How Do Culture and Diversity Affect Organizations?
Today, multicultural management is one of the developing management directions. However, the cultural diversity within the organization can cause many confusions among colleagues and, as a result, make the working atmosphere less comfortable (Hewstone, 2018). Even though multiculturalism cause problems for the organization, many believe that it is an important concept which should be necessarily applied to enhance equality. Das Neves and Mele (2013) state that multiculturalism is an important concept to develop a love for everyone. The respectful managers’ attitude towards cultural diversity contributes to high-moral set-ups and ensures the company’s prosperity. Thus, cultural diversity is crucial for the company’s morale and market development concept.
HR managers face difficulties in regulating all the challenges which appear because of multiculturalism in organizations. The relevant approach to cope with these difficulties is to balance the alternatives of the different cultures and analyze all the possible interpretations of the working process peculiarities by the representatives of various cultures (Moon & Woolliams, 2000). Therefore, cultural diversity affects the organization in terms of morale and market set-ups and requires managers to put a lot of effort into overcoming cultural diversity.
Successful Multicultural Management
The first example of a multicultural organization is the Lenovo Corporation, a famous PC systems designer. The company has a considerable number of employees from over sixty countries and uses cultural diversity as a source of innovative ideas considering the needs of the different nationalities (Chen et al., 2017). As a result, Lenovo managed to create a suitable for everyone’s devices. The second example is the famous Gin Mare company devoted to alcohol production. The company leads the effective multinational policy applying one of the Human Resource strategies called “strategic height,” which encourages employee development regardless of culture (Wang, 2018). Therefore, the company increased its sales and entered the international market, enhancing its growth of production.
Multiculturalism Management Failure
Electrolux’s first attempts at the integration of multicultural concepts were a failure. In emerging with the African companies, Electrolux first considered stopping the collaboration because of the African cultural peculiarities of business practices (Wang, 2018). Scania, the leading Swedish manufacture, also experienced difficulties in working with African companies. Because of the cultural peculiarities company could not build reliable commercial entities in Africa at first (Wang, 2018). Even though both companies failed at first, later, they used wise management practices to build multiculturalism and broaden the company.
References
Chen, P., Tsui, A., & Zhang, Y. (2017). Building Lenovo into a family business without kinship. Leadership of Chinese Private Enterprises, 1, 165–183.
Das Neves, J. C., & Melé, D. (2013). Managing ethically cultural diversity: Learning from Thomas Aquinas. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(4), 769-780.
Hewstone, M., Laurence, J., & Schmid, K. (2018). Ethnic diversity, inter-group attitudes and countervailing pathways of positive and negative inter-group contact: An analysis across workplaces and neighbourhoods. Social Indicators Research, 136, 719–749.
Moon, C., & Woolliams, P. (2000). Managing across culture. Journal of Business Ethics, 27, 105–115. Web.
Wang, B. (2018). Diversity management and human resource management measures in multinational corporation. [Unpublished Bachelor’s thesis]. Prague University of Finance and Administration.