Does diversity management matter in a traditionally homogeneous culture?

• Published date: 16 September 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2017-0227
• Date: 16 September 2019
• Pages: 743-762
• Author: Si Ahn Mehng,Sang Hyeon Sung,Lisa M. Leslie
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

Does diversity management

matter in a traditionally

homogeneous culture?

Si Ahn Mehng

School of Business, Management, Marketing, and International Business,

University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke, North Carolina, USA

Sang Hyeon Sung

Dongguk Business School, Dongguk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and

Lisa M. Leslie

Stern School of Business, Management & Organizations, New York University,

New York, New York, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate diversity management in an under-researched country

by merging theoretical insights developed in the Western literature with cultural aspects of a traditionally

homogeneous country, South Korea.

Design/methodology/approach –This study integrates theory and research on why diversity can have

either a positive (i.e. the information/decision-making paradigm) or a negative (i.e. the social categorization

paradigm) effecton performance with different diversityperspectives (i.e. integration-and-learning,access-and-

legitimacy, and discrimination-and-fairness). This study develops a model of whenand how gender diversity

affects organization performance and test themodel with a sample of 177 South Korean organizations.

Findings –This study finds that gender diversity is negatively related to organization performance in

South Korea. This study also finds that the effect of gender diversity is contingent on organizational

diversity perspectives. Organizations with high gender diversity perform better to the extent that they

have a discrimination-fairness perspective, but not a business-oriented perspective. On the other hand, a

discrimination-fairness perspectiveis unrelatedto performancefor organizationsthat are low in genderdiversity.

Originality/value –Although gender diversity in the South Korean workplace continues to increase, the

relationship between gender diversity and organization performance has rarely been studied in the aspect of

Korea’s traditionally homogeneous culture. This study highlights the importance of cultural-contingencies in

understanding the consequences of diversity.

Keywords Gender, Korea, Diversity management, Diversity perspectives, Eastern cultures,

Organization performance

Paper type Research paper

Organizations in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) have traditionally been homogeneous and

male-dominated, but are rapidly becoming more diverse with regard to gender. The Korean

Government has implemented policies for promoting gender equality and protecting

women’s rights, which have increased the number of women in the workforce (Ministry of

Gender Equality and Family, 2017). Specifically, compared to a 47 percent employment rate

for women in 2000, the percentage increased to 50.2 percent in 2016. Also, 69.5 percent of

women in their late twenties (ages 25–29) are employed, which is similar to the employment

rate for men in their late twenties (69.7 percent) (Statistics Korea, 2017).

Despite increased gender diversity, it is easy to find signs of inequality between men and

women in the Korean workplace. Women earn 64.1 percent of what men earn and 41 percent

of working women do not have job security, compared to 26 percent of working men

(Statistics Korea, 2017). Also, the Korean Women’s Development Institute (2016) found that

only 0.3 percent of full-time executive officers and only 1.4 percent of full-time department

heads were women in a sample of Korean organizations[1]. Given that women in the

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 7, 2019

pp. 743-762

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-10-2017-0227

Received 27 October 2017

Revised 27 March 2018

5 December 2018

Accepted 12 December 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

743

Diversity

management

Korean workforce tend to have high levels of education, specifically 56.1 percent have a

four-year college degree and 19.2 percent a have Master’s or PhD degree (Korean Women’s

Development Institute, 2016), taking fuller advantage of women’s skills, and knowledge is

likely to have a positive impact on the performance of Korean organizations. Diversity and

diversity management have therefore become topics of critical importance in Korea.

In the Western management literature, a large body of research exists on diversity, much

of which has focused on the consequences of diversity and different diversity management

strategies for team and organizational performance. A key finding from this literature is

that diversity with regard to gender and other demographic characteristics has inconsistent

effects on performance; diversity can positively affect performance if diverse perspectives

are leveraged to improve decision making (i.e. the information/decision-making paradigm),

but negatively affect performance if diversity is a source of conflict and other negative

interpersonal dynamics (i.e. the social categorization paradigm; e.g. van Knippenberg and

Schippers, 2007). One aspect of diversity management that affects whether diversity has a

positive or negative effect on performance is the diversity perspective (i.e. beliefs about

diversity) adopted in an organization. Scholars have identified three diversity perspectives –

discrimination-and-fairness (i.e. promoting diversity through non-discrimination is a moral

imperative), access-and-legitimacy (i.e. diversity facilitates access to diverse markets) and

integration-and-learning (i.e. diversity facilitates core work process) –and found that

diverse organizations perform best if they adopt an integration-and-learning perspective

(Ely and Thomas, 2001).

Despite the large body of research on diversity conducted in Western contexts, it

remains largely unknown if prior theory and findings regarding the effects of diversity

and diversity management apply to traditionally homogeneous cultures, such as Korea.

Compared to many Western societies, Korea is at a relatively early stage with regard to

diversity management and is also characterized by a distinct set of cultural norms and

values (e.g. Confucian traditions, high power distance, high collectivism; Hofstede, 2001;

House et al., 2004). As a result, conclusions reached in the Western literature on diversity

may not generalize to the Korean context.

The goal of the present research is to build and test theory regarding whether current

understanding of the effects of diversity and diversity perspectives on performance apply

in Korean organizations. In contrast to the Western literature, which has produced mixed

findings regarding whether diversity has a positive or negative effect on performance

(e.g. van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007), we theorize that gender diversity has a

negative effect on organizational performance in Korea. Consistent with the Western

literature, we theorize that the performance of gender-diverse org anizations in Korea is

also shaped by the diversity perspective they adopt; however, whereas prior work conduct

in Western contexts indicates that diverse organizations perform best if they adopt an

integration-and-learning perspective (Ely and Thomas, 2001), we predict that gender

diverse organizations in Korea perform best if they adopt a discrimination-and-fairness

perspective. To test our hypotheses, we gathered a combination of survey and archival

data from 177 Korea n organizations .

Our research contributes to the diversity literature in a number of ways. First, we

highlight that theory and findings from the Western literature regarding the effects of

diversity and diversity management do not necessarily apply in an Eastern culture, thereby

highlighting the importance of accounting for cultural-contingencies in diversity research.

Second, we contribute to a growing body of research on when diversity has positive vs

negative effects on performance (e.g. Joshi and Roh, 2009), by identifying one aspect of

Korean culture (i.e. a rigid gender hierarchy that stems from high gender inequality, power

distance and collectivism) as a factor that increases the likelihood that diversity will have a

detrimentalrather than a beneficial effecton performance. Third, we contribute to research on

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