tion is as follows: What defining characteristics of organizational-level diversity programs that have been implemented are associated with program outcomes that reflect increased diversity within the contexts of racial/ethnic and gender representation across both the functional and hierarchical structures of the organization.
Following this introductory material, the results of the research performed for this study are presented in four additional chapters. The topics addressed in these further chapters are as follows: Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework; Chapter 3 - Research Methods; Chapter 4 - Findings; and Chapter 5 - Conclusions.
The purpose of this study is explore the issue of managing diversity in public organizations during a period of social, political, judicial, and demographic change in the United States. Theoretical literature relevant to this study purpose is reviewed in this chapter.
While the United States has long been considered to be a nation of immigrants, the bulk of the newcomers during most of the nation's history were from the various European cultures with which their predecessors also identified. Beginning in the 1960s, however, the proportion of Europeans among immigrants to the United States has decreased steadily. Thus, an ever increasing number of ethnic communities have developed and continue to develop in this country whose social mores are quite different from the European cultural values that tend to characterized the behaviors of the majority of the American population.
People with similar characteristics and values frequently form into groups. Groups are collections of individuals that are attracted to one another and who are held together by a variety of social forces (Milliken & Martins, 1996). Social identity theory posits that groups are formed on the bases of self-definition, attraction, and cultural participation (Nemetz & Christensen, 1996). This hypothesis leads to a conceptu...