People come from different cultures and working in organizations can result in conflict. Different organizations have different cultures. How do Organizations reconcile and harmonize the two?

by macsaravan (student)

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

“People come from different cultures and working in organizations can result in conflict. Different organizations have different cultures. How do Organizations reconcile and harmonize the two?”

Introduction on Cross Cultural:

"Cross Cultural" became incorporated into official policies in several nations in the 1970s for reasons that varied from country to country. In Canada, it was adopted in 1971 in the aftermath of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, a government body set up in response to the grievances of Canada's French-speaking minority (concentrated in the Province of Quebec). The report of the Commission advocated that the Canadian government recognize Canada as a bilingual and bicultural society and adopt policies to preserve this character. Biculturalism was attacked from many directions. Progressive Conservative leader John Diefenbaker saw Cross Cultural as an attack on his vision of unhyphenated Canadianism. It did not satisfy the growing number of young francophones who gravitated towards Quebec nationalism. While many Canadians of British descent disliked the new policies of biculturalism and official bilingualism, the strongest opposition to biculturalism came from Canadians of neither English nor French descent, the so-called "Third Force" Canadians. Biculturalism did not accord with local realities in the western provinces, where the French population was tiny compared to other groups such as the Ukrainian Canadians, the group that was arguably most important in overturning the policy of biculturalism. To accommodate these groups, the formula was changed from "bilingualism and biculturalism" to "bilingualism and Cross Cultural." The Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau passed the Official Cross Cultural Act in 1971. Symbolically, this legislation affirmed that Canada was a multicultural nation. This policy has been supported by every subsequent government and was added to Canada's 1982 constitution. The other country to have most fully adopted Canada's view of Cross Cultural is Australia where many of these policies related to Cross Cultural are pursued, for example the formation of the Special Broadcasting Service. In the United States Cross Cultural is not an official policy at the federal level. At the state level, it is sometimes associated with English-Spanish bilingualism. However, the government, in recent years, moved to support many Cross Cultural policies. In some ways, the United States has gone even further than Canada and Australia with such policies. For instance, California drivers can take their exams in a number of languages and gerrymandered districts to guarantee minority representation in government. Cultural diversity includes the range of ways in which people experience a unique group identity, which includes gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and age. An organization’s culture tends to determine the extent to which it is culturally diverse. While diversity in the workplace brings about many benefits to an organization, it can also lead to many challenges. It is the responsibility of managers within organizations to use diversity as an influential resource in order to enhance organizational effectiveness.(www.abaara.com)

Globalization is a common term for processes of international integration arising from increasing human connectivity and interchange of , products, ideas, and other aspects of (.www.wikipedia.com) Senior Management of the organizations should be taught to value multicultural differences in order to treat everyone alike and with self-respect. Issues regarding diversity are now being measured important and will be even more vital in future as the differences in the population of many countries are increasing at a huge rate. Organizations must distillate more on diversity and look at ways to become totally comprehensive organizations so as to increase the potential power of productivity and competitiveness. Workplace productivity can be improved by managing and valuing diversity which is a vital factor for successful people management. Unhandled diversity problems in the workplace may lead to an obstacle for conquering organizational goals. Thus diversity is identified as a “double-edged sword” (Mazur, 2010). Prior to ingoing into the topic let me first explain the three extents of diversity. Mazur (2010) explained the extents of diversity in a simple table which is shown below

(Mazur, 2010).

Cultural conflicts often happen in organization when the multi cultural situation. It happens because the people from different culture will have different beliefs and background. We cannot say all the conflicts are dangerous. Some of them are not. This essay shortly explains about the conflict in organization and the cultural conflict in organization. A clear idea about culture within the organization is given below along with the some examples.

Let us first take a closer look at the topic of conflict. What is a conflict? Conflicts are likely to happen in a situation when there are deviated values. Conflicts, though a simple term: arise from different organizations or within the organization (Berendrecht, n.d.). As stated by Esquival and Kleiner, “Conflict is generally a disagreement regarding interests or ideas. Whether it is within oneself, between two people, or within an organization, it has a negative connotation”. The people often involved in the conflicts are called ‘troublemakers’ or ‘bad apples’ (Esquivel and Kleiner, 1997). Behaviour is another vital factor for the initiation of conflicts. It is a huge problem in the work environment both nationally and internationally (Berendrecht, n.d.). Henry commented that “conflict is an ever-present process in human relations”. Conflicts may have both positive and negative outcomes. Conflict should be resolved by the management itself by sorting out differences between individuals rather than arguing. But arguing is one way conflicts play out. Making arguments, on the other hand, is not a bad thing (Henry, 2009). The level and type of conflicts are shown below.

(Conflict and conflict management, n.d.).

It is necessary to identify the sources of conflict as it decides the appropriate ways to manage conflict. Various sources of conflict include communications, emotions, history, structure and values all leading to a particular point called ‘needs’ (Doerr, 2004).

Let us see the brief about conflicts in Multi cultural organization. The ratio of conflict is natural in any organization as they compete for a particular source. Behavior, attitude and perception are the most vital reasons behind conflict occurring in organization Conflicts in organization include strong debating, healthy tension, mixed motives, irrational behavior, ‘them and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

(Conflict and conflict management, n.d.).

“Different professional identities

Different orientation to work

Ambiguous structure

Ambiguous relationships

Different priorities

Different sequence of work” (Fritchie, 2007).

Not all conflict is bad as sharing different views, points and ideas creates better understanding and more comprehensive choice for immediate actions. Fritchie states “Healthy conflict is a part of everyday life. Unhealthy conflict leads to issues being disregarded and unsolved”. Unhealthy conflict can hurt people, destroy reputations and relationships and split the organization. There are two different behaviors of people in an organization which leads to ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ conflict. Hot conflict occur when people are enthusiastic to achieve certain goals and have hectic situations between parties in organization where as cold conflict is defined as the opposite of hot conflict. Cold conflict is explained when people around are pessimistic about achievements and goals. Either hot or cold conflict is predictable in any organization. (Fritchie, 2007).

At the present let me give you an idea about culture and the factors leading to cultural conflicts. What is culture? According to Leonard, Cosans and Pakdil, culture is defined as “a constellation of thoughts, feelings and actions concerning the relation of the self to others and the self as distinct from others” (Leonard et al, 2011). Kwantes and Boglarsky explain their point towards culture as ‘stable behaviour, attitude and values that are held in common among the people around them’. In fact, culture includes individual level phenomenon which highlights on how individuals from different culture work within an organization (Kwantes and Boglarshy, 2007). As stated by Andrea (1994), culture mainly branches from the following variations such as race, ethnicity, religion, country of origin, class, gender and geographic region. Cultural conflict is mainly divided into three facets which include content, relational and a clash of cultural values. The clash of cultural values relates to the core of conflict as it deals with personal identity (Andrea, 1994). The characteristics of multicultural organization are:

Pluralism

Full structural integration

Full integration of the informal networks

An absence of prejudice and discrimination

Low level of intergroup conflict (Taylor Cox, 1991).

Multicultural in india:

Multicultural concerns have long informed India’s history and traditions, constitution and political arrangements. Much of the writings on Indian history, culture and politics are marked by some kind of multicultural concern. The central question addressed in this paper is how a vast multi-ethnic country – in terms of religion, language, community, caste and tribe – has survived as a state in conditions of underdevelopment, mass poverty, illiteracy and extreme regional disparities. Placed in relation to the failures of many less diverse and plural post-colonial and “socialist” states, India’s record of relative political unity and stability seems remarkable indeed.

The culture of India has been shaped by its long history, unique geography and diverse demography. India's languages, religions, dance, music, architecture and customs differ from place to place within the country, but nevertheless possess a commonality. The culture of India is an amalgamation of these diverse subcultures spread all over the Indian subcontinent and traditions that are several millennia old. The term Cross Cultural is not much used in India, except in the recent times by the left-liberals and the communists. The term diversity (within the Indian culture) is the term which is used by the Indians more often. Religiously, the Orthodox Hindus form the majority, followed by the Muslims. The actual statistics are: Hindu (80.5%), Muslim (13.4%, including both Shia and Sunni), Christian (2.3%), Sikh (2.1%), Buddhist, Bahá'í, Ahmadi, Jain, Jew and Parsi populations.[60] Linguistically, the two main language families in India are Indo-Aryan (a branch of Indo-European) and Dravidian. India officially follows a three-language policy. Hindi is the federal official language, English has the federal status of associate/subsidiary official language and each state has its own state official language (in the Hindi sprachraum, this reduces to bilingualism).(www.atomicfeedback.com)

The Republic of India's state boundaries are largely drawn based on linguistic groups; this decision led to the preservation and continuation of local ethnolinguistic sub-cultures, except for the Hindi sprachraum which is itself divided into many states. Thus, most states differ from one another in language, culture, cuisine, clothing, literary style, architecture, music and festivities.

Let me explain one of the instance from one indian company where many culture merge and work for that organization. Radha enters her office building a little tense. She has just ten minutes before the weekly meeting starts and needs to get the reports ready before that. She has to be exactly on time. She knows that even a couple of minutes’ delay to start the meeting would annoy Graham a lot. He is so fanatic about maintaining time! She is also a little tense about her colleague Gaurav coming late. He might just take it a little easy and have a cup of coffee and be late by a few minutes. She is sure that expecting him to be on time for a meeting is a totally unreasonable demand for Gaurav.(www.chillibreeze.com)

Above is a typical scenario which we all are facing quite often these days. The globalization process has gained momentum and the workplaces have become a melting pot of different cultures. With more and more companies reaching out to the global markets and tapping the competitive advantages of different geographies, we are being more and more exposed to the world outside our comfort zone and face cultural conflicts. The greater the global reach of the company, the greater the scope of contact with people from other countries and hence the scope for misunderstanding and conflict. Many organizations are even recruiting local talents to bring diversity into the workforce and encourage fresh input of ideas. It is no more surprising that we work in a team with members from different parts of the globe coming together to deliver a project. As a result, it has become extremely important for today’s workforce to change the way they think about other cultures and be able to work comfortably in a multicultural environment.

Many organizations these days are taking many initiatives to address this issue in the workplace and make associates generally aware of the other cultures. While some are looking at it more from a ‘fun’ and ‘engagement’ issue, others are thinking in the line of serious education and training to build the mindset of people and create a global culture in the organization. The key to success in building such a culture would be to hold a positive and welcoming view to people from all cultures, create common goals and guidelines to suit all and cultivate a sense of loyalty and belonging. While individual attributes like respect for others, understanding others are important, the communication from the top management of the organization also is extremely important to successfully create the environment. The value from this could be enormous. In one hand you can unleash the potentials of a diverse workgroup with fresh ideas, values, knowledge and approach and on the other hand you create a culture of inclusion, sharing, collaboration and innovation. The success of a company both globally and locally depend to a large extent on how effectively it is being able to build a mutually collaborative relationship and build an environment of trust. Organizations across the world have started seeing more and more value in this. The day is not far when working in a multi cultural environment will be considered as one of the most important competency in any organization across the world.

To avoid the cultural conflict in organization, we should adopt certain measures. This will help us to harmonize and reconcile cultural conflict in organization. The below mentioned diagram will shows the unresolved conflict leading to poor performance in the organization.

(Henry, 2009).

Let us trail this diagram into another flow chart by detailing some of the conflict resolution methods accepted in multi cultural organization for their improvement.

Assertiveness evaluates the need to satisfy the organization whereas cooperation measures the need to satisfy the workforce. (Doerr, 2004). The management styles include: competing, collaborating, accommodating, avoiding and compromising. The two dimensional grid shown below is according to Thomas- Kilmann conflict mode instrument:

(David A. Victor,n.d.).

Avoiding: It is lower on both cases such as assertiveness and cooperativeness. In reality, the higher officials are not very cooperative with the individuals who work with them to achieve a similar goal to the organization. The actual dispute is never addressed or resolved directly. Avoiding situations occur when the issue is unimportant to the higher officials. The best situation to use this approach is when there is no chance of winning or when problem would be of high cost (David A. Victor, n.d.).

Competing: The competing style is also popularly known as Win-Lose approach. A manager implementing this approach, portrayed by low cooperativeness and high assertiveness, leads to reach his/her ideas with the expense of other individuals. This style is used when emergency situations occur with or without the knowledge of the higher officials. It is used for immediate cost cutting actions (David A. Victor, n.d.).

Accommodating: This type of resolution style is entirely dependent on high degree of cooperativeness. It is also known as courteous. The higher officials using this method often conquer his/her objectives and goals in order to allow other individuals to accomplish their targets. This type of behavior is essential when people are wrong or one issue is greater than the other. Accommodating style is necessary for ‘preserving future relations’ between the team organizations (David A. Victor, n.d.).

Compromising: Mutual understanding concept is developed here and it is portrayed by moderate levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness on the graph. It is also referred to bargaining. The results produced from this method are not of high standard or quality. This style is used when the target of both sides are significant or when it is compulsory to find a temporary solution. It is never used when the problem is complex and thus requires problem solving approach (David A. Victor, n.d.).

Collaborating: Collaborating approach is always high on assertiveness and cooperativeness and is explained as ‘win-win scenario’. In this method, all the members in the organization work towards a particular goals and desired outcomes. It is best implemented when the issues relating to the organization are complex and when creative ideas are required. The only negative impact of this approach is that it takes a lot of time to reach a final agreement even though sincere efforts by the organization are put together (David A. Victor,n.d.).

Out of five conflict resolution methods-accommodating, avoiding, competing and compromising are variations of win-lose scenario whereas collaboration is the appropriate conflict handling tool which leads multicultural organization into a group who work for the same goals. All these types act as true conflict management style. In fact any of the conflict resolution methods are appropriate according to specific situation, organization personality styles, desired outcomes and the time available (David A. Victor, n.d.).

The resolution method is negotiation with different parties .In below I have briefly explained about the negotiation & the strategies of that. In general negotiation is a complex solving tool.

According to Mahran and Geraedts, “Negotiation refers to the perception of each counterpart in the negotiating process. Two opposite dimensions are projected, with the course of negotiators bringing the negotiating process on an integrative or a distributive manner” (Mahran and Geraedts, 2008).

Ethical aspect of negotiation:

The negotiating parties should endeavor for high ethical standards in order to maintain better working relationships.

The negotiating parties should not be tracked by self interests, which tempts to unethical actions (McCuddy, 2003).

Basically there are two strategies of Negotiation:

Distributive negotiation-It depends on each party getting out in its own way or one party compromising the other party to get things over. A bargaining zone is developed if both the parties’ views overlap each other. This provides a huge space for negotiation (McCuddy, 2003).

Integrative negotiation-The integrative negotiation has an opportunity for win-win solution. It is less challenging and the aim is to create accurate results by appropriate concessions. These results are achieved by using problem-solving methods (Mahran and Geraedts, 2008).

Therefore the aforesaid diagram by Henry (2009) which symbolizes unresolved conflict leading to poor performance of the organization is altered and a new diagram is shown below which points out resolved conflict leading to increase in organizational performance.

(Henry, 2009)

From this figure, it Shows that all cultural conflicts should be minimized in order to be on the safer side of organizational performance.

Conclusion:

The study clearly shows the clear picture of the reasons of conflict in a multicultural organization and resolving solutions. the background of the study shows that Senior Management of the organizations have a huge role in conflict management strategies .It is common in all cross culture organization. It can have a both outcomes.

The positive outcomes take place when the people in the organization understand each other and work for organization target. Even though misunderstanding takes place ,that can be sorted out by themselves. Doerr (2004) also added that people must learn that differences should not be deficiencies but another chance to experience the world (Doerr, 2004). So conflict can be affected the organization as well as the goal of the company. As mentioned above it may help to produce win-win situation for the organization. Positive outcomes will finally bring reasonable solutions to satisfy everyone. According to my opinion, the multicultural environment will bring the new ideas from different people& the work methodology to the organization.

Negative outcome takes place when the cooperation between the people is not fit.the behavior and attitude plays a major position of conflict. Situation may occur the adjustment between the team members are not in to the level. It is very difficult to organization .It will put the organization in trouble as well as the team mates.So as the result the team members get terminated by the organization. (Doerr, 2004).

From the above study, it is clear that wide ranges of loss are identified due to conflict in the multicultural organization and they are:

Time Wastage

Poor decision in the organization.

Man Power loss due to conflict.

Less motivation

Health costs

Unnecessary reformation of issues.

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