Yutryty

INDIA’S DIVERSITY AND BUSINESS

UNIT – I
MEANING OF DIVERSITY

The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding

that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along
the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical
abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration of these
differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other
and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of
diversity contained within each individual.

DIVERSITY IN INDIA

The diversity in India is unique. Being a large country with large population. India
presents endless varieties of physical features and cultural patterns. It is the land of many
languages it is only in India people professes all the major religions of the world. In short, India
is “the epitome of the world”. The vast population is composed of people having diverse creeds,
customs and colors. Some of the important forms of diversity in India are discussed below:

 Diversity of Physical Features (like mountains, snow, desert, etc)

 Racial Diversity (Basis of race)
 Linguistic Diversity (Basis of Language)
 Religious Diversity (Basis of Language)
 Caste Diversity (Basis of caste)

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RECOGNISING DIVERSITY

It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual
differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other
ideologies. This means we need to recognize or identify the diversification of our business area
and have to take decisions with respect to it and what are the future aspects that can affect the
growth and development of the business organization. Under this we can classify the diversity
into various types as follows:

 Personality and thought

 Cultural background
 Geographical location
 Language and Accent
 Race, and caste
 Age
 Moral and social roles

ACCOMMODATING DIVERSITY

Accommodating workforce diversity means resolving challenges associated with workforce

diversity to improve the workplace and its employees. This means when we resolve the various
challenges faced by any business while diversifying itself. If all the business challenges are
resolved then the business will be growing in very smooth and prominent way. There are various
advantages related if all the challenges are resolved in the business organization:

 Good Return on investment

 Business Reputation (Goodwill)
 Happy Investors
 Other Tangible and Intangible benefits

VALUING DIVERSITY

Understanding and valuing diversity is an essential aspect of work as teachers and career
practitioners. It‟s important to explore diversity from different angles and outline knowledge,
skills and attitudes that may increase our effectiveness in working with all types of diversity.
Why to value diversity- The term „diversity‟ refers to all the ways in which people are different
as individuals, groups and cultures. It is important to value diversity because:

 Helps in sustain in the market

 Helps to fight with competitors
 Earn profit
 Growth and development

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  Obtain the efficiency
 Make a proper business environment
 Trading globally

CHALLENGES AND DILEMMAS POSED BY DIVERSITY

When the business try to grow in some different manner then it is obvious that it will have a lot
of benefits and with this it will also face some difficulties with respect to this growth or
expansion plan, here are some of the challenges and dilemmas that a business generally face
while it is trying to grow:

 Poor Communication - Communication barriers lead to problems in a company attempting to

create a diverse workplace. When a U.S. company hires employees of other cultures whose
first language is not English, employees and managers may experience difficulties
communicating with one another. Ineffective communication of key objectives results in
confusion, lack of teamwork, and low morale it‟s easy to misunderstand someone who
communicates differently.
 Resistance to change - There are always employees who will refuse to accept the fact that the
social and cultural makeup of their workplace is changing. Every workplace has people who
resist diversity and the changes it brings, even in the most positive of environments.
Individuals who do not take a diversity plan seriously are a big challenge to managers and
owners trying to implement and maintain a plan.
 Disorganization - Implementing an unorganized diversity plan is almost as ineffective as not
having a diversity plan. Managers must take an organized approach, implementing a plan that
is well-thought-out and well-communicated to the staff. This can be done in several ways.
Brainstorm with managers and executives about how to effectively implement diversity in
the workplace.
 Implementation of diversity in the workplace policies - This can be the overriding challenge
to all diversity advocates. Although on paper workplace diversity may seem like a good idea,
many companies experience challenges when attempting to implement changes. Employers
must develop strategies for implementation, analyze results and make necessary changes if
results do not meet the established goals.
 Managing Diversity in the Workplace - Diversity training alone is not sufficient for your
organization‟s diversity management plan. A strategy must be created and implemented to
create a culture of diversity that permeates every department and function of the
organization.
 Avoid getting frustrated and angry - We always compare other people‟s behavior with our
own norms and values. If the behavior makes sense we accept it but if it doesn‟t, we reject it.
Sometimes that rejection leads to frustration and hostility. As a manager you should of
course avoid showing frustration or hostility towards your employees behavior. It is however
a challenging task according to our survey. The reason why we end up frustrated and hostile
is because we often interpret other people‟s behavior incorrectly.

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 Motivating a cultural diverse team - What we regard as motivation is closely related to
culture and it is often the case that what serves as a motivation factor in one culture is de-
motivating people from another culture. Very often companies have a single-threaded
motivation and reward systems based on the norms and values from where the company was
originated. When you expand to other cultures and you bring along your motivation system
you might experience a decline in efficiency and employee satisfaction because other people
might feel de-motivated by factor that you find extremely motivating.
 Achieve the desired level of efficiency - A great deal of the respondents felt that it was
difficult to reach the desired level of efficiency in their multicultural team because too much
time is spent on sorting out misunderstandings, setting expectations and make everyone on
the team pursue the same goals.
 Lack of proper training on managing a cultural diverse team - And finally the cross-cultural
managers feel that they need the right tools to manage and lead a culturally diverse team.
Managing diversity is an important add-on to the management skills they already have.

SOURCES OF DILEMMA AND TENSION

Here we are going to study the various sources of dilemma and tension of diversity, this includes
the various sources that is going to affect the business organization

 Immigration - Immigration is the movement of people into another country or region to

which they are not native in order to settle there.[Immigration is a result of: including
temperature, breeding, economic, political, family re-unification, natural disaster, poverty or
the wish to change one's surroundings voluntarily. Immigration - moving into a country
Emigration - moving out of a country
 Why do people immigrate?
 Moving to a different country with different culture and norms can be quite
daunting
 There may be the additional pressure to earn enough to live
 Better living conditions, job opportunities
 Due to conflict or to escape persecution and prejudices
 They can include famine, war, disease, lack of jobs, over population and
drought
 Immigrants offer various benefits such as the following:
 Immigrants will often do jobs that people in the host country will not, or
cannot do
 Migrant workers often work longer hours and for lower salaries, and while
that is controversial, sometimes exploitive, it benefits the host country
 Immigrants, when made to feel welcome in the host society, can contribute to
the diversity of that society, which can help with tolerance and understanding

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  For the host country‟s economy, immigrants offer an increased talent pool, if
they have been well educated in their original country.
 Main effects in immigration The main causes of immigration in present generation
and future
 People needed in home countries
 Loss of culture
 Over population
 Competition for Limited Resources – this is the second most important dilemma faced by any
business organization where the business faces the problem of high competition in respect to
limited resources, as the resources in world is limited it had grown a lot of competitors for
itself and also due to this demand the price of this limited resources are increasing day by
day. There are generally 4 types of natural resources as follows:
 Capital (money required in a business)
 Land (required for establishment of organization)
 Labour (manpower required for various activities)
 Entrepreneur (skills required to run any business)

These are those resources for which each and every business is trying its best to get maximum of
these resources, the more of them will represent any business to be more successful or not. This
competition has been backed with some advantages and disadvantages as well which are as
follows: ADVANTAGES –

 Makes creative
 Long term planning
 Makes more responsible towards the business
 True test of skill
 Gaining of self-confidence
 Provides an ambition which is to be accomplished

DISADVANTAGES

 Breaks confidence
 Mislead from actual direction
 Creates confusion
 Blocks good thoughts
 Improper practices gets promoted
 Not always a true test of skills

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