Ethnocentrism and Diversity in the Workplace Essay

Introduction

Given a foreign context in a certain situation, anyone can be called a stranger. One is considered a stranger when he or she has minimal knowledge of the new norms, values, and the environment that surrounds him or her. And vice versa, a local is the one who has minimal knowledge of the stranger’s habits, interests, beliefs, and traditions. In general, communication with a stranger goes down to the anticipation and the prediction of the answers.

When it comes to the interaction with the local person, it is quite different as everyone is confident in the anticipations and predictions. On the contrary, when communicating with strangers, the individuals involved in the communication are more cautious of the possible answers as well of the uncertainty of their predictions (Gudykunst & Kim, 1995, p. 430).

Minority Group Characteristics

Because migration, intermarriage, war, and other factors our planet is populated by various ethnicity groups. Minority groups are usually different from the dominant society groups that possess power. Usually, there are many stereotypes that surround minority groups, which allows the dominant population to justify the poor treatment of the minorities. Lastly, a significant characteristic of the minority population in connected with its development of collective identities for insulating themselves from the world that does not accept them (Ballantine & Roberts, 2014, p. 258).

Racial VS Ethnic Groups

There are many races that make up the world, although these races are divided into various ethnicities. Despite the fact that many may confuse racial and ethnic groups as the same term, an ethnic group can be a group of people that share common national, cultural, or religious background. Race is not characterized by the choice to belong to a particular religion, a race is something every person is born with.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is usually described as a psychological disposition of an individual towards another individual. Such a disposition can have positive and negative consequences. On one hand, ethnocentrism can help maintain one’s cultural identity and lead to the misunderstanding and unwillingness to communicate, on the other. Ethnocentrism is also tightly linked to the identity formation of an individual.

Kim, Kim and Choe (2006) studied the link of the identity to ethnocentrism as it relates to the various cultural issues (p. 60). For example, the research showed that Koreans had a prevalence toward ethnocentrism than Japanese or native English speakers. Moreover, the Korean population had the highest scores in the measurement of identity (Dong, Day & Collaco, n.d., p. 30).

The Dillingham Flaw

In our modern society, similar mistakes in thinking affect the people’s perception of the strangers to the society. A stranger to the society is any person with which the dominant population does not identify. The term Dillingham Flaw refers to the erroneous way of comparing people from one time period with people that live in the present moment. As a result, one group is being judged negatively in such a comparison. In order to avoid the Dillingham Flaw, people should avoid the modern perception of the world to explain the past as in the past the people’s perception of the world was quite different (Parillo, 2008, p. 14).

Promoting Diversity in the Workplace

Ethnocentrism and racial misconceptions also relate to the workplace. However, to avoid various misconceptions related to the minority groups, it is important to promote diversity in the workplace. By promoting diversity, an organization will be able to get various perspectives on the working process and understand the various backgrounds of the customers. In order for the company to attract and then retain the desired diverse employees, an organization should participate in various programs. To do so, there are several strategies that can be applied.

First, a diversity program should correspond to the strategic plan of an organization. The key to a successful diversity program, the strategy should be developed by using the same methods for aligning the general strategy of an organization. Having a diversity strategy that is well-defined will only be helpful for attaining business goals at the same time with creating a much more inclusive culture in the workplace.

A company should also encourage it employees to take part in professional activities that support and promote diversity. Such an involvement will provide a variety of networking opportunities as well as foster collaborations that can enhance the access to a large selection of diverse candidates (Johnsen, White & Boyd, 2013, p. 1).

A bright example of promoting diversity in the workplace is the Target corporation. Its corporate website provides various information on how the company promotes diversity, makes connections with various community members, and supports equality. Target has collaborated with organizations like UNCF, Family Equality Control, and others to support the diverse populations that exist within the community.

The company takes participation in a variety of programs connected with volunteering to show the commitment to diversity and inclusion. Moreover, Target participates in career fairs and conferences to find diverse team members alongside with establishing in-store kiosks that encourage guests to become the team members of the company (Diversity & Inclusion, 2016, para. 2).

References

Ballantine, J., & Roberts, K. (2014). Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Diversity & Inclusion. (2016). Web.

Dong, Q., Day, D., & Collaco, C. (n.d.). Overcoming Ethnocentrism through Developing Intercultural Communication Sensitivity and Multiculturalism. Human Communication, 11(1), 27-38.

Gudykunst, W, & Kim, Y. (1995). Communicating With Strangers: An Approach to Intercultural Communication. In J. Stewart (Ed.), Bridges Not Walls (pp. 429-442). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Johnsen, J., White, G., & Boyd, P. (2013). 5 Strategies for Promoting Diversity in the Workplace. Web.

Kim, S., Kim, H., & Choe, Y. (2006). An exploratory study on cultural differences between Koreans, Japanese, and Native speakers of English. Human Communication, 9, 57-70.

Parillo, V. (2008). Diversity in America. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.