MGT5OBR – Assessment 2 Draft Template

Student Name: Bashar Abu-Hijleh Student ID: 19222832

Topic: Harnessing demographic differences in Workshop Time: Monday, 12:00-2:00
organizations: What moderates the effects of
workplace diversity?
Workshop Facilitator Name:

Instructions: Read one of your selected articles and complete this form to the best of your ability. Submit a
copy of the completed form to the link on the LMS. You can mention any parts of the article that you did
not understand or points that you were unclear about.

Author(s): Add lines as necessary Year of publication: July 2015

1. Yves R.F. Guillaume
2. Jeremy F. Dawson Volume, Issue, Pages:
3. Lilian Otaye-Ebede Vol.38(2), pp.276-303
4. Stephen A. Woods
5. Michael A. West

Title of Article: Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of
workplace diversity?
Title of Journal: Journal of Organizational Behavior
Transfer the above information into a full reference, following either the current version of APA or Harvard
style guidelines:
Guillaume, Y., Dawson, J., Otaye-Ebede, L., Woods, S. and West, M. (2015). Harnessing demographic
differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.
Identify key issues, concepts (ideas), propositions or theories that the author(s) discussed in the literature
review. How have these issues informed or influenced the current study and its research questions?
The key issues are surrounding diversity and its negative or positive impact on organizations. Few studies
and approaches have showed to be ineffective to show the effects workplace diversity has on social
integration, performance and well-being-related variables.
Previous moderating approaches lacking empirical support which made the research team go with the
Categorization-Elaboration Model (CEM) approach due to the presence of sufficient empirical support.

Briefly note the data collection and analysis methods.

Data bases such as ((ISIWeb of Knowledge, PsycInfo, and ABI/INFORM) were used for empirical quantitative
studies that discussed the moderated effects of workplace diversity, the journals used are all peer
reviewed.
Researchers also included studies that examined higher-order interactions and studies that treated workplace
diversity variables as a moderator rather than an independent variable.
Who was studied in this research?
The focus was about the variables moderating the effects of diversity on social integration , and how
effective is the CEM approach as a moderator of workplace diversity.
The importance of effective leadership was also mentioned by showing how essential it is in emphasizing
the role of diversity.
Briefly describe the research findings.
To manage diversity effectively, well-designed teams are needed.
Eliminating status differences between demographic subgroups that are not based
on merit and building teams and groups in which demographic attributes do not overlap with functional
roles is
essential to facilitate social integration, performance, and employee well-being.

The essential role of good and effective leaders and leadership. Good leaders should maintain a positive
climate when managing a diverse team, helping in breaking down barriers and encouraging the employees
to be more active will certainly be beneficial to all parties included.

Critical analysis – How has this research study contributed to knowledge on this topic? What gaps remain?
Other than the role of diversity management, using a more effective moderating approach style (CEM), that
is empirically supported tends to be better than previous approaches. The research also talked about how
friendly climates at work, where you can speak and be listened to have a positive diversity outcome.

What are the authors’ suggestions or recommendations for future research? Paraphrase – i.e., use your
own words:
Even after this research was conducted, only little support was found for the moderating role of
organizational structure. Hopes are on new studies to be conducted to show the positive aspect of diversity
and how effective it can to the organization.