Chapter 6. Managing Cultural Diversity
Chapter Objectives
This chapter will help you:
Understand why effectively managing diversity is a competitive advantage
Learn a definition of culture that goes beyond simplistic demographic categories
Identify important cultural differences that affect work behavior
Understand why some well-intentioned diversity efforts fail
Improve your personal multicultural competence
Create an effective multicultural workplace
Diversity calls for managing people who aren't like you and who don't aspire to be like you. It's taking differences into account while developing a cohesive whole.
—R. ROOSEVELT THOMAS, JR., AUTHOR Beyond Race and Gender
As we enter the twenty-first century, we live and work in a social and organizational world that is increasingly diverse and offers more “opportunities for interaction among people who do not share a common history or culture.”[1] Not surprisingly, top companies agree that managing diversity within and across nations is a critical mana gerial skill. In 1995, over 70 percent of the Fortune 50 companies had formal diversity management programs in place, and another 8 percent were developing such programs.[2] Many management schools, however, are lagging behind practice. According to recent research conducted by the International Association of Colleges and Schools of Business, business leaders say they are concerned “that business school graduates are not leaving school with the cultural competence they need to work effectively in a diverse and global business environment.”[3]
This chapter is designed to answer business leaders' call to improve managers' multicultural competence. It is divided into two parts. Part I answers the following questions: (1) What is culture? and (2) How does culture influence what we see, how we act, and—most importantly for the purposes of this book—our managerial effectiveness? Part II discusses why organizations that effectively manage diversity tend to have a competitive advantage over those that do not. It also identifies some of the risks associated with diversity in organizations and offers strategies that you can use to increase your effectiveness as a manager of a diverse workforce.