Diversity in Multicultural Business Globalization

Diversity in Multicultural Business

Globalization has had a remarkable effect on both the technological developments and the cultural attributes of a number of companies. Instant global communication is now possible, and individuals know they can instantly communicate with almost anywhere in the world -- and at an affordable cost. The more technology improves, the more this global economy, culture, and society develops. Of course, globalization continues to break down societal barriers, and one of the key elements to this is communication. As this trend continues, and geometrically advances, it is essential for telecommunications companies to understand and meet the needs of numerous ethnic and multicultural employees. In a society that is becoming more and more pluralistic, the diversity of individuals as employees continues to be complex for managers and coworkers alike. Miscommunication can easily occur, and it would be logistically impossible for any one company to adequately train staff of the multicultural aspects of all their employees (Trebing and Estabrooks, 2005). In our particular case study, we will use Worldwide Telecommunications, Inc. Worldwide Telecommunications; Inc. is a global conglomerate that currently has operations in the United States, Canada, Russia, Europe, and moving into Asia. In the volatile market of today's worldwide telecommunications, plans (contingency) and organization are needed telecommunication companies. Because of the global reach and mission of WTI, it is vital that they are not only capable, but also expert, in forming operations within a wide variety of countries and cultures. Because of their current, an impending, global diversification, WTI must ensure that its managers and workers are aware of their need to interact multiculturally on a regular basis. What one culture might consider normal business behavior, another culture might consider the opposite. As WTI continues its rapid growth, it is showing an ever-increasing need that requires a global workforce (WTI Homepage; Gruber, 2008). WTI is not only growing fiscally, but regularly doubling their employee base. As a company, they believe it is vital to ensure their employees, regardless of gender, race, faith, nationality or physical abilities, have access to equal every equal opportunity within the company. The question becomes, though, how will this continued and rapid globalization affect WTI, and more important, how a multicultural and diverse workforce may have an affect upon teamwork and communications in larger companies. (Ibid).

Description of potential workgroup - Global population is growing exponentially, especially in the developing regions. While some of WTIs areas are a zero population growth, or, in the case of Russia, negative; the rest of the world continues to expand dramatically:

Figure 1 -- World Population Growth

(Source: http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/quinn/2009/images/0407_clip_image032.jpg)

The changing demands of the marketplace necessitate a search for new and more effective ways to serve the needs of diverse customers. Differences in personal worksytle, skills/talents, education, and geographical location are examples of other diversity dimensions that make a difference in how we work together as a corporate team. When managed effectively, these differences broaden organizational capability to respond to customer within both the Developed and Developing worlds. Diversity is about individual differences. A company is far stronger once they identify and understand how unique differences impact relationships between customer groups - both internally and externally. Also, the new paradigm for global management includes creating and maintaining a diverse work environment in which cultural diversity is encourage and celebrated, rather than simply acknowledged (We need to identify and understand how our differences impact our relationships with other employees and customers. We also must create and maintain an inclusive work environment in which differences are respected and leveraged, along with commonalties, to achieve business objectives (Parvis, 2003).

Planning and Cultural Diversity Training - Globalization is causing diversity in the workplace to increase. Mergers, alliances and networks continue to have a major impact of the workforce, the quality of the workforce's relationship with their peers and management, and even the interaction within a local community. Managing diversity begins with understanding the barriers and eliminating their influence on the workforce. First, what is "cultural diversity?" Broadly, it is defined within the organizational structure to mean the inclusion of a variety of ethnicities, genders, ages, economic classes, sexual preferences, physical abilities, and religious or philosophical beliefs -- in other words, a large mix of individuals that make up every aspect of our world. Recently, scholars have suggested that diversity in and of itself is not responsible for how well a team works together." So then, what makes a team work together? One contribution to a great team is how well they have achieved integration. For example, do they communicate clearly, solve differences in a constructive way and do they generate innovative solutions (Bannister & Raats, 2005). WRI, for instance, may benefit by a multicultural workforce due to the fact that a culturally diverse workforce provides development of new ideas and decision making. By encouraging a team environment, staff will acknowledge and value divergent points-of-views. By providing a multicultural workforce the company will benefit in providing the opportunity for their employees to understand and communicate skill fully with customers from a variety of backgrounds, and find expertise on how to be more successful within the context of certain cultures, accelerating the opportunity to expand worldwide (Goleniewski and Wilson, 2006). Too, Cultural Diversity is not only valuable to the company but also very valuable to the individual employee. Individual employees in a culturally diverse workplace have the opportunity to learn and function in different ways. They may be able to learn a different language, additional communications skills, and begin to appreciate different cultural ideas. This, of course, will only improve their ability to manage people, or to become more valuable for their own company or service. Cultural Diversity has several benefits, but there may certainly be limitations as well. The language barrier is clearly of major import in any organization. While English has been the "standard," it can still be problematical to master the language to the technical level one might need for a company like WTI. and, as WTI moves into the global arena, use of the vernacular in the particular area will require additional language training.

Clearly, any company that hopes to compete on the global level will need to do three things within their Human Resources Department: 1) Try to hire individuals who have a second language (studies show it is easier to learn more languages if you already know two); 2) Be able to provide some intensive language and cultural courses when sending well-qualified individuals to other countries; and 3) Utilize new HR techniques that focus on diversity in a global market from the beginning of the corporate rubric (Rowntree, 2005). WTI, in its corporate website, focuses on the very active word "communication." WTI believes the most important skill needed within its organization is that communication, and to achieve and develop effective communication, Telecommunications, Inc. has to follow several guidelines: a) ensure corporate documentation is written in plain English, translated as necessary, b) once documents are written we must ensure proper distribution; c) interpretation available as needed..

Functionally, a multicultural workforce requires specific training and advancement programs that are well defined multilingually. Without training and development opportunities, neither the corporation nor individual personnel will develop to their full potential. Some of the features in an integrated training and development program would be a focus on a personnel growth and education plan; incorporation of cultural diversity within all current and future programs; education and growth including specific cultural, political and geographical training; training workshops that are treated as a serious part of continuing education; and an ongoing system in which employees have the opportunity to share their experiences with each other (Trebing and Esabooks, 2005). Thus, management within a global environment will be more challenging as well. One of the most important features that the global managers will face is the different values within cultures. Cultural empathy and integrity in dealing with people from various cultures will be a vital management skill. Global managers do not have to know the culture in detail, but will need to think and act with an open mind. Managers should understand the worldwide business environment, work and be open to learn from people from various cultures. A Global manager's role is similar to being a coach. The global manager should not play the actual game, but be responsible for the team's success, have the expertise to improve the player's skills, have the experience to guide the team's strategy, and have the authority to moderate the behavior of their players. The global managers should recognize the importance of international management development and have the ability to view the world from different points-of-view. A critical task will be to use global knowledgeable to identify opportunities in the growing global world. Moreover, global managers also must focus on the unique needs of marketplace trends while maintaining a corporate advantage. Furthermore, the global managers must integrate their knowledge of their company's mission and capability with the market. As the world we live in continues to operate globally, it will be necessary for companies to learn to operate as if the world is one large market. Companies will need to look at regional and national differences, and draw on the similarities between countries to enhance their competitive advantages (Powell, 2005). It is clear that as company, like WTI grows globally, they will benefit from a multicultural workforce. They must put managerial, educational, and cultural proactiveness in place, which will not only improve their opportunities for greater worldwide competition, but by bringing establishing a multicultural workforce, they also improve the interrelationships between their employees. Employees who do this, learn to communicate and other points-of-view and opinions. By doing this WTI, and other large companies, poise themselves to become successful in the emerging globalize culture of the 21st century.

Using Innovative Human Resource Techniques to Manage Diversity - Human resource management, whether specifically titles or not, has been a part of any organization's management since groups banded together for specific tasks. Ancient armies, projects, and even educational and religious institutions all had concerns about their ability to bring in the appropriate person for the positions at hand. Formally, Human Resource Management in the contemporary world is both the tactical and strategic manner in which an organization manages the human portion of its resources, both collectively and individually, and how management of those individual resources contribute to the overall positive objects of the business (Armstrong, 2006). Over the past few decades, though, and with the advent of increasingly sophisticated technology, Human Resource management has changed from using people to employ people, develop people, and track the utilization and compensation of their services. Instead, a newer system has evolved using computers, database management, and data mining to provide more optimal ways in with the Human Resources department can move to more of a Personnel Department, playing a major role in staffing, training, and helping to manage people within the organization in order to strategically recruit, train, and retain the best people who will work towards the company's strategic goals. This new form of management is titled eHRM, or Electronic Human Resource Management (Boudreau, 2007).

However, eHRM is not simply using computers to recruit and assist in the hiring of staff. It is the planning, implementation and application of the full use of appropriate information technology for both networking and supporting a specific group of people in their shared performance of Human Resource activities (Strohmeier, 2007). In effect, it is taking a technological premise and deconstructing that Human Resource portion to individual managers and employees. These actions are typically allowable through the Internet or a company's own servers, and are not the same as simply the electronic tools used to manage people systems (Lepak, 1998). By greater empowerment of managers and employees to perform certain functions that are more appropriate for their own department or area, HR staff is allowed to focus less on the operational and more on the strategic functions of their job. So, too, the expertise in specific areas is more appropriate to vet certain candidates based on a specific body of knowledge -- one that a traditional HR representative may have little or know working knowledge (Cullen, 2001).

Generally speaking, there are at least three levels or eHRM: Operational, Relational and Transformational. Operational eHRM focuses on administrative functions such as payroll and personal data. Relational eHRM supports business processes by training, proper recruitment, performance management, and even task oriented structure and management. Transformational eHRM is more strategic, and concerns itself with knowledge management, the strategic orientation of the company, long-term inward personnel planning, and even direct of hiring practices over time (Ruel, 2004). Different companies, of course, utilize different aspects of these systems: large, Fortune 500 companies almost always have a sophisticated web site in which candidates can search for specific jobs, apply online, answer some brief questions, and prior to the HR representative even looking at the scores or a paper copy, this candidate is ranked as a possibility for the open position.