iso-NEWS - Institut für Sozialforschung und Sozialwirtschaft eV

Ingrid Matthäi: ’Managing Diversity’
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Fig. 1: Vicious circle of structural discrimination - long term unemployed
Demoralization; discouragement, loss of qualification;
resigning or withdrawing from the
labour market
The decision-making process during the
screening of job applicants is also influenced
by subtle emotional reactions like
personal sympathy or antipathy. Selection
procedures are neither neutral nor objective
but influenced by subjective views or
experiences (Laske/Weiskopf 1996). Scientific
studies show that individuals prefer
people who seem similar to themselves
because they presume these persons
might have the same values and interests,
and this assumed homogeneity could
guarantee a better commitment to work
(Krell 1997). But there are other obstacles
to recruiting unemployed persons. Companies
often hesitate to employ those persons
because they assume a long period
of unemployment would devalue the
qualification and undermine the willingness
to work (see fig. 1). All these subtle
assumptions influence the decision-making
process of the personnel staff. Instead of
an individual briefing of vocational qualifi-
Companies expect a lower job motivation, low
labour discipline, out-dated qualifications or
’nvisible’ disabilities (alcoholic, poor health)
More problems to find a job; less opportunities;
‘Disuse effect’; extends duration of unemployment
Companies are reluctant to employ long-term
unemployed (possible integration problems
undermining high performance standards)
cations and competencies, group characteristics
or attributes tend to influence the
decision-making process and lead to the
exclusion of persons belonging to a disadvantaged
labour market group. Sociologists
have a special definition for this process
of exclusion: they refer to structural
discrimination when individuals are not
treated as individuals but as group representatives.
The intention of our project is, on the
one hand, to try to interrupt this process of
structural discrimination and to improve
the employment opportunities of individuals
belonging to disadvantaged labour
market groups and, on the other hand, to
improve the instruments and tools of human
resource management in order to
handle a diverse workforce with the goal
of providing equal opportunities to those
groups of people who have been denied
access to the company’s internal labour
market. Therefore we want to analyse the
iso-Mitteilungen Nr. 3/August 2004 53