Proposal of how to handle Cultural Conflict in a workplace
Purpose
Culture is the set of values beliefs and practices a group share; this attributes might be shared by that group due to the age, religion, gender or race. Cross culture is a situation whereby people from different cultures come together an act that is dictated by external forces. Cultural conflict is a situation whereby people from a different culture are involved in a crash of their values beliefs and practices.
Up to date, many different scholarly articles have been researched and published focusing on the issue of cultural diversity. In the past centuries, cultural diversity has not been a focus area for scholars, and this is mainly due to the lack of inter-cultural activities. The impact of cultural diversity is felt today due to the increase of globalization where people from different cultures have been brought together. School exchange programs, work environment, political issues, and trade are some of the issues that have led to people mixing with others from different cultures(Riles, 2008).
This proposal aims at identifying a common problem that is affecting different work environment in almost all the international companies and organizations. The problem itself is a cultural conflict in the work environment that negatively impacts the output of any organization that is affected. In every nation that has a strong economy majority of its working class citizen must be working. Majority of working class People spend a lot of time at work, and if they have conflicts with their bosses or colleges they cannot comfortably give the required output. In this proposal, the negative impact and the areas that are affected by inter-culture conflicts will be highlighted. Later in the report the issue will be discussed in depth, were the possible solution defined and the process of attaining the solution to the problem unveiled.
Needs assessment
In the world today it's with no doubt that specialization is the key to success and production of a superior commodity. To invest on specialization, a company should allow people from all over the globe with different talents to work in their organization. Every many making organization focuses on making more profit every day even if it means looking for experts for the job overseas. Due to the global world whereby the world has been reduced virtually to a small village companies can hire employees from all parts of the world.
This aspect has led to company's staff members who are totally from different cultures.
According to Ren & Gray (2009), over 80% of global workplaces are affected by the issue of intercultural conflict. Cultural practices and
beliefs may diver from culture to the other which at the end of the day may lead to misunderstanding among the employees. An example is in the western countries lateness to appointments might not be taken negatively, as a matter of fact if the person late for the meeting is the senior it's not questioned mostly. In the Asian countries, this act is treated as an insult to the group waiting, and it's not encouraged, punctuality is always treasured and seen positively.
Cultural Conflicts in the workplace are common and mostly are asa result of a communication barrier. Communication is a key element in any occasion and mostly in a business organization where information must be passed down or up the leadership chain. Different views and perception might be destructive where the parties don't agree on which way forward, a common ground can be met if the parties communicate and understand the situation at hand well. A researcher once said that among people the similarities are always more than the differences but the differences have the worse impact if not handled.
Cultural conflict in the workplace might be viewed as a small issue, but it leaves deep cuts in an organization. These impacts affect not only the social life of the employees but the production. The core business of every organization is to meet its objectives and goals if these targets are not met then the organization might make losses (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt &Jonsen, 2010). The common causes of cultural conflicts in the workplace are; miscommunication, leadership styles, relationships issues and work expectations. Miscommunications are the leading cause of conflicts not only for people from different cultures. Relationship problems might be as a result of people having different opinions that might be pronounced to the level of avoiding each other. In such a case, the victims might have problems working together which might slow the work output.
Expectations in the workplace might be different like where some employee's culture forbids them from working on certain days or hours. These differences might cause conflict in the organization.The leadership style might not be to everyone's expectation, and this might cause the employees to develop a negative attitude towards their seniors which eventually leads to poor performance(Ting-Toomey& Chung, 2012).
The issue of cultural conflict can be settled fully by exercising cultural intelligence in the workplace. Cultural intelligence is an individual ability to interacteffectively, work and well communicate with other people in cross cultures. It involves identifying the cultural values, beliefs of the cultures one is interacting with during work. Cultural intelligence gives one the knowledge of how to interact well with people who they have diverse cultures. Cultivating a culture intelligence culture in the workplace allows for a smooth running of the organization with minimal conflicts hence high output. This practice helps bridge the gap existing due to a difference in culturalvalues beliefs and practices among people in the work environment. Globalization will not stop, and the interaction of people from different cultures too will not stop. Globalization calls for an alternative way of handling the cultural difference since the world is becoming one piece without boundaries.
Plan of action
Report Outline
The main aim of this proposal it to bring to light the major problems and solution of the cultural conflict. The main topics that will be handled in the report are; assess the risk of culture conflict, responding to culture conflict and how to testing cultural intelligenceeffectiveness(Ting-Toomey& Chung, 2012).In assessing the risk of culture conflict in the workplace,the report will contain the negative effects that are attributed to the cultural conflict. The effects will be specific to your company from the research that will be conducted. Some of these effects are the poor performance and poor relationships in the company.
Everyone appreciates that human beings are prone to errors; the study will also include the rightful channel to follow in a scenario where culture conflict has occurred. A good way of handling a culture conflict situation would reduce and prevent further conflicts arising in future. The impact of cultural conflict might be destructive like in a case where the victims do not admit the conflict has occurred and that they need to put the past behind(Trueba, Jacobs&Kirton, 2014).
Testing e effectiveness of cultural intelligence as means of handling the problem is important to ensure that the solution meets the requirements. It would be very annoying to find that the solution only works in some condition and not in others. To eliminate these problem testing will be done using different scenarios to predict the effectiveness of the solution. These will ensure that the 21st-century fashions company gets the ultimate solution to the cultural conflict issue to maximize their output.
Research Plan
I kindly request permission from the manager in charge of the 21st-century fashions limited to look into this matter. To give the best and a long lasting solution I will conduct a thorough questioner in your company to single out specifically what challenges they face. The following research methods will be used in the study questioners, interviews, and observation. The study will utilize the power of a structured questioner and interview to collect information that will be used in 5the study (Chang, Daly, Hancock, Bidewell, Johnson,
Lambert & Lambert, 2006).
Information collected from the questioners and interviews will be compared with information from other researchers and real-world experience to evaluate the research. Also,a real conflict situation will be used to measure the percentage of reliability of the research.