Access-and-Legitimacy Perspective

Definition

The access-and-legitimacy perspective is a framework that examines how organizations can leverage diversity to gain access to different markets and customer segments, while also ensuring that the organization's practices and policies are perceived as legitimate by these diverse stakeholders.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. The access-and-legitimacy perspective suggests that diversity can provide organizations with access to new markets and customer segments, but only if the organization's practices and policies are perceived as legitimate by these diverse stakeholders.
2. Demographic matching, where the composition of the workforce mirrors the demographics of the target market, is a key tenet of the access-and-legitimacy perspective.
3. The access-and-legitimacy perspective emphasizes the importance of aligning an organization's diversity efforts with its strategic objectives, such as expanding into new markets or better serving existing customers.
4. Achieving legitimacy is critical in the access-and-legitimacy perspective, as it helps to build trust and credibility with diverse stakeholders and ensures the organization's practices are viewed as appropriate and desirable.
5. The access-and-legitimacy perspective recognizes that diversity is not just about representation, but also about ensuring that an organization's policies and practices are inclusive and responsive to the needs of its diverse stakeholders.

Review Questions

• Explain how the access-and-legitimacy perspective suggests organizations can leverage workplace diversity to gain access to new markets and customer segments.
  • The access-and-legitimacy perspective posits that by having a workforce that demographically matches the composition of its target markets, organizations can gain better insights into the needs and preferences of these diverse customer segments. This demographic matching helps the organization to develop products, services, and marketing strategies that resonate with these new markets, thereby expanding the organization's reach and customer base. However, the perspective also emphasizes that for this access to translate into long-term success, the organization must ensure that its practices and policies are perceived as legitimate by these diverse stakeholders, building trust and credibility.
• Describe how the access-and-legitimacy perspective differs from other diversity management approaches in its emphasis on aligning diversity efforts with strategic objectives.
  • Unlike some other diversity management frameworks that focus primarily on representation and compliance, the access-and-legitimacy perspective takes a more strategic view. It suggests that organizations should align their diversity efforts with their overarching business objectives, such as expanding into new markets or better serving existing customers. By doing so, the organization can leverage its diverse workforce to gain access to new demographic segments, but only if it also ensures that its practices and policies are seen as legitimate by these stakeholders. This strategic alignment helps the organization to realize tangible business benefits from its diversity initiatives, rather than treating diversity as an end in itself.
• Evaluate the importance of achieving legitimacy in the context of the access-and-legitimacy perspective and its implications for an organization's long-term success in diverse markets.
  • The access-and-legitimacy perspective emphasizes that simply gaining access to new markets through demographic matching is not enough; organizations must also ensure that their practices and policies are perceived as legitimate by these diverse stakeholders. Legitimacy is critical because it helps to build trust and credibility, which are essential for an organization to be accepted and embraced by the new markets it seeks to serve. Without legitimacy, the organization's efforts to leverage diversity for strategic advantage may be undermined, as diverse customers and stakeholders may view the organization's actions as inauthentic or inappropriate. Therefore, the access-and-legitimacy perspective underscores the importance of not just representation, but also of aligning an organization's diversity efforts with its values, culture, and overall business strategy to achieve long-term success in diverse markets.

Related terms

Diversity Management: The strategic process of creating and maintaining an inclusive work environment that values the unique contributions of employees from different backgrounds.

Demographic Matching: The practice of matching the demographic composition of an organization's workforce to the demographics of its customer base or target market.

Legitimacy: The perception that an organization's actions and policies are appropriate, proper, and desirable within a socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions.