Cultural Diversity And Leadership Management Assignment (Dissertation Sample)

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND LEADERSHIP
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Introduction
Cultural diversity and organisational leadership play a vital role in the operations of businesses today. In the recent past, many organisations have grown and developed under the influence of cultural diversity. This proposal seeks to introduce the research topic on the impact of cultural diversity on the leadership of organisations. The research will examine the positive and negative influences of cultural differences on the leadership or management of various organisations including the fast food industries, healthcare sectors, hospitality industries, and automobile companies. With the increasing transformations and globalization of the contemporary market arena, cultural diversity presents a primary area of concern for most organisations, particularly the international companies. Therefore, the chosen research topic is of great significance because it will enable the organisations to assess the dilemmas of cross-cultural differences and their negative influence on leadership competence. Also, as cultural differences increase in the global market, leadership remains the only vital coping tool in the organisations. Hence, understanding different aspects of cultural diversity is important for establishing effective workforce in the multicultural organisations. Finally, the topic is important because it addresses the realistic relationship between effective leadership behaviour and cross-cultural differences.
Research questions: The research seeks to answer two specific questions. One, how do cultural diversity influence leadership and the general workforce in the organisations? Two, how can organisations invest in effective cultural diversity management?
Definition of key terms
Culture: Culture is the combined structure or system of a person’s behaviour, knowledge, perception, attitude, and beliefs arising from the societal modifications through aspects of common values, social forms, religious and political orientations, and ethnicity (Romanenko 2012, p.16).
Diversity: Diversity is a situation in which a single entity has different compositions or elements (Paulston et.al, 2012, p.323).
Leadership: This is an individual or a group’s ability to influence other people through a series of attributes (Tsai 2011, p.5).
Cultural Diversity: This is the existence of a group of persons from or with different cultural backgrounds and orientations in the same social environment (Heidtmann 2011, p.35).
Literature Review
Cultural Diversity and Leadership in the 21st Century
Today, the world businesses and corporations regard the issues of cultural diversity as a major area of concern when it comes to leadership and management. According to Chuang (2013, p. 1), there is a great need for the international corporation because if the invention of the global market. The increasing rate of adoption of the global marketing perspectives presents a critical area of literature and debates in the current world of human resource management and development, business management, and the social aspects of workforce development. Therefore, it is becoming difficult to achieve efficiency in the performance of international business leadership because of the increasing cultural diversity in the global market (Chuang 2013, p.4).
The leadership of the 21st century appears more important than the previous lairdships (Chin & Trimble 2014, p.2). The current leadership is under the influence of a sudden and significant societal shift. The change impacts on the aspects of organisational structure and business operations in the contemporary institutions. According to the deductive studies, the adjusting demographics is the primary source of multicultural dimensions in the contemporary corporations (Chin & Trimble 2014, p.2). Therefore, today, cultural diversity is challenging the traditional notions of leadership efficiency and strategic management. The world countries need to prepare their citizens in advance so as to produce effective leaders who can serve the institutions under cultural uncertainties.
Definition and Dimensions of Cultural Diversity in Workplace.
According to Syed and Ozbilgin (2010, p.145), defining cultural diversity in the institutions revolves around various aspects of the demographics of the population such as ethnicity and race within and beyond the organisation or workplace. However, there are several definitions of the concept of cultural diversity. However, to define cultural diversity appropriately, it is necessary to understand the meaning of culture. Scholars have defined culture as a human-made pattern of life or environment distinguishing the attributes of a group of members of one society from the other societies (Romanenko 2012, p.16). Another definition foregrounding Romanenko’s definition states that culture is a group of values and beliefs or assumptions that a society considers desirable or undesirable (Heidtmann 2011, p.35). Therefore, cultural diversity is the existence of a group of people with different cultural entities within a single social environment. In organisational structures, cultural diversity is the representation of dissimilar cultures within the workforce (Romanenko, 2012, p.16). Similarly, other studies define cultural diversity in institutions as the particular differences in cultures that a group of individuals display while working in the same organisation (Heidtmann 2011, p.35).
Deductive studies have indicated that there are several dimensions of cultural diversity within the global corporations. The three main dimensions include the primary, secondary, and tertiary cultural diversity dimensions (Mazur 2010, p.7). The primary dimension looks at the ethnicity, gender, race, disability, and age (Nahavandi 2014, p.41). Secondary dimension entails several aspects including education religion, marital status, economy, and politics, among others. Similarly, tertiary dimension also has several related aspects such as attitudes, assumptions, perceptions, feelings, values, perceptions, and norms (Paulston et.al, 2012, p.324). It is these three dimensions that define the organisational structure of institution by influencing the effectivity of leadership.
Cultural diversity and leadership in corporations
The current world government, business or profession’s leaders have to deal with the challenges of globalization and cope with it. Therefore, there is a constant need for crossing the boundaries and communicating with the individuals possessing totally different cultural backgrounds (Moran, Harris & Virgilia 2011, p.3). Most organisations entrust their leaders and managers with the task of outsourcing that seems to be the most vital yet challenging task in the diverse marketplace today. The diversification of cultures has a direct relationship with the leadership structure in every institution (Moran et.al, 2011 p. 4).
Research has shown that the organisation’s culture affects leadership behaviour of the individuals hence the success of the company (Tsai 2011, p.2). Culture is learnable and transmittable through socialization activities. Therefore, organisation’s culture defines rules that govern the behaviours and activities of the individuals within the organisation. The primary values of an institution start from the current leadership and develop into the type of the organisation’s leadership (Tsai 2011, p.2). As a consequence, the junior staffs operate under the organisational values and the leadership behaviours. Building a strong and unifying leadership attributes, beliefs, and values lead to the establishment of a stable organisation’s culture. Therefore, cultural diversity within an organisation may make it difficult to create strong values and leadership behaviours when developing the organisation’s culture (Jonakiraman 2011, p. 2). For organisations to be successful, they must embrace the increasing cultural differences and establish common attributes among their employees. To do this, the organisations must master the art of leveraging the multicultural dimensions to develop a unifying international culture (Jonakiraman 2011, p. 2). It is the role of the organisation’s leadership to appreciate and embrace the present cultural differences displayed so as to create an inclusive organisational system (Jonakiraman 2011, p. 2). Leadership across the global intercultural divides needs the leaders and the organisation’s structure to have certain abilities, knowledge, and skills. To do this, the organisations usually, identify leaders who can communicate with a culturally diverse population including the employees and the clients (Prewitt, Weil & McClure, 2011, p.17).
Advantages and disadvantages of Cultural Diversity in Organisation’s Leadership
Cultural diversity ha both negative and positive impacts on leadership. When the diversity interferes with the organisation’s leadership, there is a direct impulse on the workforce and the success of the organisation. According to the previous studies, cultural diversity results in interpersonal disagreement within the organisations’ leadership system (Martin 2014, p.89). Culturally diverse leaders or managers tend to have different beliefs, opinions, values, and thoughts regarding the manner of doing things. When these dimensions manifest, the leaders assume the “iceberg” notion hence the endless disagreements (Martin 2014, p.89). As the managerial department continues to disagree, the workforce goes down. Another significant disadvantage of diversity is the management challenge (Deresky & Christopher 2015, p. 5). When people from different cultural orientation are put to work together as a team, achieving the mutual understanding and collaboration is ...