Cultural Diversity

Grouping

• The making up of global teams is diverse in order to maximize various perspectives.

• In other cultures, mixing people of differing status groups, violates their sense of hierarchy.

Grouping

• The collectivism of some cultures encourages working in global teams.

• Individualistic tendencies Western cultures, Hispanic sense of machismo.

• Cultures can be differentiated by the distance that separates them.

Time

• Time is important for Americans: “Time is money”, “Don’t waste time”.

• Time is less prevalent in many other societies like in Latin America and the Middle East.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bChZfFG5RqA&feature=related

Extract of a report on cultural diversity in a company

I - Valuing cultural diversity

→ Before valuing cultural diversity:

• - acceptance of cultural diversity

• - remove prejudices

• - positive attitude

• - sense of attachment

Remove prejudices

-Different visions of the problems.

-Different mentalities, manners of thinking.

-On average, only 10% of impact on a product or a service but probably the most important part.→ key to the success.

II - Communication problem solving

The challenge of communication• Differences between generations, genders, races and cultures

• “what I say is not necessarily what you hear … even when you are listening”

• Pitton et al. (1993) synthesis about communication styles across cultures

• “The most universal quality is diversity” Montaigne

• Effective communication → key to making progress in a conflict

Communication Tools for understanding culture

• High-context and low context communication

• Individualist and communitarian conceptions of self and other

• Interpretation about beliefs, values and norms

III – Strategies for dealing with diversity

How can educators prepare students so that they are able to interact with each other and work together in teams, regardless of cultural diversity?

• Students' respect of other points of views• Developing students' critical thinking skills• Three sets of skills students need to learn:

1 - Separating facts from cultural assumptions and beliefs about those facts2 - Changing one’s opinion3 - Differentiating between personal discomfort and intellectual disagreement

• Students should be encouraged to explore their own beliefs and cultural assumptions about an event or subject.

Emphasize the importance of teamwork in a multicultural society

• Working in teams of culturally diverse individuals is an activity today's youth will encounter as they enter the work force

• Not only are businesses recognizing the changing demographics of the work force, but they are also aware of the implications of a changing customer profile on their operations

• Businesses are also realizing the problem-solving strength of culturally diverse work teams

Cultural Diversity in our team

Soukaina fromCasablanca