Role of human resource management in developing ethnic and diverse enterprises

Under the concept of ethnicity, an organisation works and functions as a people or nation. An ethnic organisation is synergistic and self-defining with a high-emotional intensity among its members. It attempts to be neutral towards the traditional cultures of its members. The modern, complex organisation has to be sensitive to ethnicity and diversity in the environment in which it operates. It needs to develop a unique enterprise culture that is shared by all members, whatever their individual profiles may be. The role that management needs to play in development of such a diverse and ethnic-sensitive enterprise is threefold: (a) develop policies, which encourage shared values and visions, (b) develop management systems such as selection and recruitment procedure, training and development policies, reward and promotion, transfer, welfare etc., which are in line with the organizational ethnicity and diversity, and (c) develop such processes, which will help reinforce organisational ethnicity and diversity. This paper examines how socio-cultural ethnicity and diversity affect the development of policies, systems and processes in Indian organisations. There are many factors to determine the organisational ethnicity, the most important being the HR practices followed in the organisation. The paper focuses on the role of the human resource management practices in building an enterprise, which is sensitive to ethnic and diversity issues, and starts a process of building its own ethnicity.