workplace. As such, the study took on a phenomenological design, in which the experiences of diverse employees within the workplace were the basis of the study. The sample population consisted of individuals who were mostly inconspicuous within their workplace due to their age, gender, ethnicity or religion. In regard to the research philosophy, it must be appreciated that as a qualitative study, the best alternative on worldview would be pragmatism. While most researchers only apply pragmatism in mixed methods studies, it is important to note that this study revolves around a problem and seeks to find its solution. The problem here is diversity in the workplace, which, in some cases, creates problems while in others, it is seen to enable success (Fitzsimmons 2013). Thus, it follows that the study generally had to focus on the concept of organizational diversity in detail so as to provide a real explanation of what really happens within the diverse workplace and how diversity specifically affects the organization. The research strategy applied is that of using open-ended questions in the interviews. The study requires the individual experiences of the various participants within their workplaces; thus, there is the need to ensure that they give their own perspectives, explain exactly how they feel and explain their circumstances without having to be limited or guided by the researchers. It can also be appreciated that the study was scheduled to take place within a span of 6 weeks.
Data Collection
In this study, the preferred data collection method would be structured interviews that will then be recorded and later transcribed before data analysis is started. This means that after identifying and seeking the consent of the participants, the researchers will be looking to schedule an interview session with each of the cooperating participants at their convenience. The use of questionnaires was ruled out because it would require very brief responses from the participants, and in most cases, the answers may be difficult to interpret. Recorded interviews will provide the researchers with all the information relating to how the participants really feel. The open-ended questions will also ensure that they have the time and space to express their concerns in regard to the various diversity issues that they face and how these affect their performance within the workplace. In addition, the researcher could opt to send the interview questions to the participants by email, but the answers would again be limited to the participant’s time and willingness to express themselves through writing. It is rather important and more logical for the participants to discuss their situations with the researchers either in person or through video chat depending on their preferences.
Research Ethics
In order to meet the expectations of good business research, research ethics will have to be considered and upheld in this study. The first one would concern the informed consent of the participants. Before being expected to participate in the study, the identified participants will be required to fill out a consent form after reading the covering letter and agreeing to the presented terms of the study. The researchers will also ensure that no harm comes to the participants during the research and that they can withdraw from participating if they felt uncomfortable or endangered. In relation to anonymity, it can also be observed that the confidentiality of the study cannot be ignored, and thus, personal details of the participants will remain undisclosed at all points within the study. The participants will also be informed that they cannot expect any form of compensation for their participation, and thus, by participating, they are only helping the researchers to solve a problem that affects the business organizations globally.
Conclusion
Most studies on diversity focus on establishing how organizations are managing their diversity, or whether or not organizations should embrace diversity. However, this study aims at establishing how diversity affects the individual employee, and to do this, the researchers will interview a number of employees across different business organizations to understand how their uniqueness affects their perspectives and performance within the workplace. This implies that the study will employ a qualitative approach, with a pragmatist worldview in the hope of answering the question of how ethnicity, age, gender, and religion affect a business organization in terms of performance. The literature reviewed indicates among other things that organizational diversity goes beyond the practice of hiring from every possible demographic, and thus, organizations should look into the specifics of diversity if they intend to benefit from a concept that has over the years been marketed significantly within the business environment.
