International Management: Microsoft and Workplace Diversity in the United States

International Management: Microsoft and Workplace Diversity
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International Management: Microsoft and Workplace Diversity in the United States
Workplace diversity is a trending and growing topic in international management and is critical to an organization's efficiency, growth, and development (Hussain & Farooquie, 2021). Inegbedion et al. (2022) assert that the management of diversity influences the efficiency of an organization through cultural diversity, conflict management, employee and teamwork attitudes, and workers' perceptions of marginalization. Efforts to protect minority and marginalized communities from workplace discrimination date back to the 1960s with the establishment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Grissom, 2018). Federal law prohibits the discrimination of workers based on gender, color, race, religion, and national origin. Despite the progress, women and minorities are still underrepresented at top management levels in workplaces in the United States. As Grissom (2018) observes, women account for 48.9 percent of the total workforce in the U.S. but less than a quarter serve as board directors across Fortune 500 companies. At Microsoft, the labor force in 2015 was 75% male and 60% white (Tulshyan, 2015). In 2020, the organization pledged to double the number of Black senior employees and managers by 2025 as per the civil rights laws (Guynn, 2020). With the rapidly increasing globalization, Microsoft must embrace interaction among people from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs to enhance organizational efficiency. From the perspective of international management, this paper focuses on Microsoft's cultural dynamics, the impact of globalization, and the successes and failures of the organization in terms of labor force diversity in the United States.
In 2015, Microsoft reported that women made up only 17.1 percent of tech jobs and 44.5 percent of non-tech jobs, while women took 17.3 percent of leadership roles. Besides, 60.6 percent of the total population at Microsoft was Caucasian, also comprising 72.2 percent of persons in leadership positions (Demmitt, 2015). Microsoft is one of several companies in the United States that have pledged to diversify their white-dominated leadership. The initiatives to increase black representation in U.S. organizations became a priority, especially after a national protest against the murder of Floyd, a black man killed by a white law enforcement officer in Minneapolis (Guynn, 2020). Earlier in 2015, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella promised to release more data on the company's efforts to ensure a diverse workforce. The company was under attack when Satya commented that women should not request pay increases but wait for their efforts to reward them. These comments caused harsh criticism of Microsoft and other tech companies in the United States for their lack of diversity, especially within their leadership ranks (Demmitt, 2015). Compared to other tech companies, such as Facebook and Yahoo, each had 23 percent of women leaders by 2015, while Microsoft only had 12.5 percent of women as senior leaders in the United States (Tulshyan, 2015). According to Tulshyan (2015), Intel and Google had 21 percent of women taking up ex...