Cultural diversity and collaboration

Organizational culture was initially thought to be monumental that could easily be conceptualized but globalization has challenged this notion. Culture the multifaceted concept of shared beliefs, philosophies, values, norms, customs and mental programming is no longer static but volatile. Most scholars argue that free movement of political, economic and cultural resources between and within countries has facilitated the change in culture as the elements interact during the movement of various cultures. Conceptualization of culture with volatile boundaries and dynamic nature calls for proper understanding of the movement in culture with its cognitive elements. Theoretical explanation of cultural movement through convergence, divergence and crossvergence attempts to explain the movement of culture. This process transforms cultures through conflict and stress which affects boundaries and elements of culture leading to shifts through natural adaptive mechanisms. Traditional management was not interested in organization environment but the paradigm shift of static culture has brought in new management concepts that are mindful about organizational culture and dynamics of its environment. The paper undertakes to define culture explain constituents of culture, the concept of national culture and organizational culture, theories convergence, divergence and crossvergence of cultural movement and contemporary factors influencing cultural movement. The paper strongly advocates for management to understand the cultural elements in order to effectively manage diversity. 1.0 Background Culture has variously been defined from different perspectives due to different contexts, time, society, organization, and nationality. Jacques (1952:251) defines culture as a customary and traditional way of thinking and doing things, which is shared to a greater or less degree by all its members and which members must learn, and at least partially accept, in order to be accepted into service in the firm. Hagget (1975:238) defines culture as a description of patterns of behaviour that form a durable template by which ideas and images can be transferred from one generation to another. On the other hand Swartz & Davis (1981:33) define culture as a pattern of beliefs and expectations shared by the organization members, responsible for production of norms and powerfully shape the behaviour of individuals and groups in the organization. Lorsch (1986:95) defines culture as shared beliefs top managers have about how they should manage themselves and other employees, and how they should conduct business. Lorsch looked at culture from the perspective of managers working towards transforming the culture of the organization unlike other scholars. Louis (1983:39) defines organization's culture as a bearing milleux, that is, they are distinctive social units possessed of a set of common understanding. Similarly Shein (1985:6) defines culture as a pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to these problems. This is closely related to Van Maanen (1988:3) who defined culture as knowledge members of a given group are thought to more or less share; knowledge of the sort that is said to form, embed, shape, and account for routine and not so-routine activities of the members of the culture... a culture is expressed (or constituted) only through the actions and words of its members and must be interpreted by a given a fieldworker...culture is not itself visible, but is made visible only through its representation. This notion has been argued by various scholars like Kotter and Hesket (1992), define " culture as shared values (that define what is important) and norms that define appropriate attitudes and behaviors for organizational members (how to feel and behave). " This is in agreement with Rousseau (1990), who also asserted that system of shared values and norms. Trice and Beyer (1993:2), cultures are collective phenomena that embody people's responses to the uncertainties and chaos that are inevitable in human experience. These responses fall into two major categories. The first is the substance of culture-shared, emotionally charged belief systems that we call ideologies. The second cultural forms-observable entities, including actions, through which members of a culture express, affirm, and communicate the substance of their culture to one another. Culture is a multifaceted concept of peoples shared people's beliefs, philosophies, norms, customs and mental programming of a group of people (Hofstede 1981, 1983, 1997, & 2001).

2009

Ethos, 2009

Cultural values and scripts for parenting can be inconsistent, producing intrapsychic and cultural conflict. For example, many middle-class U.S. parents encourage independence, self-reliance, and autonomy in children, yet also encourage children to seek out help and look for attention from adults. Parents respond with egoistic recognition of children's achievementsFa set of contradictions that lead to dependency conflicts. Another example of conflicting goals and fears for many U.S. parents is bedsharing with children. Parents hold strong beliefs about the importance of bedsharing and its positive or negative outcomes; their beliefs are important to their identity and beliefs about good outcomes for their children, even where actual impacts of bedsharing on children show no strong differences. At the same time, if enough features of the cultural learning environment are similar, outcomes of childrearing practices will be reasonably similar and consistent within a community. These examples suggest that conflict, diversity, and pluralism are expectable within and across communities, but also that shared cultural learning environments will simultaneously encourage similarity. In this article, I present empirical examples of these processes, some of which organize diversity to produce consensus, whereas others produce intrapsychic, intersubjective, and cross-cultural conflict. [cultural pluralism, conflict, cultural learning environment, dependency conflict, bedsharing] Anthony Wallace asked 47 years ago how cultural knowledge is organized in the mind and how it leads to cultural practices that, if not completely consistent and coordinated, do cohere. Wallace (1970) observed that in most anthropology of that era the model for the transmission, cognitive organization, and sharing of cultural knowledge was ''the replication of uniformity'' of putatively widely shared knowledge and practices in a relatively homogeneous local community. He contrasted this model with the ''organization of diversity,'' and pointed out that both theory and evidence from psychology and anthropology would suggest that there often is individual and subgroup variation in cultural knowledge and practice. What produces and perpetuates this diversity, and how can we better integrate the fact of diversity into culture theory and empirical research? By foregrounding diversity of belief and practice within communities, Wallace proposed a view of culture quite different from much of the anthropology of his era. Culture, as seen from this viewpoint, becomes like a ''policy,'' tacitly and gradually concocted by groups of people for the furtherance of their interests, and consists, at least in part, of ''contracts'' established by practice between

The world today is more culturally aware and integrated within different cultural backgrounds to raise the economy. A culture plays an important role on how an individual reacts, behaves, and responds to things in a community. The cultural differences among countries and their associations bring up the question of whether what can be applied to associations in one country is appropriate to the associations in another country. In a growing economic world and in the process of globalization, international relationships between organizations are becoming more and more important. If a culture is not properly understood it can lead to many business failures. Since the board is managing the incorporation of individuals in some type of joint endeavor, it is acutely embedded in the culture. It is essential to have knowledge about other cultural backgrounds to become successful in this new economy. To improve the managerial skills it is important that managers should understand their international partners and competitors by learning about the cultural differences. Management and organizational behavior is affected by national culture to a certain extent. Thus, associations are progressively keen on individuals that have encountered and changed in accordance with different cultures as they are adaptable in fitting in the culture. This adaptability helps an association in saving money by sending a worker who is equipped for continuing the task they were sent on effectively without harming business connections abroad. This paper will examine expatriates and their jobs, what are cross-cultural issues, the distinction among high and low context cultures, and an examination of European and Omani culture According to Broke et al ., (2008) Organizational culture can be passed by expatriate assignment to subsidiaries, which can pose few issues such as that nationals from small power distance countries may have issues enforcing ' solid organizational culture ' in their subsidiaries. Community culture is an inevitable concept that affects the initiatives and style of management of the companies. Tayeb (1996) states that different national cultures results in different patterns of social interaction affecting groups and individuals and therefore demand new management styles. The degree to which an immigrant is socially relaxed with various aspects of the hostile country is referred to this as cross-cultural transition as per Black (1988). This entails the ambiguity by mimicking or acquiring suitable local habits and harmonizing with society according to Peltokorpi and Froese (2009).

Public Management Review, 2014

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Human Relations, 2007

Research to date concurs in maintaining that performance of nationally homogeneous workgroups differs if compared to heterogeneous ones. Yet, results are mixed on the relationship between cultural diversity and workgroup outcomes. The article argues that cultural differences are given explanatory authority, cultural diversity acquiring a positivist status, and group members being treated as ‘dopes of their culture’. An alternative approach is to conceive ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘national culture’ as discursive resources used by group members in everyday group life. The author followed an international project group for over 17 months,observing how group members discussed and made sense of what went on. Findings suggest that the way members in international project groups use the ‘national/cultural’discourse plays a crucial role in the organization of the project. More specifically, results demonstrate that group members shaped and developed their international project in important ways by using the discourses on ‘national culture’ and ‘cultural diversity’ to excuse confusion and misunderstanding, to position themselves vis-à-vis the group,to justify decisions and to give the group a raison d’être. Implications are drawn concerning the need for researchers to acknowledge actors’ space for choice in group-life.

A Theoretical Orientation for the, 2004

In order to explain, what is or what could be the culture of diversity it needs to decide for a frame of reference, which has significance and relevance for the problem we are talking about. This is a very simple requirement, otherwise it would not be possible, at least not politically sincere to argue for certain measures how to develop or how to establish culture of diversity -not to speak about the necessity to answer honestly the question, why is there a need of cultivating diversity? Obviously the term of diversity becomes a paradigmatic position in understanding and explaining the problem of social togetherness, it becomes even a cultural and political term and gets used in contexts of conceptualizing new horizons of societies. There is no other most enlightening concept of reference than the one of communication. Because communication is the instance to unify difference and to make diversity understood as a challenge of culture.

2010

Cross-Cultural Collaboration and Leadership in Modern Organizations

This chapter identifies current issues and methods for enhancing organizational climate by and through practices that embrace, promote and accommodate diversity and cross-cultural collaboration. We identify ongoing areas of insensitivity and focus on practices that individuals and organizations need to develop in order to accommodate diversity, and to cultivate cross-cultural collaboration and leadership development. Future leaders must possess skills that are just and respectful of increasing difference in organizations. We believe higher education is the logical site for developing these skills and practices but before we can fully enjoy the benefits of diverse organizations and communities, we must develop and practice these skills at colleges and universities-organizations whose ongoing social relevance may very well depend on their efforts and abilities to prepare culturally-competent graduates for work in the globalizing workplace.

In the article, I am arguing for a more constructivist and reflexive definition of cultural diversity.