Culture got enormous impact in business

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How important is it for managers today to have a good understanding of cultural diversity

In today's world the culture got enormous impact in business. The work place is changing and it changing rapidly. The new word in business is coming like cosmopolitan, globalisation, multiculturalism etc. This essay is going to explain what is cultural diversity and how important to manager to have good understanding on it.

The word culture comes from Latin &lsquo;colere' The manner in which people consume, the wants they attempt to cast and order their style of living. Culture is the human made part of the human environment the sum total of knowledge, customs, art, gender, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, an infinite range of individuals' unique characteristics and experiences, such as communication styles, career, work, life experience and any other capabilities and habits acquire by human as member of socity.Culturte is everything that people have, Think and do as a number of the socity.Culture is often define as inherit end Ethical system creates moral communities because their shared language of good and evil give their members a common moral life.(p74 inter mark(upol). It is shared behaviour, which is important because it systematises the way people do things, thus avoiding confusion and allowing cooperation so that groups of people can accomplish what no single individual could do alone. And it is behaviour imposed by sanctions, rewards and punishments for those who are part of the group (Fisher, 1988).

Diversity means the state of being diverse. And cultural diversity means considered to be inclusive of everyone. Cultural diversity is about learning from other who are from different culture. It's about dignity and respect for other people. Diversity focuses on tapping the talents of people of different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives as a means of improving the workplace environment and productivity

Cultural diversity in workplace sometime creates problems but if a manager knows how to adapt to different situation, meeting and working with different people will be interesting, because employees are dealing and socializing with different cultural groups of people. Globalization means expending knowledge and adopting new situation than what some one already experienced. The employees learn from each other and make themselves enthused and productive. In order to use effectively the diverse workforce there are many opinions and theories adopted by many manager of the organization and proved to beneficial, where again there are many theories some of these have failed. The positive collision and negative contact of diversity in the workplace and manager understanding on the fact is discussed.

There are many brilliant reasons to establish cultural diversity in the work place. When organizations have a diverse cultural group of employee it helps recognize and celebrate the difference which exists in different backgrounds. It is important to recognize the value of all culture and worthy contributions each employee brings to the workplace. Apart from humanistic values, there are also some tangible business reasons for overseeing diversity. Diversity creates directly impact productivity and profitability. When a organization invest diversity create a large pool of talent which provide competitive edge in the workplace. Making a team from different backgrounds and experiences of people creates more innovative and creative ideas are a distinct result. It is only the natural people who have varying life experiences and perspective would be able to come up unique solution to problem, which is not arise from same cultural groups who are thinking similarly, this is great value to the workplace. These dynamic exchanges which occur in between human being with Different perceptions often give away creative result. That is also appealing to the consumers base cause there are employee which customers identify with, that leads organization growth of profitability.

Because of the extension of business across the national borders and multinational companies it has become a very ordinary exercise to see cultural diversity at workplace. The benefits includes that it increases the interpersonal skills of the employees. As people belonging to various cultures work together therefore, they understand the views of different people. It increases the teamwork skills in the people. Employees belonging to various cultures also increase the skills available to the company. People can better interact with each other and they develop the patience and competencies to compete with each other.(www.advantages and disadvantages)

Hiring a workforce that is culturally diverse can only beneficial to your business because it provides a point of view from sources that are totally unique.(spe12,2008 cash Justin miller)In today's global economy, where companies in different countries do business regularly and the internet gives even the smallest business the potential to have a global presence, embracing a diverse workforce has become more necessary than ever. The idea of cultural diversity is not just about hiring people of different races, or hiring people from different religions. It's not even just about hiring workers from different countries. Cultural diversity exists all around us. It exists in different households and communities, from the border to the city. Diversity is a part of the very fabric of society and it can also become a part of the business as well(ADVANTAGE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY)

People's culture, age, and gender make them see the world in different ways. These perspectives are a key to creative thinking, and that, in turn, is the key to successful R&D. We must stop seeing diversity as a problem, and start seeing it as an advantage. To succeed, organizations must understand and use the skills, traditions and backgrounds of a diverse workforce. (by Sally J. Walton, M.A.)

Many Organizations have found that bringing diverse cultural workers together create problem and performance is not always at the level required or expected. Frequently understanding the nature and value of cultural diversity is not well embedded within company thinking and practice. In many ways thinking in this area has not develop in line with the trend to globalization.(Ina article in the Financial Times in April 1995(9) commented on.

Although the world heard word like cosmopolitan, globalization but there is huge difference in reality, that has vast impact in the workplace. The demerits of cultural diversity in the work place is increases the conflict of interest. Sometime it creates prejudiced and partiality in the workplace environment because minority feel concealed by the majority of the people. Moreover culture conflicts also arise like language, dress code problem and people have been neglected for that. As a result team work of the organization severely affected by a nasty rivalry which exists between the groups. For that reason managers of the today's world have to have good acknowledgement of all the culture to prevent the rivalry in the team member's. Which reduce organization's productivity and make it to run in loss. Homogenous groups have been reported to outperform culturally diverse groups especially where there are serious communication issues which make it more difficult for everybody to make optimal contributions to the group effort.(sheridan1994)

Belief system is one of the most sensitive elements of a culture. Within this category are religion, superstation and other related power structure. The impact of religion on the value system of a society and the effect of value on workplace must not be underestimated. Managers have to be very careful about that matter. When managers have little or no understanding of a religion of other cultural group, it is easy to offend though unintentionally. Like all culture elements one's own religious is often not reliable guide to another's faith. Which makes big pinch on two believers in the workplace? A recent incident involve the French fashion house chanel,which unwittingly desecrated the Holy Quran by embroidering verses from the sacred book of Islam on several dress shown in its summer collection. The designer said he took the design, which was aesthetically pleasing to him, from a book of India's Taj mahal palace and that he was unaware of it's meaning.(p 86 international marketing 2nd edition). Which has cost his organization million dollars by destroying the dress with the offending design along the negatives of the photos made of the garments? This example shows how easy it is to offend to other belivers, in this case the manager of the fashion Chanel has not familiarised him or herself with other cultural belief.