Effective Management of Culturally Diverse Workgroups ' - Essay Example

An ideal organization has all sorts of employees including low socio-economic individuals, high socio-economic individuals and individuals of diverse cultures. Cultural diversity poses negative and positive impacts to an organization. Consequently, it is necessary to highlight the challenges, main issues and the context of working with low socio-economic culturally diverse teams. Every person tries to rise above poverty and financial challenges. Employees categorized under low socio-economic populations have a distinct approach to responsibilities known as collectivism.

It is a term that describes a team that has several characteristics such as disregard of self-interest, high cooperation levels, economic and social equality. The factors usually overshadow economic and social freedom (Cross, Bazron, & Isaacs, 2010). Collectivism is a cultural system existing across all human cultures but at varying degrees. It is most pronounced in low socio-economic settings. Employees exposed to a high degree of collectivism tend to come from developing countries that are yet to break away from traditional work processes.

Individualism is the opposite of collectivism. It is associated with developed countries that have maximized on capitalism as a way of forging better business and social interactions. Individualists put more emphasis on personal interests and skills when performing duty. The atmosphere at the workplace is very competitive making individual employees take up personal roles and perform their best in order to gain recognition. The employees benefit from incentives, job promotions and other similar rewards.

Collectivism works in a different way. There is very little competitive atmosphere at the workplace and some employees take advantage of the collective responsibilities to evade or not complete tasks (Cross, Bazron, & Isaacs, 2010). An organization that promotes competition, offers incentives and rewards