ut 123 percent of the total population (Managing a multicultural workforce, 2001). These data speak to the racial/cultural diversity that comprises the contemporary workforce. Additional examples of diversity include age, gender, religion, geography, sexual orientation, and disability. The opportunity to realize the benefits of the diverse population û from marketing to consumers and identifying minority suppliers to managing a multicultural workforce û is an opportunity that corporate and institutional American should make the most of today (Managing a multicultural workforce, 2001).
It is particularly important to value diversity because of the forces of a new economy built on information technologies and information sciences, along with the increased globalization of commerce, trade, industry, and financial markets (Valuing diversity, 2000). A culturally diverse workforce provides companies with better decision-making based on multiple rather than narrow or parochial perspectives and varied approaches to product development. Not all cultures use technology in the same way, for example, thus factoring in the differences in just this one area will enable companies to become more competitive in the global economy (Valuing diversity, 2000).
When its clients were largely American or, at the least, ôWesternö or from industrially and technologically advanced companies, corporate America did not mind homogeneity and did not see much need for an outreach to diverse workers (Buford, 1999). Indeed, until less than 50 years ago the vast majority of managerial, supervisory, executive and technical positions in corporate America ôbelongedö to a small population of White males. With the advent of the Civil Rights Movement and, later, political activism on behalf of such groups as women, people with disabilities, the older worker, and workers of alternative sexual orientation, corporate America was challenged to break down the...