Ethical Issues in Management

Essay by ladydivaUniversity, Bachelor's June 2009

download word file, 4 pages 4.6

Downloaded 172 times

In order for a company to be successful management must remain proactive in dealing with problems surrounding diversity. Public and private sector organizations are becoming more and more involved in a number of activities that are aimed at reducing cultural as well as communication barriers, in order to create a more productive work environment. Management is tasked with helping employees maximize their potential through self-awareness, while understanding and respecting the diverse and unique qualities that each individual brings to the organization.

Hoban (2005) defines diversity as human qualities that are different than our own and are outside of the groups to which we belong, but are present in other individuals and groups. As the United States of America's population continues to expand, so increases the diversity among the people that make up America's workforce. According to the US Census Bureau, by the year 2010 36% of our nation's population will be multicultural.

Because of this rise is diversity, many organizations are faced with ethical and legal aspects of a diverse workforce, and in order for an organization to benefit from diversity it is imperative to understand the individual and cultural differences of the people that make up the organization. Organizations have been challenged with understanding and addressing the linguistic and cultural needs of a diverse labor force. Some major ethical issues that management has been faced with are preferential hiring and balanced hiring. According to DeGeorge (2006) preferential hiring is the hiring of women or minorities instead of equally or more qualified white males (pg.436). It has been argued that this is a form of reverse discrimination and yet there are others that feel that if preferential hiring were not in place there would be a great deal of qualified minorities that would never have an opportunity for certain...