The Influence of Culture on Human Resource Management Processes and Practices. Dianna Stone and Eugene Stone-Romero, eds. New York: Psychology Press, 2008. 340 pp. $38.25, paper. Although national and international workforces have become increasingly culturally diverse, human resource systems and processes often lag in adapting to multiculturalism in ways that will reduce the cultural bias of existing human resource systems and enhance organizational effectiveness. Nearly 15 years ago Sharon Lobel and I developed a framework for our edited book, Managing Diversity, on the human resource implications of managing the growing diversity of the workforce (Kossek and Lobel, 1996). Although some changes have been made to account flexibly for …show more content…
Several chapters consider the effectiveness of performance appraisal and development systems in an increasingly culturally diverse workforce, such as understanding cultural biases in ratings (Ferris and Treadway) or cultural variation in motivational responses to feedback (Pritchard and Youngcourt). Joshi and Martocchio consider cultural differences in responses to reward systems and nicely summarize how rewards need to fit the degree to which individuals are oriented toward values of individualism and collectivism or femininity or masculinity. Bhagat, Steverson, and Segovis consider cultural variation in employee assistance programs in an era of globalization. They make the interesting observation that cultures vary in the degree to which members value seeking assistance for mental health, a reality that employers and scholars need to consider. There is also a good chapter on the popular topic of multicultural teams. Burke and coauthors take a sensemaking approach to understanding crosscultural teams and offer a number of interesting ideas for future research. As a work and family scholar, I was glad to see a chapter by Cleveland, McCarthy, and Himelright on U.S. and Irish differences in work and family policy. It is not entirely clear, however, why the authors selected Ireland as the focus instead of
Diversity acknowledge that people are differ in many ways, such as age, gender, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and culture (Kossek, Lobel & Brown, 2005). Nowadays, diversity has increasingly become the most valuable aspect of HRM areas. Develop countries such as Australia and New Zealand hold multicultural workforce as one of the most important dimension of diversity, where there are a large number of international migrants with different cultural backgrounds (Shen, Chanda, D’Netto & Monga, 2009). Studies from McLeod, Lobel and Cox (1996) and Wilson & Iles (1999) point out that a diverse workforce has a better-quality solution to brainstorming task, display more cooperative behaviour, and can raise organizational efficiency, effectiveness and profitability. Hence, utilization of diversity allows organization to increase the organization cooperative behaviour and competitive advantage (Cassell 1996). However, in groups where people from different cultural and ethnic background are working together, differences may occur in management styles, attitude towards hierarchy, approaches to group work, and ways of expressing
Organizations, the world over, are embracing innovation in order to stay competitive by putting into action organizational management that includes, among others, culture, workforce diversity, and diversity management (Marsella, 2009). Although not much has been written about the interconnection of managing diversity (cultural, and workforce included) and organizational competitiveness (Cox & Blake, 1991), the contemporary way of conducting business calls for a large globally diverse workforce from various cultures, backdrops, beliefs, and ethnicities (Mazur, 2010). However, there are challenges associated with organizational management pertaining to culture, diversity workforce, and diversity management that conflict, or are at odd with national employment laws, as well as international labor law. This article deliberates over legal considerations while taking pertinent organizational managerial practices on culture, workforce diversity, and diversity management.
As a business manager in human relations you must understand the differences in cultures. The labor force in today’s society in the United States workforce is getting more racially and ethnically diverse, as the number of women are also increasing. Companies use human resources management to gain a competitive advantage. Companies can no longer take the traditional approach of depending on white males to form the core of the workforce. In today’s society managers must look broadly to use talent wherever it could be found. Managing diversity is a huge issue in today’s society because each culture has a different way to be handled. If managers can be effective at managing diversity in different cultures, they will have an easier time
Today’s management in the workforce is composed of all types of people verses thirty years ago when white males held a majority of upper-management positions in companies. These positions are now held by a mixture of ethnic back grounds and women who hold just as many if not more management positions then men. Just by looking at the changes in management demographics shows how important it is for people to understand cultural competency in the workplace. Dr. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. (1999) stated, “Diversity is the collective mixture of whomever we have in our workforce characterized by their differences and similarities” (p.11). Managers and supervisors must understand the characteristics of a diversity mature individual; they also need to be
As America moves towards a multicultural mosaic, we are not a melting pot as we are much more of a salad bowl. The mosaic is one of different genders and cultures, each unique in its own way. Learning to understand each of these flavors gives way to doors in the world of sociology. Although there are many aspects of sociology for the topic of the assignment, we will discuss the importance of understanding diversity (cultural, ethnic, gender) by managers and professionals in the workforce. According to Forbes magazine, “Mixed gender executive boards have outperformed all-male ones by 26% over the last six years, according to research by Credit Suisse, while global studies have shown that organizations with diverse and inclusive cultures are
Furthermore, distinct differences are a vital issue for an organization is to engage in what actually inspire their employees to perform. These workplace issues have been addressed within the same issues such as multicultural dissimilarities between supervisor and subordinate. Ethnicity is a familiarity, behavioral patterns, and cultural traditions that are shared by individuals of the same ancestral background. Therefore, multicultural differences are alleged to be one of the key obstacles to improve organizational and employee performance. These practices are highly effective for people in the Western civilization. However, these practices can be proven to be have the opposite effect for workers from the Asian population because of the immense multicultural background (Xerri, M. 2013).
Today’s workforce is ever more diverse in means of personal traits such as race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, gender identification, and sexual orientation. Diversity research proposes that such diversity in the workplace will steer to lesser costs and/or greater revenues, enhancing the bottom line of an organization. A culture is defined as a group or society which imparts common beliefs and values. A cultural group is known by the way in which it acts. A person can adapt to different cultures simultaneously displaying different traits contingent on birthplace, family background, language, etc. (Axner, nd).
In today’s society there are many culturally diverse people in the workforce. Most organizations can no longer make the assumption that every employee has similar beliefs or expectations. When entering into the global marketplace, people are considered one of the most valuable resources to an organization’s success. A well-managed culturally diverse workforce has the potential to thrive if managed correctly; or if mismanaged, there can be devastating negative attributes. With great expectations, culturally diverse employees can foster positive outcomes in the workplace. A company’s acknowledgement to embrace diversity and change, and implement the value of management techniques are
As a result of increasing numbers of immigrants, cultural diversity has become a common display in the workplace, which means having a blend of cultures in an organization. It is important to understand each culture individually as they possess their own values and beliefs. Organizations must incorporate these differences to motivate employees in order to successfully achieve a company 's goal. If employees accept the organization’s goals, it can direct the company to success with higher productivity and effectiveness. Socialization also plays an important role, as it helps increase employee loyalty and motivation, which then leaders io to higher effectiveness and efficiency. During the socialization process, an employee is responsible for familiarizing themselves with their tasks and role in the company, and later on learning and adapting to the organization’s culture. Both cultural diversity and socialization are relevant in the field of human resources because they influence how management should govern its employees to achieve successful organizational performance and meet strategic goals. This paper will illustrate various benefits and consequences of
The most recent studies in cross-cultural management reveal that the culture is a very expansive subject for organizations to study, especially for organizations, which hire the most diverse workforce. One definition of a diverse workforce could be as the one, which comes from different ethnic and demographic backgrounds (Plessis, 2011). For studying culture of the diverse workforce, there are two parts to study, the implicit and the explicit culture. The explicit culture includes behavior while the implicit part involves norms and values of individuals (Guang & Trotter, 2012). The explicit culture is already known when workers stay and work in a firm for a length of time, but the most difficult is to understand the implicit culture which is obscured in form of norms and values of the workers. Due to the differences of cultures, workers hold a great potential of variance, variety in terms of their explicit and implicit parts of the culture. The
Multiculturism is a philosophy which appreciates ethnic diversity within a society and that encourages people to learn from the contribution of those of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Though culture is seen as ‘‘a richly rewarding area to pursue,’’ it is none- theless ‘‘a woefully complex maddeningly dynamic phenomenon’’ (Faure & Rubin, 1993, p. 228)(5). “Unity in diversity” is the perfect principle based on which any organisation succeeds. It is known fact that employees from various cultures contribute more effectively to organisations success than organisation working with single culture employees. But the authors of the article “Managing Multicultural Teams” (henceforth referred as core article) are of the opinion that cultural
Most organizations strive for efficiency because it is one of the best means of achieving higher labour productivity and or sustainability. Increase labour productivity is usually a measure of increase profitability. The changing, complicated, competitive and, global nature of doing business makes it more difficult to achieve these objectives. Organizations have to think and act strategically. Ulrich’s strategic partner model of HRM offers a good blueprint for HR to guide organizations to achieve business objectives (Bratton & Gold, 2012, p. 25). Successful organizations have certain policies in common. These “best practice/best fit” policies make organization effective and profitable and stands out from the competition. Organizations study and try to emulate best practice/fit policies. There is no one size fit all strategic business best practice/best fit policies. HRM professional can aid organizations to select “best practice/fit policies for profitability and or sustainability.
Practices of Human Resource Management contribute to managing sustainability (corporate social responsibility) in the post bureaucratic era
This essay is going to analyze that extent of the human resource management’s practices contribute to managing organization’s sustainability in the past-bureaucratic era. Evans (n.d.) recognizes that sustainability of the organization entity in general pays attention to the three aspects of risks management during company operations: financial, social as well as the environmental risks and those three of perspectives usually are referred to essences of the profits, people and planet. Besides, according to a study which mainly figures out the approaches that enable organizations to fulfill sustainable development smoothly, the finding is that sustainability business model (SBM) is supposed to be adopted by the companies, which indicates
People of different ethnic backgrounds have different attitudes and values in workplace. It can be seen that same cultural groups have better outcomes in our company because they possess the same ideas and point of views due to their