Emergent area of diversity and cross-cultural issues, meaning of workplace diversity and the global trends, benefits of workplace diversity, creating diversity as part of organizational culture.

1. Managing Diversity and
Cross-Cultural Issues
Prof.Shrinivas

2. Diversity among employees has an
impact on organizational behavior,
because employees who have different
backgrounds and characteristics have
varied values and needs

3. Individualism versus
Collectivism
 Hofstede defined an individualistic
society as one in which individuals are
primarily responsible for looking after
their own welfare and that of their
family.
 collectivist cultures attach a high value
to group harmony and welfare

4. Factors Impacting Cultural
Diversity
 Power Distance
 Uncertainty Avoidance
 Masculinity versus Femininity
 Gender Diversity
 Women in Management
 Two-Income Families
Flexible Work Options
Child Care
 Job Relocation
 Age Diversity

5. Hofstede Model of Organization
Culture
 Power Distance
 Uncertainty Avoidance Index
 Masculinity versus Femininity
 Individualism
 Longterm Orientation

6. Work Competence Diversity
 Competence
 Aptitudes
 Abilities

7. Challenges of a Diverse
Workplace
 Stereotyping
 Communication Breakdowns
 Motivating Diversity

8. Benefits of Diversity
 Access to more information and a
broader range of skills and abilities.
 Diversity among employees results in
higher-quality decision- making.
 Organizational creativity and
innovation levels tend to be higher
 Diversified staff is more likely to
satisfy the needs of today's
population.

9. Strategies for Reinforcing
New Cultural Values
1. Revise hiring and promotion policies so that they
reflect the new values underlying the organizational
culture. In a context of diversity, organizations
should hire employees from a wide variety of
backgrounds, using employment equity guidelines to
help them achieve this goal.
2. Identify employees who resist the new values, and
either train or remove them.
3. Create discussion groups in which employees from
various cultures talk about their background,
thereby forcing other employees to confront their
own cultural stereotypes and misconceptions.

10. 4. Provide cultural sensitivity training programs that help
modify negative attitudes toward individuals from
different cultures. For example, Northern Telecom
provides a 16-hour training program for new employees
to help them modify their negative attitudes toward
individuals from different cultures.
5. Create caucus groups in which people of same culture
meet regularly to share experiences and offer support to
one another.
6. Do not tolerate any racist, sexist, or other discriminatory
behaviors. Make employees aware of anti-discrimination
and anti-harassment legislation by holding information
sessions and by posting these laws in each department.

12.  “Our ability to reach unity in diversity
will be the beauty and the test of our
civilisation.”
- Mahatma Gandhi