MGTO 231 Human Resources Management

MGTO 231Human Resources Management Individual differences and diversity in organizations Dr. Kin Fai Ellick WONG

Question for you • Why do we call human resources “human resources”? • Why do we consider the staff in organizations as “resources” ? • I hope you will get the insight at the end of this class

Outline • Individual differences • Individual differences and HRM • Diversity in organizations • Managing diversity

What constitute individual differences? • Individuals are different from each other in some domains to a certain extent • Physical • Age; Height; Skin color; Sex • Psychological • Intelligence • Personality • Attitude • Value

How to capture individual differences? • Observation • Subjective and biased • Measures and/or tests • Relatively more objective • Reliability • The extent to which a score is stable • Is it precise? • Validity • The extent to which the test is measuring what it is supposed to measure • Does the test catch the correct meaning?

Some typical psychological tests • Achievement test • Test related to the past • Test the amount of learning • Test the knowledge in a specific domain • Dictation; Examination; 基準試 • Aptitude test • Test related to future • Test the potential of learning • 學能測驗

Intelligence test • Test related to whole life • Test the general potential to solve problems, adapt to change; think abstractly; and profit from experience • Wechsler IQ test

Major components of IQ test • Common sense • Memory span • Visual-spatial ability • Verbal reasoning, etc.

Personality test • Test that can differentiate people with different overt and covert behaviors • Commonly used personality test • NEO-PI (Big five personality) • Openness to Experience • Conscientiousness • Extroversion • Agreeableness • Neuroticism

Attitude test • Interview

Individual differences and HRM • What will HRM be if there are no differences across individuals? • Do we need discussing about recruitment and selection? • Do we have the problem of finding the best person for a particular position? • Do we need to have different compensations for different people? • Do we need training anymore?

More on individual differences • Relationship between cognitive ability and job performance • Relationship between personality and job performance • I’ll discuss the related issues more in Recruitment and Selection

Gender differences • Biological constraints on women • Pregnant and give birth • Dual roles (mother and employee) • Give benefits (e.g., day-care for children) to keep women from leaving

Races • Relatively less heterogeneous in Hong Kong than in the US • Major race components in Hong Kong firms • Local Hong Kong residents • Mainland Chinese • Taiwan Chinese • Caucasians • Indian or Pakistanis • Southeast Asians • Black

Ages • Stereotype about older workers • Less motivated to work hard • “Dead wood” • Resistant to change and cannot learn new methods • Not supported by research • Generation conflict • The old may feel that their position and status are threatened by the young

Older workers are often the primary target for layoffs • Earn more money • More susceptible to physical problems

Salary levels • Same position but with different salaries • A particular situation in Hong Kong • 70% of old salary for new civil servants (and related jobs, e.g., social workers) after 2000 April • E.g., E.O.: from about $20,000 to about $14,000

The challenges • Values of employee diversity • Difference as deficiency • The less homogenous a group, the less common ground necessary to a viable organization • Stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination

Major problems • Language barrier • Good English writing: direct and overt • Good Chinese writing: Implicit and covert • Religion • Values • Aggressive and assertive are highly valued in the West • Following norm is highly valued in Chinese • Being critical to authority • West: Good; Chinese: Don’t

How can individual differences be beneficial to organizations? • Darwin’s idea of evolution • Burden or opportunity? • How can a highly homogenous organization be non-adaptive?

Evolutionary Theory • Evolution is a scientific fact • The science community is no longer interested in proving whether evolution is true or not • The evidence from different areas supports evolution • Too much evidence so far • Reading any evolutionary biology textbooks will lead you understanding how strong the evidence is • Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory • A theory explaining evolution • One of the strongest theories in the science community • Again, lots of evidence strongly supports Darwin’s idea

Evolutionary Theory • Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory • Three basic assumptions • Variation • Natural Selection • Inheriting (遺傳) • Mutation (基因突變) is not a part of Darwin’s theory but plays a very important role in evolution… • Survival of a species depends on • The variety of variation (gene pool variety) • The environmental changes

Evolutionary Theory

The probability of survival increases as the variety of a species’ gene pool increases • E.g., a species with multiple colors vs. a species with a single color. • Why? • The future and the environment are not always predictable • It is not certain which characteristics will be selected or eliminated by the environment (natural selection)

Question for you • Why do we call human resources “human resources”? • Why do we consider the staff in organizations as “resources” ? • I hope you will get the insight at the end of this class

Conclusion • No individual differences, No HRM !!!!! • Because of individual differences, TALENTS in the market are LIMITED !!!! • Thus, we need to have a systematic and effective way to MANAGE this resource • Selecting, strengthening, keeping (good employees), and removing (bad employees) etc.

MGTO 231 Human Resources Management