Introduction
Sinclair (2006) argued that the problems for people who advise organisations in the area of diversity management have never been greater. The supposed acceptances of diversity as a good contradict the well-established structural barrier to implementing greater openness to differences in the workplaces. To evaluate this statement, this paper has grounded on aspect of large Multinational Companies.
The MNCs provide strategic importance to the groups those are diverse in practical. The cultural backdrops are turning more significant in this era of market globalsation and with presence of MNCs and have greater than before competition among corporations from any part of the world. Thus the MNCs are much more aware about diversity. Empirical investigation that has scrutinized among the teams from different attributes shows the lacking of Diversity Management.
MNC has been conceptualised e-diversity, heterogeneity, homogeneity, unitary effect whether positive or negative effect on team effectiveness. This would go analyse multi-dimensional view of diversity practiced in large MNCs as well as propose a model of multicultural team working with large multinational corporations (MNCs).
Background to Diversity
Diversity simply refers to human characteristics that make people different from one another. There are many different cultural backgrounds and factors that are important in organizations and that people from different backgrounds can coexist and flourish within an organization. Usually diversification refers to cultural factors such as ethnicity, race gender, physical ability and sexual orientation, but sometimes age and other factors are added. Stoner (2006) argued that the belief that people from different backgrounds can work together is fundamental to democracy and the way of organizational life.
In order to answer this question it is necessary to discuss the dilemmas from the perspective of a Human Resources manager working with staff about to take on international assignments within a large, multi-national company. The managerial challenge is learning how to take advantage of this diversity while fostering cooperation and cohesiveness among dissimilar employees. The HR department may help to meet the challenge by developing training programs, offering assistance and advice, establishing fair selection procedures and like. Managing workforce diversity is the way that both respects the employee and promotes a shared sense of corporate identity and vision is one of the greatest challenge facing organizations today.
Multicultural Teams
Large multinational corporations (MNCs) form multicultural teams to respond to their organizational needs. A team could be organised in an assortment of ways based on the uniqueness of interest to the organisation. MNC’s practice demonstrates several team formats such as self-administered vs. conventionally managed teams fluctuate on the center of attention to control from outwardly obligatory internally.
Another form of team could be based on Leader-staff v jury-like team which focuses on grouping configuration as well as leadership. The Functional v crossfunctional team shows a discrepancy in the well-designed setting of the members. As a final point, homogeneous v heterogeneous teams lay emphasis on the whole diversity in composition. For distinction of functional versus crossfunctional is but one way of distinguishing teams.
One more measurement of team diversity is the national culture. There is no accurate definition of multicultural teams; usually the expression of multicultural indicates to groups where minimum 3 or more cultures are corresponding with members. Presently foremost MNCs, multicultural teams gained an authenticity outstanding for amplified globalization as well as diversity within the workplace. Diversity has been positioned to have moreover an optimistic or pessimistic effect on team’s outcomes. In wide-ranging, diversity in multicultural team has been organised in an unitary approach. This single dimensional focal point led to contradictory consequences about diversity effects
Gender issues in Diversification
One important dimension of diversity in organizations is gender diversity. The workforce is rapidly moving from being male-dominated to one of equality in numbers between men and women. Nevertheless there remain many barriers for women seeking equal treatment in most organizations.
Glass ceiling
While there are more women in the workforce than ever before, they are still largely in junior positions. Only a handle of women are chief executives of large companies. Getting hired is merely an initial step for women, getting promoted within a company often proves a more imposing challenge. For senior positions, promoters are very hard to achieve. This is commonly referred to as the Glass ceiling syndrome- women and minorities can see opportunities for senior management positions but are blocked by seemingly invisible barriers from reaching them. Much of the decision to promote someone to a senior position is based on such intangibles as how comfortable the senior team is with that person.
Sexual harassment
Many women face sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment consists of any unwanted sexual behavior, including but not limited to suggestive books, sexual jokes, intentional touching, or pressure for sexual favours. There are mainly two types of harassment, the first types occur when sexual favours are requested or demanded in exchange for tangible benefits – advancement, pay increases or to avoid tangible harm, loss of job, demotion. The second type of harassment is labeled hostile environment. It is more complex because claim of this type can be made for unwelcome sexual conduct, either physical or verbal.
However, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what a hostile environment is, sensitivities differ and what is offensive to one woman is not necessarily offensive to another. In 1991 British survey revealed that 47 % of the women and 14.5% of the men said they had been sexually harassed.
Stereotyping
Women may be stereotyped as human resources managers or public relations executives rather than manufacturing vice precedents or marketing vice presents. Women must also overcome stereotypes about maternity and child care; traditionally managers have assumed that women will drop out of the workforce to have a family, negating the investment that an organization has made in them. Many women critics insist that they should not have to choose between putting their careers first or their families first; men are not asked to make such choices in terms of tracking their entire career. The critics suggest that an organization that truly values diversity and multiculturalism will make it possible for women to have the same career opportunities as men and families, if they so choose.
Racial and Minority issues
Another important dimension of diversity is race and ethnicity. Many cultural differences exist between racial and ethnic and minority groups such as African and Asian. Yet members of all these minority groups have experienced the challenges of working in a multicultural setting where their own cultural heritage was devalued. It can be seen the biases against people of color being in positions of authority by looking at professional sports. In addition, statistics reveal earning gaps, which are discrepancies between the earning power of workers of similar educational backgrounds but different races. The reasons for the earnings gap are complex, but they do serve as an identification that discrimination still exists in the workplace.
Gender, race and ethnicity are not the only eleme4nts of diversity. If an organization is to value the contributions of all of its members, then its approach to diversity must include issues such as age and sexual orientation.
Ageism
In spite of the aging of the workforce, many managers still fail to place adequate value in order workers, even though restrictions on mandatory retirement have eased. In UK the maximum retirement age is 65 for male, on the other hand 60 for female. It is direct bias against female.
Sexual orientation
The presence of homosexuals in the workplace poses many issues for the development of the diversity workplace. In the past, most of homosexuals kept their sexual orientation hidden or in the closet. Today, increasing numbers have declared, or are grappling with the possibility of openly declaring, their sexual orientation, even though they recognize that it could jeopardized their jobs. Some companies are taking actives role in making homosexuals feel more comfortable with one another in the workplace.
Multicultural Team Effectiveness
MNC’s tragedy model of multicultural team efficiency has represented in Figure 1. In basic characteristics, the model highlights two dissimilar kinds of contingencies and these are external fit among MNC strategic planning and team diversity and internal fit among team work and group diversity. According to the team essence the affiliation among MNC’s strategy and diversity an external issue that is outside the team context. The connection among task and diversity would be internal for the reason that task fit in to the team essence.
Within the Contingency model of Diversity, each elements of the model has been explained in the first segment. Simultaneously the conception of fit has been functional to multicultural teams has residential and discuss for detailed types of task as well as MNC strategy. Propositions of Contingency model of Diversity have been recapitulated in Figure 2a & 2b. As a final point, the contingency model has been incorporated within the last segment and amalgamated in Figure 3.
Multiculturalism and Organizational Success
Most organizations have realized that diversity exists and that the culture of any organizations must pay attention to the needs of a set of very diverse employees. In short, many managers are grappling with how to make their corporate culture more in tune with the issues of multiculturalism.
The Cost Argument says that if organizations do a poor job in managing diversity issues they will have higher costs. The revolving do a poor job syndrome is expensive. When women and minorities leave, the organization gets no return on the investment it has made in them. In addition, if multicultural issues aren’t manage well, and then people are not as compfort6able as they could be in the work environment and they spend time and energy worrying about discrimination, harassment, and other issues rather than their jobs.
The resource acquisition argument says that companies that handle multiculturalism well will have an advantage over other companies in hiring multicultural workers an increasingly important advantage in this era demographics. For example a recent book discussed the best places to work for women and African Americans.
The marketing argument says that organizations that manage multicultural issued well have an insight into market consisting of minority group members and women. Markets, too, are diverse, and cultural issues have some effect on the buying decisions of customers. UK today is successful precisely because it has a variety of people from different cultural backgrounds involved in daily news meetings.
The creativity and the problem solving arguments hold that groups of people from diverse backgrounds can be more creative than groups with homogeneous backgrounds, and are better at solving problems however steps must be taken to realize these benefits In particular team members must become aware of possible attitude differences in others. And there must be a core of share benefits or shared values around which people can expense their differences.
Finally, the system flexible arguments say that the ability to manage diversity increases the adaptability and flexibility of an organization. External and internal issues can be responded to more quickly. In addition, to manage diversity successfully, an organization must question outdated policies and procedures that emerged in days when multiculturalism was not a large concern for the organizations.
Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for organizational Competitiveness
MNC Team Diversity
The demographic heterogeneity within organisational performance is also as a determinant for team effectiveness. It has been objected to growing intellectual attention when firms are conflicted in front with more and more diversity in workforce. In adding together, strategy experts have checked up the work of art of top management teams as well as their consequence on strategic leadership. The “top management team” (TMT) literature provides various demographically unpredictable issues have been considered together with age, tenure, gender, functional conditions as well as race and education. On the other hand, the consequences of this study regarding the effect of diversity on team performance are ambiguous.
MNC Team Task
The literatures on large groups have offered more than a few issues of group tasks obtainable within the literal on large groups. On the other hand in most examination of group heterogeneity, the measure of reutilization in the groups, tasks have been make available in most notional influence among categorization schemes Another inveterate proposal is that custom problem solving is best handle by a consistent group. Team task is more novel and ground-breaking events that are best fingered by a heterogeneous group. Where diversity of viewpoint and estimation permits more and more extensive generation and freshening of alternatives.
MNC Team Task
The literatures on large groups have offered more than a few issues of group tasks obtainable within the literal on large groups. On the other hand in most examination of group heterogeneity, the measure of reutilization in the groups, tasks have been make available in most notional influence among categorization schemes Another inveterate proposal is that custom problem solving is best handle by a consistent group. Team task is more novel and ground-breaking events that are best fingered by a heterogeneous group. Where diversity of viewpoint and estimation permits more and more extensive generation and freshening of alternatives.
MNC Strategy
MNCs general practice involved three types of strategies and they are predictable as : global, multinational, and international. The firms those follow a multinational strategy, are aimed to respond complying with local market conditions as major objective. Every national associates or overseas subsidiaries are given enormous autonomy and administer as a self-governing business unit. In this context, organisations pursue a global strategy faced on world markets.
They impose their highest importance on global efficiency accumulating from the scale and scope of economies. In the concluding point, organisations pursue an international strategy on emphasising knowledge and know-how in overseas affiliates. They are not as much of advanced in technology as well as market expansion and they are further treated as attachment of corporate headquarters. Some times affiliates are allowed to adapt business strategies as well as products depending on the requirements of local market within the area of its operate.
Positively they are fully dependent on the mother company concerning process innovation, new product development and selecting market strategies. Consequently there are more harmonisation and control by means of the mother company for international strategies next to multinational strategies.
MNCs adopt efficient conditions and national cultural ideology for team diversity. The team farm duties within MNC strategy have two important unforeseen events in an MNC background. Thus, investigating the dependent relationships that may survive for multicultural teams all along these scopes emerge to be important.
There are numerous dissimilar types of multicultural teams, such as a project team increasing a product suitable for multiple countries, a business team accountable to put together and put into practice global strategies. The task force is in incriminating for trim down worldwide manufacturing, while many multicultural groups are shaped for the time being for specific purposes. They also do not have to be project-based or time-bound
The Concept of Fit
The concept of fit has been a foundation in the strategy field which has been imply in a various way. One of the main viewpoints of this management involves that MNC require to maintaining their assets systematically with their objectives and plans. In addition, HR department should concern the internal strengths and weaknesses situation in order to benefit the companies or to uphold competition in the market.
Managing Cultural Diversity
Diversity under EU Law
The area of sex discrimination law or rights for women in Community law is a later developer than the other areas of law because of the original less extensive provision for it in the treaty than other policy areas, the delays by the Community and in particular, the Commission in introducing secondary legislation and the delays by the members states in implementing the principles of equal pay from Art 119 (now 141) of the Treaty and equal pay and equal treatment from secondary legislation. Article 119 was the sole original treaty provision for the European Community on concern itself with sex discrimination.
The ECJ has expanded the reach of Art 141 EC considerably by adopting a very broad interpretation of the meaning of ‘pay’ and also by including indirect discrimination within the scope of the Article. Art 141 EC within the scope of the Article. Art 141 EC has been held to be both vertically and horizontally directly effective. The aim of this Art 141 was to ensure similar economic product. A consideration which support this view is the fact that Art 119 originally applied only to equal pay and not to all discrimination on the grounds of sex, although the ECJ has since than considerably extended its scope in a number of judgement and the Union has now enacted Directives 2000/78 and 2000/43 dealing with other from of discrimination.
Consequently, therefore, the Commission was encouraged to produce proposals for different Social Action Programme. After some considerable delay and somewhat watered down in their final from, an almost inevitable result of the Community Legislative process, the following Directives were adopted: Equal Treatment Directive 76/207, Equal Pay Directive 75/117, Social Security Directive 79/7, Parental Leave Directive 96/34, Occupational Social Security Directive 86/378, Pregnancy Directive 92/85, Burden of proof Directive 97/80, Part-time Workers’ Directive 97/81 and Directives 2000/78 and 2000/43.
However, Community law is characteristically framed in broad general terms and concepts which seemed unsuitable for the provision of individual rights. Community legislation was criticised because of its formality, limited accessibility and distance from those who needed the effective application and enforcement of the provision for example women at work. The effect was, at first, that very little knowledge of European Community Equal rights law was disseminated beyond the small number of people in direct contact with these laws except where given substantial media publicity.
Women’s right in the Community has been considerably strengthened by changes introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Treaty has introduced as one of the goals outlined in Art 2 EC “equality between men and women. Recent amendment of The Equal Treatment Directive by Directive 2002/73 has provided the definitions of Sexual harassment in Art 2 of the Directive.
A high point in this jurisprudence was when the Court explicitly recognised that the elimination of sex discrimination was a fundamental human right upheld by Community law. The ECJ stated that equal treatment of men and women in employment was ‘simply the expression, in the relevant field, of the principle of quality, which is one of the fundamental principles of Community law’.
An explicit legal basis for legislation now exists to combat this and other forms of discrimination. The Treaty of Amsterdam added Article 13 EC to the Treaty of Rome, which provides a legal basis for the Community to take action to: ‘combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation’.
Anti-discrimination Directives
Directive 2000/78 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, in regard to access to employment or occupation, with the aim of ‘putting into effect in the Member States the principle of equal treatment (Art 1). It covers both direct and indirect discrimination (Art 2).
Directive 2000/43 is now in force. It implements the principle of equal treatment on the grounds of racial and ethnic origin.
Diversity training programs
Supervisors need to learn new skills that will enable them to manage and motivate a diverse workforce. Many multinational companies have developed extensive in house diversity training programs that provide awareness training and workshops to educate managers and employees on specific cultural and sex differences and how to respond to this workplace. A recent survey of CEOs found that the most common reason for implementing diversity training programs was “tapping diverse customers and markets” (44%). only 2.9% of respondents indicated the avoidance of litigation as a reason.
Much experimentation in this type of training is occurring UK. Often multinational companies has sponsored an all-expense paid conference for minority group’s managers to discuss the problem they encounter and how they can contribute more of the firms. They has offered homophobia seminars designed to help straight employees feel comfortable working alongside openly gay employees and to eliminate offensive jokes and insults from the workplace. However, multinational companies should introduced a mandatory four day awareness training programs for some 7000 salaried employees- a day and a half for gender awareness, two and a half days for ethnic awareness.
At least a dozen multinational companies have introduced “diversity kits” aimed at employees’ young children. The companies give the kits to their employees and suggest that they share the information with their children.
First, the training may have come at the t6ime when employees were preoccupied with more urgent priorities such as downsizing, increased work level, or launching a new product under tight deadlines. Second, if employees perceive that external forces such as a court order or a politician’s decree have prompted the training, they may resist. Third, if the training poses some as perpetrators and others as victim, those who feel blamed may be defensive. And fourth, if diversity is seen as the domain of a few groups (for example people of colour and women), every one else may feel left out and view the initiatives as being for others, not for them.
to avoid these four problems, the Society for Human Resources Management provides recommendations including holding focus groups with people who may find fault with the training; creating a diversity council that represents a cross section of employees with a wide range of views and attitudes; and exploring ways to deliver the training that do not use a typical classroom format such as one-on-one coaching to help managers deal with diversity challenges or interventions at team meetings on request.
Challenges in managing employee diversity
Although employee diversity offers opportunities that can enhance organizational performance, it also presents managers with a new set of challenges. These challenges include appropriately valuing employee diversity, balancing individual needs with group fairness, dealing with resistance to change, ensuring group cohesiveness and open communication, avoiding employee resentment and backlash, retaining valued performers and maximizing opportunity for all.
Individual versus Group Fairness
An issue closely related to the “difference is divisive versus better” debate is how far management should go in adapting HR programs to diverse employee groups. Now the question arise that should the company make the ability to speaks Spanish a condition of employment for first line supervisors who manage a large number of Latino employees. Should management make dress code exceptions for employees who view coats and ties as European customs that do not fit their lifestyles?
The extent to which a universal concept of management, which leads to standardized management practices, should be replaced by relativity concept of management, which calls for molding management practices to the workforce’s different sets of values, beliefs, attitudes, and patterns of behaviors, is an extraordinary complex question. The proponents of universalism believe that fitting management practices to a diverse workforce sows the seeds for a permanent culture clash in which perceived inequities leads to intense workplace conflict.
Resistance to Change
Although employee diversity is a fact of life, the dominant groups in organisations are still composed of white men. Some argue that a long-established corporate culture is very resistant to change and that this resistance is a major roadblock for women and minorities seeking to survive and prosper in a corporate setting.
Group Cohesiveness and interpersonal Conflict
Although employee diversity can lead to greater creativity and better problem solving, it can also lead to open conflict and chaos if there is mistrust and lack of respect among groups. This means that as organisations become more diverse, they face grater risks that employees will not work together effectively. Interpersonal fraction rather than cooperation may become the norm.
Segmented Communication Networks
Shared experiences are often strongly reinforced by segmented communication channels in the workplace. Most communication within organisation cannot fully capitalise on the perspectives of diverse employees if they remain confined their own groups. Second, segmented communication makes it more difficult to establish common ground across various groups. Third, women and minorities often miss opportunities or are unintentionally penalised for not being part of mainstream communication networks.
Conclusion
Successful organizations and MNCs believe that the strong, faithful employees construct businesses competitive are an intramural part of Diversity Management. The smartest organizations realise that the employer play an essential role in creating their employees strong and faithful. Thus their knowledge goes quick to listen and slow to speak is imperative and understanding to their employees. They always try to gain the trust of their employees with full emphasize. Thus they take motivation, training and interaction to development of their employees. At the same time employees go to the workplace with prospects and expectation of working with the managers who are good virtues like personal treatment, professionalism, working support respect and trust.
The managers must have the concepts of leadership, excellence, honesty, integrity, and respect for working force. Employees always look for High wages, Job security, Promotion in the company, Help on personal problems Stimulating work, Personal loyalty of supervisor, Tactful discipline, Full appreciation of work done well and Good working environment. Successful managers respond to all this factors with full respect and trust.
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