Towards Managing Diversity: Cultual Aspects of Business Environment

In Towards Managing Diversity, Dogra Draws the inferences of western experiences in managing diversity by the organisations through expensive review of literature as wall as diversity practising organisations in the west and that of their Strategic Business Units (SBUs) in India. It is clear that in most of the western countries the diversity not only includes gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion, but also includes disability, age, marital status, immigration status, and sexual orientation. But in case of India, the main diversity categories are gender, religion, ethno-linguistic region and whether individuals belong to one of the traditionally dominate 'Forward Castes,' or one of the traditionally excluded 'Scheduled Castes' or 'Scheduled Tribes,' or the large 'Other Backward Castes' grouping. It is only through understanding diversity that businesses can achieve equality and cohesion in the workplace, Towards Managing Diversity provides a perspective of diversity in competitive organisations. Moot issue in not that of Indian Private sector refraining so far from implementing any diversity management related initiatives but need for the management of Indian private sector organisations to understand diversity related cultural imperatives in right perspective. What is most important as rightly observed by the CEO of Siemens in his foreword is that Towards managing Diversity deliberates aptly on leveraging and using the cultural differences in people's skills, ideas and creativity to contribute towards a common goal and doing it in a right way to give organisation a competitive advantage. Chapters on Cultural Aspect of Business Environment, Need for Managing Diversity, Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity, HR Interventions, Best Practices and the Indian Perspective heightens the awareness for various diversity issues which are important resource for the management professionals. Two chapters devoted to the behavioural aspects form individual and group perspective are also centralised from cultural perspective in this book, particularly when diversity refers to the co-existence of employees from various socio-cultural backgrounds within the organisation.

About the Author :
Dr Dogra is currently director AICRD New Delhi and Consulting Partner of true Wealth Creators India. He is also non-executive director of various companies. He draws over twenty years of experience in multinational and Indian companies pursuing the tenets of continuous improvement and leadership skills including: Knowledge Management, Organizational Development, Strategic Management and Cross-cultural Management. He was responsible for strategizing Community of Practice (Cop) for Asia-Pacific Region as member of Siemens Global Knowledge Management Council. Dr. Dogra is an alummus of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and has done Ph.D. in Business Management. He is also President of the Department of Management Studies alumni association IIT Delhi. Dr Dogra has authored ten books in the area of Business Management.