Classification of Diversity

According to Ibrahim (2012), there are different types of diversity classification, but not all are defined consistently. A majority of these diversity characteristic classifications are based on perception and are dichotomous in nature. Some of the classifications that can be identified in the literature include readily detectable/less observable, surface-level/deep-level, highly job-related/less job-related, task-related/relations-oriented, and role-related/inherent dimensions. However, the majority of these classifications can be broken down into two perspectives, the information and decision making perspective and the social organization  perspective. Nevertheless, some of the classifications of workforce diversity are outlined and explained below:

a. Ethnic Diversity

Ethnicity is a category of people who identifies each other based similarities, such as common ancestral language, social, cultural, or national experiences. Ethnic diversity in the work place is the situation where people with different ancestral language, social, cultural, or national experiences come to work together in a particular workplace. They come with different experiences and ideas.   In some cases, Madiha, Niazi, & Abbasi (2013) asserted that ethnicity sometimes showed poor performance than heterogeneous teams. This is because the basic skills required from the others skills were not found. This calls for ethnic diversity in the workplace. Kothari (2014) explained that less cohesive than teams especially in ethnic diversify team brings lesser service delivery; multiculturalism and diversity have a greater positive impact on group of their service delivery. The context of the workplace has significant influence over the impact of diversity on service delivery. Ethnically diverse teams lead to more creativity and innovation due to complementarities and learning opportunities (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2015; Lee and Nathan, 2011; Ozgen, 2011). A moderate level of ethnic diversity has no effect on the business outcomes of the teams namely sales, profit, & market share whereas a high level of ethnic diversity improved business outcomes (Sander and Mirjam, 2012). A similar positive impact of ethnic diversity on sales, productivity, market share, and innovativeness was reported by Gupta (2013) and the team performance of the multidisciplinary teams in oil and gas industry.

The growth of a multicultural workforce was the focus of the 90’s and is gaining more momentum into the new era. Along with the increase in diversity has been an increase in the use of work teams in general, with intention of utilizing greater participation and synergy to improve and increase both employee satisfaction and business performance. Even though the nature of workforce composition is rapidly becoming more mixed in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, parallel interest has been increasing about the impact of such diversity in our educational institutions. The multicultural increase in businesses is due to multicultural increase of our society and, thus, also pervades familial, educational, and religious circles (Afolabi and Omole, 2011).

b. Gender Issues

Some studies have shown that mixed gender group performed better than the same gender group. Cox and Blake (2011) added that gender diversity increases service delivery in an organization. The studies examining the effects of gender diversity on group service delivery outcomes have found negative effects when the sample was male dominated and no effects when the sample was female dominated. Gupta (2013) observed that moderate level of gender diversity increases competitive advantage while a higher level of gender diversity decreases organizational performance. Richard (2014) has observed an inverted U-shaped relationship between management group gender heterogeneity and productivity, with moderately heterogeneous management groups exhibiting better performance than gender homogeneous management groups. This therefore, shows that high gender diversity will have a greater positive effect on the service delivery of an organization.

c. Age

Growing age diversity has become part of many organizations. There are two major theories which explain this relationship; the social identity and self categorization. Individuals are suggested to classify themselves into certain groups on the basis of dimensions that are personally relevant for them according to social identity and self categorization theory. As a result, individuals tend to favor members of their own group at the expenses of the other groups, against which they may discriminate. Consequently, if the employees’ age or generational belonging is regarded as a relevant criterion for distinction, a differentiation between age groups within an organization may emerge, fostering emotional conflicts and age-based discrimination between the age groups.