Diversity has become an important factor in today’s generation as it is growing faster than before. It is often seen as category or groups to differentiate people from different background. These differences include; gender, race, ethnicity, religion, education, and sexual orientation. As race been the most common issues in the United States from the past decades, to sustain a good relationship in a diverse community is to respect and appreciate these differences. Although diversity was almost nonexistent in Public administration in the past, authors Sabharwal, Levine and D’Agostino conduct a thorough conceptual analysis on how it has developed since the 1900’s in Public Administration.
In the article A Conceptual Content Analysis of 75 years of Diversity Research in Public Administration, the authors not only researched the importance of diversity in the workplace, but they also demonstrate the impact it has in the workplace. Research has shown that organizations perform better when they are diverse and inclusive. Also documented is that large innovative organizations that are more diverse are also more successful. Thus, it is important to note that managers play an important role in improving work performance. In a diverse organization, when employees feel valued, respected, appreciated, and most importantly not discriminated, they tend to apply and improve their distinctive skills and perspectives in which can result in progress for the organization.
Although diversity never arises any issues in public administration in the past, racial tension has always been apparent. With law establish to protect race, gender, and minorities with the Civil Right Act in 1964, researchers became more interested in conducting research associated with minorities. Therefore, what we do know is that diversification of public organizations in practice has improved their capacity to deliver services to the diverse populations being served. However, what remains unclear is whether public administration diversity research has kept pace with societal changes in general (e.g., legal, social, political, and economic) and the impact of that research on public administration practice specifically..
Besides, by using different methods, the authors not only use a conceptual content to analyze diversity empirically. They also provide tools to help determine various examples to support their research on diversity in Public Administration. Usually, a concept is chosen for examination, and its occurrence in the documents is tallied. In the context of this study, the term Diversity and its various components were examined, while the majority of the research conducted in the United States, it also the study shows similar result found in others countries regarding issues of diversity in the Public Administration field. According to the authors, several journals such as PAR, PPM, and ROPA published several articles PAR is the flagship related to diversity. PAR is the flagship journal of the American Society for Public Administration, which is the most significant professional association for public administration scholars and practitioners. PAR is also the oldest journal in the discipline; in 2015, it celebrated its 75th anniversary. Given that PAR is the oldest and an eminent journal in the field, it is not surprising that it tops the list as an outlet for scholars to publish their work on issues of diversity.
On the other hands, PPM and ROPA focused more on diversity issues in the workplace. As a result of the conducted research along with proven statistics data of the increase percentage by dimension about diversities since the 1900’s, public organizations it has been successful in providing diversity within their organizations by being more inclusive and by law established to protect minorities and women.
Moreover, despite statistics proven the progression of diversity, racial discriminations become worst as it was years ago. With laws established and legal punishment enforce against it, many organizations and managers hide behind mask by creating different other ways to continue discriminating against the diverse community, which arise a more significant question; are we living in a post-racial society or merely pushing these issues under the rug by hiding behind laws and AA? Just because we have several laws protecting people of color and minorities, are race problems that continue to pervade country been solved? Nonetheless, the world has significantly improved, however, diversity issues still exist today, deeply embedded in archaic, narrow-minded societies and values.
The authors suggest; despite the focus on race, research on diversity in the field of public administration has progressed over time to reflect a changing society, and the laws and legislation developed to address structural and organizational inequalities and bias. As this generations become more diverse, several organizations begin being more inclusive. Healthcare, public sector, and nonprofit organizations have come to recognize the advantages of working with diverse employees within their business. For example, in my workplace environment, diversity plays an important role. Having a distinct work environment t in a healthcare setting makes the company stronger and creates more profit. With patients of different ethnic background, diversity is needed, to ensure patients satisfaction. Therefore, to increase diversity, they encourage every department to take a competency language test which enables them lawfully to interact with patients. By doing this, the patients would most likely want to come back which will increase their revenue make the company stronger and more marketable.
To conclude, diversity has been a challenge for decades in the United States and several other countries. With the Civil Right Act of 1964, EEO and AA programs, diversity has become more inclusive in the workforce. As a result, public organizations have been successful in diversifying their workforces by providing greater access to public jobs for women and racial/ethnic minorities. Even though the diverse population is growing faster than decades ago, racial issues have been common in today’s society Employer should start to realize that diversity is essential in their organization because the global marketplace made of people of different culture from all around the world. Therefore, I believe it would be necessary for an employer to reconsider racial questions ask in job applications as it gives human resources and managers power to choose ethnic group they want in the organization. Enable that part in a job application would provide employment opportunities based on qualifications rather than a racial stereotype.
