A Criteria Based Literature Research - Approaches, Achievements and Experiences of the Concept of Cultural Diversity in Multicultural Organizations

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: These days a current newspaper without an article in the business section covering the issue of globalization and the effects involved is unthinkable. Due to that fact, cultural diversity is often mentioned, and its presence within the media grows increasingly as does its value within our society as well as in our policies and economy. The globalization of markets and companies has been the driving force of change over the past decade. Its process affects every nation worldwide and represents a challenge because worldwide competition between national economies is engendering and the degree of international intertwining is increasing.Consequently, the current trend is leading to a growing internationalization of corporate activity that is reflected not only markets but also in development. Besides increasing competition on the domestic markets, it opens up opportunities to enter new markets and to benefit from location advantages in production and development processes. A company that is operating on a global scale today has to assert itself in various markets with various cultures. Due to this, cultural differences can be seen as a side effect of globalization prompting structural workforce change. Globalization, as well as changes in demographics are two reasons causing change in the structural workforce. Through the internationalization of employees, the aspect of cultural differences is increasingly significant because the organizational corporate structure has to adjust itself to a very dynamic and heterogeneous environment. Whether help-wanted ads in the newspaper or current journal articles, the shortage of experts in some fields is identified as a rising issue and major challenge companies have to face over the coming years. Some companies already answer to this issue by hiring foreign employees because ‘As a consequence, different qualifications, life styles, needs, values and experiences emerge. This heterogeneous mix through the labour market has to be taken into account when recruiting and appointing staff’. According to the process of managing heterogeneous workforces, a certain fit needs to be achieved which has to be coordinated. This is where Cultural Diversity Management, a concept that originated in the American Civil Rights movement, comes in. The increasing relevance of this topic, and its high presence within the media raised my interests regarding this subject. Even the specific article in the [...]