Diversity management and its effects in Multinational corporations

摘要

Today, globalization has become a reality.Advances in the field of information andtechnology and liberalization in trade and investment have increased the ease and speed withwhich companies can manage their global operations.Due to globalization, many companiesare now operating in more than one country.This crossing of geographical boundaries by thecompanies gives the birth of multicultural organization where employees from more than onecountry are working together.In its definition, its acknowledging, understanding, accepting,and valuing differences among people with respect to age, class, race, ethnicity, gender,disabilities, etc.(Esty et al.1995).Companies need to embrace diversity and look for ways to become inclusive organizationsbecause diversity has the potential to yield greater work productivity and competitiveadvantages (SHRM 1995).They are finding these expansions as attractive and lucrative butoperating and managing a global business is normally a lot tougher than managing a localcompany, the global business will also be prone to be affected by a multitude of factors, inthis case the diversity of employees within the workplaceDiversity presents unique challenges for management as it is linked to both positive andnegative organizational performance outcomes (Mannix & Neale, 2005).However also,Diversity, by itself, may not be sufficient to achieve competitive advantage.Effectivediversity management becomes an important issue for organizations to consider.In such circumstances, the risk of cross cultural discrepancies is inevitable.Using amultipipe case study approach the aim of this paper is to find out these discrepancies, throughsome research & interviews at companies that face this predicament and then suggest someeffective solutions to manage effectively the cross-cultural aspect of diversity managementwithin the workplace for the success of global business.Data from questionnaires, focused interviews and existing documents were used to comparethe research questions to the practices of diversity management within global corporations,aswell as other various human resources literature explored.In addition to this, the researchhas taken a qualitative, interpretivist & exploratory design in the form of case studies, whichwas the most appropriate methodology for this type of social phenomenon research that hasbecome increasingly dynamic, as the world continues to globalise.