Abstract
The object of this study was to analyze whether organizational policies that aim at stimulating workforce diversity are effectively implemented. We developed a case-study at a multinational company in the technology sector, referred to as HIGHTEC, in order to compare the organizational discourse and policies to how the employees perceive them. We did a documental research into HIGHTEC’s diversity-related policies, which were submitted to content analysis. Eventually, we did interviews with minority and non-minority employees, transcribed and examined them using discourse analysis. The main results showed that, although corporate discourses are translated into organizational policies, their effectiveness is extremely limited due to employees’ ingrained prejudices, permissiveness at the management level, and the lack of a collective sense of diversity. Minorities and non-minorities have shown prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes towards each other, evidencing how difficult it is for them to respect their differences. Although policies give them a specific role in the process, managers show an explicit or concealed prejudice, thus undermining policies’ effectiveness. Indeed, there is a dissonance between diversity discourse and practice, and when it comes to workforce diversity, people are more inclined to accept ethnic, social and gender differences, but resistant to accept different sexual orientations. Key words: Diversity, culture, policies, gender differences, sexual orientations, minorities.
Highlights
Organizations have been analyzed as aseptic entities in which individuals coexist in a functional and neutral way in order to pursue common economic objectives (Tudorescu et al, 2010)
What the organizational discourse has to say HIGHTECH is a North American company and it is clear that most of its diversity in the workplace policies are strategic responses to institutional pressures, especially those imposed by the federal laws prohibiting discrimination and harassment in the workplace based on certain characteristics
Through the character “woman” – who has to be “twice as good as a men”, referring to the fact that she is blond and, “worse, divorced” and asks the interviewer: “do you really think there’s no prejudice anymore?” – she experiences three kinds of discrimination in her daily professional life: on account of her gender, marital status and physical characteristics. Both in the US and in Brazilian offices, we found out that when it comes to diversity policies, people are more likely to accept the ethnic, social and gender, but they are more resistant to the diversity of sexual orientations
Summary
Organizations have been analyzed as aseptic entities in which individuals coexist in a functional and neutral way in order to pursue common economic objectives (Tudorescu et al, 2010). This model ignores the fact that individuals of distinct psychographic segments, and with different life styles coexist in the workplace and, not rarely, as they face discrimination they opt to remain silent and hide themselves behind the wall of professional impersonality. As a strategic response to these pressures many firms have adopted diversity equality policies, quite often disregarding the cultural
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