Opportunities And Challenges Of Workplace Diversity

Theories

Discuss about the Opportunities And Challenges Of Workplace Diversity.

Every organization has people working from multicultural backgrounds. The big organizations and multinational companies are having employees from a varieties of nationalities and cultural traditions, it is very important for the management of the companies to establish an environment that will help in the growth of the cultural diversity and bond between employees of different culture (Canas & Sondak, 2013). In the particular case study it is seen that the company named InVision has presence in a multiple continents. Therefore it has an employee base of rich cultural diversity. The case study refers to a particular project which is also known as Project Origin. The project origin is aimed at “a new logistics software system that will integrate InVision Global’s worldwide distribution network. Previously, each InVision regional office licensed its own IT infrastructure based upon the needs of the particular region.” The cultural conflict among the member and lack of decision making became the key issue in this case.

The various theories that can be discussed in this regard are mostly the cultural theories in the organizational context. There are many theories related to cultural exchanges in management and organizational context.

The Hofstede model and theory can explain the cultural differences within the companies. The employees from the  various regions show the typical cultural characteristics from their own regions. In Hofstede model the cultural comparison of various countries can be done and it can be understood which countries are different and in what sense (Hofstede, 2013). America is considered to be a very masculine country according to hofstede model, which denotes that the decisions are mainly taken by logical thinking and emotions has no role to play in this regard. Asian countries are more feminine.

Different thoughts of culture, starting from two indisputable fields, sociology and humanism, have been associated with organizational researches since the mid 1980s. These two shrouded orders address different perfect models in Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) structure, and have added to the advancement of the particular speculations and frameworks of organizational culture in the academic written work. Anthropology  takes the interpretivist view and views culture as a purposeful anecdote for organizations, describing organizations as being cultures. Of course, sociology goes up against the functionalist view and portrays culture, as something an organization has. Despite the distinctive implications of organizational culture, there is all in all an improvement towards a general accord.

Cross Cultural Issues in Case Study

The most for the most part used organizational culture framework is that of Edgar Schein, who gets the functionalist view and delineated culture for instance of major assumptions, made, found, or made by a given social occasion, as it makes sense of how to adjust to its issues of outside change and inside compromise, that has worked outstandingly enough to be seen as significant and, in this way is to be instructed to new people as the correct technique to see, think, and feel in association with those issues.

Finally, Organizational Culture Theory may see organizational life as exorbitantly unique. Pacanowsky and O’Donnell-Trujillo battle that organizational cultures change in light of the fact that the relationship inside those cultures differentiate, so making hypotheses with respect to life in organizations is about unfathomable (Laroche, 2012). Consider Fran Callahan, for instance. Investigators using an agent interpretive perspective in focus the organizational culture of Grace’s Jewellers may similarly be possessed with think the corporate culture of “Jewellery Plus”. As our cases have showed up, each is a remarkable organization with exceptional organizational conditions. Since ethnography requires thick delineation of each, it may be troublesome—if surely plausible—to raise the comparable qualities for hypothesis purposes (Barak, 2016).

In this particular case study it can be seen that the team from Project Origin is too diverse. Every member of the team has come from some different country and cultural background on this earth. Members are from America, Europe, Japan, Arab, and South Korea.

As mentioned in the case study “as a part of his role, Gary manages a diverse team of four individuals including;

• Amal Hadad, aged 31, migrated from Yemen to the United States (subordinate, lower level management).
• Kate McDonald, aged 36, from the United Kingdom (shares a similar role to Gary, neither above or below Gary).
• Chang Su, aged 48, from South Korea (subordinate, lower level management).
• Yuki Yuma, aged 58, from Japan (manager of the regional office in Japan, and is above Gary).”

Therefore it is evident that the diverse team selected for the Project Origin would have difference of opinion in many cases and circumstances. “Gary is aware that one of the younger employees, Kate, is frequently frustrated that her Saudi Arabian co-worker, Amal. Amal seldom offers her opinion, feedback or support, and tends to defer decision-making to others in the team. Amal tends to take on multiple project tasks at a time, but doesn’t necessarily always have them completed on time… The other team members believe Amal is not being accountable as a team member. Amal, having migrated from Yemen, where women lack economic, social and cultural rights, to the United States, lacks the confidence to express her opinions. Having worked in Yemen for a multi-national company previously, Amal encountered problems of gender discrimination. Chang Su, from the South Korean regional office also tends to shy away from discussions with the project lead Gary, and the other team members. He often needs to take time to contemplate the opinions and ideas put forward in conference calls, and finds it hard to make an ‘on the spot decision.”

Culturally intelligent way of handling the issues

Therefore it can be understood from the above statements that the people in the team were having cultural issues among themselves. The final meeting which was done on skype and all the members were on board about selecting a particular vendor about the project was ruined by the Japanese Yuki Yuma at the next morning by proposing other names for the purpose, this issue is a major hurdle for the project.

False impressions occur in all correspondence, even between people from a similar social and etymological establishment. What is basic is that one knows how to respond when a misguided judgment happens. Researches show that deal making within culturally diverse organisations or among organisations is a difficult task. The reason is basically in light of the fact that cultures are depicted by different practices, correspondence styles, and principles. Consequently, while counselling across cultures, people pass on interchange perspectives to the managing table, which therefore may achieve potential mixed up suspicions. Mixed up suppositions can provoke a lower likelihood of exploring and discovering integrative, or regard making, courses of action. There are many worse outcomes of severe discrimination at workplace including depression and attempts to suicide (Leach, 2014).

Cultural conflict in organisational settings to occur for two guideline reasons. At first, it’s truly essential while confronting social differentiations, for people to rely upon speculations. Speculations are frequently annoying, for example: Italians reliably run late, and they can incite distorted suspicions with respect to the accomplice’s direct and furthermore possibly over the top misinterpretations. Instead of relying upon speculations, one should endeavor to revolve around models—social midpoints on estimations of lead or characteristics. There is a noteworthy qualification among speculations and models.

For example, it is for the most part fathomed that Japanese executives tend to have more silent periods in the midst of their dialogs than, say, Brazilians. Everything considered, there is still a great deal of variance inside each culture—suggesting that a couple of Brazilians talk not as much as some Japanese do. Thus, it would be a foul up to expect a Japanese arbitrator one has never met to be spared.

A minute fundamental reason behind culturally differing misguided judgments is that people tend to unravel others’ practices, characteristics, and feelings through the perspective of their own culture (Hogan, 2012). To vanquish this affinity, it is essential to learn as much as one can about the other party’s culture. This infers not simply inspecting the conventions and practices of different cultures yet also by understanding why people take after these customs and show these practices regardless. Correspondingly as goal, do countries have exceptional cultures, and in addition gatherings and organizations do, also. Before partaking in any exchange, one should set aside the chance to consider the remarkable circumstance and the person on the contrary side of the dealing table, including the diverse cultures to which he has a place—paying little respect to whether the culture of France, the culture of building, or his particular organization’s corporate culture.

Conclusion

Therefore it can be concluded from the above discussion that the cultural conflict and differences at hand could be resolved by understanding and adjusting with each other’s culture. There are possibilities that one may misjudge a person by keeping presumptions depending on the culture of the other person. Diverse cultural scenario is actually helpful for the organisations to flourish and innovate. Therefore diversity must be taken as a strength rather than as a weakness. In this case study the people need to engage and meet to understand each other better.

In this paper I will expound on the predispositions, and the inclinations comprise of stereotyping, bias and separation. I will expand what I have learnt from the above case study and how that has changed the way I think about cultural diversity and how I will change my behaviour to this. I will characterize each term and give you a case from my own involvement and at last I will give conclusions and proposals.

We should begin with stereotyping, and it’s a defiled picture or conviction about a man or a gathering could be sure or negative and we could improve it with this sentence, In this particular case study there are various examples where there is involvement of stereotyping (Diller, 2013). For example “Gary wondered why Yuki didn’t speak up last night on the conference call? He mutters to himself, ‘…typical Japanese, always so quiet and contemplative”.

Prejudice can be discussed next, and it’s characterized as feeling or prejudgment about a gathering or individual generally adversely, however can be sure. Preference is produced by disrespect or fear and considered exceptionally risky. In my life, when I was little I surmise that my dad abhorred me to deny of a few things like fun in examine hours, however when I grew up I realized that is to my greatest advantage.

At last discrimination, and it’s a conduct that deals with individuals unequally or uncalled for on account of the gathering, it’s frequently begins with a generalization and winds up with preference. What’s more, in USA there are plenty of examples of discrimination within the workplace at various instances. In this particular case study the people from different cultures are given different treatment and this is discrimination.

I will consider changing my current goals and include cross cultural study and learning about different cultures so that in future in my workplace I do not find it problematic to resolve cultural conflicts. At last, those predispositions should be expelled from our new world since no good thing will leave them. Treating individuals similarly is what’s required.

With everything taken into account, I feel that Diversity is everywhere and that will never hint at change since that is the way it should be it is invaluable to youths. I feel that diversity must be that productive factor in an employee’s life to help them genuinely see how you should treat others that may look and act in an unforeseen way. I feel that managers should be the ones who should get the affirmation for endeavoring to change the way their employeess exhibit respect to others. I feel that employees are the future managers and I should set them available. I feel once that an employee tries to change is the time when others will change moreover. Managers I feel have that unprecedented begin in each and every one of them that can make their understudies amped up for learning.

Reference:

Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Canas, K., & Sondak, H. (2013). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity. Pearson Higher Ed.

Diller, J. (2013). Cultural diversity: A primer for the human services. Nelson Education.

Fearon, J. D. (2003). Ethnic and cultural diversity by country. Journal of economic growth, 8(2), 195-222.

Hofstede, G. (2013). National cultural dimensions. Recuperado el, 22.

Hogan, M. (2012). The four skills of cultural diversity competence. Cengage Learning.

Laroche, L. (2012). Managing cultural diversity in technical professions. Routledge.

Leach, M. M. (2014). Cultural diversity and suicide: Ethnic, religious, gender, and sexual orientation perspectives. Routledge.