Module 04 Course Project - Diversity in the Workplace

Running head: COMPANY’S CULTURE FOR DIVERSITY 1

COMPANY’S CULTURE FOR DIVERSITY 5

Company’s culture diversity

Name: John Blair

Institution: Rasmussen College

Date: January 20, 2019

Due to the ever-changing business environment, most business owners are forced to adapt to the diverse policies and strategies that are appealing to their clients, vendors, supplies and the employees. Diversity in a work place comes with a lot of benefits (Gong et al, 2011). Diversity is not all about ethnicity. A diverse work place is composed of employees with different characteristics, religious and political beliefs, gender, education, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background and geographic location. A company must find ways in which it should incorporate diversity into the work place without changing the manner into which the company operates. In this article I will examine the cultural diversity of our organization based in china (Chow, 2005).

When working in China anyone will notice a big difference in the working culture between private enterprises, semi private and the state-owned companies. In china, the cultures between the multinational and local companies are also significantly different. Research has it that there are many specific challenges brought about by the cultural differences of the local Chinese that work in multinational companies (Banks, 2007). These cultural differences can limit the career progression for the Chinese employees and they include:

· English proficiency: English is not a native language for the Chinese. This fact can cause the Chinese employees to struggle since they often don’t understand English as it seems to be a sophisticated language used by their international colleagues.

· Style of communication: it is known that the Chinese culture always looks down upon peoples from voicing criticism, speaking up and taking stances. This factor will definitely make the western management uncomfortable as they are usually bold on matters concerning their rights and discussions even with their subordinates.

· Common interests: the Chinese may lack common interests and hobbies from their counterparts (e.g. sports and wine tasting). This might make the Chinese feel excluded during after meetings. This factor makes the Chinese workers to struggle to establish good relationships and this limits growth of the organization.

· Development of the profession: Chinese workers have a feeling that opportunities for the success of their careers are largely determined by the overall strategy of the company and its commitment to the country of china- over which they have no control. Most Chinese workers and the executives lack trust from corporate headquarters since they have a tendency of thinking that the English speaking expatriates are favored.

· War of talent in china: most of the Chinese executives are less willing to work overseas since they don’t want to miss being part of the growth at home and they have a very strong sense of national pride. This affects the multinational companies working in china since they are forced to raise salaries as well as improve promotion, training and leadership opportunities for the Chinese to remain relevant to the recruits.

Cultural diversity in the Chinese is protected by some ethics which include:

Harmony: this means there must be balanced coordination that has rationale and compatibility. The multinational investors must act according to the Chinese laws and truths.

Benevolence- this core value of Confucianism must be observed by the international investors they have to show the importance of family ties for peaceful coexistence (Banks, 2007).

For the business organizations to thrive in china, they must be aware of the need to address issues related to cultural diversity with relation to their organization for a healthy competition with the local companies. Multinational companies are encouraged to think about how they can create a more inclusive culture for the Chinese employees so that they can contribute on global growth. I suggest that the company should use the following strategies in order to ensure an inclusive work culture

· Arrange overseas assignment for potential talents.

· Give the Chinese talents a greater vision at corporate levels.

· Employers to be provided with cross-cultural training.

· Employees to be engaged in multicultural teams that enhance cross-cultural understanding.

· The employers should introduce targeted development strategies for the Chinese talent.

It is important for the multinational companies to include diversity so as for them to thrive in the Chinese country. Otherwise the local companies continue beating the multinational companies in terms of success.

Reference

Banks, J. A. (2007). Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives. Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley. 10475 Cross point Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46256.

Chow, C. S. (2005). Cultural diversity and tourism development in Yunnan province, China. China. Geography, 294-303.

Gong, Y., Chow, I. H. S., & Ahlstrom, D. (2011).Cultural diversity in China: Dialect, job embeddedness, and turnover. Asia Pacific Journal of management, 28(2), 221-238.