Analysis of Business and Moral Cases in Diversity Management Essay

This essay analyzes the intricate relationship between the business case and the moral case for managing diversity within organizations. It begins by defining diversity and its various facets, including language, ethnicity, and beliefs. The essay then delves into the distinctions between equality and diversity attitudes and how these influence organizational performance. It explores the business case, which emphasizes how diversity can enhance innovation, creativity, and competitiveness, and the moral case, which focuses on equal opportunities and the elimination of bias and prejudice. The essay examines how organizations like Woolworths and other companies have articulated their approaches to diversity management through public statements and policies, providing real-world examples. It also considers theoretical perspectives, such as Becker's theory of racial discrimination, and how market mechanisms and ethical considerations intersect to promote diversity. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of integrating both business and moral considerations to foster inclusive workplaces and achieve systemic change.

Running head: DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
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Introduction
Management in contemporary society realised that change is inevitable and thus adopts
the organisations perceptions concerning the development of increasingly heterogeneous
employee base. Such an organisational perception is obtained as a concept of managing
diversity, which airlines three major ideas regarding and increasingly diverse populace and
workforce, opportunities along with equality for marginalised on minority groups and most
importantly programs associated with organisational performance and status (Barak 2016).
Managing diversity refers to the procedures as well as strategies, which organisations take into
consideration in order to recognize as well as manage the diversity within the workplace. The
following paper will analyse the connections between business case and moral case in lieu of
diversity in organisations to various theoretical explanations. Addition it will explain the way a
Google and Apple Inc. have explained their claims for managing diversity within the
organisations.
Discussion
Diversity tends to encompass range of contexts, which include language, sexual
characteristics, ethnic background, age and religious beliefs. Furthermore, the concept of
diversity further refers to the processes in which individuals differ because of life expectancies,
marital status and educational level. Sharma (2016) has noted that diversity has the propensity to
significantly draw gains for organizations by enabling them to positive work outcomes. For
understanding workplace diversity, it is essential to distinguish equality and diversity attitudes,
which have enhanced organizational performance as primary determinant and draw contradiction
to policies, strategies and methods driven by deliberations of equity. According to Guillaume et
al. (2017), these determinants are typically illustrated as the business case besides moral case in

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respective manner. This further reflects two extensive areas of exploration in discussion where
one includes explanations of the influential methods that diversity complements organizational
output as well as efficiency, while the other considers moral, principled and accountable ways
that diversity in organization can be upheld. On the other hand, moral case has usually been
explained in relation to Equal Opportunities, which has further been referred considering several
constituents of legislation, while business case refers to diversity management (Davis, Frolova
and Callahan 2016). However, it is challenging to entirely separate diversity management in
organization from the establishment of equal employment opportunities since regulation
influences the way diversity is upheld and accomplished.
Studies show that diversity management scholars have been arguing that individual
differences are imperative constituents for high performance, innovation, creativity and
competitive benefits (Yanaprasart 2016). It has further been explained that elucidate that there
are legal, ethical, economic case arguments which claim that while diversity tend to contribute to
business efficiency, disregarding it would have elevated cost outcomes for organizations.
According to Wrench (2015), shift from Equal Opportunities to Diversity Management has been
stimulated by individualized and performance-centric business case assertions. These factors
have led to a shift from the focus on emotive and moral case claims related with Equal
Opportunities along with the elimination of prejudiced acts. Additionally, it has offered unique
attributes to diversity management and equal opportunities owing to business case and
regulative, moral or social cases. On the other hand, there can be posed an argument claiming
that diversity management adopts legal, moral as well as social case assertions as part of the
prevailing business case. However, there is robust moral case for elimination of bias and
prejudice, although the issue is highly sensitive. Studies reveal that respect and valuing of

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dissimilarity in the society is noted as vital part of the process of its process of annihilation along
with the overpowering of disregard (Yanaprasart 2016).
According to Wrench (2015), in organizations like Woolworths, supermarket giant of
Australian retail sector, establishment of inclusive culture demands enduring strategic initiative.
In the view of authors, whether prejudice and bias is aware and unaware and is further likely to
affect negatively influence on working lives of individuals who are likely to experience several
forms of bias and gradually result to pessimistic impacts on organizational performance as well
as employee commitment towards work. The moral case promoted in Woolworths relies on
greater consciousness on their market status and to their competitors. Furthermore, reports reveal
that Woolworths support for diversity training is intrinsically based on company’s moral case.
Woolworths in current times continues to assess organizational strategies and objectives in order
to guarantee culture of utmost diversity as well as inclusion (Lambert 2016). Furthermore,
company has efficiently developed diversity as well as inclusion policy in addition to salary
ethics to initiate development in this area. Significant enterprises within this strategy have been
introduced related to equal gender pay, Employment Parity Initiative, Supply Nation in addition
to Jawun Indigenous Community Secondment Program, which intend to provide major advance
towards non-discriminatory acts by the organization (Woolworthsgroup.au 2019).
Moreover, within economics discourse, Becker has posited the original claim with theory
of racial discrimination claiming that market mechanism would be functional in order to generate
such changes since there would be avenues for non-discriminatory organizations to penetrate into
markets and extract higher revenue in comparison to less-productive firms. Sharma (2016)
undertook Becker’s’ theory, which focused on the idea of market, dealings and interactions
amongst people. According to authors, Becker’s theory originally relied on workforces having

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sensitivity for discrimination, which gets expressed during salary negotiations. Additionally,
Becker’s theory drew insights to premarket factors as vital area of unfairness, which continues to
influence public-policy arguments. Thus, considering avenues of handling likely impact,
Becker’s theoretical understanding accentuated in applying equilibrium concept and help
marginalized sections of society attain financial benefits (Lambert 2016). Reports mention that
Woolworths in recent times has developed as member of Pride in Diversity that is known as
Australia’s national not-for-profit business support program meant for all facets of LGBTI
workplace inclusion. Moreover, the organization has been working diligently with Pride
Diversity in order to accomplish the goal of serving as Gold Tier organization in the Australian
Workplace Equality Index (AWEI).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that major linkage between
moral and business case serve decisive role in managing diversity of contemporary employers.
Organizations in recent times are well aware of the importance of inclusive workplace and
further understand its significance in generic business case. Thus, they must gain utmost
knowledge regarding ways to contextualize in order to stimulate systemic change by considering
particular organizational issues and design diversity programs, which can support business goals.

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References
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Davis, P.J., Frolova, Y. and Callahan, W., 2016. Workplace diversity management in Australia:
what do managers think and what are organisations doing?. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An
International Journal, 35(2), pp.81-98.
Guillaume, Y.R., Dawson, J.F., Otaye‐Ebede, L., Woods, S.A. and West, M.A., 2017.
Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace
diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.
Lambert, J., 2016. Cultural diversity as a mechanism for innovation: Workplace diversity and the
absorptive capacity framework. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and
Conflict, 20(1), p.68.
Sharma, A., 2016. Managing diversity and equality in the workplace. Cogent Business &
Management, 3(1), p.1212682.
Woolworthsgroup.au., 2019. Woolworths Group. [online] Available at:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/ [Accessed 20 Aug. 2019]
Wrench, J., 2015. Diversity management. Routledge International Handbook of Diversity
Studies. New York, 254, p.262.
Yanaprasart, P., 2016. Managing Language Diversity in the Workplace: Between ‘One Language
Fits All'and ‘Multilingual Model in Action'. Universal Journal of Management, 4(3), pp.91-107.