Managing Diversity

managing diversity

2006

Managing Diversity

I . Introduction

Unfairness , inequalities , racial separation , and workplace segregation are some words that we often find in newss and other news media to describe the difference in treating one to another . The inequalities might come in various forms and it happens not only in the working environment (offices , firms , etc . In workplace , for example , there are some cases where employers pay employees more due to similarity in ethnicity or country of origin

While the situation may lead to unfavorable performance , the best practice

is to manage the diversity to obtain the excellent performances . This is because any cultures have their own characteristics that may help an organization to work in a harmony amidst the cultural diversity

Concerning cultural diversity , this will highlight some issues including value of cultural difference on future workforce , how multinational companies deal with cultural diversity , and the development of cultural diversity in human resource management theory and practice

Value of Cultural Differences and Influence on future Workforce

To examine how cultural diversity plays roles in an organization , we can refer to the human resources practice at multinational companies . There are some examples of well-known multinational companies that exit from a country due to inability to manage the cultural differences . However there are also companies that succeed in any countries they exist

The situation highlights the importance of managing cultural diversity in to succeed in international business . Concerning these importance , there are some values of cultural differences and a company that can take benefits of these values , they are likely to win the overseas market

The discussion of values of cultural diversity usually falls into three main areas they are maximizing employee potential managing across bs and cultures creating business opportunities and enhancing creativity

II .1 Maximizing Employee Potential

The first value relate to the harnessing of the human capital possessed by diverse groups . This idea suggests that inability to manage cultural diversity will effectively create low morale and disaffection , which in turn lead to poor individual and organizational performance . Therefore employers should to find positive values from each employee , who has different culture , to gain advantage for the company while utilizing human capital to fully extent (Cornelius et al , 2001

II .2 Managing Across Bs

The second value relates to the globalization of world markets and the international labor and product markets . As the globalization concept deals with entering diverse markets , therefore , this value highlight the importance of an organization to believe that a diverse workforce can make a positive contribution to organizations . This idea further suggests that the organization should develop strategic approaches to diversity policy to recruit and retain diverse employees (Cornelius et al , 2001

II .3 Creating Business Opportunities

The third value concerns with customer markets point of view . In this value , there is belief that an organization can strengthen market penetration by learning the successful practices of dealing with culture issue in the market . This idea also shows that diversity adds value to the organization...