A Conceptual Exploration of Diversity and Organizational Politics

Abstract

Diversity, diversity management and organizational politics are concepts that have intrigued academicians and practitioners for decades. Yet, serious scholarship on politics in organizations only emerged as a viable body of scientific inquiry just within the past twenty years. Overtime, despite the arrays of literatures to their credit, not much has been done with regard to the relationship they might share. Whereas, it is useful to delve into investigating this pressing interest, since there is very little indigenous literature available to create a balance between the variables. The study seeks to address this void by exploring diversity related issues and how they influence one another, organizational politics inclusive. The study was carried out through critical review of existing paltry literature and personal interview with managers in some organizations. The methodology is therefore, exploratory and narrative. The social identity theory; embedded intergroup theory; organization demography theory and the research on racioethnicity theory are commonplace postulates, which address the issues of diversity and politics in the organization. Findings showed that competition for resources and power, are major causes of politics in the organization. Organizational politics is a relative consequence of peoples’ behaviour shaped by diversity.  Organizational politics is seen as having positive influence in an organization when it is linked to the achievement of success and goals in some ways. The challenge for managers and organizations, therefore, is to create a condition in which employees have the opportunity to individually describe themselves.  Tapping fully the human resource potential of every member of the workforce should be the goal of any organization.  There is no doubt as to if diversity breeds conflict, yes it can, but also can be managed to yield positive results.

Keywords: organizational politics, diversity management, diversity initiative, political behaviour.