Posted: August 11th, 2015

diversity

diversity

Save your finished report to PDF and then submit it electronically via the Moodle assignment submission process. This report will be marked out of 20 and then converted to a mark out of 10 (the report is worth 10% of the marks for this unit). Your work will be assessed using the Marking Rubric provided in Moodle. You need to clearly demonstrate your understanding of the concepts and your responses should contain clear linkages to the theory/concepts presented in this workshop. Please present your work in full sentences.
This report is based on the workshop activities in Topics 1 and 2.  Use the information you have gained from working through these activities to inform your answers to all 5 (five) questions below.
Question    Your response    Mark
1.    Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism identify and explain some of the challenges of managing cultural diversity within an Australian workplace.    Hosfede’s cultural dimensions theory describes the effects of a society’s culture on the values of its members. He uses five dimensions to teach that cooperation across cultures is essential and individualism forms part of the dimensions. His individualism and collectivism dimension measures the degree to which employees maintain their unique attributes as well as the degrees to which the employees get integrated into the collective group. Managing cultural diversity can be challenging especially when it involves managing an individualistic company like Australia. Australia’s individualism can be justified through the fact that they do not value gifts exchange in a work set up. Among the possible challenges that can be encountered when managing cultural diversity in an Australian workforce include resistance to change that is common in individualistic communities. This is because the culturally diverse employees would refuse to accept the fact that cultural and social makeup of their workforce is changing. A mentality of always doing things in a certain way hinders adaptation to change.
/4
2.    Choose one of the five ethical dilemmas provided; clearly identify the ethical issues (use concepts from your textbook) for all individuals concerned in this scenario.    In the first ethical dilemma concerning an employee who wrote a blog concerning his complain towards his employer, there are several ethical issues which arise considering that the employee was fired for ill speaking in a public domain. The first ethical issue concerning the employee is his unethical behavior of acting as a whistleblower in a desire to air his frustrations concerning what he feels to be discrimination due to his dreadlocks. This ethical dilemma can be dealt with by explaining the right channels to follow while airing employee concerns.
/4
3.    Do you agree or disagree with action taken in this scenario?  Justify your response using relevant concepts.    Another ethical dilemma centers on procedural justice which concerns the degree of fairness of the process through which outcomes are assigned. The fairness of the outcome of the employee’s behavior forms an ethical dilemma. However, I agree with the action taken to terminate the services of the employee because as an employee he had freedom of speech meaning that he would have aired his concerns through the proper channels of communication.
/4
4.    Describe two aspects of your personality that support/refute the results you gained in the Jung Personality Test. Make sure you state your results.    My Jung typology preferences are ISTJ. This represents my personality accurately since I prefer a private life as opposed to an outgoing culture. In a social setting, I rarely initiate conversation and when someone else initiates the conversation, I converse sparsely responding to only what I feel comfortable talking about. Contrarily to what people say about introverts, my inability to initiated conversation does not mean that I am shy only that I work better when I am alone. I also focus on available facts when making decisions as opposed to following a hunch. In cases where I need answers or justification of people’s acts, I prefer getting concrete answers. Additionally, the decisions that I make are more often based on logic and they are made after thorough analysis and critique of the available situations. When carrying out duties, I prefer doing them in a more organized way and on time meaning that it is essential for me to see through projects to their completion.
/4
5.    EITHER a) Explain, using a specific example, why you think your current job suits your personality preferences and values.
OR b) What is your ideal job and explain why is would be a good fit for your personality preferences and values?    With my personality type (ISTJ), my ideal job would be data analyst since it offers the stability and organization that I would prefer to work with. Additionally, I am reliable and objective and this are very precise requirements for this type of a job. Analysis of data does not rely on a person hunch and very rarely would I be required to rely on my hunch in the course of duty simply because data analysis is all about available facts.  With my introvert personality, it is apparent that I value my space and I prefer working alone, an opportunity that this type of job can offer. As a data analyst, I would not necessarily need to interact with many people since computers and other systems are the main tools of delivery. However working in a team would also be appropriate since I would be in a position to ensure that deadlines are met on time and in an organized manner. This means that the team members should have clearly outlined roles and responsibilities.
/4
Total Marks        /20

COMMENTS:

Q1 – on the whole this is a good response. However, you need to cover diversity as a phenomenon that contains more than one mindset or perspective – the intention of the question is that diversity in a group means that both collectivist and individualist mindset could co-exist and that this diversity would create management challenges. Also, where did you get the idea that individualism can be equated with resistance to change? Resistance to change is more related to one’s attitude towards time – people who have a short-term focus are less interested in long-term change and so are more comfortable with the status quo.
Q2 – you could include a wider range ofconce ptssuch as the apparent absence of procedural fairness, the apparent violation of the firm’s code of ethics (speaking ill of the employer in a public domain etc.) – I note that you do include these in your answer to Q3 but the first two sentences in your answer to Q3 really belong in Q2.
Q3 – your justification f or your decision is very weak – and in particular you make an assumption which cannot be verified – just because someone exercises freedom of speech does mean that he would have aired his concerns through the proper channels (he may have but we do not know this).
The f act that he used his right to freedom of speech and that it potentially harmed the employer raises a lot of ethical issues such as the violating the concept of acting in the best interests of the majority of the stakeholders, or of doing no harm. However, did the employer follow a process that was procedurally f air? Did the employer give the employee an opportunity to explain his actions? Was the employee aware of the code of ethics (expected workplace behavior) and/or the appropriate channels f or a complaint etc.
Q4 – very good response
Q5 – very good response