Publisher's Synopsis
Both theoretical and empirical research on workplace diversity have increasingly found place in organizational studies. Workplace diversity is defined as real or perceived difference between members of a group on any characteristics that may induce the perception that the other individual is different from the self (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007; Williams & O'Reilly, 1998). Most of the early research on diversity has focused on the demographic attributes of age, gender, ethnicity, race, tenure and functional background (Milliken & Martins, 1996; Williams & O'Reilly, 1998). In principle, there are infinite such attributes which might potentially evoke the feeling of being different, like education, experience, religion, value, belief, personality and so on. The readily visible and observable attributes of difference are referred as surface-level diversity attributes. On the other hand, few differences that are not so readily observable and are only experienced and felt by the individual when they are continuously interacting with group members. Such differences like for example, differences of value, belief are referred to as deep-level diversity attributes. There are two opposite lines of thought available in popular literature in reference to effects of diversity on individual or team outcome. The negative diversity outcome is associated with social categorization perspective in which an individual considers other group members as either in-group members or out-group members.
