1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEFINITION ............................................................................................................................................................ 2
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................................................................. 3
1. Benefits: ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Challenges: .................................................................................................................................................. 4
3. Managerial Tools: ..................................................................................................................................... 5
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................................... 5
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 7


2

DEFINITION
The modern era of international business, people around the world no longer live
and work in an insular domestic environment. In order to reach more resources
especially the human resource and development, the entrepreneurs have to carry out the
cross-border business. In the other hand, technology continue to increase the reach and
the ease of conducting international business, pointing to even larger growth potential in
the future (Czinkota, Ronkainen, & Moffett, 2011); as a result, people is now a part of a
global business, compete with each other from different nations. In addition, according to
Czinkota et al (2011) from 1950s, the growth of global trade and investment has been
steadily larger than local commerce. Accidentally, this creates a range of diversity in
organizations both profit and non-profit. Therefore, maximizing and taking advantage of
the workforce diversity have played a vital part in business management nowadays.
In media, textbook, journal articles, and even academic reports, people have talked
so much about diversity for decades. Therefore, there are also a lot of definitions
regarding to what diversity is. Nevertheless, for a comprehensive meaning of diversity
to be defined, Robbins and Coulter in 2012 stated that diversity is not only the difference
based on the ethnicity, gender, age, religion, disability, national origin and sexual
orientation, includes of an infinite range of unique characteristics and experiences,
communication styles, physical characteristics, speed of learning and comprehension
but also the similarities of employees. Therefore, this could point out an important matter
for leadership within the organisations: the leaders should consider to maximize both the
common qualities that employees share together and celebrate the differences among of
them.
Like other essential issue, diversity can bring out many views in the aspects of
benefits and challenges. Therefore, the enquiry here is the approach that leaders can use in
order to maximize the benefits within the organisations.

3

DISCUSSION
1. BENEFITS:
It cannot be denied that managing the diversity in the workplace is one of the most
major factors in Human Resources management. A good management in diversity can help
organizations in gaining such benefits:
a. Enhancing the productivity of the organization through the human capital
management; thus, augmenting the competitive advantages: human has been
playing an essential part in companies. It is not only about the people skills, abilities
and experiences are the main factors which make an organization successful but it
also because companies rely on employees teams in the work place (Robbins &
Coulter, 2012). Therefore, in a report in 1998, Wentling and Palma-Rivas said that
managing the diversity can help the organization to have a more productive,
creative and innovative workforce, have more talented pool of people and lower
level of absenteeism and turnover. These things will make the corporate be more
steadily to grow and expand. For example, in 2013, PricewaterhouseCooper had a
gross revenue of US$ 32.1 billion which is up to 4% in growth
(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2013); moreover, this company also stood in the position
of number 2 over 50 of diversity regarding to the rating of DiversityInc
(DiversityInc, 2013). A good company can achieve good revenue in parallel with the
good diverse management.
b. Enhancing the relationship among employees, encouraging more
organizational innovation: better relationship means better communication and
interaction among employees, which leads to much more effective work teams, and
more motivated employees, less conflicts and misunderstandings (Wentling &
Palma-Rivas, 1998). Moreover, a diverse workforce means that the organization will
have more perspectives to consider, the breadth of ideas that constitute a dynamic
intellectual community (Fine & Handelsman, 2010). This is a big contrast in
comparison with a homogeneous workplace where people usually have a linear
thinking system and do not dare to change or innovate. A heterogeneous will help to
4

create an environment where outside the box ideas are encouraged, minorities
form a critical mass and leaders value the difference (Hewlett, Marshall, & Sherbin,
2013).
c. Strategic implementation: it is not enough to acknowledge that cultures and
nations can behave differently (Fish, 1999); although that the top leaders would
know much about a certain market, they still cannot catch up and fully understand
about the culture and customers behaviour. Therefore, a divers workforce and
management level can be better in anticipating and responding to the change of
customers needs (Robbins & Coulter, 2012).
2. CHALLENGES:
There are two clear challenges that an organization may have to face in the process
of managing the diversity:
a. Different cultural mindset can lead to the personal bias: one of big challenges for
leaders is facilitating a work environment that allows and encourages an
appreciation for diverse individual characteristics and dimension (Combs, 2002).
This is because in a diversity workforce, there still exists the deleterious approaches
as well as uncomfortable feelings to people who have the differences (Wentling &
Palma-Rivas, 1998). Fish in 1999 made a very important statement when he said
that the culture in this case has been neglected since people in a homogenous team
would take advantage of the difference in culture to blame the different ones and
suggest that others are not quite as good as us. More seriously, from this not
quite as good as us thought, the employees can lead to acts of prejudice,
discrimination, racism, etc.
b. Workforce retention and overlook of the diversity management: one of the
general human resource objectives is that recruitment and retention of talent staffs
in order to make the jobs be done (Czinkota, Ronkainen, & Moffett, 2011). As a
result, human resource management unit would be responsible mainly for an
efficient diversity workplace. However, it will be the big danger if the problems
regarding to the diversity would be overlooked and disregarded in the pursuit of
what may be viewed by operational managers as just another flavor of the month
5

promoted by the HR function (Harris & Foster, 2010) in stead of being a serious
moral issue.
3. MANAGERIAL TOOLS:
There are some of approaches that can be used in order to overcome the challenges.
Among of those, diversity training still be considered as a primary method in order to
expedite the diversity behaviour management within the organization. Nowadays, the
diversity training has been continuously expanded to other forms regarding to the
organizational requirement. Combs in 2002 suggested building a diversity self-efficacy
training for leader first which incorporated of mastery in work, modelling and visual
studying experiences since the leader can help to spread the inspiration toward employees.
This can help to bridge the gap between the diversity training and diversity performance.
The leaders in each departmental unit then can develop their diversity mentoring
programs for the employees and help to create a culture of valuing difference within the
organization.
Another way is developing the personal/career development program, an
organization which can develop a detailed and systematic career developing program, it
will have high chance to develop trust, loyalty and commitment of employees (Wentling &
Palma-Rivas, 1998) and as a result, the challenge of workforce retention would be solved.
This is quite important when helping the employees to have direction and objectives to
head for such as a senior supervisor/manager level; hence, they can be motivated and put
all effort for the daily routine performance.
CONCLUSION
A diverse workforce is now an essential part of every organization all over the
world, it reflects of a cross-border marketplace and globalization developing steadily. Good
management in diversity can bring the companies and corporate many obvious benefits
especially in retention of a pool of talent staffs. This creates a big competitive advantage for
organization. However, diversity also brings number of big challenges that leaders have to
face with. Applying a variety of managerial tools in order to make the diversity become part
of corporate culture can help them thrive those challenges.
6


7

REFERENCES
1. Combs, G. M. (2002). Meeting the Leadership Challenge of a Diverse and Pluralistic
Workplace: Implications of Self-Efficacy for Diversity Training. The Journal of
Leadership Studies, 8(4).
2. Czinkota, M. R., Ronkainen, I. A., & Moffett, M. H. (2011). International Business (8th
ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3. DiversityInc. (2013). PricewaterhouseCoopers: No. 2 in the DiversityInc Top 50.
Retrieved from DiversityInc:
http://www.diversityinc.com/pricewaterhousecoopers/
4. Fine, E., & Handelsman, J. (2010). Benefits and Challenges of diversity in academic
settings, 2nd. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
5. Fish, A. (1999). Cultural Diversity: Challenges facing the Management of Cross-
borders Business Careers. Career Development International, 4(4), pp. 196-205.
6. Harris, L., & Foster, C. (2010). Aligning talent management with approaches to
equality and diversity: Challenges for UK public sector managers. Equality, Diversity
and Inclusion: An International Journal, 29(5), pp. 422-435.
7. Hewlett, S. A., Marshall, M., & Sherbin, L. (2013, December). How Diversity can Drive
Innovation? Harvard Business Review, p. 30.
8. PricewaterhouseCoopers. (2013). Facts & Figures. Retrieved from
PricewaterhouseCoopers: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/annual-review/facts-
figures.jhtml
9. Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. (2012). Management (11th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice
Hall.
10. Scroggins, W. A., & Benson, P. G. (2010). International human resources
management: Diversity, Issues and Challenges. Personnel Review, 39(4), pp. 409-413.
8

11. Wentling, M. R., & Palma-Rivas, N. (1998). Current status and future trends of
diversity initiatives in the workplace: Diversity experts' perspective. Human
Resource Development Quarterly, 9(3), pp. 235-253.