Multicultural Diversity in Organization:
Benefits and Challenges
Vivek Saxena
Abstract
In today’s rapidly increasing globalizing world, organizations are no longer working in isolation and the cultural diversity is as much relevant as the economic diversity. For an organization to cope up with the increasing competition, understanding and managing the cultural diversity has become more significant now than ever before. Diversity brings creativity, innovation and effectiveness in the way organizations perform, but it may also generate conflicts, differences and frictions among teams. In a hurry to promote the diversity in organization, managers must first understand the benefits and the challenges of diversity in workplace. This paper investigates
…show more content…
Also the conflict is maximized when multiple subcultures exist in a heterogeneous group. Earley & Mosakowski (2000) have found that there are more conflicts, less communication and low identification of members among a culturally heterogeneous work group. This may lead to less effectiveness and negative outcome for an organization creating a social barrier. However in contrast, Blau (1977) in his work highlights the point that a highly culturally heterogeneous group may be even more effective and the barriers as presented in Earley & Mosakowski (2000)’s work can be weakened due to the fact that highly heterogeneous groups will be evenly diffused over the categories of cultural …show more content…
Here I will explore the research already conducted to investigate the potential advantages of diversity at workplace.
Cox, 1991; Cox and Blake, (1991) argued that “managing diversity can create a competitive advantage, better decision making higher creativity and greater success and a better distribution of economic opportunity.”
Adler (1991) argues that diverse organizations are better recruiters, they better understand the people across the globe and they are effective in managing the talents and skills of their employees, this leads to competitive advantage for them in an already competitive world.
With the increased understanding of managing a pool of diverse employees, these multicultural organizations are better equipped to enter into the foreign land and adapt quickly with the foreign economical, social, political, legal and cultural environment.
Morgan (1989) in his paper simply proposes the idea that “creativity thrives on diversity.” A research based organization is with its diverse pool, displays higher creativity and
Workforce diversity refers to the existence of individuals with different cultural, economic and social backgrounds within an organization (Claretha, 2014). In the modern world, there is increased level of diversity in the workforce due to increased level of awareness and socioeconomic interactions among people. Therefore, organizations have become multicultural places which require effective communication to ensure organizational success. That is, in the modern global community, the workplaces in various organizations have become more culturally diverse (Claretha, 2014). This has had serious impact on the personal and professional relationships among employees depending on the communication model that is established in an organization. In addition, due to the increased level of competitiveness in the business environment, organizations have been forced to establish suitable framework to effectively manage human diversity. This paper will analyze the concept of workforce diversity and organizational communication and determine its benefits and possible disadvantages in relation to business success.
Cañas, K. A., & Sondak, H. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity: Theory, cases, and exercises (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
America’s workforce is continuously changing. Businesses today hire and retain culturally diverse employees to compete in the globalize market. Companies are developing ways to tap into and capitalize upon the talents of their workforces. They are discovering how to value the diversity of their workforces and the potential that diversity brings in flexibility, ingenuity and problem solving are helping them achieve their goals.
Cañas, K. A. & Sondak, H. (2011). Opportunities and challenged for workplace diversity: Theory, cases, and exercises. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.
A diverse workforce more closely reflects the global marketplace that the organization competes in. With the growing number of Asian, Hispanic and other minority populations, it makes sense for companies to promote and strive for diversity in the workplace. By doing this, businesses create the very conditions needed to produce more creative outcomes to the problems and challenges they will be faced with.
Gardenswartz, Lee, and Rowe, Anita, Diverse Teams At Work, Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity. Irwin Professional Publishing 1994.
Diversity in the work place has generally been thought of as purely an employment equity issue. However, diversity is coming to be recognized as an asset which can, like any other asset that is well managed, contribute to the bottom line. Diversity is growing almost as quickly as the number of software vendors at an accounting convention (Talbot-Allen, 1995, p. 3)
Businesses that promote diversity in today's global marketplace are better able to attract and retain the best talent. Employing a diverse workforce allows a company to utilize the potential within the job market to its fullest and contributes to overall economic growth and prosperity. Differences among co-workers should not divide a workplace. Rather, differences among co-workers should be used to foster creativity and innovation, thereby driving profitability and business success.
Diversity is a highly important issue in today’s business, especially in a globalized company. Workplace diversity helps to get better solutions to business problems (Schawbel, 2012). When you have a group of individ...
In a world that has grown increasingly smaller due to mass media, world travel, and readily available information, the workplace has grown increasingly diverse in both gender and cultural aspects. Individuals no longer live and work within the confines of their geographic locations. At almost any position with any company the individual employee is a part of a larger world economy that harvests assets from the ends of the earth. Because of this, companies seek to capitalize on diversity to become more creative and flexible in their business models.
The use of culturally diverse business teams is an increasingly common situation in today’s world; especially as the world continues to become a global village. Leveraging on the cultural diverse backgrounds and experiences of members of such teams can be a source of improved performance which can ultimately reflect a competitive advantage in the business market. As Symons and Stenzel (2007) aptly state, “culturally diverse teams are more likely to engage in innovative `out-of-the-box' thinking, given their different life experiences in diverse social environments.” Another pointer to suggest that multicultural teams tend to be a source of competitive advantage in business is found in the paper by Di Stefano and Maznevski (2000) where they state that “multicultural teams have an enormous wealth of material with which to create innovative approaches to complex organizational challenges.” They furthermore state that “today’s business cannot flourish without the creative value afforded by high performing global teams.”
For the purpose of this paper, I will define what the term Diversity means, and then I will concentrate on the diversity as a result of geographic origin or ethnic diversity. I will look at how ethnic diversity is managed generally and then how my employer, deals with the diverse ethnic groups in its organization and what it needs to improve on.
Diversity in the workplace is important for employees because it manifests itself in building a great reputation for the company, leading to increased profitability and opportunities for workers. Making sure all members, students, parents and guarding’s are welcomed at all times in a well-mannered environment Workplace diversity is important within the organization as well as outside ensuring all different are put aside and everyone can come together and work well as a great team.
The researcher believes, in this fast-changing era, any kind of company or organization should be able to improve the quality of workplace diversity by having some important main factor to boost the new paradigm of a diverse workplace, such as:
The importance of diversity in the workplace that it can aid in a competitive framework