Diversity, Machiavellianism, and Self-Serving Bias

Organizational Behavior
Name:
Institution:
Why is diversity such an important issue? Is the workforce more diverse today than in the past?
Workforce diversity means a mixture of different people with either similarities or differences in characteristics including gender and race sexual orientation among others. In the current century businesses are more concern with diversity because it provides a better understanding of the global picture of the market. Diversity comes along with diverse viewpoints that promotes productivity and generate more profit. Of late, work has changed and companies are more concerned with being global and draw its employees from diverse background. Companies have realized the importance of diversity in making an aggressive business enterprise.
Benefits of diversity are enormous as both the company and customers benefit from it. For example, when tasks are performed as a team different ideas are presented providing meaningful insights when solving challenges. Workers get to experience new diverse cultures, perspectives and ideas aiding in benefiting from better insight of the global surrounding. Companies benefit from skills and knowledge that have been pooled together from different cultural background, eventually enhancing productivity as a team.
What is Machiavellianism, and how does it relate to ethical behavior
Among the basic personality traits, that affect organizational behavior is Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism is associated with achieving power, using manipulation. Depending on how Machiavellianism is used, it can have both positive and negative outcomes. An individual with high Machiavellianism can be described as objective minded, target oriented, aggressive, limit pusher among other characters, while an individual with low Machiavellianism can be described as sensible, self-sacrificing friendly and even sympathetic. When used positively in management, Machiavellianism provides the needed direction especially to junior staffs in ensuring that organizational goals are achieved. It increases organizational effectiveness. However, when used negatively especially for personal growth instead of organizational goals, it becomes negative. This means that Machiavellianism and ethics can be considered as two sticks of a coalition meaning that in management when one wants to achieve the set goals being ethical is important.
Which has the stronger impact on personality: heredity or environment?
A group of characteristics forming manifestation of an individuals' cognition is term...