Understanding the workforce diversity and its dimensions- A Literature analysis

The workforce composition in modern organizations is characterized by diversity. This may be attributed to factors like globalization, government regulations, increase in immigration, market composition, socio-economic factors etc. This presupposes a need to review the human resource management practices to develop new and creative approaches to unleash the various talents/capabilities of diverse population in these organizations. Organizational experience evidences efforts of diverse workforce for quiet long. However, diversity as a concept is being recognized and is in its infancy. Studies in this direction have been attempted but they are available in isolation. However this scholarly approach to diversity management has not been focused in the same measure as diversity management in practice. This thus evidences a gap between theory and practice and thus needing studies in the direction. This paper is an attempt to scan the available literature so as to identify the various dimensions of diversity and their impact on individual and organization outcomes. Studies spanning these and other issues raised by scholars are examined and analyzed to not only understand the direction of research in diversity practice leading to theoretical sophistication but also help the manager to comprehend the issues of diversity management for effective human resource management.