Managing

Cultural Diversity

Report

Programme/Course:

BA Hospitality Management

Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Managing Diversity vs. Equal Opportunities 4

2.1 Differences 4

3. Diversity Advantage 5

3.1 Benefits 5

3.2 Types of diversity 6

3.3 Problems 7

4. Workforce 8

4.1 Training 8

4.2 Labour Market 9

5. Human Resource Management 10

5.1 Misunderstanding = Disagreement 10

5.2 Communication 10

5.3 Diversity Policy 11

5.4 Stereotyping 11

6. What can we do? 12

7. Conclusion and Recommendations 13

References 15

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Managing cultural diversity and how to manage it

within an organisation

1. Introduction

The topic of diversity has raised significant attention over the past decade (Marx

1999; Kandola et al. 1998; Connerley 2005). Changes in the demographic

composition of the workforce in the direction of increasing representation of minority

groups ­ mirrored by changes in other parts of the world ­ have created the need to

understand how ethnically and culturally diverse individuals respond to managerial

practices (Warner et al. 2002).

Human beings come in all shapes and sizes, colours and forms, but we do not seek to

be different, rather we seek to be with our own kind. We are a visually oriented

species so perhaps it is somewhat natural that we tend to notice differences.

We describe ourselves as Christian, Jew, Democratic, or even as a Manchester

football fan. These categories do not refer to natural biological attributes or

necessarily to a particular geographical region, but they have an enormous impact on

our behaviour. (Denton 1997)

This report highlights the benefits and problems referring to diversity management

and investigates strategies to gain competitive advantage.

The hospitality industry is an international and global industry, many companies and

organisations are working international and their employees are from many different

countries. The hospitality industry is becoming increasingly `internationalized′.

Indeed, we can say it is `globalised′, where a common global experience is taking

place.

Waters (1995, cited in Francesco and Gold, 2005, p.2) defines globalisation as `a

social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural

arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are

receding.

Guttal (2007) goes further and stated: `The term `globalisation′ is widely used to

describe a variety of economic, cultural, social, and political changes that have shaped

the world over the past 50-odd years, from the much celebrated revolution in

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information technology to the diminishing of national and geo-political boundaries in

an ever-expanding, transnational movement of goods, services, and capital.′

Due to this globalisation we are faced with a diversity of our workforce. But is it a

problem to work with people from other countries and other cultures. Do we have to

worry about the diversity in a company?

2. Managing Diversity vs. Equal Opportunities

In its traditional form, equal opportunities has been described as rights based, liberal ,

rooted in legal compliance, based upon equality through `sameness′ and merit with a

focus on non discrimination, and geared towards increasing the proportion of women

and other under represented groups in senior roles in organisations (Kirton and Green,

2000)

Diversity should be seen as merely a replacement for the old equal opportunities

policy: it must be a corporate value, an integral part of the business strategy, a formal

business objective (Harisis and Kleiner 1993 quoted in Fisher 2001)

Arguably the most fundamental development in approaches to workplace equality in

the past 20 years has been the introduction of `diversity management′ as second major

approach in addition to `equal opportunities′. (Cornelius 2002)

2.1 Differences

The literature describes a few differences between `

Equal Opportunity′

and

`

Diversity Management′

. The key differences that people see between the

approaches are that:

Diversity is

broader in scope

than equal opportunities

Diversity is about

individuals

, whereas equal opportunities is about

groups

Equal opportunities is about meeting

legal requirements

whereas

diversity is

business-driven

Equal opportunities is

reactive

, whereas diversity is

proactive

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