Understanding And Supporting Cultural Diversity In Organizations

Problem 1: Leadership and opportunity inequality in cultural diversity

Discuss the importance of understanding and supporting cultural diversity in the current organizations.

It is the intention of this case study analysis of the document entitled “Leading for Change: a blueprint for cultural diversity and inclusive leadership 2016” and the speech by doctor Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner entitled “Cultural Diversity in the Workplace 2015”.

After globalization, the world faced many changes, among which one was cross-cultural business and associated effect on the organizations. This is because, globalization had made the business of the particular place to spread itself to the international market and enter the foreign countries. Inevitably, these organizationsutilized the labor market of those foreign markets which completed their workplace with perfect amalgamation of expatriate and local employees. Thus, the concept of cross-cultural management emerged. Now, this management aspect has some issues which may take a huge form if not mitigated immediately. This is the reason why the companies, working in a foreign market and utilizing the local workforce need to have particular policies appropriately catering all the requirements of these employees (Claessens& Van Horen, 2015). In addition to this, this cross-cultural management is also useful in the domestic companies of a greatly diverse place like Australia. There are numerous benefits which these global companies gain through properly using their workforce. These benefits are not only focused to increase production, but also the quality and diversity in the workplace. This report aims to discuss requirement for understanding the importance of managing cultural diversity in the workplace and the methods to support this in the organizations.

Firstly,this case study will discuss about leadership and opportunity inequality in the cultural diversity of the organization.

Secondly this case study will be examining the issue of setting unrealistic goal in the workplace which may affect the organizational culture.

Thirdly, this case study will examine the cultural diversity problem associated withbiasness and discrimination in the workplace and actions to overcome this cultural diversity issue. 

The intention of this paragraph is to identify why it is important for leaders to understand cultural diversity in modern day organization. In the country like Australia the domestic as well as international companies is a multicultural hotspot where the population has four main types of people originated from different background. About 28 per cent of the country’s population is born overseas, 20 per cent of population has at least one overseas-born parent and 32 per cent has a non-Anglo-Celtic background. Therefore, the organizations working in this place face a great diversity in their workplace which they must utilize properly and the managers of the organizations need to have proper idea of managing cultural diversity in support for their organizations. However, diversity may come in all shapes or sizes as diversity doesnot only mean the racial diversity but also can include national diversity such as the employees with green card, disabled employees, women employees on the male dominated companies, religious diversity, and common employees with varied work experience (Crane & Matten,2016).

Solutions for the problem

It is important for the managers to consider the benefits of cultural diversity in the organizations from financial, linguistic and talent management perspectives. By working with the people from different backgrounds, the companies gain full knowledge about the style of working of diverse people. The managers having creative concepts born from the bouncing ideas of multi-cultural team when the employees share suggestions and feedbacks. These help the managers to think out of the box and make decisions collaboratively. In addition to these, there are numerous reasons why the managers need to support and encourage diversity in the workplace.

Solutions for the problem

Carley and Prietula (2014) argue that to overcomethe cultural diversity issue of setting unrealistic goalswithin the work place that leaders can influence and support diversity by understanding demand of the workplace and the sources of differences. This will be resulting in creating SMART goals by the leaders which will cater every critical aspect within an expected time. Therefore, it can be concluded that the companies doing business in the foreign markets need to create such a place for work that the employees do not feel difficult to ix with each other. There must not be any communication gap between the leaders and the employees otherwise the smooth-running o the organization can eb hampered (Olszak  & Ziemba,  2012).

The AHRC (2016), Leading for Change publication identifies that leaders identify cultural diversity in organizations and its impacts on leadership results in both positively and negatively. The issues like leadership and opportunity inequality in the workplace affect the employee morale and attachment of the employees with their organization be it an expatriate or a local employee (Flin, Lauche & Crichton, 2017).

In addition to thisForehand and Kotchick, (2016) also argue that the issues of setting unrealistic goals by the leaders in managing cultural diversity in an organization may result in complete desolation of the firm in the competition in the foreign market. The leaders may have to many goals, problems in underestimating completion time and inability to review progresses which inversely affect the companies. 

Solutions for the problem

Bolman and Deal (2017), also argue that in order to overcome the cultural diversity problem of leadership and professional opportunities, leaders can implement numerous programs and projects that will result in making working arrangements flexible as well as practice. This will stand to support values for justice and fairness for all the employees of the company irrespective of their race, age and gender (Tasan-Kok et al., 2014). Diversity can also solve the issues of career opportunities offered within one country as the chance to develop an international career that involves living and working in multiple countries. This can challenge the perspectives of the employees who will decide to follow this path. Moreover, it can be life-changing experiences, which can be utilized later for helping the entire workplace to embrace the differences which had never been encountered and considered (Martin, 2014).

Problem 2: Problem with collecting cultural diversity data and report progress

Martin (2014) argues that the cultural diversity within an organization impact on leadership greatly resulting in introduction of biasness and diversity in the workplace. Cross cultural leadership creates scope for overcoming the prejudices for which many of the companies suffer in the international markets (Heracleous  & Wirtz,  2012). The leaders face challenges in balancing the diversity of ages, experiences, races and most importantly diversity in gender. The female employees often face issues in a male dominated workspace and find discriminative advice and decisions (Cleveland et al., 2016). This however, leads to complaints against the company policies as well as the leadership method in the firm. In addition to this, discrimination issue originating from various aspects in the firm can lead to employee turnover as well as defamation of the brand.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the leadership of an organization gets affected due to cultural diversity of the firms hence it is needed that the leaders understand the importance of managing cultural diversity in their firms in a best possible manner both in terms of production as well as popularity.

Solutions for the problem

The AHRC (2016) leading for change publication proposes that the cultural diversity problem ofbiasness and discriminationin a firmcan be overcome by taking some little yet very important steps. The method of inclusive leadership needs to be applied in the forms so that cultural diversity does not affect negatively in the workplace (Aguilera-Caracuel et al., 2015). The leaders need to be representative of diverse cultures, races, values, sexual orientation, genders as well as religious beliefs of overall workforce to develop organizational processes and programs. This will ultimately enhance the employee engagement along with loyalty to their origination. If the employees find that their leaders to be representative of multiculturalism, they will be encouraged to work in this organization (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). This will reduce the issues of absenteeism and negative cultural behavior in the corporation. 

In order to solve these three grave issues in a globalorganization workplace, there are few steps which have been proved necessary to follow. In order to solve the problem of leadership and opportunity equally, it is recommended that diversity in work place leaders can be developed by implementing recruiting and promoting opportunities. This will reflect the workplace ethics demographics on a yearly basis.

Issue 1.

Recommendation 1. the importance of supporting workplace diversity can never be overstated while it comes to the aspect of the organization’s ability in reaching markets in the foreign countries. The demands of international markets create two types of opportunities for the employees (Flin, Lauche & Crichton,2017). These are opportunities for employee development as well as job promotion. This is the reason why when a leader is interested to learn multinational business strategiescan motivate the employees to take possible expatriate assignments which creates new and challenging career opportunities.

Solutions for the problem

Recommendation 2.It is recommended that diversity in work place leaders can be developed by implementing a 12-month mentoring program for 10 leaders from different cultural background to enable them to develop their leadership, communication and networking skills.

Recommendation 3.Giving more global opportunities to the employees will help the leaders to equality distribute career opportunities to their employees (Hatch,2018). This is important because with the change of time, the technology has been advanced so also the diversity in the workplace. In this situation, each company tries to become world leader by doing business in the foreign markets.

Recommendation 4.The importance of supporting workplace diversity can never be overstated while it comes to the aspect of the organization’s ability in reaching markets in the foreign countries. The demands of international markets create two types of opportunities for the employees. These are opportunities for employee development as well as job promotion. This is the reason why when a leader is interested to learn multinational business strategiescan motivate the employees to take possible expatriate assignments which creates new and challenging career opportunities.

Issues 2.

Recommendation 1. As mentioned before, the leaders need to have such goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed bound. Otherwise the leaders can never motivate the employeesto work collaboratively. These SMART goals need to be aligned with the organizational values (Cleveland et al., 2016).

Recommendation 2. The organizationalgoals need to be shared to the teams as well as important people of the organization. Through perfect communication method the leaders need to convey these to all the different branches and communities.

Recommendation 3. The leaders need to focus on creating realistic and concise plans so that there is no conflict among the employees havingdifferentculturalbackgrounds. 

Recommendation 4. All the potential challengesmust be minimized before the leaders plan and goal or implement them inn theirorganizations. Some practices like modified daily starting and ending time, part-time schedule,compressed work weeks, telecommunicatingand finally job sharing offers the employees with the choice of process which will be applied by the employees to accomplish their work for which they are actually hired (Prempeh, 2017).

Issues 3.

Recommendation 1. Promoting cultural diversity in the workplace leads to overcome language and behavioral obstacles to expand more (Flin, Lauche & Crichton, 2017). Therefore, the leaders need to firstconsider all types of diversity in the workplace which may create issues at present or future. The leaders need to be aware of conscious or unconscious bias and give training to the employees never to indulge or support these practices in the workplace.

Problem 3: Bias and discrimination in leadership in organizations

Recommendation 2. The leaders need to have a perfect and easy, methods through which the employees can access to complain or give feedback regarding any incident of biases and discrimination (Prempeh, 2017).

Recommendation 3. The women employees should be givenequal priority and benefits so that the organization can utilize its manpower more effectively. Meetings, workshops and motivating methods like giving rewards must not have biased outlook which may create feeling of discrimination among the employees.

Recommendation 4. Listening to the opinions and perspectivesequally gives organizations more competitive edge than others. The leaders must acknowledge, clarify, explore then solve any type of issues associated with biasness and discrimination in organization.

Conclusion:

Therefore, in order to effectively influencing the workplace in one hand and run the business, the leaders need to have proper concept of the cultures where they have been doing business. Proper understanding of the cultural diversity and considering the diversification have become mandatory for the employees. This process of managing can lead these managers to face various problems but each of the problems has solutions which these leaders need to find. By catering the expectations of the employees from different cultures, the leaders can effectively implement the needed changes and gain popularity among the employees as well as other stakeholders. 

References:

Aguilera-Caracuel, J., Guerrero-Villegas, J., Vidal-Salazar, M. D., & Delgado-Márquez, B. L. (2015). International cultural diversification and corporate social performance in multinational enterprises: The role of slack financial resources. Management International Review, 55(3), 323-353.

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.

Carley, K. M., &Prietula, M. J. (2014). The” virtual design team”: Simulating how organization structure and information processing tools affect team performance. In Computational organization theory (pp. 19-36). Psychology Press.

Claessens, S., & Van Horen, N. (2015). The impact of the global financial crisis on banking globalization. IMF Economic Review, 63(4), pp.868-918.

Cleveland, M., Rojas-Méndez, J.I., Laroche, M., & Papadopoulos, N.(2016). Identity, culture, dispositions and behavior: A cross-national examination of globalization and culture change. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), pp.1090-1102.

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Flin, R., Lauche, K., & Crichton, M. T. (2017). Learning from Experience: Incident Management Team Leader Training. In Naturalistic Decision Making and Macrocognition (pp. 129-146). CRC Press.

Forehand, R., & Kotchick, B. A. (2016). Cultural Diversity: A Wake-Up Call for Parent Training–Republished Article. Behavior therapy, 47(6), 981-992.

Hatch, M. J. (2018). Organization theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press.

Heracleous, L., & Wirtz, J. (2012). Strategy and organisation at Singapore Airlines: achieving sustainable advantage through dual strategy. In Energy, Transport, & the Environment(pp. 479-493). Springer, London.

Olszak, C. M., & Ziemba, E. (2012). Communities of practice in knowledge management and organisational learning. In Organizational learning and knowledge: Concepts, methodologies, tools and applications (pp. 288-304). IGI Global.

Prempeh, E.O.K. (2017). Against global capitalism: African social movements confront neoliberal globalization. Routledge.

Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole, D., Woods, P., Simon, A., &McBarron, E. (2014). Management: Foundations and Applications (2nd Asia-Pacific Edition). John Wiley & Sons.

Tasan-Kok, T., Van Kempen, R., Mike, R., & Bolt, G. (2014). Towards hyper-diversified European cities: A critical literature review.