Cross Cultural Diversity Case Study

INTRODUCTION

Today’s global competitive market has made a world small place. The current workforce has become much more aspirational, ambitious and mobile. This mobility of the workforce has created a cultural diversity in organizations. People belonging to various castes, background, religion, gender as well as country work at one place and create a cultural diversity in an organization. Hofstede (1980) conducted research on employee attitude data in 67 countries and found that the data can be grouped into six major dimensions and that countries systematically varied along these dimensions. The six cross cultural dimensions are-

1. Individualism-Collectivism

2. Power distance or the extent to which power is unequally distributed

3. Uncertainty Avoidance Versus risk Taking

4. Masculinity/feminity called achievement orientation

5. Pragmatism

6. Indulgence

The six dimensions have been a useful framework for understanding cross cultural differences in employees’ attitudes, as well

It has been studied in laboratory settings and as well as field settings. The laboratory studies guided by the value in diversity perspective have shown that diversity within work groups increases their effectiveness (Cox et al, 1991). On the other hand, field studies guided by social identity and related self-categorization theories, have suggested that diversity is associated with negative performance outcomes (Pelled et al. 1999). In groups with high levels of cultural heterogeneity, everyday social contacts and communication are more likely to involve the members of different social/gender groups. Further, the in-group pressures that inhibit social interaction without group members should be weakened (Blac, 1977). In management groups with high heterogeneity, out group discrimination is thus less likely to