Abstract
Evidence suggests that positive perceptions toward diversity enhance the potential group and organizational benefits resulting from diversity. Given the make-up of today’s organizations, encountering diversity has become the norm ra-ther than the exception. As such, it is becoming increasingly important to address diversity issues, and take steps to increase positive perceptions of diversity within the business classroom in order to carry that advantage into the workplace. Religious conservative students present a unique challenge to diversity education in that they likely hold value- laden attitudes that lack alignment with diversity principles. This study prescribes a scaffolding approach to increase positive perceptions of diversity within a classroom comprised predominantly of religious conservative students
Highlights
Diversity is an important and complex issue for organizations today, presenting both opportunities and challenges [1]
Findings indicate that there were significant increases in positive perceptions of diversity occurring within the treatment group while no significant changes were realized in the control group
This study makes a contribution by demonstrating that religious conservative students can be positively influenced by diversity education
Summary
Diversity is an important and complex issue for organizations today, presenting both opportunities and challenges [1]. Both organization- and group-level benefits have been suggested as a result of individuals’ positive perceptions of diversity [6,7,8] Konrad and her colleagues (2009) [7] argue that organizational benefits gained differ depending on your perception of diversity. If individuals perceive diversity as a positive attribute to the firm, value congruence is more likely to occur This correlates with Schneider and Northcraft’s (1999) [8] assertion that by addressing the dilemmas of individual and managerial participation toward diversity, organizational benefits may be more immediately realized. Through greater positive perceptions of diversity and understanding of potential benefits, value congruence will likely be enhanced, and the individual and managerial dilemmas will be reduced.
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