A Comprehensive Literature Review: Diversity Management in Ireland

This literature review examines diversity management within the context of Ireland, exploring its key drivers, benefits, and challenges. It begins by defining diversity management and highlighting its importance, particularly in the face of globalization and the expansion of businesses into international markets. The review then delves into the specific factors driving the need for diversity management in Ireland, including legal frameworks like the Employment Equality Act and the impact of increased globalization and technological advancements. It explores the benefits of diversity management, such as fostering innovation and gaining a deeper understanding of the local market. The review also analyzes the challenges, including issues related to individualism and communication differences. Utilizing Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, the review provides insights into the Irish cultural context and its implications for diversity management practices, offering recommendations for organizations seeking to effectively manage a diverse workforce in Ireland.

Literature review Diversity management in
Ireland

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Executive summary
The marketplace of many businesses becomes international, as many large and small size
enterprises expanding their business through various entry modes. Expanding business in the
other country with the diverse culture, market, and workforce creates many challenges with the
benefits. The report is based on how organizations in Ireland systematically introducing diversity
management at the workplace and how the culture of the country serves the challenges and
benefits to the management in the context of diversity.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Diversity management in Ireland.....................................................................................................3
Key drivers of diversity manage many in Ireland........................................................................4
Benefits and opportunity in Ireland for diversity management...................................................6
Challenges in Ireland to manage the diversity.............................................................................8
Recommendations........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Ali and French, 2019 assessed the concept of diversity management and stated that it is
procedures of managing the workforce with diverse cultural, attitudes and values. The word
refers to the organization’s aim to endorse the greater inclusion of the workforce with a different
background, through the specific policies and programs. There are various reasons why all
organizations must introduce diversity management and act upon it. And key findings assessed
that well-managed diversity at the workplace by managers can actually help to create unique and
innovative solutions. And that leads to establishing ethical work environment in the organization.
According to IBEC, 2010 diversity management in Ireland becomes an important aspect of many
organizations with the expansion of business in the larger market. Organizations are making
strategies to increase the diversity at the workplace to develop the opportunity for innovations.
However, with the opportunities, it also creates many issues in the workplace. These issues
include ethical and cultural differences, language and communication difference generational
and age differences. This framework covers the notion of diversity management and the key
drivers behind the diversity management. In addition, it will also include the challenges and
benefits for the managers with the literature review.

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Diversity management in Ireland
There are various definitions provided by many authors and everyone provided their different
perspectives and views on the topic.
According to Hughes, 2019, diversity management is an important aspect of any business and
plays essential role of increasing diverse workforce's broad base of cultural experience that leads
to increase innovation at the workplace.
Hughes, 2019 shares his view, as diversity management is becoming important for many
organizations, therefore, many companies making strategies to increase the workplace diversity
so that they can drive the innovation and provide great services to the international market. This
also helps to increase the diverse customer base. When it comes to Ireland, organizations have to
manage a diverse workforce with the strategic management.
Key drivers of diversity manage many in Ireland
Since past some years various factors are forcing Ireland’s organizations to maintain the
diversity in their workplace. There are many key drivers that are lead to an increase in the need
for diversity management in Ireland.
IBEC, 2010, also states that in Ireland many organizations provide systematically strategies to
manage the diverse workforce. The key drivers of diversity management in Ireland is most
businesses are expanding their business in the international context and increasingly inflecting
the Irish marketplace. Expansion of the competitive international marketplace and the increasing
emphasis placed on organizations work environment ethics. However, some of the drivers in
Ireland are domestic for instance equality regulatory framework. There also some acts that force

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organizations to manage diversity such as employment equality act 1998 and equal status act
2000.
CIPD, 2018, provides an overview of legal laws of the UK such as discrimination and equal pay
acts. According to these acts, every organization has to follow the guidelines and serve the
discrimination-free environment. These legal norms also drive the demand for diversity
management.
Changes in the environment of Ireland in which the companies operate have empowered
diversity management initiatives. Frances McGinnity and Raffaele, 2018 analyzed the factors
that lead to changes in the environment and become the key drivers of diversity management in
Ireland: Apart from Increased globalization, which has resulted in the entry of many foreign
organizations, growth and development of information technology leads to increased interaction
amongst Irish workforce and international counterparts through the e-business and electronic
media.
According to The Irish Times, 2016, many organization of different countries located in Ireland
increased the awareness of diverse culture. These increasing numbers of international
organization in Ireland increased the interaction of a diverse workforce with diverse nationalities
and cultures. 2016, US organizations in Ireland serving a global and diverse market place and
also serve the better framework with the diversity and inclusion among Ireland’s legal terms and
with the wider community. Many other international organizations also creating a greater
understanding of the benefits that come from supporting diversity and inclusion.

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The Irish Times, 2016, also states that diversity in the workplace is critical. Hence organizations
have to manage the diversity and make strategies to maintain it. PayPal leader says as they the
employ around 2400 employees in Ireland. The leader also states that the customer of the
company is diverse and employees too, hence this leads to create many benefits with the
innovative ideas. The organization states that inclusion is one of the cultural values of the
company and this leads the organization to handle the diverse workforce of Ireland. Many large
and small size organizations must continue to think inclusively and globally so that they can
understand and see from the diverse perspective by involving the diverse workforce at the
workplace and earn the profit. In Ireland, there are many factors that create benefits for the
manager in Ireland to manage diversity at the workplace.
Benefits and opportunity in Ireland for diversity management
Carr-Ruffino, 2019, concluded that the managing diverse workforce creates many benefits for
the organizations such as creates new and innovative ideas, knowledge of the local market helps
the business to become more competitive profitable. Yet it is also essential for the business to
understand the environment and culture of the country where it is operating or expanding the
business.
According to Kraus et el, 2019, greet Hofstede theory is the framework which can be analyzed to
understand the different culture of different countries. Basically, there are 6 dimensions that
distinguish different nation’s culture and their impact on the businesses. With the power
dimension of this theory states that how a society or culture depends on equality how power is
tolerated in society.

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It can be assessed from the Hofstede Insights, 2018, Ireland sits on the 28, it stated that the
people of Ireland believes that inequalities amongst the people have to be minimized and
everyone should be treated equally. People mostly believe in the hierarchical structure and they
often establish a hierarchy in the organizations for the convenience of each employee. The
managers of the organizations are accessible to all the employees helps their employees when
they need them. Also, leaders of organizations keep trust and depend on their employees and
teams. Both the employees and managers consult about any issue also share information equally.
Therefore it can be said that the culture of Ireland promotes diversity management. People
believe in equality and every employee from another country will get the same platform and
rights. Hence there is a huge benefit for the leaders and manager of the companies as they do not
need to make any strong strategies to maintain diversity. The organization can bring diverse
background employees together at one platform. And this diverse culture perspective inspires
creativity and innovation together. Also as Irish people believe to share information with their
leaders also consult with them. Hence the leaders or manager can take this an opportunity and
influence people by serving great image. They can talk to the employees to interact and help
other employees as also do it.
In Ireland, there are high Masculine communities and the benefit is that the hiring and
promotions are based on employee’s capability and how they perform. Hence the mangers of
many companies can serve a better image by providing fair promotion based on performance.
This fair decision will lead to creating satisfaction amongst diverse employees and workforce
they could manage well the diversity at the workplace with the fair rewards and promotion.

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Diverse culture brings new and innovative ideas as employees from a diverse background would
have a diverse perspective and often have different market knowledge and this leads to bring
benefits for the organization in Ireland. One more benefit is analyzed in the Hofstede theory as
people work for achievements and they believe in the success, Irish can do anything to be the
winner. Hence there are the opportunities for the manager as the motivation such as rewards
plays the big role in diversity management.
As Kraus et el, 2019, says that the Uncertainty avoidance dimension of Hofstede theory assesse
that the Irish people appreciate imagination and ideas are important. They often embrace
creativity and employees are often looking for new ways and ideas to solve the issue. Hence the
leaders of organizations will have the benefit as they can make a strategy and motivate
employees to work together and share ideas and opinion so that each idea creates new
innovations. Hence this lead to bring teamwork amongst the diverse workforce and employees
will get motivated to bring knowledge in terms of earn knowledge and give new ideas so that
they can be appreciated by the managers of the company.
Challenges in Ireland to manage the diversity
Riccucci, 2018, provides their critic view and argues that apart from the benefits there are many
challenges for the mangers of many countries as diverse communication and diverse way of
interaction also creates many challenges and creates many conflicts at the workplace. This can be
a test to survive, especially if there are fundamental partialities between societies, making them
less slanted to cooperate. Negative social generalizations can be genuinely unfavorable to
organization confidence and influence efficiency. For example, the hundreds of years long
antagonism between the British and French, or the Polish and Germans can once in a while creep
into the working environment.

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The behavior of individualism also creates many challenges for the managers. With the Hofstede
dimension of individualism is basically assess that how communities of any countries considers
the way of living in respect of individualism and collectivism. High dimension states that people
look themselves before anything and their near family after only. Basically, some people or
culture believes to be individual and they do not to be in groups and people after taking care of
their near family. They do not believe or listen to society and other people. When it comes to
Ireland, the Hofstede Insights, 2018, theory states that with the dimension of individualism the
culture of Ireland stands on 70. Hence it can be seen that the culture of the country is strongly
individual focused employees are expected to be self-reliant. They just work for personal goals
and they often prefer to be alone.
An organization that is going for expansion in Ireland will face the challenges as individualism
means less interaction. As great communication and knowledge management arise from the more
interaction between employees. And lack of interaction restricts the friendly environment and
employees will not greet each other and will not communicate with each other. This results lack
friendly behavior at the workplace, employees will not share knowledge and information with
each other. Employees from a different culture will face many challenges with understanding and
perspective of Irish people. Hence this will lead to creating a lack of innovation and teamwork at
the workplace.
According to Kraus el el, 2019, high indulgence dimension states that communities in Ireland are
less restricted by the social norms and other guidelines. People do what they like to do hence the
manager can face challenges to bring together diverse workforce as every company needs to
manage and maintain diverse workforce with some guidelines and policies and Irish do not like
to work in regulatory framework this results to create dissatisfaction however there are many

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other ways to handle diversity and also the culture of Ireland itself promotes the equality
amongst the society. Therefore this issue can be overcome by some other strategies.
Recommendations
There are some recommendations for the managers to manage diversity and increase and drive
the innovation towards the company’s success. The managers of the company have to motivate
employees and take individualism challenge as a greater opportunity for personal growth and
professional growth. In order to do that the managers can motivate employees and advise them to
share communication so that they can serve the greater knowledge of understanding of the local
market and increase their professional skills and leadership skills by interacting to more people
with the diverse background.
The manager can make teams of employees from diverse background however it can be a
challenge for them to make teams as the Irish are live life as individual yet personal growth can
motivate them to work as team and winning are most important for them. Therefore the manager
can maintain diverse teams with the greater motivation of success so that the business can be
more productive and employee performs better.
The equality act in UK solves many issues for the employees and employers as well. Every
organization has to follow the legal norms in order to survive and establish safe and
discrimination environment. Also one of the most straightforward approaches to build workforce
decent variety during the procuring procedure is to make a basic leadership group – for instance
somebody from HR alongside a high performing official. Together this pair will be a powerful
power helping your association to beat the wide-spread issue of separation.

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Short term orientation dimension of Hofstede theory states the culture of Ireland classified as
normative. People believe in the near future and they are less future focused hence the leaders of
the organizations can provide short term achievement and rewards to the employees.
Hence there are many benefits for the leader and managers to manage a diverse workforce and
promote and drive innovative ideas in order to expand the business in Ireland. However, there
are many challenges for the leaders but they must have other strategies to overcome the
challenge.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that diversity management is becoming an
important aspect for many organizations due to the expansion of the business in the international

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market. With Ireland, there are many key drivers of diversity management as a regulatory
framework in the country lead to an increase in the need for maintains diversity at the workplace.
There are many companies in the UK such as PayPal, KPMG that are maintaining diversity
whether it is for the workforce or the customer base. There are many benefits for the managers to
increase and maintain the diverse workforce as the culture of Ireland promotes equality and
people appreciate unique and innovative ideas, hence the manager can motivate employees to
develop the skills to work with a diverse workforce. However, there are many other challenges
such as individualism culture lead to increase the issues with the communication also there are
various challenges and recommendation analyzed in the above discussion with the support of
Hofstede theory.
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