Embracing Diversity: A Must For Success in Business Today - Essay Sample

Introduction

People must consider the importance of embracing and upholding diversity while living in various cities in the United States and different places of work. The dynamics of the current market are increasingly changing and, in turn, making it vital for people to embrace cultural diversity as a critical strategy towards attaining success in business. However, it is essential to underscore the fact that diversity was one of the most unheard concepts in society historically. This ignorance left various minorities, including sexual and ethnic, not only unemployed but also continuously discriminated, a challenge that remains prominent in contemporary society despite its corresponding counterstrategies.

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A plethora of studies proves that discrimination remains a critical challenge to address in contemporary societies, with members of the minority group receiving unequal job opportunities. For example, Sterba found that white males dominate in a wide range of professional positions despite being only 41% of the population in the United States (222). Other groups, including the Hispanic, Asian, and African Americans, and both light-skinned African Americans and whites, tend to find jobs easily compared to their black counterparts (Sterba 222). These findings indicate that people’s race plays a vital role in determining how people experience their lives. However, a continuation of this unfair treatment of people played a crucial role in creating a strategic revolution in the way businesses perceive minorities among their employees. Hence, diversity is increasingly becoming a vital tool in helping employers and employees to increase their capacity to build competent and highly productive teams.

Affirmative action is one of the primary steps that play a vital role in eradicating workplace discrimination. This strategic approach began in 1965 under the leadership of President Lynden Johnson in the United States (Arnold et al. 209). Affirmative action refers to a combination of different rules, policies, and laws that play a vital role in encouraging the continuous and equal hiring as well as the promotion of minority groups that once served as victims of workplace discrimination. Many people tend to interpret affirmative action in two different ways. The first interpretation, remedial, aims at providing predetermined compensation for past discrimination. The second approach entails using affirmative action as a strategic approach towards stopping ongoing discrimination issues in a given organization (Sterba 226). Understanding the differences between these two types of affirmative action is crucial because compensating previous cases of discrimination helps in eradicating various forms of discrimination levied against minorities.

Sterba ascertained that businesses could use affirmative action as a strategic approach towards advising the minorities and empowering them to seek job opportunities where they think that they may be discriminated against (221). Affirmative action is increasingly becoming a vital concept in organizational management, as many countries continue to use it as a strategic approach to ensuring that they provide equal employment opportunities. This approach is crucial in empowering the stigmatized groups as well as contributing to economic opulence. However, it is essential to understand that every business has its unique interpretation of diversity. For example, diversity may imply the inherent variations in people’s cultures, races, sexuality, educational, or geographical background (Sterba 222). Thus, affirmative action aims to promote a prosperous society that values diversity.

Moreover, it is essential to underscore the fact that society continues to record a plethora of challenges about the concept of diversity and affirmative action despite their significant role in promoting multiculturalism. There are two different thoughts regarding the success of diversity and affirmative action in terms of their validity and morality. For example, some people believe that affirmative action is one of the most reliable strategies to minimize oppression and discrimination by promoting inclusivity. Many people who support this concept argue that it plays a vital role in creating a theoretical example for every member of the minority groups that can also gain access to valuable opportunities in life. First, it is essential to understand that people from different backgrounds, in terms of their ethnicities and genders tend to have further knowledge and experience. Nilsson argued that embracing diversity is a crucial strategy towards achieving societal development (7). Other researchers outlined critical benefits associated with upholding diversity in different contexts.

For example, Serbia studied the significance of diversity in the educational sector and ascertained that it was crucial in creating a competent workforce (222). However, understanding whether the concept of race can have a significant impact in contributing to diversity remains a vital question for study. A plethora of firms believes that affirmative action is an integral approach towards achieving an organizational goal of diversity. Sher provided a detailed description of different reasons to justify the overall need to have preferential treatment of minorities as a way of promoting diversity (227). The first approach, backward-looking, addresses the issue of historical discrimination of minorities and seeks to address the plight of people who served as victims of segregation in the past (Sher 227). The second strategy, forward-looking, promotes preferential treatment as a strategic approach to eliminating unfairness in contemporary society.

Sher argued that having a society that values justice can make the life of minority groups better (229). Therefore, the view of preferential treatment is crucial in creating a just society. Justice refers to the concept of having equal opportunities for all sexual, ethnic, and racial communities. Sher also argued that diversity is not only an intrinsically valuable but also a helpful strategy in promoting the welfare of a typical society (230). However, the intrinsic aspect of diversity is unjustifiable because people’s inner feelings tend to differ. Diversity, therefore, remains a crucial tool in which every person aspires to be a good member of society. Sher added that diversity is essential for the welfare of society because working with people from different backgrounds enhances their understanding and acknowledgment of other sexes, ethnicities, and races, which in turn leads to a peaceful co-existence (231). Lastly, diversity plays a vital role in promoting virtues in typical society.

For instance, having a diverse educational context exposes students to a wide range of perspectives, which, in turn, leads to societal progress (Sher 232). There were a plethora of challenges faced in the restoration of affirmative action despite its contribution to diversity. Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke provide the best example of a court case that entailed a strategic approach towards addressing the challenges associated with the restoration of affirmative action across the United States. However, the Supreme Court provided one of the most historical life-changing rulings by stating that there was a need for learning institutions, especially the Universities, to consider their demographic composition as a strategic approach towards achieving a diverse student body (Sterba 222). The court also ruled out racial quotas and preferential treatment across all universities in the United States (Fugère et al. 207). However, the United States experienced a plethora of successive cases to ascertain the significance of this crucial ruling.

For instance, the Supreme Court ruled that using lawsuits as a deciding strategy during student admission was a justifiable act in Gratz v. Bollinger (Sterba 224). Consequently, researchers developed a wide range of evidence to highlight various educational benefits associated with having a racially and ethnically diverse student body (Sterba 224). Most of these policies tend to target the university despite being directed to all higher education institutions (Fugère et al. 207). Some people, on the other hand, advocate for the prohibition of affirmative action. As a result, a plethora of studies seeks to compare the association between the ideas of policy and participant perceptions towards the concept of affirmative action.

According to Fugère et al., fewer participants tend to support this policy when it emphasizes the concept of demographic attributes (208). Opponents of affirmative action contend that it fails to provide equal opportunities for every member in a typical society (Hideg and Ferris 782). Indeed affirmative action works on the idea of preferential treatment by giving victims of discrimination jobs while ignoring the rest. Therefore, it is contradicting to fight for equality while giving other people opportunities and ignoring others. This policy may also encourage the employment of unqualified people at the expense of their qualified colleagues just because they are members of a minority group (Phelan and Rudman 377). Hence, substituting a competent individual with an unskilled minority can reduce organizational performance.

Nilsson added that affirmative action could also be demeaning because people tend to get opportunities basing on their gender and race as opposed to their qualifications (6). However, Sterba viewed affirmative action as a patriarchal policy that favors women alongside other minority groups over their male counterparts (221). Therefore, affirmative action tends to go against the concept of American value, which entails hard work (Phelan & Rudman 377). Affirmative action denies other individuals, especially those belonging to majority groups, their well-earned opportunities, which, in turn, makes it an unfair concept. Beauchamp ascertained that people criticizing the notion of affirmative action view it as a typical form of reverse segregation because it reduces the likelihood of nonminority groups gaining equal employment opportunities (216). Therefore, critics of affirmative action view most of its proponents as hypocrites because they promote a fair policy, which is, in a real sense, discriminative.

Nevertheless, Beauchamp brought a critical point by ascertaining that both the critics and proponents of affirmative action support the need to have a policy that not only creates but also promotes equal opportunities for people in the workplace (216). Creating a typical environment that encourages the coexistence of people is crucial in building intelligent work environments. Therefore, diversity remains the best strategy for people in the workplace to cooperate and respect their perspectives. Findings from comparative studies indicate that ethnic diversity can bring multiple benefits in an organization, including enhanced financial performance, high levels of job satisfaction, and improved decision making (Ahmed 11). Diversity is also crucial in boosting the confidence of minority groups alongside those of the majority by ensuring that they interact freely and address their inherent challenges, including hypothetical stereotypical barriers. However, diversity and affirmative action remain vital concepts in creating and engaging societal prosperity, as discussed in this research.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Madiha. Ethnic diversity in the workplace: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Aisthesis: Honors Student Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 2019, pp. 10-17. https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/1908/1499.

Arnold, Denis G, Tom L. Beauchamp, and Norman E. Bowie. Ethical Theory and Business. Boston: Pearson Education, 2013. Print.

Beauchamp, Tom L. Affirmative action and diversity goal...