Managers, academic and administrative personnels' opinions on managing diversity

This study aims to pave the way of bringing out the thoughts about managing diversity by examining the managers, academic and administrative personnel's opinions at Giresun University. In order to have a deeper understanding, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews to find answers for the research questions. The 12 manager participants of the study were asked 13 questions, and 26 academic and administrative personnel's opinions were obtained through 9 questions. The responds to the questions were written down by the researcher, and subjected to descriptive analysis under the three themes defined in accordance with the literature view in the field. The results of the study revealed that there are consensus and clash of ideas in some points. While the academic and administrative personnel's diversity definitions were centered under personal qualifications (culture, personality, disability, ethnic background), the managers' diversity definitions cover more of personality. Second, the academic and administrative personnel stated positive, objective and negative ideas about the diversity management practices at the university, the managers' ideas were all positive. Last, the academic and administrative personnel did not feel satisfied with a training strategy; however, the managers think that they apply training strategies quite well. When it comes to legal regulations and policies about managing diversity, there is a consensus between the managers and the academic and administrative personnel: they both find them inadequate. The third strategy, exposure, is found to be working for administrative part; however, academic and administrative personnel do not think that the mangers apply the exposure strategies well. Keywords: diversity, management, strategies, university