Managing Diversity (lessons 18th - 20th)

1. What did I learn?

I must say that i really liked this topic, it could be maybe because i had to present it, but actually it was easier that i thought. At first, i did think that the topic was so difficult, but whe Samuel and I started searching about the topic, it turned more and more interesting.

The term itself was introduced in USA in 1987, by Johnston and Packer. They found out some similarities between heterogeneity ant the USA workforce.

Nowadays, the companies worldwide are demanding more and more employees from different backgrounds, in order to pontentialize the advantage that culture can represent and reduce the global culture barriers. I do think that the globalization has a lot of to do in it, since a company internationalize itself, it should do it from inside to outside. Once again the concept of diversity and its dimensions are mentioned, in order to understand the point from a managerial view. Moreover, when an organization has got a high level of managing diversity, aspects such as: cost, resource acquisition, creativity, marketing, problem solving and organizational flexibility can be well used in order to be competitive. Felxibility is such an important matter: It is necessary for a organization to be flexible and open-minded, thus, the organization´s culture and information can run from and to every single department, creating synergies that is translated into more competitiviness. Reaching to an end, the components that help to move from a traditional model to a more cultural one, are: leadership, training, research, analysis of cultural systems and follow up. Finally, a manager should bear in mind the value chain for implementing change in an organization which consists on: an activity or process that implies diversity, this will bring up an outcome and an impact and later on, an added value can be reach for the organization. For instance, for a marital status issue:

Activity:Club membership (both single and married)

Outcome: Integration among employees

Impact: commitment and self-belonging to the company

Added value: Relax, employees more productive.

Today, investment in managing diversity is needed in any organization.

2. Question: How to manage diversity in an organization?

3. Answer: A interesting way of managing diversity is proposed by Sylvie Chevrier in her article, Cross-cultural Management in Multinational Project Groups. The projects, the are so important to run out businesses, since in a project a group is needed and over here is when diversity takes place. Those teams become multicultural teams, in which, several cultures are met. This gives the opportunity to change points of views, to compare opinions and to build up relationships among the employees as well as good performance to the organization.

Sources: Sylvie Chevrier. 2003. Cross-cultural Management in Multinational Project Groups. Journal of World Business 38.

Maria Alejandra González´s slides.