Cultural and religious diversity - Essay Example

Individual behavior refers to a pattern of behavior that is generally followed by a person and the way a person interacts with other people, while organizational behavior refers to the generally accepted behaviors at the workplace. Diversity becomes an issue at the work place if preconceived opinions affect the way qualified employees are recruited, if the organization loses its customers due to differences and if differences in value affect effective communication at the workplace (Mathews, 2006).

Culture diversity means respecting the different norms and standards that are generally acceptable in the society. What cultural diversity means is that our different identities are valued and maintained. Culture is a distinctive set of emotions, intellectual, material and spiritual features of people in a society.Every society has it s basic standards that are allowed such a normal personal space while conversing, eye contact, body language and a negotiating style. For example in the American society, it is proper to converse with some with an eighteen inches distance and at the same time it is in order to have direct eye contacts with people when having a conversation with them.

When Cultural diversity is managed well in the organization, it makes the organization stronger as people with diverse cultures bring in creative solutions to problems, new negotiating skills and new and better ways of thinking. Diversity makes people behave in different ways and sometimes when we interact with our peers, we may not understand why people behave in certain ways and this is because our cultures are different. Another instance is when we meet people for the first time, they may behave in a manner that is strange to us but in reality, they are just following their cultures.

Ethninicity affects human behavior in so many ways because it is usually experienced at a very early stage in life. By the time a person goes through adulthood, he or she experienced so much of what their culture asks them to and eventually it affects their behavior (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998).Gender diversityIt refers to the differences in our sexual orientations. It means that a person is either a man or a woman and the proportion of men against women in the society. Initially, women were discriminated against as they were assumed to take home responsibilities as compared to work.

Today, organizations are slowly treating women as equals because they believe that women can work as well as men. Gender can also have a very impact on a person's behaviour.At a very early stage in life children already know what is expected of them. For example, girls are taught that it is boyish to play football while boys are taught it is wrong to play with the girls. Boys are taught that they should be playful and be loud while girls are taught that they should be polite. If gender issues are not well balanced at the workplace especially at the recruitment stage, it means that an organization will have a limited pool to select from its human resources and thus reducing its chances of employing the best employees.

Religious diversityReligious diversity refers to the different beliefs that people are associated with. People belong to many religious organizations such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. Religion plays a big role in determining