Top Management Commitment and Diversity Challenges in Telecom Sector

Abstract

The organisations in today’s world need to recognize the value of having a diverse workforce as all the top companies around the world are composed of a variety of people from different cultures, races, castes, ethnicities etc. The support of top management is not only important in managing the diverse workforce but also in implementing the diversity strategies and policies, as diversity strategies can be expensive and the budgetary constraints can make it difficult to implement these strategies in the absence of a committed top management (Laudicina, 1995). The study analyzes analyze the commitment of top management towards diversity management and also various challenges to diversity. The sample of 382 from two telecom organizations was used. Results reveal that top management commitment is significant in both organisations but MTNL shows higher commitment as compared to Airtel and diversity challenges are equally significant in both MTNL and Airtel. The major barriers to diversity faced by MTNL are minimal support of the management and certain external influences while as Airtel faces the major barrier of the dearth of proper expertise to manage diversity.