assimilation
(noun)
The absorption of new ideas into an existing cognitive structure.
Examples of assimilation in the following topics:
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Barriers to Organizational Diversity
- Companies seeking a diverse workforce face issues of assimilation into the majority group and wage equality for minorities.
- The challenges of assimilating a large workforce can be summarized as difficulties in communication and resistance to change from dominant groups.
- Resistance to change is a slightly different barrier to assimilating more diversity in work groups, as it pertains more to the momentum of company culture.
- Arguably the largest downside of assimilation, however, is that when diverse employees do most of the acclimating, the value of having varying perspectives is diminished.
- Understanding the barriers to effectively assimilating, with a particular focus on communication and avoiding group biases, is a critical step in creating a more conducive environment.
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The Challenge of Diversity
- Globalization demands a diverse workforce, and assimilating varying cultures, genders, ages, and dispositions is of high value.
- This hegemony can create tension between different groups, ultimately resulting in the smaller groups moving towards the culture of the larger ones to close the dissonance, a practice called assimilation.
- Assimilation should be a shared responsibility, not simply assumed by those in the minority group.
- Groupthink will often result in the assimilation of dissenting perspectives.
- The goal for management is to ensure everyone is working to assimilate to everyone else in a balanced and effective manner that harvests differences rather than smoothing them over.t
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The Mission Statement
- To be truly effective, an organizational mission statement must be assimilated into the organization's culture (as the theory states).