The Effect of Organisational Cultural Diversity - Essay Example

? THE UNIFYING EFFECT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURAL DIVERSITY ALIGNS WITH THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBCULTURES AND COUNTERCULTURES AS SOURCES OF CREATIVE DIVERSITY By Student’s Name Class: Professor’s Name Name of University City and State Date of Submission THE UNIFYING EFFECT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURAL DIVERSITY ALIGNS WITH THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBCULTURES AND COUNTERCULTURES AS SOURCES OF CREATIVE DIVERSITY Introduction Cultural and ethnic diversity is a core dimension of globalisation reflected in organisations today. It involves different social and political dynamics, dissimilar values and behaviour, and inequalities in opportunities and outcomes for the members in an organisation. Consequently, organisational analysis, individualised approaches for specific organisations, innovation, and inclusive diversity management approaches promote corporate success. A crucial driving force for sustainable organisational development is cultural diversity based on employees from different societies and ways of life. “By valuing cultural diversity, organisations can prevent segregation and fundamentalism, and promote innovation” (Bhattacharya, 2010, p.86) and creativity. Further, diversity is a key human resource strategy; hence, organisations comply with legislation and also drive business success through selection and retention of talent. Organisational agility built on stability and reconfigurability helps businesses to effectively and rapidly respond to increasingly dynamic environments caused by technological, political, and economic change. As opposed to strong unitary cultures, the emergence of organisational subcultures with similar values as the dominant culture, has been found to increase the functional agility of firms (Boisnier & Chatman, 2002). Similarly, countercultures with a pattern of values and philosophy rejecting those of the organisation (Schermerhorn, 2006) serve to increase corporate creative diversity. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to correlate two approaches; one which views culture as a unifying force in organisations, and the other which values organisational subcultures and countercultures as a source of creative diversity. Organisational Culture Promotes and Unifies Diversity To encourage cultural diversity, it is essential for organisations to endorse culture as the set of spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional characteristics of a social group. Culture includes social mores, value systems, traditions and beliefs. It creates identity, social unity, and a knowledge-based economy. The diversity of cultures in an organisation should be respected through mutual tolerance, communication and cooperation. This is possible through ensuring an organisational environment of reciprocal trust, understanding, solidarity, and intercultural exchanges. Efficient management of a diverse workforce and pooling of their collective efforts, leads to increased creativity, organisational proficiency and competitiveness. Cultural diversity expands the range of options available for each employee, and promotes organisational development through economic growth. Bhattacharya (2010) supports this view, and observes that cultural diversity promotes “a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual existence” (p.86) for all members. On the other hand, diversity does not necessarily result in increased organisational effectiveness. Although it is widely acknowledged that cultural diversity leads to several potential benefits to an organisation, it would be necessary to pursue those benefits to realize them. Additionally, “the challenges presented by diversity may negatively impact organisational performance unless properly managed” (Trefry, 2006, p.568). With globalisation, increasing communication and information technology, various organisations grow into world-wide networks, or establish units spanning multiple nations. Kellner (2002) theorizes the globalisation process as ‘cultural homogenization’ employing the transmission of capital, commodities, technology, cultural influences, and human resources across national boundaries, consequently creating a networked society. According to Huang and Trauth (2007), various cultural diversity problems emerge in globally distributed software development. These have implications for training, educating and managing the future global information technology workforce. The authors argue that numerous challenges related to cultural diversity beset the work practices of global software development. These include the domains of work environment, globally distributed knowledge workers, and the global software development work. Consequently, developing awareness and understanding of cultural diversity are important skills for future information technology workforce to acquire. Trefry (2006) investigated her premise that organisational culture was a more significant feature in multicultural organisations, than in mono-cultural ones. This was based on the concept that an “organisation’s culture can intensify both the benefits and the challenges of employee cultural diversity” (Trefry, 2006, p.563). Hence, its potential to indirectly impact organisational performance, organisational learning and competitive advantage, was high. The author investigated the assumptions that formed the basis of this contention, and the relationships between variables contributing to the impact. She found that organisational culture had two inherent components: culture as practices and culture as the foundational beliefs, values and assumptions. Both facets of culture played a significant role in developing a strategic approach to deriving benefits from diversity. Further, the practices dimension of organisational culture necessitates that practices, processes and procedures should “reflect respect for diversity, enable employees to work through challenges of diversity, and promote learning from divergent ways of thinking” (Trefry, 2006, p.570). The research evidence indicates that organisational culture is an important dimension of contemporary multicultural organisations. It is important to value the different perspectives and approaches inherent in a diverse workforce, and to develop concrete ways to enable organisational learning from cultural differences among employees. These measures can help to optimize organisational processes, procedures and structures, for improved efficiency in today’s global marketplace (Trefry, 2006). Trefry (2001) reports on responses supplied by employees representing nine nationalities from eight multicultural organisations in Luxembourg. All respondents considered multicultural diversity as an essential asset for organisations as well as for individuals. The organisational advantages included the potential for matching employees with diverse customers; applying knowledge of different cultures to business projects; better decision-making and problem-solving taking diverse perspectives into consideration; and greater innovation in organisational functions, products, and services. Individual benefits included an increased ability to handle unexpected occurrences; wider perspectives on different issues; greater tolerance towards others’ differences; improved flexibility in personal behaviour, communication, and interaction styles, and increased self-insight. Significantly, the application of personal benefits helps organisations achieve maximum value from a culturally diverse workforce. Among the disadvantages of working in multicultural organisations are the intensified challenges due to greater complexity in workplace interactions, with resultant risk of poor outcomes. Similarly, greater diversity causes slower team development because time required for building rapport and trust is longer; besides more difficult and time-consuming communication among team members; greater effort required in developing common understanding, and the danger of misunderstanding, dispute and greater negative mutual assessments, from the different expectations held by diverse people. Adler (2002) reiterates that because of the above reasons, diversity causes greater problems in convergent organisational processes when employees are required to think or act in similar ways through communication involving converging on meanings and integration based on converging on actions. On the other hand, in divergent processes, diversity proves to be an advantage; for example in organisational expansion of approach, repositioning, exploration of a range of ideas, or evaluation of issues. A strong organisational culture helps to achieve convergence in practices, by facilitating diverse people in rapidly integrating and learning the processes. “Behavioural norms based on explicit values and operating principles enable people to work together harmoniously” (Trefry, 2006, p.569). On the other hand, a strong organisational culture can also suppress divergent thinking, particularly when there is a single right way of doing things, or when differences in viewpoints and methods are not valued. Significantly, divergent organisational processes have several advantages, such as their usefulness in creating competitive advantage. Further, divergent views of reality provide more perspectives on any given situation, thereby ensuring a more complete view of reality. Combining diverse perspectives facilitates thinking at higher levels of intellectual complexity, and recognizing “the principle of equifinality – that there are indeed many different ways to achieve goals” (Trefry, 2006, p.570). Taking diverse perspectives into consideration enables both individuals and organizations to perceive issues and possibilities unidentified due to limitations in the mental frames of reference. Additionally, diverse perspectives not only help to achieve a more thorough evaluation of organisational processes, but allow the challenging of underlying assumptions and beliefs, and the vital expansion of existing organisational frames of reference. Valuing Organisational Subcultures and Countercultures as Sources of Creative Diversity Contemporary organisations have to effectively tackle increasingly dynamic environments distinguished by considerable, frequently unpredictable changes related to political, technological or economic forces. Hence, organisations are required to respond rapidly to such changes by becoming more agile (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002). Dyer and Shafer (2003) observe that organisational agility is based on both stability and reconfigurability. Thus, organisational culture is considered to be a source of corporate agility, state Boisnier and Chatman (2002). Strong unitary cultures apply a stabilizing force on organizations by encouraging unity among employees, organizational commitment, and effective work behaviours among the members. “This stability generates cultural clarity and consistency among members” (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002, p.87). If the culture is strategically aligned, these forces increase organisational performance. On the other hand, such stability may also hinder strong culture organizations from initiating or responding to external changes, which is a critical capability for optimizing performance. It is apparent that although strong cultures are advantageous to organizations, they can be a liability when an organisation’s survival depends on its ability to change and adapt. Particular types of subcultures should be allowed to emerge by making strong culture organizations more agile without losing their basic strength. Boisnier and Chatman (2002) investigate how organizations can attain the beneficial outcomes of building a strong culture while remaining responsive to dynamic environments or external drivers of change. Subcultures are groups who share norms and beliefs, as a common characteristic. Trice and Beyer (1993) observe that unlike subgroups, subcultures may not always form around existing subdivisions such as departmental or functional groups. Similarly, subcultures need not be intentionally developed. Subcultures allow an organization to produce different responses to the environment without affecting its internal clarity. Subcultures provide the flexibility and responsiveness that a unitary culture may constrain. Significantly, subcultures do not develop when there is a strong organisational culture with mutual agreement and shared organisational values among members. Although researchers (Martin, 1992) have stated that subcultures detract from a strong organisational culture “subcultures have certain properties that can even strengthen an organization’s overall organizational culture” (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002, p.87). Based on the concepts of the pivotal and peripheral values introduced by Schein (1988), subcultures are considered to exist within strong organisational cultures. At the same time, however, subcultures may disrupt the overall organisational culture, to varying extents. Further, they may develop to meet the requirements of changing environmental demands, and can provide a platform for members to express conflict and dissent emerging from turmoil and uncertain times. “Thus, subcultures may provide a mechanism for changing less central values” (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002, p.89). The peripheral values may be important for different subcultures, and less important for the dominant culture. This enables cultural differences to appear between different groups in the organisation. Subcultures arise from the dominant culture values. While some subcultures may conflict with the overall culture, other subcultures may be in agreement. Therefore, a significant aspect is that the subcultures are defined from the perspective of the dominant culture, according to their relationship with the latter. It is difficult for subcultures to affect core organisational values and change an organisation’s culture. If the overall culture is strategically aligned and effective, subcultures reduce disruption created by change (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002). Countercultures in organisations are subgroups with objectives running counter to those of the dominant group, “creating hostility and anti-management sentiments” (Martin, 2005, p.500). Their patterns of values and philosophies do not accept those of the larger organisation or system. Countercultures may arise as a result of mergers and acquisitions, causing a clash of corporate cultures. Under such circumstances, the values and assumptions held by the employers or managers of the acquired organisation may be inconsistent with those of the acquiring organisation (French, 2011). While subcultures depict tolerated deviations that maintain the normative solidarity of the overall culture’s values, “members of countercultures hold discordant values and, by virtue of their membership, explicitly oppose certain aspects of the larger culture” (Boisnier and Chatman, 2002, p.95). Consequently, countercultures are unacceptable to members of the larger organisation. Martin and Siehl (1990) argue that in critically important organisational issues, some core values of a counterculture would be a direct challenge to the core values of a dominant culture. This is seen in the example of General Motors, where the dominant culture emphasized on the three core values of respecting authority, fitting in, and being loyal. Evidence of a counterculture revealed an alternative set of core values, “preferring productivity to deference, objective measures of performance to subjective indicators of conformity, and independence to bling loyalty” (Martin and Siehl, 1990, p.83). It is apparent that the dominant and counter cultures took opposite positions on value issues of considerable importance to both. However, a counterculture can help the dominant culture to serve useful functions; for example it defines the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, and provides a safe domain for the development of innovative ideas. Based on the counterculture at General Motors being too deviant, too strong for the dominant culture, or it was used for providing a lesson for other potential deviants, it was allowed to decline and end the uneasy symbiotic relationship between the dominant and the counterculture (Martin and Siehl, 1990). Further, among the foremost countercultures are those of trade unions, which exist because the interests of employer and employee differ from each other (Morgan, 2006). Conclusion This paper has highlighted two approaches to diversity in organisational culture, and found that perceiving organisational culture as a unifying force aligns with valuing organisational subcultures and countercultures as the roots of creative diversity. It is critical for organisations to value and foster diversity, creating a level playing field for the minority section of workers from different backgrounds. To vigilantly foster diversity, organisations have to integrate competing interests into a unified whole. This prevents diversity from weakening the competitive strength of an organisation through a detrimental effect on essential managerial resources required for resolving crises. Bhattacharya (2010) supports this view, and adds that “without diversity, organisations become ineffective and stagnant, and will only try to perpetuate the age-old culture legacy”. Thus, diversity in a firm should not be perceived as a problem. Cultural diversity promotes new ideas and innovations, increases competitive strength, and ensures long-term organisational progress and success. The dominant organisational culture includes smaller groups known as subcultures and countercultures, which respectively reflect or oppose the philosophies and ideologies of the main organisational culture. Varied ideas enrich and support organisational development and corporate competitive advantage. On the other hand, lack of diversity and prevention of subcultures and countercultures help only short-term survival of the business. It is therefore concluded that the inclusion of subcultures’ and countercultures’ different perspectives to enhance the dominant culture’s function correlates with the organisational unification created through promoting diversity. Bibliography Adler, N. 2002. International dimensions of organizational behaviour. 4th Edition. The United States of America: South-Western Publishing. Bhattacharya, D.K. 2010. 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