Stereotyping and Ethical Business Management

Question: Discuss about the Stereotyping and Ethical Business Management. Answer: Introduction Stereotyping is coming out as one of the most serious point of concern and debate in present scenario. There are several notions, beliefs and thoughts associated with the stereotyping aspect. The primary purpose of this essay is to analyze and critically evaluate the aspect of stereotyping in terms of organizations and categorical thinking. Stereotyping can be understood as the suppositions and the assumptions which have been developed regarding a group of individuals. The similar sets of assumptions are then applied over each member of that particular group irrespective of the individualsbehavior, traits and characteristics. It is a set notion that stereotyping is a negative factor but with the change in time there are both negative and positive implications of stereotyping (Inzlicht and Schmader, 2012). It can be assumed as neutral too. The outcomes of both negative as well as positive can be unsafe in nature. In an organization there are several implications and the outcomes which are the result of these positive as well as negative stereotyping factors prevailing at the workplace. The essay will critically evaluate all those positive as well as negative effects of stereotyping on the employees as well as also highlights various strategies which can be used to prevent stereotype behavior to take place in an organization.The essay will also highlight the various negative impacts of the cultural stereotypes which an organization has to experience. The essay concludes with an overall analysis of the various aspects of stereotyping and its effects at the workplace (Colquitt, Lepine and Wesson, 2011). Stereotyping: Categorical Thinking Its a human notion that individuals develop a set of characteristics, a mind-set because of the continuous interaction they have with some group. These developments of assumption which can be either true or false are regarded as stereotyping. Individuals do not have a concern with the behavior and a trait of an individual rather the group behavior depicts the lifestyle and traits of that individual (Heilman, 2012).A stereotype is a distorted fact or an embellished image or belief of a group or an individual. This is a categorical thinking which is a generalization which agrees for very few or no separate differences or any social disparity. The stereotypes are grounded over the images in social and mass media or it can also be based upon the reputations or characters passed on by society members, peers or parents (Kulik and Olekalns, 2012). Though stereotyping is vague and inaccurate, it is an effective manner to psychologically organize huge blocks of info. Categorization or categorical thinking is a vital human ability because it allows individuals to organize, predict and simplify the world. Once the individuals have been organized or sorted into various small categories then its a human notion to ignore processing unexpected and new information regarding any person (Kunze, Boehm and Bruch, 2013).Assigning of characteristics of a general group over the members of that respective group saves a lot of time and fulfills the requirement to assume the social world in an overall sense. The stereotypes can occur in various forms such as career, income group, body type, religion, ethnicity, age, race, language, gender and various other forms. Biasness is considered as the primary outcome of stereotype. There is a sense of biasness which occurs because of the various characteristics an individual develops for a group (Cunning ham and Macrae, 2011). There are several negative impacts of stereotype such as legal tension, bad working associations, low morale, abuse and mistreatment. The first negative impact of stereotyping in an organization is that it creates legal tension in the organizations. It is the assumption that an individual who is impacted by the discriminatory behavior can get the person sue for his act of discrimination. It creates a number of tensions in the organization because of the various unfair treatment and practices because of stereotyping (Goc?owska, Crisp and Labuschagne, 2012).In an organization where collaboration and the teamwork are two major factors of working then stereotype creates a number of problems in the organization. The employees who take decisions based upon stereotype behavior instead of the trust in the skills and potential of the coworkers obstruct group efficiency and progress. In teamwork, its the negative impact of stereotyping which restricts an employee or an individual from requesti ng for guidance and support to a specific employee (Koveshnikov, Vaara and Ehrnrooth, 2016).For example, if a male employee possess a stereotype impact that women are not much efficient in working. As an impact of which the male employee will not ask for any help or support in the team work. Another negative implication is low morale. It is one of the general difficulties with stereotyping that it causes low morale for the group or for the individual or the overall organization by making it toxic with negativity and low morale. The employees who experience regular negative results, criticisms and comments from stereotyping can result into lose morale and motivation in the job role. There can be negative impacts of low morale over the other departments and the workers who are even not indulged with stereotyping behaviors and norms (Koch, DMello, and Sackett, 2015). Hence the low production is also one of the negative influences of the toxic morale developed in the organizations because of stereotyping. Another negative implication of stereotyping is abuse and mistreatment. It is one of the facts of stereotype that if an individual is indulged in stereotyping than it is more likely to involve others also in stereotyping. And as a result there will be mistreatment or abuse at the workplace. The stereotype employees have set and perceived beliefs about the individuals and because of which there are continuous actions and comments. The stereotype results into negative behavior for the employees who show mistreatment and abuse for the other employees (Stoker, Van der Velde and Lammers, 2012). There are various cultural stereotypes which exist in the society which results into several negative outcomes at the workplace. The cultural stereotypes can be better explained with an example, there is a set belief that which has been developed because of the cultural stereotypes that Italians are expressive, Americans are innovative and Chinese are diligent. This is one of the basic example of cultural stereotypes. But these stereotyping behaviors develop number of difficulties at workplaces. There are various problems at workplace such as improper way of categorizing groups and people, wrong decisions because of incomplete and false information and improper judgments (Bal, et al., 2011).This type of cultural stereotypes restricts the capability of the management to have the utmost and effective use of the employees and their respective skills and potential. As well as there does not takes place any kind of skill development in the workforce. The productivity as well as the morale of the employees is negatively impacted with such stereotype attitude. If in any organization the higher authorities possess stereotype behavior and they only determine that in what manner the individual must be treated then it creates difficulty for the employees. As a result the employees are morelikely to leave the organization. The negative outcomes of stereotypes are the reduced revenues, highly dissatisfied customers and the decreased productivity of the organization. There is also hindering of the teamwork as well as smooth flow of communication among the employees which ultimately gives rise to conflicts (Davies and Chun, 2012).The problems in the organization are even not resolved because of the communication gaps which has been arise because of the various stereotype behaviors existing at the workplace. There are various types of signs and symbols which represents that there is high stereotyping present at the workplace such as biasness regarding the employee perception, lack of opportunities for the employees to achieve success and growth, poor employees performance, high absenteeism and increase employee turnover. All theseare the major signs which depicts that there is a need to change the stereotyping behavior prevailing in the organization among various departments (von Hippel, Kalokerinos and Henry, 2013).In an organization which is highly centralized and where there is autonomy in decision making there are more chances of existing stereotype behaviors as the employees are chosen as per the stereotype norms of the higher authorities. The stereotype effects are not the one which is permanent in nature. With the change in the situations and the circumstancesthe stereotype behavior also gets change. It can be changes from negative to positive or positive to negative. The implications also get diversify with the change in the stereotype behavior. As the group of individuals split or there is addition of other individuals in a group then there are high chances that there will bechange in the beliefs and behavior of stereotype. There are several things which keep on changing with time, for example earlier there was a stereotype thinking that women cannot be said as good entrepreneurs or they cannot manage businesses. But this stereotyping thinking has been changed completely from almost a decade or two (Saul, 2013). There are several organizations which are run by women as well as in almost all the fields, women power has been recognized whether its sports, business management, technology or any other field. Thus it is one of the biggest examples which can prove that stereotype behavior existing in organization or in the societies can be changed with time and various other efforts. Each coin has two different sides similarly stereotyping also possess both positive as well as negative outcomes. Extensive number of theorists have analyzedand discussed the negativeimplications of stereotyping at the workplace but with a broader scenario there are some positive impacts also. For example the positive implications from cultural perspective can be understood as the Americans-Africans are generally regarded as great athletes. It is a set perception which has been developed because of the various past situations and categorical thinking. In an organization the positive stereotype can be explained as one of the setbelief for the employees of the organization. If at any workplace one of the organizational team has been recognized as an efficientand highly skilled individual. Thus in a situation of failure of error that team will not have much impact as the stereotype perception for that team is always been good and positive. Thus it will act as a motivation for the team t o achieve success very next time (Shih, Young, and Bucher, 2013).Thus there are several results of positive stereotype behavior such as increased productivity, higher retention rate, improved employee engagement, smooth communication, effective working, and higher morale and up surge organizational revenues.Positive stereotypes also have several other benefits which impact the organizations and the employees performance. The one major impact of positive stereotyping is that the positive stereotypes help in improving the negativeimpression of the other individuals or employees of another group. One positive perception regarding any group forces another group to have a similar perception for that team or group of employees (Kalokerinos, von Hippel and Zacher, 2014). Thus there develops improved associations among the employees as a result of positive stereotype behavior at the workplace. In an organization the stereotype behavior can be managed or controlled if there is an effective management and human resource department. Employee management is one of the major aspects which decreases and manages the stereotyping behavior at workplace. If the employees have been recruited with adequate equity and without having any set perception regarding the individuals there will always be selection of the most effective and efficient talent in the organization (Ellemers, et al., 2012). There are several ways and strategies which can help the organizations to prevent them from stereotype behavior. The first strategy or approach which can be used is setting up of guidelines related to workplace conflicts. For this the organization can have an open forumdiscussion by which the employees can have a direct communication with their coworkers related to any workplace issue or difficulty they are experiencing. This will help in reducing the difficulties and making a much better place to work with decreased number or workplace conflicts (Fiske, 2012).The second strategy which the organizations can implement is training the managers to act as mediators. There are organizations where there is ignorance from the management side towards the issues of the employees. The employees are required to deal with their conflicts on their own. But to avoid and prevent organization from developing stereotype behavior it is required that the manger must act as themediators and strive hard to solve the workplace issues and conflictsfromtheir end (Vinkenburg, et al., 2011).The negotiation skills of the managers will help in resolving the issue in a much faster manner which will ultimately help the employees to regain their focus for their respective work and put their efforts to achieve the organizational goals. The third most important strategy for preventing stereotyping is elimination of the gender biasness at the workplace. The gender biasness can be in terms of providing opportunities to the male and the female employees to achieve growth, resolution of the conflicts or assigning leadership. The managers are required to get additional trainings to avoid such stereotype thinking and provide equal opportunities to the women employees to work and achieve growth. Another strategy to avoid stereotype behavior at the workplace is clarification of the priorities. There are various issues and stereotype behavior exists in the organization because of the fact that there is miscommunication among the employees. There must be adequate flow of communication so that there does not exist any point of confusion regarding the priorities and the deadlines of each and every employee (Lee, Kim and Vohs, 2011). Conclusion Stereotyping is one of the highly concerned subjects in organizations, societies as well as at the global level. The stereotype behavioris one of the biggest difficultieswhich are arising at the workplace. The essay concludes that there are several implications of stereotype behavior. These stereotypes can be either positive or negative in nature. There are maximum numbers of the organization which experience negative implication of stereotype such as the employee turnover rate keeps on increasing, decreasing revenues as well as ineffectiveness in the employee working. But these stereotype behaviors can be controlled and managed with appropriate strategies such as clarifying priorities, reducing gender biasness, implementing several guidelines for handling the workplace conflicts and when the managers act as the mentors in the organization. All these strategies with several positive perceptions regarding the individuals and the groups the organization can have an improved and better workplace with reduced or no stereotype behavior. Thus from the overall essay it can be conclude that stereotype is a big concern for the societies as well as for the organization but if the organization took adequate steps and take use of strategies then the negative implications of stereotyping can be prevented from restricting the success of the organization. References Bal, A.C., Reiss, A.E., Rudolph, C.W. and Baltes, B.B., 2011. Examining positive and negative perceptions of older workers: A meta-analysis.The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, p.gbr056. Colquitt, J., Lepine, J.A. and Wesson, M.J., 2011.Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Cunningham, S.J. and Macrae, C.N., 2011. 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