Introduction
Business is an activity that cannot be operated in isolation. With the passage of time, the usual notion of business has changed a lot. The modern day notion of business is that they exist to create certain stuff in the wake of earning a profit and hence, for the creation of this stuff, organizations are needed. The existence of organizations have given birth to a very important concept in business studies named, organizational management, defined as an art of making a group of people work towards the achievement of predefined common goals (Alvesson & Willmott, 2003).
Businesses cannot operate without management, as management is the tool to perform various business activities. The concept of management deals with people. The above debate on the concept of management points towards a very important concept in management studies, organizational culture. Here, it is worth mentioning that successful management breeds a successful and worthy organizational culture.
Organizational culture is an arrangement of shared meaningful ideas that are core to the people working in the organization, distinguishing them from others in the market. These shared meaningful ideas forms the very basis of a set of characteristics that the organization values. Looking the concept through a different spectrum, it can also be defined as how people behave within an organization and what specific meanings and perceptions are derived from these behaviors (Luneneburg, 2010).
The most important attribute of organizational culture is the emphasis on people. People formulate the human resource part of the organization. It is a no surprise to state that any organization’s success is acutely and closely knitted with the practices of its people. More specifically, it can be said that humans are what that matters within an organizational setting and henceforth, human resource department of any corporate entity is the key to its successful and profitable functioning. More than anything else, successful organizations thoroughly ensured that right people are hired for the right job.
Keeping in view of the above argument, it is a note worthy fact to state that among many of the issues that the management faces, in lieu of hiring, assigning responsibilities and retaining people, the most pronounced one happens to be the issues related to the discrimination in an organization and therefore, discrimination at workplace is a topic receiving immense attention. Discrimination at workplace is a controversial subject in that it can have positive as well as negative consequences. In wake of the importance attached with the issue, this research essay aims at discussing the subject at length.
Therefore, this research essay is an attempt on the part of the writer to deliberate on the outcomes of positive discrimination at work place. In doing so, the writer will start the paper by throwing light on the issues of equality and diversity within a workplace, forming the core of the discrimination concept. Next, the writer will discuss what is exactly meant by the term positive discrimination, thereof, documenting an analytical debate on the issue by presenting the positive as well as negative consequences attached with the concept. Finally, the last section of the essay will present a summary of the findings presented in the essay. The writer will mostly use accredited secondary research materials, mainly composing of reviewed research journals and text books, for the compilation of this research essay.
Positive Discrimination: an analytical Debate
Before moving ahead on the concept of positive discrimination, there is a need to first deliberate on the peripheral ideas that make up the complete structure of workplace discrimination. These are equality and diversity. Although often tagged as different concepts, equality and diversity are related ideas, one overlapping the other. Equality and diversity are based on the conceptions of sameness and difference model, respectively. The era of 1990s resulted in altering the interpretation attached with the term equality. The corporate policies, in many countries around the globe, were based on the sameness model; United Kingdom thoroughly interlinked the commerce policies with the legislations of the 1970s. This resulted in the emergence of the term, equal opportunities, and the concept getting mass appeal in the business world in all forms of organizational policies (Kirton & Greene, 2010, pp. 203-04).
. However, the controversial paradigm in application of equality concept in many organizations provided a route that passes through the concept of diversity. In United Kingdom, the emergence of the difference model became evident in mid to late 1990s and the approach was named as diversity management in corporate settings (Mahajan, et, al., 2008).
It is important to note that both equality and diversity are the human workforce related issues. It is, however, difficult to pin point the exact nature of relationship between the concept of equal opportunity and diversity management in that whether the concept of diversity management is a standalone concept or the idea borrows its existence from the primitive concept of equal opportunity (Anderson, et. al., 2008, pp. 790-98). Simply penning down the main idea behind these two structural terms ask for defining equality as a process of treating each and every individual in the workforce equally before law and no one is discriminated, on whatever grounds, against the other. Contrary to this, diversity means that organization is open to compensate people from various distinct backgrounds, reflected in the formal HR practices of hiring and selecting candidates (Brohan, et. al., 2013, pp. 33-40). The idea of diversity adds colors to the existing organizational setup. It is worth mentioning here that diversity is a sort of discrimination that is having varied dimensions including race, religion, gender, mental abilities, sexual orientation, culture, etc.
Positive discrimination is a term that is almost present in all the modernized global organizations with varying extent and degree of orientation. The application of this concept across the workplaces helps societies to enable the underprivileged and minorities to bag a respectable status at the workplace. The concept of “positive action” in today’s era has now taken a shape of a serious agenda. Along with the concept of equal pay for the workers of the equal value, it mainly forms centerpiece of the many proposals for the reforms of the employment discrimination law in United Kingdom (Krinton & Greene, 2010, pp. 122-24). Keeping in view the connotations attached with the term, it is very difficult to find the complete unanimity or complete opposition for the concept, positive discrimination.
Noon (2010, pp. 728-39) identified that the positive discrimination is mainly the process of giving the special treatment, especially in the terms of employment to the minority groups of the society, which has mainly been biased against in past. It should be taken into account that the concept of preferential treatment mainly does not point out that all of these will mechanically be given priority to any of the other candidate, but mainly should the two candidates be deemed in a similar level, the individual from the minority group will be given priority. The positive discrimination multiplies the worryingly limit slant that instead of teaching white guys about benefit and mistreatment, we ought to cut them off from social interest through and through. It contains the presupposition that ethnic minorities and ladies are, as a matter of course, more dynamic than white guys.
Governmental policy regarding minorities in society has seemingly been more compelling in its battle for sex balance than it has been in race variations or other dynamics of discrimination. This assertion is based on the fact that women today enjoy top positions in organizations, actively involved in business and legislative issues; the situation, however, was reversed somewhat thirty years from now. It is also noted that the women in the UK work places make up 17% of board of directors in the FTSE 100 organizations. Yet, governmental policy regarding minorities in society represents an awesome impediment in that it neglects to perceive the convergences of sex, race, and class (Baclija, 2008, pp. 175-89).
Here, it is important to shed light on why there is a need to practice positive discrimination. There are various reasons that point towards the implementation of this concept at organizational level. As has been debated in the above mentioned text that efforts have been made to better the situation in the realm of women appointments at top level positions. Despite of the efforts, statistics are a proof of the fact that only 17% from the total eligible women pool make up to the board of directors in the FTSE 100 organizations. The situation itself speaks for the application of the positive discrimination policy. In addition to this, it is also a stated fact that the minority groups, discriminated on whatever grounds, are not provided level playing field (Schimmelfennig, 2008, pp. 918-37). This certainly means that the oppressed group is never at the same level as opposed to the dominant group. Hence, if the law of equal opportunity is advocated, it will definitely not help in readdressing this imbalance, thus making situation even worse.
Another important point that forms the crust of the positive discrimination policy resides with the fact that although it is agreed that the most rewarding and lucrative jobs and positions in the organizations often go to the dominant social group. However, due to changing demographics of the world around us, there is a growing percentage of population from the groups that were initially discriminated. Now despite of their growing number, they still acquire only a hand full of managerial and top level positions within the organizational settings (Yuan, 2007, pp. 291-311). This is in sheer opposition of the law of majority rule. This seems to show that the hiring policies are still prejudice, if not directly then by the system. Therefore, the supporters of this school of thought argue that there is a problem with the way top jobs are filled and henceforth, positive discrimination, the action of making a selection choice between two similarly skilled candidates, is the best way to address this inequality (Dickens, 2004). Henceforth, there is certainly a need of positive discrimination policy, so that even the minority can be represented at equal work status level.
There is another school of thought that is in opposition of the implementation of the concept of positive discrimination. Bush and Moloi (2007, pp. 41-59) argued that the main concept of the positive discrimination at the work place is a controversial one and is a concept which always results in heated debates. Those advocating against the concept of positive discrimination, point towards the fact that the discrimination of any kind is completely wrong, unjust and simply not acceptable. The proponents of this argument believe that while, it is highly unfortunate that the certain minority groups are been prejudiced against in the past, but by implementing a process or system of the positive discrimination, the problem will further elevate (Tombs & Whyte, 2013, pp. 61-65).
It is often argued that the favoring someone merely on the basis of the background, positive discrimination, is not only an unjust phenomenon but it will also result in creating further divides among the established hierarchical societal order (Zizzo, 2011, pp. 91-103). The reason for this divide stems from the fact that people who are unable to get job as a result of positive discrimination, or they presume that the concept is allegedly responsible for their unemployment status, may resent certain parts of the society that have been favored, consequently, the society as a whole is at a disadvantageous position (Nakashima, et. al., 2008, pp. 1803-11).
Conclusion
In the corporate connections, not all bosses are obliged to actualize a governmental policy regarding minorities in society program. In situations where the superintendent is obliged to execute a governmental policy regarding minorities in society program in work, the association must think about the incumbency of females and minorities performing particular occupations to the accessibility of those gatherings in the enrollment region where the business thinks that its workers. Where the business incumbency is such that employment gathering is fewer than 80% of the accessibility of that gathering, the association must set up a governmental policy regarding minorities in hiring and recruiting policies.
Thus, when there is an employment opportunity for that specific occupation, the association must take steps to enroll qualified individuals from whatever gathering is underutilized, minorities or females. Ideally and practically, once the candidates apply, in principle the association is obliged to choose the most qualified applicant and can't settle on livelihood choices taking into account race or sex, even where there is a governmental policy, requiring incorporating minorities in job settings.
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