Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?

Countering technostress in virtual work environments: The role of work-based learning and digital leadership in enhancing employee well-being

Virtual work has been highlighted as an important business trend nowadays. Technostress caused by information and communication technology threatens employee well-being in a virtual context. We integrate insights from the Job Demands-Resources theory to explore the impact of technostress on employee well-being and examine work-based learning and digital leadership capability as buffers of this negative impact via the attenuating effect of work exhaustion. We collected multi-wave survey data from 300 virtual employees to test the theoretical model. Results revealed a significant negative impact of technostress on employee well-being. However, work-based learning and digital leadership capability buffered employees' well-being from this negative effect by reducing their work exhaustion. Our findings extend our understanding of work design and shed light on how to cope with virtual work demands.

Human resource management to assist infection prevention and control professionals: a scoping review

Infection prevention and control (IPC) professionals are key intermediaries between hospital managers and frontline staff. During the novel coronavirus disease pandemic, IPC professionals faced new challenges. Unfortunately, research on human resource management (HRM) to support IPC during and between pandemics is lacking. Therefore, this scoping review aimed to elucidate the existing knowledge on HRM measures in this context and thus contribute to the pandemic preparedness of healthcare facilities. It was conducted as part of the "PREparedness and PAndemic REsponse in Germany (PREPARED)" project within the Network University Medicine (NUM), using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. PubMed was searched without time restriction until 2023 (filter: English, German). Two reviewers assessed titles/abstracts and full texts, respectively. A total of nine publications were included, eight of which were published in the USA. All publications reported survey data (quantitative: six). Measures targeting personnel development and the qualification of IPC personnel were reported in six studies, i.e., almost two-thirds of the studies, of which five focused on the tasks of IPC professionals. In contrast, management of personnel costs and remuneration systems were reported less frequently (three studies), and only regarding issues around retention, compensation and dismissal. In conclusion, research gaps include trials on implementation and effectiveness of HRM for IPC. Given the increasing shortage of IPC professionals, HRM measures during and between pandemics become more important for establishing pandemic preparedness.

The positive role of authentic leadership in organizations negatively affected by cognitive diversity

Workplace diversity has recently gained increasing significance and urgency in business organizations. This promotion may stem from information processing, and specifically from information elaboration. Information elaboration leverages diverse task-related information and skills possessed by members, fostering the exchange of diverse perspectives, elaborate discussions, and achieving high team performance. In this context, cognitive diversity, encompassing members' knowledge, skills, and perspectives, may have a positive impact. However, some previous studies suggest that cognitive diversity can lead to affective conflict and impede information processing. In organizations with highly homogeneous social and cultural backgrounds, cognitive diversity may not be effectively utilized in the information elaboration process, potentially yielding negative effects. Authentic leadership is recognized as a significant contributor to facilitating team processes including information processing, with various studies demonstrating its effectiveness. This study hypothesized that cognitive diversity negatively affects the information elaboration process, while authentic leadership has a positive effect. To test these hypotheses, we employed multilevel structural equation modeling analysis based on data collected from 375 respondents in 90 teams across various industries in Japan. The results showed that cognitive diversity negatively affects information elaboration at the individual level. By contrast, authentic leadership positively affects information elaboration at both individual and team levels. These findings suggest that the effect of cognitive diversity on information processing in the workplace may not always be positive, particularly in a sociocultural context that values homogeneity, as observed in Japanese organizations. This study advances the literature on authentic leadership by validating its effect on information elaboration and provides practical implications for diversity management. Additionally, it underscores the effectiveness of authentic leadership in leveraging team members' cognitive diversity to facilitate information elaboration.

When and how is team cognitive diversity beneficial? An examination of Chaxu climate

The workforce is becoming increasingly heterogeneous in terms of age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, values, cognition, and culture. Thus, team diversity management is regarded as an important development strategy that organizations can use to gain advantages. However, in the diversity literature, empirical studies investigating the effects of cognitive diversity on creativity have not yielded conclusive findings. This has called into question the importance of team cognitive diversity. To address this, we investigate when and how team cognitive diversity fosters individual creativity. Drawing on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM) and literature on Chaxu climate, we develop a multilevel mediated moderation model in which the team Chaxu climate is treated as the moderator and team knowledge sharing is treated as the mediator. Using two-wave paired data collected from 46 teams and 368 members, we find that Chaxu climate mitigates the positive effect of team cognitive diversity on team knowledge sharing. In turn, team knowledge sharing mediates the interaction effect between team cognitive diversity and Chaxu climate on individual creativity. Our study facilitates a shift from an automatic-oriented lens to a contingent-oriented lens by identifying a new contingent factor and advances research on the underlying mechanisms by identifying a new process factor. Ultimately, this study enriches our knowledge on the function of cognitive diversity in the field of business strategy.

Bridging the gap: unleashing the power of non-core departments through interdepartmental collaboration

Traditional research on firm performance has predominantly emphasized the role of key departments, often underestimating the potential contributions of non-core departments. This study redresses this oversight by investigating the impact of non-core departments on firm performance. Utilizing a comprehensive 20-year dataset from Chinese A-listed firms and employing the endogenous growth model, we scrutinize the influence of non-core departments on enterprise productivity and organizational growth. Our findings underscore that non-core departments significantly enhance firm performance. Furthermore, we observe a negative coefficient of the interaction term, implying the presence of diminishing returns to scale when amalgamating department diversity with firm knowledge. This suggests that while both department diversity and firm knowledge independently contribute positively to firm performance, their conjoined effect does not necessarily induce a proportionally amplified impact. Moreover, we found that factors such as the company's equity structure, market environment, and the age and education level of executives may moderate the impact of departmental diversity on firm performance. This study enriches the literature by spotlighting the potential of non-core departments in propelling firm success and underlines the imperative for strategies that cultivate interdepartmental collaboration. The implications of these findings propose that firms can leverage the potential of non-core departments for sustainable growth, offering a fresh perspective for future research in organizational development.

Wearing the Same Jersey? The Impact of Players' Cultural Diversity and Shared Team Tenure on National Soccer Team Performance

In the present paper, we empirically analyze a dataset from national soccer teams between 2004 and 2019 to investigate the impact of team members' cultural diversity on final team outcomes. Further, we examine the role of shared team tenure as a proxy of tacit knowledge and within team communications in relation to the cultural diversity-team performance relationship. After addressing a potential endogeneity issue, results from multiple instrumental variable estimation methods implied a higher level of cultural diversity enhanced on-field performance. Meanwhile, increased level of shared team tenure further strengthened the effect associated with cultural diversity on team performance.

Rags and Riches: The Effects of Social Class Diversity on Team Viability

Social class inequality is growing at a record pace. What happens when individuals from different social classes work on the same team? We examined the direct and moderating influences of social class as an underexplored form of diversity on team viability in 132 student project teams. Guided by an overarching framework from the team diversity literature, we explored perspective taking and conflict resolution norms as moderators that may safeguard against the negative effects of social class diversity on team viability. As predicted, teams with a mix of higher and lower social class members who were less able to see their teammates’ points of view or develop open conflict resolution norms reported less desire to work together in the future. Given these promising results and the ongoing importance of social class inequality in organizations, future research should continue to examine social class in a team context.

Managing the negative impact of workforce diversity: The important roles of inclusive HRM and employee learning-oriented behaviors

The workforce has become more diverse than it used to be. Although organizations actively capitalize on workforce diversity to enhance team innovation and organizational performance, it is found that workforce diversity also has potential risks, among which interpersonal conflict is the most salient one. However, we still know relatively less about why workforce diversity may link to higher interpersonal conflict and, more importantly, how to mitigate the negative impact of workforce diversity. Based on the workplace diversity theories (e.g., the categorization-elaboration model), this study examined how workforce diversity was positively related to interpersonal conflict through impacting one's affective states, and to what extent this indirect effect can be weakened by organization-initiated practices (i.e., the inclusive human resources management (HRM) practices) and employee-initiated behaviors (i.e., employee learning-oriented behaviors). Using two-wave surveys from 203 employees from various organizations in China, we confirmed our hypotheses. Our results showed that perceived workforce diversity was positively related to interpersonal conflict through increasing negative affect (after we controlled for the objective diversity level calculated by the Blau index), and this indirect effect was weakened when the levels of inclusive HRM practices and employee learning-oriented behaviors were high. Our study suggests that it is important for organizations to be aware of the detrimental impact of workforce diversity. In addition, it is essential to use both the top-down (e.g., inclusive HRM practices) and bottom-up (e.g., employee learning-oriented behaviors) approaches to managing the challenges presented by diversity so as to unlock more potential of diversity in the workplace.

Cognitive diversity, creativity and team effectiveness: the mediations of inclusion and knowledge sharing

Purpose

This study aims to determine how cognitive diversity at the workplace influences team creativity. In this regard, the authors examined knowledge sharing and team-focused inclusion through which team members’ cognitive diversity was expected to elevate their positive work outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative method is used to accumulate the data. The authors surveyed workers and their respective managers at a single China-based food company. The supervisors rated the outcome variables (creativity and team effectiveness) regarding their employees, whereas employees were asked to rate the cognitive diversity, inclusion and knowledge sharing within the workgroup. The final valid sample size (n = 391) consisted of 137 workgroups with an adequate response rate (62.3%).

Findings

Cognitive diversity is related to team effectiveness but not creativity. The research found that cognitive diversity can increase creativity only through enhanced inclusion and knowledge sharing. Inclusion, likewise, explained the impact of cognitive diversity on effectiveness.

Originality/value

The originality of the current research lies in its contemporary exploration of inclusion and cognitive diversity and their pathways to team creativity and effectiveness. The social capital theory was applied to explain the proposed relationships.

Diversity in the Workplace for Sustainable Company Development

Approaches to the concept of workforce diversity have developed in recent years. This subject is now under continuous research by specialists in talent management. Simultaneously with the global tightening of COVID-19 restrictions, companies have been imposed upon to support an increasingly higher diversity, thus noticing corporate cultures stimulating communication, innovation, and superior yield results, attracting the best talent. This article analyzes the data obtained through research work targeting the understanding of companies’ orientation toward diversity in the workplace and the assessment of the policies necessary, focusing on four themes: motivation, innovation and creativity, leadership, and social responsibility. Each analyzed variable influenced diversity in the workplace from a significant level (3.33 for motivation) to a high level (4.00 for innovation/creativity and 4.00 for leadership, and 3.71 for social responsibility), showing a genuine interest in Romanian companies supporting diversity in the workplace.

Leadership development programs in the context of diversity management: evidence from Poland

Purpose

The aim of this study is to examine leadership development programs in the context of diversity and inclusion and from the perspective of their owners.

Design/methodology/approach

The core of the qualitative study was the 26 in-depth interviews that were conducted. The participants were selected purposefully. The data analysis was based on reflexive thematic analysis.

Findings

The analysis resulted in three themes. (1) “Policy” encompasses thoughts and an understanding of common diversity activities at the organizational level. Anti-discrimination, diversity, inclusion, tolerance, equality, cognition, acceptance and equal opportunity were factors in this narrative. (2) “Inclusion in the role” deals with the perception of diversity in terms of program recruitment. In this context, inclusion is defined by socially acceptable criteria of non-exclusion. (3) “Leadership development” represents the justification for addressing diversity and diversity activities. The findings suggest that the perception of an organization as homogeneous provides an argument for not addressing the diversity connoted with problems and inequities.

Research limitations/implications

Qualitative research does not aim to generalize but to identify conceptual threads. Only the perspective of LDPs' managers was adopted. The selection of the purposive sample was guided by the criterion of active management of LDPs, to obtain as much information as possible about nurturing leaders.

Originality/value

The research findings expand knowledge on the perception of the role of diversity and indicate the benefits of diversity discussed in leadership training interventions. The study may become a starting point for capitalizing on leadership development in sustainable development.

Can Racial Diversity Attenuate Racial Discrimination in Service Interactions? Evidence from Cite-and-Release Decisions within Police Departments

Despite the belief that racial diversity in organizations will attenuate racial discrimination in service interactions, the extant literature suggests that it may often exacerbate discrimination by generating intergroup conflict. In this paper, I propose that the influence of racial diversity on racial discrimination in service interactions will depend upon (a) the level of interdependence within an organization and (b) whether an increase in diversity consists of a larger representation of a minority’s own racial group. To test my predictions, I combine interaction-level data covering approximately 200,000 cite-and-release decisions where suspects are either given a summons to attend court at a later date or transported to jail following arrest with longitudinal organization-level data from 93 police departments across the United States. Consistent with prior research, I found that minority suspects were less likely to be cited and released for the same offense relative to White suspects. Racial diversity among sworn officers in a police department exacerbated discrimination in cite-and-release decisions unless officers’ work roles were highly interdependent due to the adoption of community-oriented policing. Focusing on Black and Hispanic suspects, I observed this pattern regardless of whether an increase in racial diversity in the department was characterized by a larger representation of a minority suspect’s own racial group or other minority racial groups. Taken together, the findings suggest that diverse organizations can mitigate the emergence of intergroup conflict that exacerbates racial discrimination in service interactions by fostering interdependencies.

A sustainable Model for effective Employee Relations in Contemporary Organization

Employee relation has emerged as a major point of concern for human resource practitioners. This paper investigated all the possible variables affecting employee relations in the organization through an extensive literature review. A review framework was adopted to fulfill the research objectives of the proposed study. The implications of mediating and moderating variables will be helpful for the manager in building the values and culture by developing the relation of employer-employer. Previous studies have found occasional constructs on the employee relation for a sustainable organization. These study insights on the important variables which will be helping in building a strong relationship with employee and employer for sustainable growth. This study focuses on the variables of employee relation which gives strength to employee-employer relations in line with sustainability.

Intrinsic Workforce Diversity and Construction Worker Productivity in Pakistan: Impact of Employee Age and Industry Experience

Worker productivity is critical within construction projects as it is the measure of the rate at which work is performed and, more importantly, helps to know how to motivate them to perform at high levels. This research aimed to examine the impact of employee age and industry experience on the intrinsic workforce diversity factors influencing construction worker productivity. Sieving through the previous research and models and theories of analysis, the intrinsic workforce diversity was modeled into the following set of factors, i.e., income, motivation, psychosocial factors, and technical skills. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire survey and examined for the employees having different ages and experiences using the Mann–Whitney U test through SPSS. The results show that employees of varied ages do not concur over motivation-, psychosocial, and technical skills-related workforce diversity factors, whereas employees of varied industrial experiences are in disagreement over some income and motivation related workforce diversity factors. In order to overcome intrinsic workforce diversity, firm support is direly needed for old and mature employees in terms of financial incentives leading to motivation, less supervised scheduling, opportunities for firm advancement, and reporting back every time work is completed. Furthermore, support is required for young employees who are more susceptible due to psychosocial stresses like unevenly distributed work, communication gaps, and technical skills like knowledge of technological equipment and advancement in construction technology which has reduced the skills of workers.

Relationship Between Work Experience and Safety Climate in Veterans Affairs Nursing Homes Nationwide

OBJECTIVES

Staff values and beliefs about resident safety (safety climate) represent one potential driver of nursing home safety. Staff with more work experience (length of service) may possess richer knowledge of resident safety for strengthening safety climate. We investigated the association of length of service with safety climate in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nursing homes or Community Living Centers (CLCs).

METHODS

Fifty-six of 134 CLCs participated in 2017 and then 2018 in the previously validated CLC Employee Survey of Attitudes about Resident Safety, which comprised 7 safety climate domains and employee characteristics. We conducted 2 cross-sectional analyses of length of service on each safety climate domain, controlling for occupation, shift, work hours, and clustering by VA hospital, service network, and geographic region, in mixed random-effect regression models.

RESULTS

A total of 1397 and 1645 staff participated in the survey (26% and 28% response rates) at round 1 and 2, respectively. At each round participants working greater than 6 months were less positive than those working less than 6 months about supervisor commitment to safety, coworker interactions around safety, and CLC global ratings.

CONCLUSIONS

Differences in work experience contributed to incongruence in perceptions about supervisors, coworkers, and the facility. Workers with more experience may have higher perceived job aptitude and thus higher expectations of supervisory recognition and more criticisms of coworkers. Pairing experienced workers with newer ones may narrow the knowledge gap and increase collaboration. Huddles, team meetings, and organizational initiatives represent opportunities to recognize and leverage experienced workers' accumulated safety knowledge.

Leadership and Follower Voice: The Role of Inclusive Leadership and Group Faultlines in Promoting Collective Voice Behavior

We developed and tested a theoretical model to examine how and when inclusive leadership affected collective voice behavior in this study. We identified two voice-relevant mediators—group psychological safety (an emergent state) and information elaboration (a group process) to clarify the mechanisms between inclusive leadership and collective voice behavior. Further, according to the person–situation interaction approach, we brought the faultlines theory to the inclusive leadership literature and considered group faultlines as a positive moderator to maximize the effects of inclusive leadership. With a two-wave, two-source design, we collected data from 301 employees within 67 research and development groups in China. We found that inclusive leadership positively affected collective voice behavior through the mediating mechanisms of both group psychological safety and information elaboration. Additionally, this effect was stronger in high faultlines situation. The findings suggest that leaders should show inclusiveness to motivate collective voice, especially in groups with high faultlines.

Survival analysis of factors affecting the timing of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions by U.S. universities

Background

During March of 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) guidance as the primary mitigation strategy against growing COVID-19 community spread due to the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment at that time. CDC guidance states that NPIs are most effective when instituted in an early, targeted, and layered fashion. NPIs are effective in slowing spread, and measures should be custom-tailored to each population. This study examines factors associated with implementation and timing of NPI interventions across large public and private U.S. universities at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

NPI decisions of interest include when U.S. universities canceled international travel, shifted to online learning, moved faculty/staff to remote work, limited campus housing, and closed campus for all non-essential personnel. Cox proportional hazard analyses of retrospective data were conducted to assess the time to NPI events. Hazard ratios were calculated for university governance, campus setting, religious affiliation, health infrastructure, faculty diversity, and student demographics. The methods control for variance inflation factors, COVID case prevalence, and time varying covariates of spring break and states’ state of emergency (SOE) orders. This study captures NPI decisions at 575 U.S. universities during spring of 2020 which affected the movement of seven million students and two million employees.

Results

Universities located in districts represented by Democratic party congressional members reported earlier NPI implementation than Republican (Cox proportional hazard ratio (HR) range 0.61–0.80). University religious affiliation was not associated with the timing any of the NPI decisions. Universities with more diverse faculty showed an association with earlier NPI implementation (HR range 0.65–0.76). The existence of university-affiliated health infrastructure was not associated with NPI timing.

Conclusion

University NPI implementation was largely driven by local COVID-19 epidemiology, culture and political concerns. The timing of university NPI decisions varied by regional politics, faculty demographics, university governance, campus setting, and foreign student prevalence adjusting for COVID-19 state case prevalence and spring break timing. Religious affiliation and presence of university health infrastructure were not associated with timing.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12035-6.

Managing Team Conscientiousness Diversity: The Role of Leader Emotion-Regulation Knowledge

Team members may vary in the degree to which they are self-motivating, diligent, and organized, but effects of such conscientiousness diversity are poorly understood. We propose that conscientiousness diversity effects depend on the team leader’s knowledge about managing negative affective responses—that is emotion regulation knowledge. Data of two time-lagged team studies show that for teams with leaders with lower emotion-regulation knowledge, conscientiousness diversity was negatively associated with team satisfaction (Study 1 and 2), team cohesion and information elaboration (Study 2), which in turn influenced team performance (Study 2). These negative relationships reversed in teams with leaders with higher emotion-regulation knowledge.

Door de ogen van de beoordelaar: onderzoek naar similar-to-me-effecten op scores van cultureel diverse kandidaten op het assessment center

en Sacco et al. (2003) vonden geen effect van demografische gelijkenis tussen beoordelaar en kandidaat op beoordelingen van het selectie-interview. Beide studies onderzochten hiërarchisch lineaire modellen (HLM). Gebruikmakend van eenzelfde HLM-procedure is binnen het huidige onderzoek nagegaan wat het effect is van gelijkenis op scores die gegeven zijn aan cultureel diverse kandidaten tijdens de selectie van politieagenten op een ander veelgebruikt instrument, namelijk het assessment center (AC). Meer specifiek onderzochten we het similar-to-me-effect van demografische gelijkenis (d.w.z. culturele gelijkenis van de beoordelaar ten aanzien van de kandidaat) en van waargenomen gelijkenis (d.w.z. gelijkenis ten aanzien van specifieke culturele groepen, zoals waargenomen door individuele beoordelaars) op scores op het AC. Demografisch similar-to-me bleek gerelateerd te zijn aan Agency-scores van autochtoon Nederlandse kandidaten en kandidaten met een migratieachtergrond, maar niet aan Communion-scores. Waargenomen similar-to-me had geen effect op de beoordelingen van het AC (d.w.z. Agency en Communion). In zijn algemeenheid bleken de effectgrootten erg klein (R2 < .015). Derhalve kan worden geconcludeerd dat we geen bewijs vonden voor een differentieel effect van gelijkenis op de beoordeling van het AC van cultureel diverse kandidaten, wat bevindingen van McCarthy et al. en Sacco et al. repliceert en uitbreidt.

Assessing Authentic Diversity in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society: Part 1

This article is Part 1 of a two-part series reflecting on diversity within the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and how the pursuit of “authentic” diversity is essential to HFES’s overarching goals for inclusion and equity. In Part 1, authentic diversity is discussed – what it means and what it might look like. Through this lens of authentic diversity, recent member demographics are reported. Part 1 concludes with a discussion about HFES’s growth potential, as a professional home for future scholars and practitioners, and the importance of measuring, documenting, and tracking organizational diversity and inclusion efforts across time.

Organizational culture and cultural diversity: an explorative study of international skilled migrants in Swedish firms

Purpose

This paper empirically explores the types and extent of cultural diversity strategies in Sweden, a developed economy with many migrant workers. The role of organizational culture as the context and the association with diversity strategy and the selection of international skilled migrant workers are examined.

Design/methodology/approach

Empirical data are collected by surveying 249 Swedish large or medium-sized firms. Cluster analysis is used to explore the configuration of organizational culture, cultural diversity strategy (CDS) and selection and development criteria.

Findings

The authors identify five clusters of organizations. Organizational culture is the main contextual factor that influences the CDS and human resource (HR) approaches for selecting skilled migrant workers. The profile of the clusters including organizational culture, diversity strategies, the selection criteria and firm demographics is presented. The empirical results indicate that organizational culture and demographics are associated with the choice of diversity strategy and, consequently, HR processes.

Originality/value

This study's main focus is on international skilled migrants, which is among empirically less-studied areas in global mobility literature. Furthermore, until now more attention has been directed toward studying the consequences of diversity than toward understanding the factors that influence choice of diversity strategies and practices. This study focuses on antecedents of diversity and attempts to understand the factors that influence adoption and implementation of different cultural diversity strategies.

Team Leadership and Team Cultural Diversity: The Moderating Effects of Leader Cultural Background and Leader Team Tenure

By bringing team members with different cultural backgrounds together, teams in international business can benefit from cultural diversity and reach higher levels of performance. Cultural diversity also brings challenges, however, and diversity research has identified the need to consider moderating influences in the diversity–performance relationship. Team leadership should be particularly important in this respect and drawing on a theoretical analysis that puts an understanding of cultural diversity center stage, we propose that factors that reflect leaders’ experience with cultural diversity positively moderate the relationship between cultural diversity and team performance. We identify leader cultural background (local vs. foreign to the host culture) and leader team tenure as such factors. We predict that the influence of team nationality diversity (a form of cultural diversity) on team performance is more positive with a leader who is foreign to the host country than with a local leader, and with a leader with longer team tenure. In addition, we predict that the one moderating influence substitutes for the other, such that the effect of leader cultural background is stronger for leaders with shorter tenure with the team. Results from a survey of N = 66 teams ( N = 336 individuals) from a multinational company support these hypotheses and inform our discussion of ways forward in the study of leadership and team diversity.

A Diversity Mindset Perspective on Inclusive Leadership

Team diversity research has established that diversity has the potential to stimulate synergetic performance outcomes through information integration processes, but also has the potential to invite interpersonal tensions that disrupt the very information integration process that can give more diverse teams an advantage over more homogeneous teams. A focus on the role of team leadership in stimulating information integration processes and preempting interpersonal tensions is obvious and important, but surprisingly underdeveloped conceptually and empirically. In this article, we integrate insights from two complementary perspectives on leadership and diversity—inclusive leadership and leadership for diversity mindsets—to advance a more integrative perspective on how team leadership can stimulate both inclusion and synergy from diversity.

Seizing the benefits of age diversity: could empowering leadership be the answer?

Purpose

Acknowledging that only examining the main effects of diversity may be limiting, the authors explore integrating van Knippenberg et al.'s (2004) categorization–elaboration model (CEM) of workgroup diversity as a linchpin in the relationship between empowering leadership and performance in age-diverse work groups. While prior research has focused almost exclusively on the impact of transformational leadership in diverse contexts, few studies have found the positive effects of transformational leadership to be diminished in certain age-diverse contexts. Consequently, the authors investigate whether empowering leadership may be a better approach in this context due to its emphasis on accommodating and participative behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using survey data gathered from work group members across a wide array of industries (N = 214), the authors test for the moderating effects of empowering leadership on the relationship between age diversity and work group performance and its indirect relationship via information elaboration (while controlling for transformational leadership).

Findings

Empowering leadership positively moderated the direct relationship between age diversity and work group performance and the indirect relationship via information elaboration, whereas transformational leadership had the opposite effect. “Coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” drove the positive effects of empowering leadership, and “personal recognition” and “intellectual stimulation” predicted the negative effects of transformational leadership.

Practical implications

This research offers insights into how managers can lead age-diverse work groups more effectively (i.e. by utilizing an empowering as opposed to a transformational leadership approach, with a particular emphasis on “coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” behaviors).

Originality/value

The study identifies an “alternative” moderating contingency to the age diversity–performance relationship (empowering leadership).

When Does Educational Level Diversity Foster Team Creativity? Exploring the Moderating Roles of Task and Personnel Variability

This study explores how the variability of the work environment shapes the impact of educational level diversity on team creativity. By adopting an integrative framework-"status characteristics-information elaboration" model as a theoretical lens, we propose and examine the moderating roles of task and personnel variability in educational level diversity-team creativity relationship. Utilizing multiple survey data collected from 90 knowledge work teams, the empirical results indicate that educational level diversity is more conducive to team creativity when teams are confronted with more variable tasks and when teams experience less frequent personnel changes. The findings of this study provide valuable insight on the conditions under which team diversity's information potential is more likely to realize and contribute to a more context-based understanding of the relationship between diversity and creativity.

Increasing Career Advancement Opportunities Through Sponsorship: An Identity-Based Model With Illustrative Application to Cross-Race Mentorship of African Americans

The sponsorship function of mentoring has vast potential to increase career advancement for African American protégés in cross-race mentoring relationships but is not well understood. We conceptualize the processes, practices, and challenges involved in cross-race sponsorship of African American protégés through an identity perspective. We provide a theory regarding how identity processes are involved at different stages of cross-race sponsorship involving African American protégés, as well as for their mentors, by drawing on identity, diversity, and mentoring research. This work is suggestive of opportunities for improvement in the sponsorship function of mentoring in order to increase career advancement for African American protégés and provides theoretical contributions to research on identity, diversity, and career advancement.

Exploring adaptability and proactivity across cultural contexts

Behavioral performance indicators linked to traits of adaptability and proactivity have been increasingly promoted in workplace management initiatives as predictors of high performance and employee potential (Grant and Ashford, 2008; Griffin et al., 2007). While these behaviors have been found to be helpful heuristics in Western workplace research samples, additional insight would help managers understand how they vary across geographical regions amidst rapidly expanding multinational markets. This study aimed to examine the relationship between workplace performance behaviors of adaptability and proactivity across diverse geographical regions, including North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. Using data gathered from professional employees from global companies, the study sample consisted of 3,860 participants working across 15 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, and the United States). The results indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between work performance adaptability and proactivity across countries, though a much smaller effect across groupings based on subsets of high versus low economic gross domestic product (GDP). Implications for talent management approaches to better develop these constructs cross-culturally are discussed.

Diversity Management as a Tool for Sustainable Development of Health Care Facilities

Organizations providing health services are often criticized because of inadequate and unsuitable management processes or procedures. Today’s challenge is focused on effective management and leadership skills in the area of health care. The aim of the research is to describe, analyze, and evaluate the current state of diversity management in details in the context of human resources management in the selected healthcare facilities. The source of the information was a questionnaire survey. The sample consists of 181 managers from various health care and health service organizations. The method of analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for data processing. The results were processed in SPSS and Excel programs. Pearson’s coefficient was used to evaluate the cross-correlation of the variables. The level of significance was 5% on both sides. Basic awareness of diversity management in the healthcare facilities is low. Some tools of diversity management are used, but only in isolation, non-conceptually, and unsystematically. The acknowledgment of diversity concept is poor and chaotic. The basic models of this concept defining its goals, activities, programs, responsibilities, and measurements are not known. One of the strong areas of the diversity management in the healthcare facilities is the diversity of working teams. On other hand, the weak side is the diversity as part of the organization culture and diversity as a part of human resource management. The summarizing index Attitudes towards Diversity received a higher average value than the Diversity Management Implementation index. Significant variables influencing the level of aggregate indices were identified: Ownership, size of the organization in terms of number of employees, patients’ satisfaction, and employees’ satisfaction.

Reflection of Digitalization on Business Values: The Results of Examining Values of People Management in a Digital Age

The European Union (European Parliament) understands industry 4.0 as a term for an environment of fast transformations of production systems and products. The basic characteristic of the change in the methods of creating added value in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution is digitalization. Digitalization changes people management in two stages. The first stage is the adaptation of systems to the integration of physical inputs into digital systems, and the second stage is the redefinition of values for the internal and external customer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the content of the first digitalization stage and its impact on the transformation of values of corporate people management in the second stage of digitalization. The study published in this paper points out the level of digitalization applied towards the internal and external customer. The research results verify relations in the portfolio of corporate value and prove their present implementation of digitalization and its and importance for the future sustainability of the business. The study confirmed the independence of the levels of corporate digitalization and companies’ value portfolios. Furthermore, the study proved the universal nature of corporate value orientation, irrespective of the size, business focus or performance of the people management system. Meaningfulness, communication and cooperation dominate in terms of importance for business sustainability. The results of the study in Slovakia support the opinions of published foreign research, which emphasize the importance of introducing technological innovations aimed at employees to a much greater extent.

Workplace diversity and job satisfaction

Purpose

This article estimates the empirical relationship between workplace diversity in terms of nationality and individual worker job satisfaction in the context of a multicultural country. It also examines the role of the level of communication between coworkers in moderating this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Using merged survey and administrative data, the paper estimates OLS and ordered Probit regression estimates of the correlations between two measures of workplace diversity and self-reported job satisfaction.

Findings

The relationship between nationality diversity and job satisfaction is negative. While there is some evidence of a nonlinear relationship, it depends on the specification and measure of diversity used. Contrary to expectations, the level of interaction between colleagues does not moderate this relationship.

Practical implications

The research highlights the need for employers to actively manage the diversity within their firms.

Originality/value

The paper adds to the diversity and job satisfaction literature by focusing on the nationalities of coworkers. It also is the first to measure the impact of the levels of interactions with coworkers on the diversity-satisfaction relationship.

How Does Paradoxical Leadership Affect Employees' Voice Behaviors in Workplace? A Leader-Member Exchange Perspective

We theorized and tested a leader-member perspective beyond the existing studies in paradoxical leadership and employee voice behavior. We proposed that paradoxical leadership influences employees’ voice behavior through psychological safety and self-efficacy. We also theorized that team size influences an extent to which the subordinates internalize their self-efficacy and psychological safety to exhibit proactive behavior. In a longitudinal study conducted on 155 subordinates and 96 supervisors in China, we found that when leaders adopt paradoxical behavior, employees are more likely to engage into promotive voice behavior; however, employees’ prohibitive voice behavior is reduced when their leaders adopt paradoxes in leadership behavior. Additionally, psychological safety mediates the relationship between paradoxical leadership and promotive voice behavior. Further, team size has significant interaction effects with psychological safety on promotive voice behavior.