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Questions for Review
2-1. What are the two major forms of workplace diversity?
Answer: The two major forms of workplace diversity are surface level diversity and deep
level diversity. Surface level diversity refers to differences in easily perceived
diversity refers to differences in values, personality, and work preferences that become
progressively more important for determining similarity as people get to know one
Learning Objective: Describe the two major forms of workplace diversity
Learning Outcome: Define diversity and describe the effects of diversity in the workforce
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
2-2. How does workplace discrimination undermine organizational effectiveness?
Answer: Actual discrimination can lead to increased negative consequences for
employers, including reduced productivity and organizational citizenship behavior
Learning Objective: Demonstrate how workplace discrimination undermines
organizational effectiveness
Learning Outcome: Define diversity and describe the effects of diversity in the workforce
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
2-3. What are the key biological characteristics and how they are relevant to OB?
Answer:
1. Age – Older workers bring experience, judgment, a strong work ethic, and
2. Gender – Few differences between men and women that affect job performance.
3. Race (the biological heritage used to identify oneself) – Contentious issue;
4. Tenure – People with job tenure (seniority at a job) are more productive, absent
5. Religion – Islam is especially problematic in the workplace in this post-9/11 world.
6. Sexual Orientation – Federal law does not protect against discrimination, but state
7. Gender Identity – Relatively new issue is transgendered employees.
These characteristics are important to OB since corporations are always searching for
variables that can impact employee productivity, turnover, deviance, citizenship, and
satisfaction. Data that is easily defined and available in an employee personnel file can
contribute to success in an organization.
Learning Objectives: Describe how the key biographical characteristics are relevant to
OB
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual
behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and
values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
2-4. How do other differentiating characteristics factor into OB?
Answer: Other differentiating characteristics include tenure, religion, sexual orientation
and gender identity, and cultural identity. Tenure, expressed as work experience, appears
to be a good predictor of employee productivity, though there is some evidence that the
relationship is not linear: differences in tenure are more important to job performance for
Learning Objective: Explain how other differentiating characteristics factor into OB
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between differentiating characteristics
traits and individual behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of
individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
2-5. What are the relevant points of intellectual and physical abilities to organizational
behavior?
Answer: The two types of abilities are intellectual abilities and physical abilities.
Intellectual abilities lead to the mental abilities needed to perform jobs in the changing
Learning Objectives: Demonstrate the relevance of intellectual and physical abilities to
OB
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual
behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and
values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
2-6. How can organizations manage diversity effectively?
Answer: Effective diversity management capitalizes on diversity for organizational
success. This includes recruiting and selection as well as training and development of
employees to take advantage of diverse workforces. Effective programs have three
components:
1. They teach managers about the legal framework for equal employment opportunity
2. They teach managers how a diverse workforce will be better able to serve a diverse
3. They foster personal development practices that bring out the skills and abilities of all
Learning Objectives: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual
behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and
values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
Experiential Exercise
Differences
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; Describe the
factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
The instructor randomly assigns the class into groups of four. It is important that group
membership is truly randomly decided, not done by seating, friendships, or preferences.
Without discussion, each group member first answers the following question on paper:
2-7. How diverse is your group, on a scale of 1–10, where 1 = very dissimilar and 10 =
very similar?
Putting that paper away, each person shares with the group his or her answers to the following
questions:
What games/toys did you like to play with when you were young?
What do you consider to be your most sacred value (and why)?
Are you spiritual at all?
Tell us a little about your family.
Where’s your favorite place on earth and why?
Each group member then answers the following question on paper:
2-8. How diverse is your group, on a scale of 1–10, where 1 = very dissimilar and 10 =
very similar?
After groups calculate the average ratings from before and after the discussion, they will share
with the class the difference between their averages and answer the following questions:
2-9. Did your personal rating increase after the discussion time? Did your group’s
average ratings increase after the discussion time?
2-10. Do you think that if you had more time for discussion, your group’s average
rating would increase?
2-11. What do you see as the role of surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity in a
group’s acceptance of individual differences?
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
Ethical Dilemma
Board Quotas
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; Describe the
factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values; Define diversity and describe the effects of
diversity in the workforce
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Diverse and multicultural work environments
That women are underrepresented on boards of directors is an understatement. In the European
Union (EU), only 9.7 percent of the directors of the 300 largest companies are women. Among
the 100 largest companies in Great Britain, women accounted for 34 percent of board
appointments. In the United States, only 16 percent of board members among the Fortune 500
companies are women. In China and India, the number is roughly half that.
In response to such underrepresentation, many countries have enacted laws and guidelines.
Norway was the first to require boards to be at least 40 percent women in all publicly held
companies and 450 LLCs in the private sector. Spain also requires boards to be 40 percent
women by 2016, and France says corporate boards of listed companies must be 40 percent
female by 2017. Belgium, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Italy have similar “pink quotas” in
place, and Sweden is recommending 50 percent representation.
Sources: J. Galbreath, “Are There Gender-Related Influences on Corporate Sustainability? A Study of Women on
Boards of Directors,” Journal of Management & Organization 17, no. 1 (2011): 17–38; L. Turner and A. Suflas,
“Global Diversity—One Program Won’t Fit All,” HR Magazine, May 2014, 59–61; and J. S. Lublin, “ ‘Pink Quotas’
Alter Europe’s Boards,” The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2012, B8.
Questions
2-12. Given that women participate in the labor force in roughly the same proportion as men,
why do you think women occupy so few seats on boards of directors?
Answer: This question will have many possible answers depending on the viewpoints of
students. Those who believe in the “old boy network” will say something to the effect
that women are excluded from networks and relationships that result in ascension to a
2-13. Do you agree with the quotas established in many countries? Why or why not?
Answer: The response to this question will spark considerable debate. Those who agree
with the quota concept are those who likely believe in other governmental quotas
2-14. Beyond legal remedies, what do you think can be done to increase women’s
representation on boards of directors?
Answer: One view will suggest that nothing needs to be done because as women develop
the conceptual skills needed, the differences will eliminate themselves. Others will
suggest that legal remedies are required because the situation will not change without
Case Incident 1
Walking the Walk
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual
behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments.
Do you want to work for Google? In some ways, who wouldn’t? Sunny California, fabulous
campus, free organic meals, perks galore . . . oh, and challenging work with some of the brightest
minds in the field. By all accounts, Google is a class act, a symbol of modernization.
Does Google want you to work for it? Ah, that is the question. Eric Schmidt, a former Google
CEO, and Jonathan Rosenberg, a former Google senior product manager, say Google searches
for a certain type of person: a “smart creative.” They say smart creatives are “a new kind
of animal”—and the secret ingredient to Google’s success.
Do you think you are a smart creative? Are you an impatient, outspoken, risk taker who is easily
bored? Do you change jobs frequently? Are you intellectually flexible? Do you have technical
know-how, business knowledge, and creativity? Do you think analytically? According to
Schmidt and Rosenberg, answering yes to these questions makes you a smart creative. As you
can see, being a smart creative is not all positive. But it will get you hired at Google.
One last question: Are you male or female? Google may be a symbol of the modernization of the
workplace, but perhaps not of the workforce. The Google workforce, with 48,600 individuals, is
a man’s world—70 percent male overall. On the technical side, a full 83 percent of the
engineering employees are male. In the management ranks, 79 percent of the managers are male.
On the executive level, only three of the company’s 36 executives are women.
Google officials say they are aware of the lack of diversity, but their diversity initiatives have
failed. However, others report that sexist comments go unchecked and there is a frat-house
atmosphere. In fact, an interviewer at an all-company presentation insultingly teased a man and
woman who shared an office, asking them, “Which one of you does the dishes?”
Thankfully, Google has begun to put its smart creatives to work on new thoughts about diversity.
With the help of social psychology research, the company sent all employees through training on
unconscious bias, or our reflexive tendency to be biased toward our own groups, to force people
to consider their racist and sexist mindsets. So far, the training seems to be making a bigger
difference than former initiatives, but the firm has a long way to go. Laszlo Bock, Google’s top
HR executive, said, “Suddenly you go from being completely oblivious to going, ‘Oh my god,
it’s everywhere.’”
Critics are skeptical that Google and other large technology firms will ever count women in their
ranks in numbers that reflect the population, though research continues to indicate that men and
women are highly similar employees. Once Google has achieved greater diversity than it
currently has, however, perhaps its executives can begin to work on the pay differentials: a recent
Harvard study indicated that women computer scientists receive 89 percent of the pay men earn
for the same jobs.
Sources: S. Goldenberg, “Exposing Hidden Bias at Google,” The New York Times, September 25, 2014, B1, B9; S. Lohr, “The Google Formula
for Success,” The New York Times, September 29, 2014, B8; N. Wingfield, “Microsoft Chief Backpedals on Women’s Pay,” The New York Times,
October 10, 2014, B7–B8; and E. Zell, Z. Krizan, and S. R. Teeter, “Evaluating Gender Similarities and Differences Using Metasynthesis,”
American Psychologist 70 (2015): 10–20.
Questions
2-15. Does this article change your perception of Google as an employer? How?
Answer: This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in MyManagementLab.
2-16. Why do you think men at Google continue to hire mainly men?
Answer: Responses to this question will vary depending on each student’s opinion.
2-17. Would you do anything to address diversity issues at Google if you worked there? What
might you try?
Answer: Responses to this question will vary depending on each student’s opinion.
Case Incident 2
The Encore Career
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual
behavior; Describe the factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
Over the past century, the average age of the workforce has increased as medical science has
continued to enhance longevity and vitality. As we discussed in this chapter, many individuals
will work past the previously established ages of retirement, and the fastest-growing segment of
the workforce is individuals over the age of 55.
Unfortunately, older workers face a variety of discriminatory attitudes in the workplace.
Researchers scanned more than 100 publications on age discrimination to determine what types
of age stereotypes were most prevalent across studies. They found that stereotypes inferred that
older workers are lower performers. Research, on the other hand, indicates they are not, and
organizations are realizing the benefits of this needed employee group.
Dale Sweere, HR director for engineering firm Stanley Consultants, is one of the growing
number of management professionals actively recruiting the older workforce. Sweere says older
workers “typically hit the ground running much quicker and they fit into the organization well.”
They bring to the job a higher skill level earned through years of experience, remember an
industry’s history, and know the aging customer base.
Tell that to the older worker who is unemployed. Older workers have long been sought by
government contractors, financial firms, and consultants, according to Cornelia Gamlem,
president of consulting firm GEMS Group Ltd., and she actively recruits them. However, the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average job search for an unemployed worker
over age 55 is 56 weeks, versus 38 weeks for the rest of the unemployed population.
Enter the encore career, a.k.a. unretirement. Increasingly, older workers who aren’t finding
fulfilling positions are seeking to opt out of traditional roles. After long careers in the workforce,
an increasing number are embracing flexible, work-from-home options such as customer
service positions. For instance, Olga Howard, 71, signed on as an independent contractor for
25–30 hours per week with Arise Virtual Solutions, handling questions for a financial software
company after her long-term career ended. Others are starting up new businesses. Chris Farrell,
author of Unretirement, said, “Older people are starting businesses more than any other age
group.” Others funnel into nonprofit organizations, where the pay may not equal the individual’s
previous earning power, but the mission is strong. “They need the money and the meaning,” said
Encore.org CEO Marc Freedman. Still others are gaining additional education, such as Japan’s
“silver entrepreneurs,” who have benefited from the country’s tax credits for training older
workers.
Individuals who embark on a second-act career often report they are very fulfilled. However, the
loss of workers from their longstanding careers may be undesirable. “In this knowledge
economy, the retention of older workers gives employers a competitive edge by allowing them to
continue to tap a generation of knowledge and skill,” said Mark Schmit, executive director of the
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation. “New thinking by HR
professionals and employers will be required to recruit and retain them. Otherwise,
organizations’ greatest asset will walk out the door.”
Sources: N. Eberstadt and M. W. Hodin, “America Needs to Rethink ‘Retirement,” The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2014, A15; S. Giegerich,
“Older Job-Seekers Must Take Charge, Adapt,” Chicago Tribune,September 10, 2012, 2–3; R. J. Grossman, “Encore!” HR Magazine, July 2014,
27–31; T. Lytle, “Benefits for Older Workers,” HR Magazine, March 2012, 53–58; G. Norman, “Second Acts After 65,” The Wall Street Journal,
September 24, 2014, A13; D. Stipp, “The Anti-Aging Revolution,” Fortune, June 14, 2010, 124–30; R. A. Posthuma and M. A. Campion, “Age
Stereotypes in the Workplace: Common Stereotypes, Moderators, and Future Research Directions,” Journal of Management 35 (2009): 158–88;
and P.Sullivan, “Older, They Turn a Phone Into a Job,” The New York Times, March 25, 2014, F3.
Questions
2-18. What changes in employment relationships are likely to occur as the population
ages?
Answer: Jobs may need to be redesigned. Supervisors may require specific training in
2-19. Do you think increasing age diversity will create new challenges for managers? What
types of challenges do you expect will be most profound?
Answer: This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in MyManagementLab.
2-20. How can organizations cope with differences related to age discrimination in the
workplace? How can older employees help?
Answer: Organizations and the leadership can cope with the changing workforce if they
open their communication techniques as they observe the differences in work, attitude,
My Management Lab
Go to mymanagementlab.com for Auto-graded writing questions as well as the following
Assisted-graded writing questions:
2-21. In relation to this chapter’s Ethical Dilemma, one recent study found no link between
female representation on boards of directors and these companies’ corporate
sustainability or environmental policies. The study’s author expressed surprise at the
findings. Do the findings surprise you? Why or why not?
2-22. Now that you’ve read the chapter and Case Incident 2, do you think organizations should
work harder to retain and hire older workers? Why or why not?
2-23. MyManagementLab Only – comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
Instructor’s Choice
Personality and Innovation at Apple-Application of Abilities
Evaluation
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; Describe the
factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments
“It’s Showtime!” is now a phrase that can adequately describe the art and personality of Steve
Jobs. At one time or another, Steve Jobs was called brilliant, creative, demanding, domineering,
eccentric, a predatory competitor, hard, unforgiving, or one of the best marketing minds ever—
quite an extensive array of abilities. One of Mr. Jobs’ passions was online music and digital
entertainment. Just as Apple Computer revolutionized the character and style of computing, it
planned to do the same in the world of music. From iPods, iLife software, iTunes for downloads,
Pixar Animated movies, and Apple stores, Apple is on everyone’s lips once again. The up and
down swings of Apple Computer are legendary; however, through it all, Steve Jobs’ vision was
constant. He seemed to really be able to envision the future before it happens. With his death in
2011, some wondered whether Apple could retain its position as a design leader. One of Apple’s
most recent product introduction, the color iPhone5, is one test of the company’s ability to
succeed without its revolutionary founder and leader.
Using a search engine of your own choosing, find an article about Steve Jobs that outlines his
successes and failures as a corporate executive and entrepreneur. What do you think are the
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability that were exemplified by Jobs? Explain your rationale. Using a
search engine of the Apple website, review the latest innovations from Apple. Can Apple duplicate
the success of Steve Jobs? Describe the intellectual abilities of Apple’s former leader that were most
instrumental in putting Apple on the map as a leader in the market.
Instructor’s Note
To aid the student in this application project, suggest that they read “Show Time” by Peter Burrows,
found in Business Week (February 2, 2004, pp. 57–64). With respect to the intellectual abilities
presented in the chapter, Mr. Jobs would certainly rate high on extraversion, conscientiousness, and
openness to experience. He would also have an internal locus of control approach, be
self-monitoring, have high self-esteem, be a Type A personality, have a high need for achievement,
and a high need for power. However, he is also very good at building partnerships. Note the
differences between his ability to partner versus that of rival Microsoft. In fact, even though the
Apple vs. Microsoft rivalry is legendary, Steve Jobs recognized the benefits of having his Apple
(Mac) system be user friendly to the Windows world. His alliances in the entertainment field with
Disney and various film producers gave him a head start in the emerging digital entertainment field.
Exploring OB Topics on the Web
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; Describe the
factors that influence the formation of individual attitudes and values
AACSB: Information technology; Diverse and multicultural work environments
1. Do an Internet search on age discrimination. Choose three sites that each deal with a
different aspect of age discrimination (for example: discrimination in high tech industries,
2. Find a current article of an organization that has been involved in an age discrimination
suit. What were the specific issues involved? If resolved, what was the outcome? Bring a
copy of the article to class and be prepared to discuss it. In addition to searching, here are
some places to start digging:
www.aarp.com
www.bizjournals.com (there is a free registration process for this site)
www.hrlawindex.com (there is a free registration process for this site)
3. Top executives and tough jobs. Learn more about the skills and abilities managers need,
like intelligence, leadership, motivation, etc., to be successful. Visit the About.com
www.learning.about.com
www.psychology.about.com
