How Corporate Cultures Differ Around the World

 

According to research from Pew Research Center, 64% of respondents believed that diversity of race and ethnicity positively impacts American culture. (Horowitz, 2019). Diversity in American workplaces is rapidly gaining importance. While there are usually more similarities than differences amongst employees, culture is frequently one of the differences.

 

Aspects of culture that are commonly known, such as language, appearance, habits, and conventions, represent the top of the cultural iceberg. However, the bigger, less apparent portion of the cultural iceberg is difficult to identify and is comprised of more complicated components, such as beliefs, values, attitudes, ideals, norms, and worldview. In the literature, aspects of culture that are commonly known, such as language, appearance, habits, and conventions, represent the top of the cultural iceberg. However, the bigger, less apparent portion of the cultural iceberg is difficult to identify and is comprised of more complicated components, such as beliefs, values, attitudes, ideals, norms, and worldview. 

 

The good side for it is this level of cultural variety in the workplace would be extremely advantageous to a firm.In the literature, the advantages of introducing ethnic variety into companies have been extensively documented (Thomas, 1990; Martin, 2014; Al-Jenaibi, 2011; Adler, 2002). The advantages include: enhancing the recruitment and retention of ethnically diverse personnel; enhanced originality, motivation, and invention extending the scope of the company and enhancing its potential to attract new customers; having additional resources to address issues; developing innovative work and management approaches; establishing new kinds of interpersonal partnerships; constructing support systems that better meet the different worker and client requirements. 

 

However, while there are numerous benefits associated with a culturally varied workplace, it also brings unique problems, such as the integration of multicultural teams may be hampered by negative prejudices; Professional communication across cultures and languages is susceptible to misunderstanding and misinterpretation; professional etiquette can vary among cultures, and teams with opposing working approaches.

 

In their book, they also identify the six fundamental concepts of cultural diversity management for success and provide six steps to properly integrate cultural diversity management into an organization.

Source:    Windon, S., Plaza, C. H., & Robotham, D. (2020, December 7). Cultural Differences in the Workplace. PennState Extension. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://extension.psu.edu/cultural-differences-in-the-workplace