Cultural diversity training programs: Their impact on organizational culture and individual behavior

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of diversity programs in organizational settings and to determine if the training was having a positive impact on organizational culture and individual behavior.; Methodology. This descriptive study used a forty questions questionnaire and follow-up phone calls to collect the data. Twenty organizations from Central California participated in the study. Employees, half management and half non-management, who had attended a diversity training in the last five years, filled out the questionnaire. Follow-up phone calls were made to Human Resource Directors or Managers when the surveys were not received. Data from 191 completed questionnaires were tabulated and then statistically treated, using a series of T-test for groups with equal variance. The Levene's test for equality of variance, and a series of reliability analysis was used to test the data.; Findings. Ten components of Cultural Diversity Training programs received ratings well above the 3.5 scale median. In general, respondents perceived each component as being between somewhat and very useful. An overall assessment of respondents perceived the degree of impact for Cultural Diversity Training programs on organizational culture as relatively low. An overall assessment of respondents perceived the degree of impact for Cultural Diversity Training programs on individual behavior as higher than that of impact on organizational culture.; Conclusions. Males and females found each of the ten components of Cultural Diversity Training program roughly the same in terms of their degree of usefulness. Examination of the data clearly showed that none of the conducted analysis regarding impact on organizational culture were significant, in other words, gender difference did not affect differences in respondents' perceptions of the impact of Cultural Diversity Training programs on their company's organizational culture. Further examination of the data also showed that men and women did not differ in their perceptions of the impact of Cultural Diversity Training programs on individual behavior.; Recommendation for future research. It appears that for those who have attended the training, the perceptions of the training usefulness and impact on organizational culture and individual behavior do not hold many differences. It would be interesting to note if the same results would be found for a sample population who had not attended a Cultural Diversity Training program. It also would be important to look at the same variables of gender, ethnicity, and job classification to determine difference for the non-attendees.