The Financial Asset Services Division, or FAS, is an integral part of Standard Corporate Investment Bank’s operations. FAS offers high net-worth companies services and products that can generate extra revenues. Diversity is a new dimension that needs to be managed within South African organisations. The contemporary manager might not be equipped to deal with the new and unique set of challenges that accompany diversity related issues. This work aims to provide managers a basis to explore the concept of diversity management by investigating different management theories. This is also the basis of questionnaires put to managers and employees to determine what factors and dimensions influence leadership roles. Having identified these dimensions and factors it is also investigated what implications there are for leadership. Identified problem areas are brought to the reader’s attention as well as recommendations based on sound diversity management principles. This will provide management with a basis from which to effectively manage diversity in the workplace at FAS. / T.F.J. Oosthuizen

The history of the United States is rooted in differences and actions that has culminated in the current reality of culturally incompetent behaviors with a lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion prevailing in organizations and society. Through a cultural competence conceptual framework, this research highlighted an action-oriented approach for organizations seeking to engage in efforts to support and integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion. To conduct this research, I developed a cultural competence conceptual framework with eight types of initiatives derived from the scholarly literature on diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural competence. The types of initiatives point to organizational efforts to engage in developmental and action-oriented strategies that: facilitate leadership engagement, sensitivity, and responsiveness to diversity, equity, and inclusion; specify strategic and operational goals; incorporate cultural awareness and sensitivity in policies, practices, programs, and procedures; integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into human resource management to build a diverse and representative workforce; cultivate a supportive, inclusive, and equitable organizational culture/climate; reinforce and sustain a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; employ sensitive and inclusive communications; and implement targeted training and professional development on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The cultural competence framework presented ways for organizations to actively engage in setting action-oriented goals targeting ingrained, systemic, and institutionalized disparities. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This qualitative study explored the communicative strategies used by employees for discussing diversity and diversity initiatives in the workplace. The study also examined employees' definitions of diversity and the effectiveness of diversity efforts within the organization. Self-directed focus groups of employees within an organization were used to collect data. Four groups were composed of employees based on designated diversity characteristics: White male, Black female, White female, and workers over 50. This study served to bridge the gap between diversity and organizational communication literature. Thematic interpretive analysis was guided by theories of the discursive construction of prejudice and co-cultural communication. Identified strategies were cross-checked with key informants in the organization to verify validity. Finally, the study discussed implications of findings for practice and for future research. / Department of Communication Studies

M.Comm. / The word "culture" has many definitions and implications. Its nature is often difficult to define and hard to compress. It reflects how people think about their world and environment and how they make choices to survive within it. Most importantly, though, it mirrors the changes in mindset and growth of a specific group of people.

M.Inf. / This study was conducted within the context of human resources management. The empirical investigation involved nine provincial library and information services. A questionnaire was sent to nine directors with the purpose of investigating how provincial library services have changed to accommodate needs of diverse human resources. The aims of the research were to explore the perceptions managers have on differences brought by diverse cultural backgrounds, and how they have aligned management practices to suit the changed needs. It was found from the empirical research that most of the managers are aware of the changes that have to take place, but very little has been done to address changes in a constructive, organised manner. Recommendations are made on specific areas that need to be addressed, with a view to efficiently manage employees who come from different cultural backgrounds.

A thesis submitted to the faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, 2017 / Despite slow pace of transformation in post-apartheid South Africa’s corporate sector, the department of labour recently showcased some Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed corporations for executing effective diversity strategies. The strategies and discourses of diversity in these appraised corporations had not been studied scholarly, particularly from a critical perspective. This inquiry adopted a multiple case study design and the framework of critical diversity literacy to study the nature, texture, and the depth of strategies and discourses of diversity in three of these appraised corporations in the financial, retail, and private healthcare sectors. Research entailed analysis of 35 published documents to examine conceptual framing of diversity; indepth semi-structured interviews with 6 transformation managers to explore prevailing organisational diversity culture and the designed strategies to transform such dynamics; and focus groups with 32 employees from dominant and subordinated groups to gauge the efficacy of executed strategies in promoting equality and social justice. The findings suggest that appraised corporations mainly complied with prescripts of employment equity law and executed managerial instrumentalism oriented diversity initiatives. Diversity conceptual frameworks regarded inequality, oppression and dominance as historical legacies, rather than present day phenomena that are tied to coloniality of power and being and reproduced through neoliberalism. Diversity initiatives were minimalistic and impelled identity siloism, race and gender blindness, medicalization and hyper-individualisation of disability, nurturing of white fragility, and reproduction of gender binaries. Blacks, women, queer persons and persons with disabilities were barely visible in positions of power, strategic influence and high income. These subjugated groups constantly performed whiteness, normative masculinity, ablebodiedness and heteronormativity in order to fit in. This performance is systematised under the guise of merit without recognising its dehumanising effects. The findings suggest the inadequacy of employment equity legislation driven reform to produce real equality as this law is a product of ILO’s neoliberal “Decent Work” rhetoric. The study contributes to the closure of lacunae concerning paucity of agentic critical diversity studies that examine effective organisational diversity discourses. The study accentuates the importance of situating effective diversity discourses being evaluated in the broader context of contemporary global system of power and related hegemonic ideologies that re-produce inequality. By so doing scholars will be able to analyse the studied diversity discourses holistically and make informed decisions on their efficacy to yield social justice for the marginalised across various intersections of power, inequality and identity differences. / XL2018

Although diversity is often thought to improve team performance by expanding the range of ideas available to the group, reported relationships between team diversity and performance have been somewhat weak (e.g., Bowers, Pharmer,&Salas, 2000; Devine&Philips, 2001; Webber&Donahue, 2001). One possible explanation for the lack of findings on team diversity is that past research has largely taken an absolute (i.e., how much diversity) rather than a relative perspective (i.e., what pattern of diversity; Tsui&O'Reilly, 1989; Tsui, Egan,&O'Reilly, 1992). Conceptually and operationally defining team diversity using faultlines - i.e., the pattern of how different types of demographic divisions either do or do not reinforce the salience of the subgroup - is one way to study diversity from a relative perspective. This thesis posits that the relative approach using faultlines may better elucidate the relationship between demography and team outcomes. In particular, this thesis posits that the structural arrangement of diversity (i.e., faultlines) among team members gives rise to relational patterns of trust and coordination, which in turn determine team performance. Results support the notion of a negative relation between faultline strength and team performance.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 20, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Earnest L. Perry. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2003. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2963. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as 2 preliminary leaves. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.