Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2022 - IJBEX Workplace Diversity PDF
2022 - IJBEX Workplace Diversity PDF
2022 - IJBEX Workplace Diversity PDF
3, 2022
Deepti Sharma
Uttaranchal University,
Dehradun, India
Email: deepti.sharma.sama@gmail.com
1 Introduction
2 Review of literature
personal aspect (Ragins and Gonzalez, 2003) and diversity management seeks to harness
those differences in the pursuit of more productive environments (Kandola and Fullerton,
1998). Performance is said to be positive for both the employees and the organisation
itself (Osabiya, 2015). Employees who are more engaged are likely said to be more
productive which may ultimately reduce the high turnover (Hassan, 2013). Mwatumwa
(2016) argues that gender diversity determines a positive relationship between employee
and organisational performance. This corresponds with Weiliang (2011) who holds a
resource based-view of a firm, stating that gender diversity at the management and
organisational levels can provide a firm with better competitive advantage. Ethnicity
influence not only related to the performance of an individual but also they influence
organisation productivity. Dastane and Eshegbe (2015) argued that an ethnic-diverse
workforce may be beneficial and disadvantageous to organisations. Most of the
organisations are taking initiatives in implementing educational diversity training to
encourage employees to connect and work efficiently with others so that goals of
organisations are met effectively. An individual’s educational background can be a
significant indicator of their knowledge, skills, and capability (Tracy and David, 2011).
According to Kunze (2013), age diversity is defined as the differences in age distribution
among employees and is used to describe the composition of the organisation or the
composition of workgroups within an organisation. Boehm and Kunze (2015) argued that
an age heterogeneous workforce yields a host of multiple skills, intellectual styles,
morals, and preferences that may result in increased productivity.
India, largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world with an
estimated population of 1.35 billion (World Bank, 2013), is one of the oldest and richest
civilisation being extremely diverse and multi-faceted in its history, culture, and
institutional frameworks (Thite, 2011). The country addresses a range of diversity issues,
including age, education, religion, caste, socially disadvantaged (e.g., SCs, STs and
OBCs), gender, language, regional background, ethnicity, and disability (Kundu, 2003;
Venkata Ratnam and Chandra, 1996). India is characterised by diversity in gender,
income, language, religion, culture and social status. To provide equality of status and
opportunity in education and employment, the principle of reservation was adopted so
that the female or underprivileged classes could come at par with so-called male or
privileged classes.1
5 Methodology
The study is based on descriptive survey design. The target populations for the study are
academic and non-academic staff of University of Lucknow. The 27-tems workforce
diversity questionnaire (WDQ) adapted from Elsaid (2012) was used to measure the
perceptions of employees on workforce diversity. It consists of four subscales which are
gender diversity, age diversity, ethnic diversity and educational diversity. The 10-itmes
employee work performance questionnaire (EWPQ) adapted from Bekele et al. (2007)
was used to assess the level of employee performance. Convenience sampling technique
was used in collecting data among the 100 academic and non-academic staff of
University of Lucknow, out of which 65 questionnaires was duly completed and reverts
back. Data obtained from selected respondents were analysed by using descriptive
statistics such as frequencies of response, percentages and hypothesis has been checked
by Karl Pearson correlation and one way ANOVA.
Table 1 shows the demographical characteristics of the respondents. From the total
sample of respondents there are 62% female and 38% male which shows that large
number of female participation in this study. These findings agree with Kossek et al.
(2005) findings who found out that from the entire workforce across the world, 54% are
women. 62% are academic and 38% are non-academic staff are the participant of study.
8% of respondent are above the age of 50 followed by 46% (30–39 of age) and 23% in
between the age of 18–29 and 40–49. The result shows that the university has an aged
diverse workforce. This is in accordance with Kunze et al. (2011) who argued that age
diversity has become an inevitable feature of many organisations.
Table 1 also depicted that majority of respondents having PhD (77%). A study
conducted by Hoff (2014) found that, organisations usually reject hiring people with
insufficient educational qualifications. This may explain the reason why the University of
Lucknow have more PhD level staff as compare to post-graduate and graduate staff. 46%
respondents having up to 5 years of work experiences, 31% having more than 15 years
and 15% having 11–15 years of work experience.
368 D. Sharma and S.K. Srivastava
For the determination of level of gender diversity percentage distribution (Figure 2) has
been used. 54% respondents agreed that university is not follow the discrimination policy
while hiring and recruiting personnel against 46% disagreed on the same fact.
Almost 62% respondents rely on the fact that university is treated them fairly
regardless of the gender. Universities will always encourage and provide opportunities
for growth and advancement to their employee’s while asking for these facilities are
exists for women 46% were agreed, 31% neutral and 23% disagreed about the statement.
Same percentage (38%) of employees agreed and disagreed on the fact that women are
involved in decision making as men against 24% who shows neutral behaviour. 54%
respondents indicate that the performance criteria for success are not expected to be
higher for men than for women. Majority of respondents (77%) having the positive
attitude towards gender diversity. They feel comfortable while working with the more
gender diverse workplace.
Objective 2: To study the relationship between age diversity and employee performance.
H2 There is a relationship between age diversity and employee performance.
Investigating the effects of workplace diversity on employee performance 369
Outcome: There is a moderate and significant relationship between age diversity and
employee performance (r = 0.55). A moderate relationship in this scenario means that
when age diversity increases, employee performance also increases.
Figure 2 Frequency distribution of respondents towards gender diversity (see online version
for colours)
Figure 3 Frequency distribution of respondents towards age diversity (see online version
for colours)
While analysing the dimensions of age diversity 62% respondents disagreed on the
opinion that their seniors include all members at different ages in problem solving and
decision making. Usually age differences cause conflict among employees 54% agreed
and 38% disagreed on the fact. Equal percent of respondents agreed and disagreed on the
fact that at workplace they experienced lack of bonding with people of different age
group. Majority of respondents are having positive attitude towards the age diversity at
their workplace.
370 D. Sharma and S.K. Srivastava
Figure 4 Frequency distribution of respondents towards ethnic diversity (see online version
for colours)
54% respondents reported that the University was not concerns about the employee’s
customs, cultures, and values. People from different region spoke different language and
sometime may create conflict but employees of University of Lucknow (62%) agreed that
different languages that are used to communicate do not create problems among them.
46% disagreed and 38% agreed that at work, they developed low self-esteem due to their
ethnicity. Almost 46% respondents reported that their seniors were not includes all
members of different ethnicity in problem solving and decision making and majority of
respondents feel comfortable and had positive attitude towards the people from different
ethnicity
Objective 4: To study the relationship between educational diversity and employee
performance.
H4 There is a relationship between educational diversity and employee performance.
Investigating the effects of workplace diversity on employee performance 371
Outcome: There is a moderate and significant relationship between ethnic diversity and
employee performance (r = 0.25). A moderate relationship in this scenario means that
when educational diversity increases, employee performance also increases.
Table 4 Correlation between educational diversity and employee performance
Figure 5 Frequency distribution of respondents towards educational diversity (see online version
for colours)
At workplace, 62% respondent does not experience lack of confidence and 30%
experience lack of confidence due to their education background. 46% respondents
disagreed that seniors includes all members at different education level in problem
solving and decision making. On the fact that University gives equal treatment when it
comes to the diversity of education background respondents shows (54%) neutral attitude
and 38% disagreed on the same.
Objective 5: To determine the impact of diversity on employee performance based on
various demographic attributes.
H5 There is a significant impact of diversity on employee performance based on various
demographic attributes.
Outcome: To determine whether any of the differences between the means of gender,
age, experience and academic level are statistically significant, compare the p-value at
significance level to assess the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis states that the
population means are all equal. Usually, a significance level of 0.01 works well. A
significance level of 0.01 indicates a 1% risk of concluding that a difference exists when
there is no actual difference. Table 8 shows the impact of diversity on employee
performance based on gender, age, experience and academic level.
372 D. Sharma and S.K. Srivastava
The study examined the relationship between workforce diversity and employee’s job
performance in University of Lucknow which shows the moderate relationship among
gender/age/ethnicity/educational qualification and employee performance. A moderate
relationship means that when gender/age/ethnicity/educational diversity increases,
employee performance also increases in a moderate form.
Equal percentage of respondents agree/disagree on the fact that women are involved
in the decision making as much as men. Almost 62% of disagreed on the fact senior
include all members at different age in problem solving and decision making. 76% of
respondents are having positive attitude towards the age and ethnic diversity. 38%
disagree, 38% neutral and 24% agrees on the fact that opportunities for growth and
advancement exist for minorities in university. 54% reported that university is not
concerned about the employee customs, cultures, and values. 85% consider their
performance is better than the average employee. Majority of respondents either
disagreed or neutral on the fact that University gives equal treatment when it comes to the
diversity of education background. Majority of respondents had positive attitude towards
gender diversity, age diversity, ethnic diversity and education diversity. They feel
comfortable while working with the more diverse workplace.
The present study also depicted that the entire population regardless of gender/
age/ethnicity/educational qualification and experiences the entire participants perceive
the impact of diversity on their performance. University should continue to give both
male and female equal opportunities during recruitment and other areas like growth and
opportunities as it is shown in this study that gender diversity positively influence
employee performance. Group training and team building initiative enhances mutual
cooperation, minimise role conflicts and increases sharing among the diverse work force.
Investigating the effects of workplace diversity on employee performance 373
Moreover effective communication not only enhances the information sharing among
employees but also increases organisational effectiveness.
It must also be noted that the findings of this study will reflect the perceptions of the
employees of LU involved, therefore not be assumed to be universally applicable to all
university. The study also suggests that further studies should be conducted on the
relationship between workplace diversity and employee performance in other sectors as
there was found to be moderate relationship in the higher education sector.
The results were based on the comparison of the performance of an individual
employee and not based on team performance. Therefore, the study recommends future
research to go deeper in this area.
References
Bekele, A.Z., Shigitu, A.D. and Tensay, A.T. (2007) ‘The employees ‘perception of performance
appraisal on their performance’’, International Journal of Management and Commerce
Innovations, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.136–173.
Boehm, S.A. and Kunze, F. (2015) ‘Age diversity and age climate in the workplace’, in Aging
Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship, Springer International Publishing, New
York, USA.
Dastane, O. and Eshegbe, J.W. (2015) ‘Effect of diversity elements at workplace: an empirical
study’, International Journal of Accounting and Business Management, Vol. 3, No. 1,
pp.62–69.
Elsaid, A.M. (2012) ‘The effects of cross cultural workforce diversity on employee performance in
Egyptian pharmaceutical organizations’, Business and Management Research, Vol. 1, No. 4,
pp.162–180.
Hassan, R. (2013) ‘Factors influencing turnover intention among technical employees in
information technology organization’, International Journal of Arts and Commerce, Vol. 3,
No. 4, pp.23–36.
Hoff, H.E. (2014) ‘A critical discussion of Byram’s model of intercultural communicative
competence in the light of building theories’, Intercultural Education, Vol. 25, No. 6,
pp.508–517.
Kandola, R. and Fullerton, J. (1998) Diversity in Action, 2nd ed., CIPD, London.
Kossek, E., Lobel, S.A. and Brown, J. (2005) ‘Human resource strategies to manage workforce
diversity examining the business case’, Business Science Journal, Vol. 23, No. 7, pp.23–35.
Kundu, S.C. (2001) ‘Managing cross-cultural diversity: a challenge for present and future
organizations’, Delhi Business Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.27–34.
Kundu, S.C. (2003) ‘Workforce diversity status: a study of employees’ reactions’, Industrial
Management & Data Systems, Vol. 103, No. 4, pp.215–226.
Kunze, F. (2013) ‘Age diversity, age discrimination, and performance consequences – a cross
organizational study’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, Vol. 3, No. 30,
pp.187–192.
Kunze, F., Boehm, S.A. and Bruch, H. (2011) ‘Age diversity, age discrimination climate and
performance consequences – a cross organizational study’, Journal of Organizational
Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.264–290.
Mwatumwa, A.S. (2016) Effect of Workforce Diversity on Employee Work Performance: A Study of
the County Government of Mombasa, Masters dissertation, University of Mombasa, Kenya.
Osabiya, B.J. (2015) ‘The effect of employee’s motivation on organizational performance’, Journal
of Public Administration and Policy Research, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp.62–75.
374 D. Sharma and S.K. Srivastava
Ragins, B.R. and Gonzalez, J.A. (2003) ‘Understanding diversity in organizations: getting a grip on
a slippery construct’, in Greenberg, J. (Ed.): Organizational Behavior: The State of the
Science, 2nd ed., pp.125–163, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Robbins, S.P., Judge, A. and Sanghi, S. (2008) Organizational Behavior, p.18, Pearson Prentice
Hall, India.
Thite, M. (2011) ‘The changing face of people management in India’, Personnel Review, Vol. 40,
No. 1, pp.147–148.
Tinofirei, C. (2011) The Unique Factors Affecting Employee Performance in Non-Profit
Organizations, Masters dissertation, p.15, University of South Africa.
Tracy, R.L. and David, E.M. (2011) ‘Choosing workers’ qualifications: no experience necessary?’,
International Economic Review, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp.479–502.
Venkata Ratnam, C.S. and Chandra, V. (1996) ‘Sources of diversity and the challenge before
human resource management in India’, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 17, Nos. 4–5,
pp.76–108.
Weiliang, E.C. (2011) The Effects of Workforce Diversity Towards the Employee Performance in
An Organization, Doctoral dissertation, University of Tunku Abdul Rahman.
World Bank (2013) India: Data [online] http://data.worldbank.org/country/india (accessed 2
February 2019).
Notes
1 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/addressing-issues-of-workforce-
diversity/article9964037.ece (accessed 2 January 2019).