Multicultural Diversity in the Workplace for the Tourism Professional Module (TMHM 9 )

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO MULTICULTURAL DIVERISTY
AND CONCEPT OF CULTURE
 In today’s hospitality world, an organization can only be successful if it has a
broad staff on hand to satisfy the various needs of its consumers
 However, misunderstandings, ego conflicts, discrimination, miscommunication,
and other issues are all too familiar in a company with a multinational team. As a
result, the organization’s management must learn how to manage or deal with
this problems effectively.
 As a result, managers must be trained in multicultural views to deal with cross-
border clients and suppliers successfully and connect with their workers
effectively, this is because they are the ones who must serve a variety of clients.
 There is a pressing need to learn more about workforce diversity, which goes
beyond what is visible at first glance, this may help managers understand what
can go wrong when working with a diverse group of people.

MULTICULTURAL DIVERSITY IN WORKPLACE

 Things, as well as people, have evolved throughout time.
 With the advent of liberalization, privatization, and globalization, the whole
market has become more accessible, resulting in increased competition.
 The interconnectedness of nations has frown dramatically as a result of
globalization.
 Organizations must now trade internationally to thrive in a globally
competitive market.
 However, if companies wish to succeed in international commerce, they
must map their culture.
 An organization is created not only by the four- sided walls but also by the
people who work there, such as workers and the people they interact with,
such as customers, suppliers, and others.
 And its’s the same with the workers, who vary not only in look but also in
backgrounds, gender, age, qualification, caste, preference, experience,
origin, religion, designation, culture, etc. All of these is just variety.
 Today’s managers must be well-versed in various cultural ideas, attitudes,
and conventions, among other things, to be effective.
 Because cultural knowledge may help to solve the issue of managing a
varied workforce in today’s companies, which are increasingly made up of
individuals from many cultures.

In the face of mixed findings from different studies and the social and legal imperatives
for organizations to accommodate multi-cultures, practicing managers have a dialectic
responsibility to decide not whether, but when and how to exploit and capitalize on the
positive attributes of cultural diversity while avoiding its downsides.

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 The first step is to recognize that one of the main goals of diversity is to
recognize people's uniqueness. This necessitates a shift in organizational
culture from mono-cultural to multicultural.
This requires a three-step development procedure.
1. Monolithic Stage- Characterized by a homogeneous
demographic and cultural framework. Traditional Japanese
businesses that hired exclusively Japanese men are an example of
this.
2. Stage of Plural Representatives- Stage in which an
organization, while having a culturally varied rank and file, retains a
culturally homogeneous leadership. Subcultures and groups are
then expected and encouraged to embrace the leadership's culture.
This is true of many contemporary American organizations.
3. Extremely Diverse Model- At this point, multicultural
accommodation is visible across the company. Companies at this
level appreciate and promote diversity in a number of ways,
including two-way learning and mutually reinforcing adaptability,
interdependence, and cultural differences.
 Second, rather than being a purely technical endeavor to comply with affirmative
action or other legally required activities, diversity must be a component of an
organization's intended business goal, including outreach initiatives.
 As a third stage, there should be a system in place to hold managers
responsible for achieving diversity objectives. This should be represented in
the process of evaluating performance.
 Fourth, open communication channels must be established to enable for
the transfer of new ideas, complaints, and feedback.
 Finally, corporate rituals and rites should allow for religious holidays,
dietary preferences, and clothing styles that do not conflict with
organizational operations. These are little gestures that show respect for and
support for cultural diversity.
 Furthermore, effective diversity management necessitates managers
"unlearning behaviors based on an old mind set, changing the ways
companies work, shifting organizational culture, restoring policies,
creating new structures, and redesigning human resource systems."

CONCEPT OF CULTURE

Culture is derived from the Latin term "cultura," which means "cult, worship, or
civilization." Culture, in the context of International HRM, is acquired knowledge that
individuals use to understand experience and create social behavior. Varied
writers have different ideas on what the word culture means. Some of these are listed
below:

1. Culture, according to Coakley (2007), comprises of the ways of life that individuals
develop as members of a group or community.
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2. J.W. Salacuse (1998) defines culture as a community's socially transmitted behavior

patterns, norms, beliefs, and values.
3. Culture, according to K. Avruch (1998), is a byproduct of individual experience,
something acquired or produced by people themselves or socially handed on to them by
contemporaries or predecessors.
4. Culture is defined by J. Stephen Carroll and Martin J. Cannon (1997) as a
structured way of thinking, feeling, and responding that exists within a certain group,
organization, profession, sub-group of a society, country, or set of countries.
5. According to Lederach (1995), culture is the collective knowledge and methods
developed by a group of people for seeing, understanding, expressing, and reacting to
social reality.
6. Gudykunst and Kim (1992) describe culture as an interpretation of the world that
teaches us how to act.
7. According to the Dutch scholar Hofstede (1984), culture is the communal
programming of the mind that differentiates members of one group of people from
another.
8. Culture, according to Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952), consists of explicit and
implicit patterns of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting
the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts;
the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected)
ideas and especially their attached values.
9. According to Edward Tylor (1871), culture is the comprehensive totality that
encompasses knowledge, religion, art, morality, law, tradition, and any other capacities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Thus, it may be argued that culture is essentially a collection of ideas, beliefs,

assumptions, and so on that distinguish one person from another; that can be
handed down from generation to generation; and that assists an individual
understand how he or she should behave in a community.

Features of Culture
Culture's most notable characteristics are as follows:

1. Dynamic. Culture is something that changes; it may be sluggish at times, but it is

generally continuous.
2. Learnt. Culture is not an inherited trait. Rather, it must be learned via interaction with
one's surroundings.
3. Non-uniform. Cultural components such as rituals, ideas, moral values, beliefs, and
so on vary significantly, i.e. they
- in various parts of society. Furthermore, they evolve time.
4. Patterned. Culture is included. A change in one component will inevitably cause a
change in the other.
5. Social. Culture is a result of society.
6. Shared. Culture is something that all members of an organization share.
7. Transferable. Culture is passed down from one generation to the next.

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Dimension of Culture

One does not need to think twice about saying that culture influences the organization
or that the success or failure of an organization is influenced to a larger degree by the
cultural variations of the workforce and the customers/consumers with whom they work.
Various anthropologists, sociologists, and management professionals have presented
their perspectives on culture in the form of the models mentioned below:

• Edward Hall and Mildred Hall Model

• Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck Model
• Geert Hofstede Model
• Fons Trompenaars Model
• GLOBE (Global Leader and Organizational Behavior
Effectiveness) Project

1. Edward Hall and Mildred Hall Model

Based on their business experience and numerous qualitative research,
anthropologists Edward Hall and his wife Mildred Hall have defined the six aspects of
culture as follows:

a. Time Language

It is further divided into two parts: monochronic culture or M-time and

polychronic culture or P-time. M-time culture believes that time is as
valuable as money and should not be squandered. As a result, time is given
more importance than individuals. People from M-time cultures are very timely,
whether it's a meeting, an appointment, or a social event. Polychronic
societies, on the other hand, place a higher value on people or human
connections than on time.

b. Space Language
It is also known as proxemics. In most cases, the most important
individual occupies the largest office.
At the same time, the way people utilize their personal space varies among
cultures.

c. Language of Objects
This component of culture emphasizes the ownership of tangible things by
a culture's people.

d. Language of Friendship
This dimension explains how individuals approach establishing friends.
That is, whether individuals in a society readily establish friends and if they
maintain their friendships for a long time or whether they are easily and often
broken. Normally, no culture believes in reacting to friendships and relationships

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with the same level of emotional intensity. At times, the individual's privacy and
self-interest take precedence over others.
e. Agreement Language
People in some countries or cultures like to have everything in black and
white, especially agreements. Some civilizations, on the other hand, take the
exact opposite approach.

f. Cultures of High and Low Context

In high context cultures, communication is implicit, and, therefore, greater
emphasis is placed on the interpretation of the context rather than on the words.
The majority of things are left unsaid so that the recipient may interpret the words
based on the context. On th other hand, in low-context cultures, communication
clear, and, therefore the primary emphasis is given the words, and the recipient
is expected to comprehend the message via the words used in the message
without regard for the context.

2. Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck Model

Kluckhohn and Strodbeck put forward six dimensions of culture based on
problems that all societies face.
a. What does a person think about the basic nature and beliefs about the other
person?
b. What does a person think about his rights and responsibilities towards nature?
c. What is the duty of a person towards others?
d. What is the key form of activity in a society?
e. How is space considered in a business organization?
f.What is considered more important by the people - past, present or future?

3. Geert Hofstede Model

It was the first major study in the field of cross-cultural comparative research. The
six well-known dimensions that Hofstede examined are:

a. Power Distance Index (PDI)

This dimension assesses the extent to which the organization's less
powerful personnel perceives an uneven allocation of power. The main issue
here is how society deals with inequalities between individuals.

b. Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV)

Individualism refers to a loosely connected social network in which
individuals prioritize themselves and their closest family members. Collectivism,
on the other hand, indicates a closely knit social framework in which individuals
believe in looking after each other in the group in return for loyalty.

c. Masculinity vs Femininity (MAS)

In the case of masculinity, the values examined include accomplishment,
heroism, assertiveness, and financial reward for success. Whereas the feminine

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side of this dimension includes values such as collaboration, humility, concern for
the vulnerable, and so on.

d. Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)

A low score or value on the uncertainty avoidance index indicates that the
organization's managers and employees feel at ease in uncertain situations and
are thus more entrepreneurial, willing to take risks, and less reliant on formal
rules, whereas a high score on the uncertainty avoidance index indicates the
opposite.

e. Long-term Normative Orientation (LTO) vs. Short-term Normative

Orientation (STO)
People with short-term orientation are normative thinkers who appreciate
conventional values. They believe on achieving outcomes quickly. People with a
long - term perspective, on the other hand, think that truth is highly dependent on
circumstance, context, and time. They are adamant about getting things done.

f. Indulgence vs Restraint (IND)

An indulgent society allows relatively unfettered fulfillment of fundamental
and inherent human impulses linked to enjoying life and having pleasure. On the
contrary, constraint denotes a society that suppresses satisfaction of wants and
regulates it via the implementation of stringent social norms or standards.

4. Trompenaars and Hampden Model

Turner began work on a survey with workers at different levels of hierarchy in the
1980s and continued for many decades. They categorized culture into seven
categories:

a. Universalism vs. Particularism: It denotes the criteria by which connections

are evaluated.
b. Individualism vs. Collectivism: It assesses whether workers believe they
perform better as a group or as individuals.
c. Neutral vs. Emotional: Whether or not it is appropriate to exhibit emotions.
d. Specific vs. Diffuse: This refers to the extent to which responsibility is
explicitly allocated or accepted in a dispersed manner.
e. Achievement vs. Ascription: It reflects the degree to which individuals must
show themselves in order to get status, as opposed to status being simply
bestowed upon them.
f. Sequential vs. Synchronous: Whether individuals believe in doing things one
at a time or many at a time.
g. Inner-directed vs. Outer-directed: It reflects people's attitudes about whether
they can control their surroundings or work with it.

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5. GLOBE (Global Leader and Organizational Behavior

Effectiveness) PROTECT
It was an international project conducted by R.J. House in 1991 with the help of
170 researchers from 62 countries.
It measured nine dimensions of culture which are listed below:
a. Performance Orientation: It reflects the degree to which society encourages
and rewards group members for improved performance.
b. Uncertainty Avoidance: It indicates the extent to which a society, company,
or organization attempts to reduce uncertainty about future occurrences by
depending on rules, social norms, and so on.
c. Humane Orientation: It assesses how much people are rewarded by society
for being generous, fair, compassionate, unselfish, and kind to others.
d. Institutional Collectivism: It shows the degree to which organizations reward
and promote collaborative resource allocation and collective action.
e.In-group Collectivism: This refers to how much pride and commitment people
have in their organizations or families.
f.Gender Egalitarianism: It shows the degree to which the community strives to
reduce gender inequality.
g. Future Orientation: It reflects the extent to which the organization's workers
participate in future-oriented behaviors such as postponing indulgence, planning,
and investing in the future.
h. Power Distance: It denotes the degree to which members of society
anticipate equitable distribution of power.
i. Assertiveness: This metric measures how much self-confidence and
aggression workers display in their interactions with others.

Thus, although different anthropologists provide varied models regarding cultural

elements, the basic thrust of all stresses the same idea, namely, culture is important,
if not required, for an organization to comprehend in order to function effectively and
efficiently.