Management of Workplace: Multicultural Diversity in Australia - Case Study Example

THE EFFECT OF INCREASING MULTICULTURAL DIVERSITY IN AUSTRALIA AND GENERALLY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ON COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE WORKPLACE By (Name) (Name of Professor) (Name of Institution, City, Sate) (Date) The effect of increasing multicultural diversity in Australia and generally throughout the world on communication within the workplace Abstract Management of workplace diversity has become a key concern within organizations in the entire world. Australia is experiencing one of the globe’s greatest immigration rates and the proportion of workers within the country has increased significantly. The cross-border in Australia has led to an increase in interaction of persons with diverse customs, ethnic backgrounds, and language. This in interaction is predominantly manifest within the workplaces. However, it has not been without advantages and setbacks. Multicultural diversity has significantly affected the sector of communication. Diversity is highly allied to miscommunication, language barriers, reduced accurateness in communication, poor conveyance of message, and intricacies emerging from the varying values and belief in cultures. On the other hand, multicultural diversity has portrayed positive impacts on communication, such as enhanced communication, enhanced cultural values, beliefs, and practices, and improved written business communication. Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 Introduction 3 Negative impacts of multicultural diversity on communication 4 Intercultural conflict 4 Communication barrier 4 Reduced accurateness in communication 5 Poor conveyance of messages 6 Poor interpretation of non-verbal messages 6 Positive impacts of multicultural diversity on communication 8 Enhanced communication 8 Enhanced cultural values, beliefs, and practices 9 Understanding of communication tools 9 Improvement in written business communication 10 Conclusion 11 Recommendations 12 References 13 Introduction Organizations define diversity differently. In human resource terminology, diversity goes beyond race, covering religion, marital status, gender, age, sexual orientation, and auxiliary attributes shaping individuals. Multicultural communication is becoming indispensable in the workplaces owing to the forces of globalization (Al-Jenaibi 2011, p. 50). Within, multicultural diverse organizations, communication ought to be effectual in keeping the workplace running efficiently. However, as Shaw (1995, p. 5) emphasizes, multicultural diversity, as numerous Australian businesses portray, has both detrimental and advantageous impacts on communication. Most organizations in Australia are still struggling with the effects of multicultural diversity in communication owing to the significant levels of immigration to the region (Silk, Boyle, Bright, Bassett, & Nicola 2000, p.1). Multicultural diversity influences workplace communication in various ways, an aspect that this entry endeavors at discussing comprehensively. Negative impacts of multicultural diversity on communication Intercultural conflict Taboo topics, spiritual biases, social and political issues, and nuances emerging from life experiences do differ among cultures. Consequently, workers find it a challenge to establish a common communicating ground. Accordingly, diverse cultures devise different conflict management styles that are consistent with their cultures, an aspect that may result in tensions and probable conflicts. For example, consider an employee from a culture that perceives argument as an essential and constructive part who tries to solve an issue with an employee from a culture that perceives argument as deeply offensive. In such a scenario, major problems are likely to arise during the communication process, leading to intercultural conflict. Communication barrier An organizational behavior aspect that is allied to workforce multicultural diversity is the aspect of communication barrier. Cultural, perceptual, and language barriers ought to be prevailed over for diversity programs to flourish. Communication barrier is highly linked to workforce diversity because an increase in diversity within the workplace tends to result in poor communication. Ineffectual communication of principal objectives leads to low morale, confusion, and ineffective teamwork. Culturally heterogeneous teams usually experience higher process loss owing to barriers in communication. Cultural diversity augments conflict, ambiguity, confusion, and complexity of communication, setting higher challenges for both organizational members and leaders. The culturally diverse assemblages of people within the workplace exhibit reduced levels of cohesion and integration, which inhibits effectual communication. As a result, there emerges lack of or poor communal mental models, thus inhibiting understanding amid team members. Reduced accurateness in communication Multicultural diversity in the workplace leads to reduced accurateness in communication, translation problems, and slower speech. People from diverse cultures may lack understanding, misinterpret information, resulting in an overall communication problem. Moreover, multicultural diversity may lead to false assumptions, language barriers, misconceptions, stereotyping, anxiety, and non-verbal misunderstanding. Accordingly, cultural diversity is highly linked to communication failure, which in turn leads to mutual misunderstanding. When an organization builds a workforce with workers from diverse cultures and nations, there results in an increase in the proportion of communication filters as well as language barriers that affect both external and internal communication processes. Heterogeneous work cultures generally find communication easier as employees are not required to work incredibly hard to overcome culture and language issues. In some instances, larger organizations tend to hire diversity trainers and interpreters to aid employees in working through communication challenges arising from diversity. Poor conveyance of messages Several genres of communication barriers are allied to the workforce multicultural diversity. To begin with, there is emergence of noise, which is a form of disturbance disrupting the conveyance of messages. Moreover, physical distraction may result, which tends to interfere with efficacy of any communication attempt. Besides, there may emerge semantic barricades to effective communication, which incorporate mixed messages and poor choice and use of words. Semantic problems arise whereby the workplace may experience difficulties in understanding one another clearly. In this context, mixed messages come up when words imply one thing whilst non-verbal cues implying another. Furthermore, communication barrier may result whereby there is lack of feedback owing to multicultural diversity. Poor or lack of feedback is a major cause of one-way communication. For instance, in a diverse workplace, the manager may tell the employees what to do and the employees may either fail to listen or fail to understand and comply. Poor interpretation of non-verbal messages The communication barriers may stem from numerous cultural sectors. Body language could be a leading cause of communication barrier. In a particular culture, a certain hand gesture may imply that everything is alright while in another culture, the same hand gesture may imply something absolutely different. For example, a person from Australia may find grabbing the hand of a Chinese as appropriate whereas the Chinese culture demands a smile and a slight bow as the appropriate means of greeting. Consequently, a misunderstanding or mix-up of diverse cultures’ gestures could result in receiving and interpreting messages inaccurately. Likewise, multicultural diversity in the workplace may lead to provision of information inaccurately, thus leading to poor team performance. An example is when a project is in crisis and requires instantaneous corrective actions. Nevertheless, people from diverse cultures tend to vary in the manner in which they communicate bad news. Persons from certain cultures are reluctant to convey bad news, while others from some cultures exaggerate it. Another sector of multicultural diversity that affects communication is language accent. An individual’s pronunciation or mispronunciation of words is susceptible to conveying a message with an absolutely different meaning from what the communicator intended. Subsequent to these instances, there emerges a prime requirement for multicultural diverse workplaces to embrace a lucid cultural understanding as well as endorse an effectual two-way communication system. Culture, as the mind’s collective bargaining, distinguishes members of a particular category or group of people from another (Shachaf, 2008, p. 133). The principal framework of cultural dimension explains culture as varying among diverse groups. However, this dimension does not sufficiently elucidate the intricacy of culture. The intricacy emerges from the varying values and beliefs manifest in every culture. People from diverse cultural backgrounds tend to communicate as well as make decisions in a different way. Moreover, their non-verbal and verbal communication styles portray variance. Shachaf (2008, p. 133) identifies differences in communication technology among diverse cultures. For instance, the patterns of email that people from diverse cultures use tend to differ. Positive impacts of multicultural diversity on communication Enhanced communication Multicultural diversity within the workplace has a propensity of enhancing communication. As Al-Jenaibi (2011, p. 53) stresses, familiarizing with diverse cultures in an organization is the preliminary step in enhancing effective communication. An understanding of the multicultural diversity within the workplace enables employees learn the various variations in communication, interpret communication diversities in prolific ways, and make effectual choices on the means of communicating effectively across the range of organizational boundaries existing within the business community. If poorly managed, multicultural diversity may influence work teams causing divergences and conflicts in communication (Australian Multicultural Foundation 2010, p. 9). Moreover, given that culturally diverse organizations comprise of individuals with varying mindsets and approaches toward organizational tasks, the management team is stipulated to employ appropriate communication mechanisms while dealing with them. While some employees within many Australian organizations may be open and agreeable to changing perspectives, others may be quite opinionated. In this perspective, the managerial team has to devise suitable communication techniques to intervene and ensure cooperation and harmony within the organizational teams. Besides, the managerial team may be required to adopt effectual communication within itself to act as role model to the employees. Indeed, managers within the workplace have the responsibility to act as role models to the subordinates (Gratton & Erikson, 2007, p. 106). Hence, a culturally diverse organization has a major influence on the managerial communication. Enhanced cultural values, beliefs, and practices A culturally diverse workplace plays a key role in depositing knowledge, values, senses, religious practices, beliefs, hierarchies, spatial relations, creation concepts, property and material objects, roles, time concepts, and attitudes of different cultures (Al-Jenaibi 2011, p. 52). Al-Jenaibi (2011, p. 52) emphasizes that communication is culture and culture is communication. Culture is ingrained in symbols, values, rituals, heroes, and beliefs, which are communicated over time. To understand each other within the organization, employees employ effort to understand others as well as to be understood. Accordingly, they take time communicating their culture diverse to one another. This enhances communication among persons of diverse cultures. Understanding of communication tools There is no inclusive means of understanding culture and its relation to communication. Hence, communication scholars and anthropologists use various tools in categorizing the cultural diversities applicable to different organizations. One common tool contends with the concept of low-context and high-context communication. Low-context and high-context communication refers to the extent to which the speakers trust auxiliary factors as opposed to explicit speech that influence their conveyance of messages. Communication tends to vary according to its extent of field dependence, thus can be classified into two main categories including low-context and high-context communication. In this context, multiculturalism is among the auxiliary factors external to the communication itself that have the capacity to affect the overall meaning of the communication. These factors revolve around low-context and high-context communication. These are aspects that explicate how diverse groups of persons make sense of different worlds. These are neither fixed in nature nor an unswerving guide to all members of a given group because culture is constantly developing and changing. People have a tendency to draw meaning from messages depending on the culture of the people conveying the message. However, the means of communications among the diverse cultures keep on changing, enabling people to draw different meanings from messages conveyed by people from diverse cultures. In this perspective, multicultural diversity is a major aspect influencing the means of communication within the workplace. Improvement in written business communication In the workplace, as Stuart, Sarow, Stuart (2007, p. 221) highlights, multicultural diversity is not merely manifest among employees but also among the wider stakeholders, such as vendors, customers, competitors, shareholders, and investors. Languages are greatly influenced by the distinctive global views of the indigenous cultures. In this perspective, expressions and words may portray vastly different implications and meanings from diverse backgrounds. In the current workplaces, employees ought to employ effort to ensure that their premeditated messages are comprehended clearly by the culturally varied co-workers. An understanding of communication in a multicultural diverse environment is critically allied to an understanding of the means in which written and spoken word is interpreted differentially (Durant & Shepherd 2009, p. 147). Even though speakers engaging in communication typically choose the language in which to communicate, different persons normally bring their socio-cultural language expectations to the encounter. Accordingly, multicultural diversity is having an impact in the written business communication. The aspect of international business is on the verge of rise, leading to integration of more global cultures. To enhance understanding in the global business undertakings, organizations stress readability and simplicity of business messages as opposed to technical prowess and wordiness in writing. The ability of getting the message across to every reader is more vital than displaying mastery of intricate business language. Hence, multicultural diversity is said to have influenced the manner in which business messages are conveyed. Conclusion The art of organizational communication has emerged as globalization sets different cultures of the globe on collision. The emerging economies are on the verge of integrating conventional business cultures into the contemporary businesses. The effect of multicultural diversity on workplace communication has had widespread impacts, ranging from the boardrooms to small businesses. Businesses are inclined toward benefitting from attaining an understanding of the peculiarities of diverse cultures they are exposed to. Multicultural diversity is highly allied to serious communication problems. The major problems arising from multicultural diversity include impediment of smooth flow of businesses and intercultural conflict. The daily interactions among individuals of diverse cultures and backgrounds could spark conflicts. Since understandings are usually opaque to the bearers, probable culturally-based ineffectiveness and conflict can emerge. In this context, failure to understand and acknowledge culture as a way of generating effectual communication channels can inhibit adaptive and productive choices in organizations. Moreover, multicultural diversity has resulted in communication barriers. As people from diverse backgrounds converge within the workplaces, it may become difficult for them to understand one another’s verbal and non-verbal communication and as a result, communication barrier ensues. On the contrary, multicultural diversity is not without advantages. It has led to enhanced communication through understanding of peoples’ cultural values, beliefs, and practices. Recommendations Organizations ought to embrace multicultural diversity owing to the increasing forces of globalization Australia is under pressure to employ and manage persons from diverse cultural backgrounds. Hence, skillful management of multicultural diversity within the workplaces should be a priority within the country’s workplaces. There is a prime need to for organizations to comprehend with and implement appropriate communication and multicultural diversity techniques when working with highly diverse workforces. Organizations should implement consistent policies and strategies to cope with the setbacks of communication emerging from multicultural diversity. References Al-Jenaibi, B 2011, ‘Workplace diversity in the United Arab Emirates’, Journal of Communication and Culture, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 49-81. Australian Multicultural Foundation 2010, ‘Managing cultural diversity: training program resource manual’, Sydney, Robert Bean Foundation. Durant, A, & Shepherd, I 2009, ‘Culture and communication in intercultural communication’, European Journal of English Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 147-162. Gratton, L, & Erikson, T 2007 ‘Eight ways to build collaborative teams’ Harvard Business Review, vol. 85, no. 11, pp. 100-109. Shachaf, P 2008, ‘Cultural diversity and information and communication technology on global virtual teams: an exploratory study’, Information and Management, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 131-142. Shaw, J 1995, ‘Cultural diversity at work: utilizing a unique Australian resource’, Sydney, Business and Professional Publishing. Silk, C, Boyle, R, Bright, A, Bassett, M & Nicola, R 2000, ‘The case of cultural diversity in defense’, Melbourne, The Defense Equity Organization. Stuart, B, Sarow, M, & Stuart, L 2007 ‘Integrated business communication: in a global marketplace’, Sydney, John Wiley & Sons. Read More