Question

What are the dimensions of cultural diversity?

What is the difference between diversity and inclusion?

What is the importance of workplace diversity training?

What is your experience with workplace culture? Could there be, or could there have been, more inclusion?

Include a minimum of two scholarly articles,

Answer 1

Cultural diversity refers to the existence of several cultural or ethnic groups in a given society that coexist harmoniously alongside each other in a specific region of the world and at a particular time. Largely speaking, diversity in a given society can be reviewed along dimensions such as different cultures, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and language groups. Thus for instance, Canada can be seen to be a culturally diverse society where several nationalities such as British Columbians, people of the First Nations, Indians, Anglo- French, Chinese, Koreans, Phillipinos, Thais, etc. live and interact with each other while accepting each other’s cultural practices, beliefs, values, food, etc.

To this end, cultural diversity can be seen to be different from cultural inclusion as the former is a condition of mutual acceptance and coexistence while the latter refers to a social process which is also marked by the presence of multiple cultures but there is a dominant or majority cultural group which is seen as the belief and value system of the majority of population and all the other cultures are deemed as minority cultures which are required to adjust, adopt and accommodate to the dominant culture by renouncing some practices of their own native cultures. Thus, the immigrant situation in the United States exemplifies cultural inclusion where immigrants from other parts of the world are expected to work according to the cultural values of individualism, competition which are emphasised in the dominant US culture. Within the work environment, cultural inclusion entails bringing the best minds, skills and knowledge hailing from different cultural backgrounds together so as to generate a successful organizati9nal pool of resources.

In the emerging era of globalised economies, Cultural diversity is found to affect workplace communication in powerful ways. The developing economies have begun to integrate the business cultures of traditional powerhouse nations into their businesses, and in the process, created traces of their own culture wherever they go. The impact of cultural diversity on organisations and workplaces have widespread implications--from corporate boardrooms to employee break-rooms, small business owners can benefit from gaining an understanding of the eccentricities of all cultures to which they are exposed(Patrick, Kumar, 2012). A successful conflict management within the workplace would entail  ensuring that the employees draft their intended messages in a way that it can be understood clearly as they communicate with culturally diverse co-workers since there can be differences between cultures on taboo topics of conversation, biases in spiritual, political or social issues and the nuances of life experience , making it difficult for co-workers to find a common ground when communicating.

According to author Stephen Dahl (2004) Today, managers must take the time to study the cultural eccentricities of their business counterparts before attempting to make contact with people in other countries or from other subcultures. Awareness of the cultural differences in Simple non-verbal cues and gestures such as the meaning of handshake with international business associates, offering a lunch meeting, etc. can be perceived as either a welcoming gesture or frowned upon as culturally inappropriate depending on the culture of one’s cross cultural counterpart. Thus, as the societies have become more and more diverse in the current globalised era, it has become more pertinent for work organisations- small as well as large scale to expand themselves in the direction of ensuring representation of the diverse cultural groups within its sector.

References:

Dahl, S (2004): Intercultural Research: The Current State of Knowledge, Middlesex University Business School Discussion Paper

Patrick, H.A & Kumar, R.(2012).’ Managing Workplace Diversit6: Issues and Challenges’. In Sage Open. April-J7ne 2012. 1:15. DOI: 10.1177/2158244012444615.