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Principles of managing diversity
Managing cultural diversity in the workplace
Principles of managing diversity
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1. Explain the concept of culture. Why is it important to avoid ethnocentricity and gain cultural literacy? Culture refers to the collection of values, customs, and attitudes of a group of people belonging to certain area, country or a place. It shapes individuals’ habits, knowledge, experiences, and their perspectives. It is important to avoid ethnocentricity since it creates a bias in which, one views their own culture to be superior over other cultures. In the age of globalization, such single-minded bias can prove to be costly as it can lead to undermining positive characteristics of other cultures. This in return can create negative relationship with citizens from other cultures as well as their governments. Rathe one should strive to acquire cultural literacy which refers to “detailed knowledge about a …show more content…
In cultural diffusion, changes in culture take place gradually overtime and naturally as new traits are accepted and absorbed willingly by the culture in question. Whereas in cultural imperialism, countries like the U.S. replace traditions, folk heroes, and artifacts of the culture in question. This has led to countries reacting differently across the globe. Whereas the French people oppose the products of Walt Disney Company, Chinese children view the mascot of McDonald in positive characteristics. 3. How might a company benefit from the globalization of production? With the globalization of a product, a company might benefit in many ways. First, by sifting its production or services overseas, the company can reduce its overall production costs due to availability of low-cost labor. Second, working collectively with other companies overseas allows companies to access technical knowledge or resources that are either unavailable or are too expensive at home. 4. Compare and contrast the business environments in China and
Giger (2013) defines culture as a response in behavior that is shaped over time by values, beliefs, norms and practices shared by members of one's cultural group. A person's culture influences most aspects of his or her life including beliefs, conduct, perceptions, emotions, language, diet, body image, and attitudes about illness and pain (He...
Culture by definition is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices, as well as customary beliefs, social forms and material traits that characterize a racial, religious or ...
As individuals we don’t fully understand the impact culture has on us. The formal definition of culture is, “the entire way of life of a group of people,” ((Ferris, K., & Stein, J., 2008: pg 77). Society and culture play hand and hand. Our different societies are formed based on our culture. We tend to congregate with others who share the same culture or beliefs in which we believe in. Culture is something we learn, however. That is important to understand. Although we don’t fully understand how or why we developed our culturally background, according to the book, “we learn it so slowly and incrementally, we are unaware of the process,” (Ferris, K., & Stein, J., 2008: pg 77). Our society and culture have a huge role in sociology, and with sociological imagination we can understand that
Culture defines people’s values, beliefs, and personal interests. Culture is important because it allows people to maintain a unique identity society. Many cultures have common interests, while others may have customs that differ greatly from that of another. Technology has had a huge impact on present day cultures. Many culture have been altered including my own, and some have been created due to the rise of technology. Cultures differ so greatly that someone belonging to one culture may not agree with the values of another, which then causes social and ethical issues. My culture shares many similarities with others around the world; most of which have connected more people in recent years than ever before. Cultural gaps, and lack of understanding for peoples’ values and beliefs are significant reasons why cultures fail to understand one another.
Culture can be defined as “A pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to the new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Schein (1988)
We get our culture from enculturation. It is passed from one generation of people to the next through communication. Culture can define as actual society with particular practices, such as American, Asian,or African culture. According to Herskovits Melville, J who is known for exploring the cultural continuity states, “There is nothing wrong with such feelings, for "it characterizes the way most individuals feel about their own cultures, whether or not they verbalize their feeling" (Herskovits, p. 21). It is ethnocentrism that gives people their sense of peoplehood, group identity, and place in history-all of which are valuable traits to possess. According to Sumner, Graham, American social scientist, said about Ethnocentrism becomes negative when "one's own group becomes the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it" (Sumner 1979, p. 13) We create bias toward our culture and form an idea that one's own culture is the main standard to evaluate another group leading to view. They make their culture the measuring stick. This means that people believe and feel in the superiority of one's own ethnic culture over other culture. This behavior is known as Ethnocentrism. This concept was created amongst different nations earlier than cultural relativism, which has to be devised to counter ethnocentrism. In
Culture is the act of, or any labor or means employed for, training, disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual nature of man; as, the culture of the mind. Through culture development different disciplines have come up to try improve the human mind. Some of these disciplines include engineering design, accounting and commerce among many others. Lack of respect or knowledge in a certain culture is very critical and often results to either loss of life of those involved or disagreements especially in the engineering aspect where communication is very key. Human culture is unavoidable way of obtaining behaviors. Cultural education is transmitted to others through teaching, also through prolonged
Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize
Cultural awareness is where one becomes open to new beliefs, cultures, and religions. It requires one to be open to new ideas and perceptions, without discrimination. Cultural awareness also requires one to understand his or her own beliefs to better learn about another culture’s differences.
Globalization is huge part of the success of some the biggest firms today, from Apple, General Electric, to Google. It allows a business to develop international. It allows reduced costs by maximizing production known product lines, allowing to expand into different markets gives a more competitive edge and expanding to new technology helps to increase to a bigger company, having more political edge within trade agreements.
Globalization is a global process that is changing the world. I would also like to discuss what are the benefits and drawbacks of globalization in the world from different perspectives.
The word 'culture' is often described in terms of concrete ideas or social artifacts. Gary R. Weaver describes some common conceptions such as "good taste," "art or music," or "something that people in exotic foreign lands had."1 However, culture in the context of international assignments relates to how people perceive the world and the influence this perception has on their actions. It is culture on the interpersonal level. Different cultures can perceive the same thing differently, which leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding when one crosses into another culture not their own.
Globalization has taken place in the past when state and empires expanded their influence far outside their border. However, one of the distinctions of globalization today is the speed with which it is transforming local culture as they took part in a worldwide system of interconnectedness. Through globalization, many cultures in the world have changed dramatically.
Culture, a word almost everyone hears whenever there is sociological discussion that transcends various formats ranging from scholarly articles to local news station broadcasts. Culture contains a myriad of definitions depending on the perspective and lenses used to view it. Since it is a difficult concept to grasp at first, we do not realize the true scale of culture and its responsibility in dictating many actions within our daily lives. Different cultures are found all throughout the world, from the ever increasing western culture to smaller tribal cultures such as the wintu in California (“Vanishing Voices”). What must be taken into account is the fact that culture is heavily intertwined within society, since they both interact with each other in some way.
Culture is found everywhere, it consists of individuals having their own unique values, traditions, symbolism and patterns. Geertz definition of culture considers everything that can alter a person’s emotions, opinions and ideas are a part of culture because culture is the consequential factor that influences people’s actions and point of views. Therefore, they are a subset of culture and considered cultural products.