Building Human Capability - Globally    
Global Strategic Diversity E-mail

A Local and Global Perspective on Diversity

ITAP’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) practice helps organizations leverage diversity to achieve their desired business goals.  ITAP sees diversity operating on two levels.  The first level, addressed in a separate page on this website, relates to local issues such as diversity at the local school, hospital, or other work setting.  The second level, addressed below, relates to the critical need to leverage diversity as an essential aspect of competitive advantage for global corporations.

Diversity as a Strategic Aspect of Global Competitive Advantage

As companies globalize to take advantage of new and emerging markets, a new and different dimension of diversity emerges. To be sure, the local aspects of diversity remain as the effectiveness of local teams is still important.  There exists an evolutionary process in how organizations deal with diversity, but organizations do  not necessarily go through a defined set of stages in order to integrate diversity as a business imperative.  ITAP's strategic diversity services deal comprehensively with all aspects of diversity in order to continuously nurture a sophistication and informed decision making processes.  

Stages of Global Diversity Integration

Stages of Global Diversity Integration

According to Dr. Geert Hofstede, the essence of corporate culture is a set of processes and symbols. These do not trump or overrule national corporate values. Rather, employees learn to operate or adapt in their corporate environments. As value systems operate on an individual level, employees will either thrive in their situations or perhaps leave if there is a mismatch between the individual and corporate values.

The first step toward integrating diversity is an awareness and recognition that there is such a thing as cultural diversity. Often that awareness is created through some form of negative impact on productivity, a lawsuit or a labor union dispute over promotions or hiring practices.  Any of these could be such a precipitous event that creates awareness.

As a result, the company includes diversity as a corporate value.  This includes creating the  policies, practices and symbols to help employees and managers achieve the intent of that diversity value. These policies and practices include tracking employees by cultural group as percent of employee population, percent by level, percent hired, and percent turnover by group. Commonly, it includes training on cultural differences focused on issues such as reducing the turnover of a particular employee population.

These activities do not yield full payoffs in the form of competitive advantage until the diversity value is integrated into the business. This manifests in the form of tactics in product development, supply chain management, marketing, customer service, and management practices to focus all corporate activities on the needs of the global marketplace. ITAP's diversity consulting services are focused on guiding clients to a realization that diversity is a business imperative that yields competitive advantage.  The challenge lies in transforming awareness to fully informed decision making on the tactical levels in all business functions. 

Please fill out this form and one of our diversity experts will contact you shortly.

Learn more about diversity development
 
First Name: Last Name: *
Office Phone: Email:
Company Name: Title:
 
 

Regional Sites

ITAP Alliance Affiliates