Our Culture is Defined by those Around Us

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

The rise of multinational companies and increased global diversification by even small companies has resulted in people of diverse backgrounds and cultures working together in the same office or for the same organization. Conflict in such situations is predictable, but understanding the diversity issues can help companies implement programs designed to keep conflict at a minimum and to take full advantage of the many benefits which such diversity brings to an organization. Key to understanding how diversity is managed in multinational organizations is understanding the concept of corporate culture (which defines organizations), diversity programs and their use to minimize conflict among employees, and the unique problems that employees

The continuous growth in global business interactions and partnerships constitute the necessity for business partners to understand the cultural differences in society. This growth has led to increased competition and customer expectations which drives the need for innovation from a variety of human resources (Saray, Patache, Ceran (2017). The importance of understanding the international business culture and how to properly communicate is extremely crucial to form a strong relationship. The driving force behind human behavior is culture (Moran, Abramson, and Moran, 2014, pp.11). Behaviors, attitudes, productivity, and morals are all driven by culture (Moran, Abramson, and Moran, 2014, pp.11). The ability to recognize the cultural differences, emphasize employees’ roles, drive empowerment and make the necessary accommodations is a key measure to achieving strategic goals (Saray, Patace, Ceran (2017).

Cultural diversity management programs aim to bring awareness and skill-based training. The purpose of this training is to show the diverse groups within an organization which can improve the productivity between employees. This training will also help management understand and value each one of their employees and differences they may have. Cultural diversity training is designed to show how diversity, we all are and bring awareness of the issues in the workplace and help them to recognize underlining issues. (Treven, 2015) Diversity may be a source of problem solving which is combined with experience and knowledge that plays a role in the transformation of the existing knowledge we have with the training program. This will help the organization and the employee’s needs to reflect the changes within the organization which will also protect them against any fines that can occur when ethical

Cultural diversity has become widespread within many organizations today. The work groups in these organizations are increasingly being staffed by culturally diverse employees. The cultural differences exhibited in the groups can enhance or weaken the function of the work group, especially in a predominantly homogenous environment. These multicultural work groups present challenges to the organization and to the managers that must reduce these challenges in order to achieve the desired success of the organization. The biggest obstacle with

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).

The increasing number of multinational companies, the expand global market place and the diversity of the customers across cultures require new points of view. More and more companies use multicultural teams to develop new products or business solutions. Multicultural teams are task oriented groups of people from different cultures. Well managed multicultural teams thanks to the different point of views of their team members can superior national teams in the number of possible alternatives and solutions. But diversity is a “double- edged sword”: means positive dynamics and problems caused by cultural clashes. Managing these teams became a main subject of human resource

Culture affects organizations because their individuals are influenced by cognitive and motivational perspectives. From a cognitive perspective, individuals are able to learn from different sets of values that permit them to organize and process information about human resources management practices. And, from the motivational perspective, we can understand how individuals view themselves and their relationship with others. Both perspectives, cognitive and motivational, permit to have knowledge about the mechanism of cultural influences in the human resources philosophy, policies and programs in the organizations.

Some of the many cultural issues faced by human resource managers are communication- including communicating company culture, language barriers, understanding the business etiquette in other countries, the concept of ‘face’ that is recognized in many cultures, and that employees may have some amount of fear when they are immersed in the new culture. Geert Hofstede created a cultural framework based on five dimensions of psychology to offer some understanding of different cultural issues (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010, p. 47).

Living in a world of approximately 7.5 billion people mean living with different perspectives, different ideas, different cultures; in other words, we live in a society full of diversities. Throughout this semester, I have learned that an organization cannot function without people. In fact, employees are one of the valuable assets of an organization. Every organization has a corporate culture; thus, living in a world of diversities poses the challenge for companies in maintaining such culture alive. I believe that organizational culture, just like Politics, cannot be avoided within an organization. I am not a mother yet, but based on my observation, organizational culture is like growing up a child that is, it requires of a strong mother (an empowered leader) to nurture a child (culture) with values and confidence which are key elements towards attaining success.

Managers were concerned about knowing and understanding each and every perspective of their employee’s cultures. As they know that without studying or knowing the culture, coordination cannot be built between the employees. It is the existing perspective of managers dealing with cross-cultural management (Sultana, 2013).

Culture is how people live. Society is everything made, learned, or shared by the individuals from a general public, including makings, opinions, practices, and material articles. People’s lifestyle vary from society to society. Culture is the way individuals in certain in a place do things regularly. Individuals have different personalities based on their upbringing. Most times, we can tell someone’s nationality by the way they dress. For instance, a typical American would have on a shirt, jean pant and a pair of sneakers.

Understanding different cultures is an important aspect for managers to grasp. The way one represents them, can have everlasting impacts on how a company is perceived. For this reason, it is important to understand the demographic of people you are trying to reach, and take the necessary precautions to not offend the culture of others. As mentioned by NACHC (2008) culture can be defined as different social practices, forms of expression, and different values. The impression that one receives from individuals of a culture, may influence the way they are seen by members of a different culture.

In the business world, the comparing, dealing or interacting of different people from different culture, community or background is called cross culture management. It is an important function for international firm, as the success of the business depends upon the way of dealing and interacting with the employees from different culture or region. If an employee is appointed or transferred to another country .i.e host country (HCNs), he will face problems like culture, language, attitude and so on. So the employee must learn these things to be efficient. Such issues related to cross cultural management is developing nowadays, as globalization and competition is increasing. Many economist’s did research to solve this problem and came out with different model’s and theories. Today, we are going to study two of such models/theories, which are Hofstede’s model and Fons Trompenaars cultural dimension. (http://www.investopedia.com/, 2014)

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