Diversity in Multi-Cultural Teams Creates Potential Advantages

Cox and Blake (1991), maintained that cultural diversity would impact six areas of organizational effectiveness, including the capability to attract human resources, cost, innovation, creativity, and problem solving, marketing, and flexibility. The revealing fields studied were innovation and creativity, problem solving, and structural flexibility, this was accomplished through information and decision making processes. Creativity and innovation can be supported by "diversity of perspectives and less emphasis on conformity to the norms of the past" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47), which will increase the ability of the organization to create and innovate. The problem-solving contention maintains that better decisions would be produced through additional perspectives developed in various problem solving groups (Cox and Blake, 1991). Finally, the flexibility argument designates that multicultural management practices would result in changes that meant "that the system will become less determinant, less standardized, and therefore more fluid" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47). These fluctuations are likely to increase the

When looking at diversity in the workplace, many people and companies encourage it. “Cultural diversity has become a defining characteristic of an increasing number of societies” (“Consequences of Cultural diversity” this should be the author and the date). They feel that it is a great thing to have diversity in the workplace, however, what some companies do not think about is the negative effects of having too much diversity in the workplace. “A workforce that has significant differences in ethnicity, race, religion, gender and other individual traits can produce negative effects, especially if not well-managed. These negative effects of diversity are understandable if the work culture does not support tolerance and acceptance of

From our research, we identified three different perspectives on workforce diversity that people embrace, each with different implications for a work group’s ability to realize the benefits of its cultural diversity. We use these observations here to examine critically some of the themes and basic assumptions of previous research and to propose new directions for both researchers and practitioners interested in diversity (Ely &Thomas, 2001). When organizations have a diverse economy, it makes the company strong. Once our nation has embrace the changes from the demographics that reap the economic benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce. Burns et al. (2012) stated in their investigation that:

Workforce diversity means hiring staff from different gender, race, age, ethnicity and cultural background (Draft, 2000). Management should pay more attention to the social context of these people as there are communication differences. For example, German has low context culture, which states they use communication mainly to exchange facts and information. In other words, they are more practical and realistic; In contrast, Chinese has a high context culture, they use communication mainly to build personal social relationship. They reckon relationships and trust are more important than business. The importance of overcoming these differences is to enhance the harmony and coherence in an organization.

The positive impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can contribute creativity to a high-performance team. Membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives that can help improve team problem solving and increase creativity (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). Cultural diversity contributes various group input and group dynamics to the team. These two factors are essential in the high performance of a team. Cultural diversity can develop a high-performance team by allowing the diverse potentials of a team to operate. The negative impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can develop numerous of conflicts between team members. Conflicting interaction can limit or decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of productivity. There should be an awareness of the diverse culture values in order to prevent these conflicts.

The case study was called When Increase Diversity Improves Team Performance. There were a lot of planning in the case study that was used to improve the quality of workers at Bridgestone Health System. The society is growing into a more diverse population, where everyone is becoming more accepted no matter what socioeconomic status or culture background one is from. I believe bringing on an experienced black man was a good way to expand opportunity for diversity. Black men already sit at the bottom of the pool when it comes to being hired for quality jobs. The scenario in the case study is what I believe happens quite frequently in the workforce. I do believe a lot of times diversity is swept under the rug or unpublicized. I was not surprised

Multicultural teams have become more common in our organizations, and contemporary international management literature has identified that the management of multicultural teams is an

Organizations have been becoming increasingly diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality. This diversity brings substantial potential benefits such as better decision making, greater creativity and innovation, and more successful marketing to different types of customers. But, increasing cultural differences within a workforce also bring potential costs in higher turnovers, interpersonal conflicts, and communicational breakdowns. The utilities of diversity training and the essential managerial skills required for effectively managing diversity will also be discussed.

Diversity in culture and demographic characteristics can be a negative impact or be one of the team's greatest strengths, depending on how the team as a whole functions and applies these different “routes to success”. A group can become a high performing team by understanding how cultural and demographic differences influence group behavior. The groups must realize that they can benefit from their diversity to their advantage and into a high performance team.

Often the idea, when having cultural differences in employees, is that treating everyone the same can avoid uncomfortable situations. This causes more harm than good, companies can be stuck in their ways of teaching and not individualizing their teaching based on the person. The more the world is becoming diverse the reality is that instead of treating everyone the same, companies should celebrate the diversity, not everyone learns the same but even more so in different cultures. It’s very important to know the differences when teaching employees and getting to know them, you will learn know their motivations and their way that could possibly improve your business. This also helps the other employees see different ways of doing things that could also better their performance. Some ways that cultural diversity influences motivation in learning are by showing other employees that there is more than one way to something and helping the diverse employee learn the way they learn best and it helps us connect with customers that are culturally diverse.

Benefits of a high workplace diversity environment is it not being stuck to conformity in group thinking, or being narrow-minded with similar thoughts and having preference to only be around people who think like you do which is known as the “diversity paradox”. According to a quote stated from Friedrich Nietzsche, Hackett (2014) “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently” (p. 415). Instead, it reiterates the importance of having a diverse workplace because it constructs better ideas, coming from different minds, and build upon each other through brainstorming. However, a poor workplace diversity can also adversely affect one’s motivation, which leads to overall job dissatisfaction and demotivation. When there is poor workplace diversity, you can see less communication barriers and cultural resistance, but it also makes it harder for individuals to get used to working with others that aren’t the same as them. This can become a form of adversity for businesses if their employees cannot develop a strong skill set to adapt with not only coworkers but also customers in the environment. Therefore, better communication and interaction skills are essential to promoting a business and making it successful.

Not only the country are able to attract different varieties of professionals around the globe for which they can contribute towards a society, but also these professionals are able to consider the country as their home. It is such a win-win situation. In the society of multiculturalism, it will promote cultural awareness among the employees in the working environment and these employees who are exposed to the different views will tend to think creatively. An association with the occurrence of cultural experience can promote flexibility and create a strong team as they are able to provide empathy with each other as they interact with each other. Since the employees are well adapted to the multicultural environment, they are able to attract different types of customers in regards to their culture as the employees tend to be more flexible and communicative. As a result, businesses may benefit from the culturally diverse workforce as they will engage in a larger social network for which it can generate different products and services that is due to the creative and innovative thinking among the employees. Thus, it can be well reasoned that companies with a well diversified workforce is at an advantage because it will offer varieties products that has the ability to attract customers from several ethnic groups, thus it will lead to an increase in customer base that facilitates in capturing the global market and earn profits rather

People of different ethnic backgrounds have different attitudes and values in workplace. It can be seen that same cultural groups have better outcomes in our company because they possess the same ideas and point of views due to their

The workplace has become one of the biggest multicultural settings. Almost half of the work force in the United States is made up of minorities. There are many advantages to having this percentage of people from different cultures throughout our workplace. One is the increase in creativeness. Not only in products that are being created but in the developing of an approach to solving problems. "Other cultures can offer insightful alternatives" (EthoConnect). Another way in which the workplace is affected by this is in productivity and attitudes. When people of all cultures pull together to reach a common goal there are less limited boundaries and there are more global understanding that are used to help reach the world's market place; creating a larger market for products. With this change in productivity in the workplace is more desirable and enjoyable for all employees. The market place has become more global based that workers having a diverse culture base is very important to break down barriers in language and knowledge of certain markets. This affects our lives by more companies hiring more international job seekers.

Many opportunities are associated with a culturally diverse workplace and global expansion may have potential to provide just such a diverse work group. Cross-culturalism in business can provide leaders and employees with a wonderful opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and cultures. In addition, “the more opportunities for business leaders to interact with people from different cultures, the more likely they will be to have positive attitudes from different cultures and identify, learn and apply diverse culturally-appropriate business behaviors” (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012, p. 614). Culturally diverse environments offer a multitude of benefits including “the variety of perspectives, skills and personal attributes” (Matveeve & Nelson, 2004, p. 254). Moreover, multicultural teams have potential to “generate more ideas of higher quality in brainstorming tasks” (Matveeve &