Kramar (2012) declares that diversity management practices are influenced by legislative, cultural, economic, historical and other factors, such as individual factors and organisational factors.
3.7.1 Constitutional framework
Strachan, French and Burgess (2011) demonstrate that, while organisations can adopt various initiatives to deal with diversity management, they are mostly concerned with legal compliance combined with equity and diversity policies. The view portrayed here is that, diversity management in SMMEs involves, mainly, legal compliance as stated in the South African Constitution. It is, hence, stated that SMMEs that abide by the laws, such as the Employment Equity Act in South Africa, still have to show how these laws are implemented, taking into consideration the presence of LGBT persons among their employees.
3.7.2 Individual factors
Forbes (2008), claims that employees in the organisation have different backgrounds, styles, perspectives, values and beliefs and some of these differences cannot be changed, such as age, race, ethnicity and parental background, gender, disability and sexual orientation. Individual factors such as race, religion, culture, beliefs, leadership style, attitude, prejudice, response to discrimination, stereotypical traits and tradition may determine SMMEs owner/manager’s decision to embrace or not embrace sexual orientation as a form of diversity. For example, Drydakis (2015), found that gender stereotypical beliefs about LGBT employees result in an employer’s behaviours towards LGBT job seekers not to be uniform. This shows that SMMEs owner/
managers may behave differently towards LGBT employees as compared to heterosexual ones. Tilcsik (2011), further argues that, such stereotypical traits are borrowed by managers from societal norms because many societies assign particular meanings to gender. For instance, Ahmed, Andersson, and Hammarstedt, (2013), claim that LGBT individuals are alleged to have stereotypical characteristics of the opposite sex, thus, lesbians are stereotyped as masculine and gay men as feminine (Cunningham, Sartore & McCullough, 2010). Furthermore, societies perceive LGBT individuals as violating traditional gender norms (Ahmed, Andersson, & Hammarstedt, 2013). In view of this evidence, it is possible to assume that, SMMEs owner/managers do not consider sexual orientation as a type of diversity.
Dolan, Hallsworth, Halpern, King, Metcalfe, and Vlae (2012), note that different people behave in different ways. This can mean that SMMEs’ owner/managers’ attitudes towards LGBT people may differ when it comes to hiring them. Pichler, Varma & Bruce
(2010) report that individual’s attitudes towards LGBT people are related to hiring ability ratings. Drydakis (2009), claims that attitudes toward LGBT individuals may vary across occupations. Niedlich and Steffens (2015), believe that low presence of LGBT employees in less LGBT-friendly occupations may lead to more homo-negativity attitudes from less contact with LGBT employees. From these observations, there is a possibility to argue that negative attitudes towards LGBT employees may create performance and retention problems for capable LGBT employees. In the context of the present study, it can be assumed that, when there are inclusive diversity policies in SMMEs (positive attitudes) qualified LGBT applicants may sought to apply to work in such establishments because they feel accommodated and to stay in the organisation for a long time. This assertion is supported by O’Donovan & Linehan (2010), who emphasise that managers must recognise and respond to employees’
differences in such a way that retention and high productivity are maintained, discrimination is avoided, and fairness is practised. This shows that SMMEs owner/managers may respond to or have different attitudes towards the adoption of inclusive diversity management in the organisation as such differences might have an impact on productivity and retention. Inclusivity may be essential for SMMEs since each worker is a proportion of the company’s workforce and has impact in the organisation (Day & Greene 2008).
3.7.3 Organisational Factors
Organisational factors such as nature of business type and diverse workforce or occupation type may play a critical role in designing organisation specific policies and programmes that will make small business owners or managers embrace or not embrace sexual orientation as a form of diversity.
Freeman, Johnson, Ambady and Rule (2010), believe that, traditionally, sexual orientation is viewed as an observable type of diversity. Employers’ discrimination against LGBT employees is based on their ability to distinguish them from heterosexual employees (Drydakis, 2009). It is likely, therefore, that when there are no inclusive diversity policies, LGBT employees may face discrimination in the workplace even if sexual orientation is still observed as a type of diversity. Occupations that LGBT employees are in also play a role in terms of employer discrimination, especially when they are in prestigious jobs (Drydakis, 2014). It is, therefore, probable
that SMME owner/managers’ decisions to embrace or not embrace sexual diversity might be based on the occupations that LGBT employees are in.
Leppel (2009), reports that LGBT people in white- collar occupations are the least likely to being unemployed or out of the labour force. Fric (2017), supports this point with the case of organisations where there is lack of information provided, hostility in public or individual attitudes, absence of anti-discriminatory legislation, and where male or female-dominated jobs are concerned. There is a possibility that SMMEs’
owner/manager’s decision to not embrace sexual diversity would be based on lack of information about LGBT community, therefore, sensitisation training on notion of LGBT would be beneficial to SMMEs.
Barron and Hebl (2013), indicate that, in areas with a large LGBT population, job applicants from LGBT community are usually treated as more favorable than heterosexual applicants. In this regard, when LGBT employees are in majority in a community where the organisation is situated, there is a possibility that SMMEs owner/managers could embrace sexual orientation as a form of diversity.