Workplace Communication Between Different Races

Bridgewater, M.J., & Buzzanell, P.M. (2010). Caribbean immigrants' discourses:

Cultural, moral, and personal stories about workplace communication in the United

Journal Of Business Communication, 47(3), 235-265.

doi:10.1177/0021943610369789

This report studies how Caribbean immigrants position themselves and make sense of their overall workplace communication standing. They do so through storytelling a lot of the time. They often adhere to the commonly-cited narrative of the "American Dream" but they also talk about stories that reproduce and "resist" certain specific intercultural workplace communication. They make sense of their experiences through "invocation of different discourses -- race, class, gender and immigration status."

Chrobot-Mason, D. (2012). Developing multicultural competence to improve cross-race work relationships. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 15(4), 199-218.

doi:10.1080/10887156.2012.730440

This report talks about how the developing of multi-cultural competence training can aid and assist in helping communication between management and regular personnel alike when there are multiple races involved. The study notes that employee retention of diversity candidates has been a focus but also asserts that far less time has been spent on getting organization leaders in tune with what it truly means to make that all work properly from an operational, training and communication standpoint.

Dreachslin, J., Sprainer, E., & Jimpson, G. (2002). Communication: bridging the racial and ethnic divide in health care management. Health Care Manager, 20(4), 10-18.

This study talks about the overall paradigm of healthcare management and how there is a very noticeable dearth of people of color in powerful positions in the overall healthcare management field. This presents a problem for management as there are distinct problems with communication, compensation and overall outcomes when it comes to minorities. The paper seeks to find action steps to bridge the racial divide.

Fish, S.L. (1991). Preparation for the year 2000: One corporation's attempt to address the issues of gender and race. Howard Journal Of Communications, 3(1/2), 61-72.

This one is a rather old one (1991) but gives a good perspective as to how things have changed over the last generation or so. It specifically covers a Fortune 500 company that was attempting to diversity its management ranks with the two primary focuses being racial and gender diversity. They specifically looked at the communication strategies that were being used as a broader movement to make the management hires of the firm more diverse.

Hsu, B., Hackett, C., & Hinkson, L. (2014). The Importance of Race and Religion in Social Service Providers. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 95(2), 393-

410. doi:10.1111/ssqu.12050

This source talks about the importance of race and religion when it comes to social services. Quite often, people that make use of social services are more at ease when there is someone of the same race/religion on staff or, at the very least, there is someone there that clearly understands and empathizes from people of those groups. Skills were important but similarity between provider and client mattered a lot as well.

IBARRA, H. (1995). RACE, OPPORTUNITY, AND DIVERSITY OF SOCIAL CIRCLES

IN MANAGERIAL NETWORKS. Academy Of Management Journal, 38(3), 673-703.

doi:10.2307/256742

This study notes that it investigate the networks of white and minority managers. They found that minority managers had more racially heterogeneous interactions but fewer intimate network relationships. Further, it was found that the structure of these networks and the associated communications had a direct effect on the upward mobility and career performance of the minority managers involved. Overall, whites fared better than non-whites in the same situations even with perceptions being equal.

Joubert, Y., & de Beer, H. (2010). Organisation Team Sport Interventions to Overcome

Diversity Constraints in the Workplace. International Journal Of Diversity In

Organisations, Communities & Nations, 10(2), 303-318.

This report looked at sports-based interventions and how those interventions have an effect (or do not, depending on the intervention) on people's ability to communicate and get along despite their differences with race being one of the obvious differences that could create an issue. The data is collected through focus groups, interviews with individuals and other means to get a sense for what people think about the interventions and the overall paradigm of working with people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Liu, L.A., Chua, C.H., & Stahl, G.K. (2010). Quality of communication experience:

definition, measurement, and implications for intercultural negotiations. The Journal

Of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 469-487. doi:10.1037/a0019094

This study notes that the level of communication between people of differing races and ethnicities is at an all-time high when it comes to known and documented human history. Beyond that, there is a lot of cross-country and international travel that occurs and this creates even more diversity in communication between different races, cultures and so forth. This study notes that there can often be uncertainty when it comes to such cross-racial communications and sometimes special interventions and methods are needed.