Culture Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Culture Case Study - Essay Example The criteria surveyed on are: diversity recruiting policies, leadership development initiatives, training programs, opportunity for mentorship and activeness of employee affinity groups. All these points to a successful cross cultural management that we can learn from and worth to case studied into. Touching on race and ethnic diversity in the case study, there also are some theories that focus on positive predictions or possible positive outcomes of racial/ethnic diversity. This comes from a "value in diversity" perspective ([Cox, 1993] and [Cox et al., 1991]) which argues that diversity creates value and benefit for team outcomes. Group performance is thought to be enhanced by having broader resources and multiple perspectives (Hoffman, 1959). Particular to race, some studies (McLeod et al., 1996 P.L. McLeod, S. Lobel and T.H. Cox, Ethnic diversity and creativity in small groups, Small Group Research 27 (1996), pp. 248-264. Full Text via CrossRef[McLeod et al., 1996] and [Watson et al., 1993]) have found that ethnically diverse work teams make better decisions than homogeneous teams. The general assumption that underlies these theories is that an increase in racial or ethnic diversity means that a work group will experience possible positive outcomes such as: increased information, enhanced problem s... oblem solving ability, constructive conflict and debate, increased creativity, higher quality decisions, and increased understanding of different ethnicities/cultures. This is true for our case study as Mark Welch, Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion at Northern Trust says in the article (l.5). Because of the diverse background of each individual and culture, when faced with the same problem in the work group, different solutions emerged from the respective culture. Since each culture is unique and so there will be differences, which results in a bigger pool of ideas generated to achieving a problem. This increases the number of comparisons of ideas between one to another. As a result, combinations and hybrids of solutions will surface giving rise to more information. What will be beneficial is that the ability to solve problems will be enhanced since there is an acquirement of new perspectives to solve the same problem, meaning if certain conditions impedes the implementation o f one solution, another solution acquired to the same problem may be more viable. This syndrome is a proof of increased creativity of the individual or of the group. Being in a diverse group, common sense will tell that being sensitive to another's race or ethnicity or hostility will arise. In view of this, to cater to the care of a co-colleague emotions and perspectives very much individualized in a person, and at the same time to disagree maturely based on facts, the way is to bring across constructively conflicts and debates. To achieve so, one will need to seek out the understanding of another's race and ethnicity if an authentic relationship is to be established in the work place. With the increased solutions, there will come about the choice of the best solutions and the motivation