Running head: MULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENT

Multicultural Management

Student Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Due to the changing dynamics of globalization, several factors dictate how an

organization performs its activities. The environment informs these factors of the host country

and may vary from one country to the other. One of the most common environmental factors that

affect international businesses is the difference in culture. Culture can be defined as the

customary beliefs, social and religious norms, laws, and other capabilities brought together by a

community over time. Understanding how cultural differences affect business interactions and

business objectives determines the success of any business. The business protocol, decision

making, management of employees and projects, how the company takes its risks, marketing,

and distribution of sales are all embedded and structured differently by different cultures. In

other words, the culture of a nation directly influences how businesses conduct their business.

Consequently, the interplay between culture and religion is always dynamic so that the forces of

a culture enormously infiltrate and affect religious beliefs. Cultural and religious beliefs, which

an international manager should be aware of, directly impacts the business's operations. This

research analyzes how different cultures affect global business management and the

recommendations necessary to overcome cultural differences for any manager.

Understanding and learning American society's values, practices, and processes,

especially the business cultures, plays a fundamental role for any manager to adjust to a new

business environment, as for my friend who has acquired a middle management position, I

highly recommend and encourage her first to learn the culture of the people to adjust to the

businesses practices of the American people. There are several advantages of first taking time to

understand the culture of the employees for managers rather than directly taking the role

delegated to them. According to the research, culture can be a core facilitator for continuous

quality improvement(Huang 2016). By first encouraging my friend to learn the organizational

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and people culture, she will learn the company's internal practices to examine failures and

weaknesses to make programmatic and operational changes. Secondly, first learning the culture

of the people will improve her transition process.

Consequently, learning and development go in handy. Through education, she will develop

sound working practices aligned with the organizational goals. Lastly, through knowledge, she

will understand how to build employee morale and motivation.

Different countries have different religious beliefs and practices, and consequently, these

beliefs and practices can directly or indirectly influence any business organization. Similarly,

various religious institutions worldwide play a fundamental role in defining and resolving current

discussions about ethical business behavior. In the American culture, half of the American

workers interact with people from different cultures and religions, which has often given rise to

religious conflicts. One significant religious dispute in many business institutions is requiring

employees to work on holy days or holidays. One of the core areas that bring about religious

wars and tensions in workplaces is working on holy days. When managers insist that all

employees should work on certain religious days, religious discrimination arises. When religious

discrimination occurs, the affected employees may feel demotivated and bring friction between

employees and management( Castaneda &Bateh 2013). However, there are remedies to religious

conflicts, which involve managers carefully framing issues, considering the long-term effect of

their decisions. Managers can affirm an inclusive culture in their organization or suggest that

religion be tolerated and possibly invite litigation. Secondly, the employees have their

responsibilities, including giving the management notice of any actual religious conflict and

working with their managers to reach an accommodation.

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One of the core factors that may affect new managers from expressing their ideas is

culture. Cultural and emotional intelligence must share what we call a propensity to suspend

judgment, interpreted as thinking before acting. In the business world, executives themselves are

the product of different cultures in which they have learned and conducted business. It may be

difficult for new managers to express themselves and their managerial styles in institutions

whose culture is different from her culture(Gancalves 2015). To drive this point home, we can

take the situation of a British executive who has been trained in American business and has been

given the responsibilities to run an argentine company. Through this illustration, it is clear that

the British manager may find it difficult to express her ideas readily due to cultural differences.

Secondly, different cultures may vary in their conception of transformational leadership. In some

cultures, a manager may need decisive and robust action to be seen as a leader. In some cultures,

consultation and democratic approaches may be preferred to exercise effective leadership.

There are, however, some actions that may be taken to become a multicultural manager.

First, to become a multicultural manager, I would organize cross-cultural training in my

organization. To improve the employee's morale organizing cross-cultural training would help

overcome the cultural challenges that may be present in my organization. In the cross-cultural

training, the training would seek to minimize the cultural barriers in the organization(Ravasi et

al., 2015). Secondly, the training would seek to avoid stereotypes and prejudice that may result

from cultural differences in the organization. The training would also encourage the employees

to their own cultures and the cultures of other members of the organization. The training would

also help improve the social skills of different employees and train them to become better

listeners. Lastly, the training would educate the employees to focus on common principles rather

than their differences. To become an excellent multicultural leader, I would build trust with
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organization employees and promote mutual respect through practicing empathy. Empathy can

be defined as the ability of a leader to understand and share feelings with all the organizational

employees. To grow and develop leadership listening skills, especially when in a leadership

position, practicing empathy is of utmost importance. Understanding what coworkers from

different cultures and backgrounds are experiencing will be of great help to practice empathy.

The concept of practicing empathy in multicultural organizations also has other benefits:

providing support for multicultural employees to continue providing quality work while working

at the institution(Ravasi et al., 2015. Secondly, practicing empathy helps solve issues standing in

their ways to reach desired goals. Lastly, practicing empathy helps resolve cultural conflicts

together with other disputes more quickly and effectively.

On the other hand, there is the subject of intercultural communication, which means

sending messages to be processed by another person of a different culture. Similarly, just like

how people understand the different cultures, it is also clear that nonverbal communication varies

from one person to another. Nonverbal communication has been a source of conflict, especially

in the workplace, mainly due to misinterpretation of the nonverbal cues, among other factors. If

the communication is verbal, tonal variation can influence how the receiver interprets the

message( lyekolo 2020). Suppose the sender of a message uses a high tone while

communicating. In that case, the receiver can sometimes solve the high tonal variation as overly

aggressive, which can lead to total misunderstanding between the parties.

On the other hand, misinterpretation or misunderstanding of nonverbal cues can be a source of

miscommunication. For example, when someone with folded arms and tapping their feet may be

interpreted that the person may be late, which can put someone off if the person asks for help.

Another source of miscommunication among people is racial prejudice. Irrational hatred or

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hostility towards other people based on individual beliefs, nationalism, race, country, and even

color can be a source of miscommunication among people in society. Prejudice often serves as a

barrier to effective communication. When it comes to nonverbal communication and how people

interpret certain gestures, conflicts often arise when certain gestures have been misinterpreted by

the receiver, especially when cultural differences arise(Lyekolo 2020). However, there are some

universal signals such as the eyebrow flash of recognition or when someone opens hands and

palm gesture which may be interpreted as that the person needs something from us. Often,

nonverbal cues are misinterpreted and result in many conflicts, especially in workplaces.

Religious signs and gestures have also been a source of misunderstanding, especially when non-

familiar gestures are made primarily in different workplaces.

In conclusion, from the above analysis, it is clear that culture and cultural differences

are fundamental areas that international managers should pay close attention to, especially in

managing task forces that involve employees or personnel from different cultures. Understanding

different cultures' values, practices, and processes lay a firm foundation for multicultural

management. Similarly, how culture influences managerial styles, among other things, religion

and religious beliefs and practices, should also be considered, keeping in mind that different

religions have different opinions and approaches. Multicultural managers should first understand

how religion affects the working environment and how it influences employees' motivation.

Working on holy days and holidays is a critical area that multicultural managers should consider.

For example, when working in countries or regions where Muslim is the dominant religion

asking employees to work on Fridays may result in conflict between the Muslim employees and

the management as well as working in areas where Christianity is the dominant religion

delegating employees to work on Sabbath day may also result to conflict between the Christian
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employees and the management. It is therefore fundamental for multicultural managers to put

into consideration the cultures and religion of their employees in exercising their managerial

duties

References

Huang, J. (2016). The challenge of multicultural management in global projects. Procedia-Social and

Behavioral Sciences, 226, 75-81.

Castaneda, M. E., & Bateh, J. (2013). Strategies for multicultural management: Communication and a

standard set of values. Journal of International Education Research (JIER), 9(1), 41-46.

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Gonçalves, G., Reis, M., Sousa, C., Santos, J., & Orgambídez-Ramos, A. (2015). The effect of

multicultural experience in conflicts management styles: Mediation of cultural intelligence and

self-monitoring. Journal of Spatial and Organizational Dynamics, 3(1), 4-21.

Ravasi, C., Salamin, X., & Davoine, E. (2015). Cross-cultural adjustment of skilled migrants in a

multicultural and multilingual environment: an explorative study of the Swiss's foreign employees

and their spouses. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(10), 1335-

1359.

Iyekolo, A. (2020). Non-Verbal Communication and Management of Interactive Conflict in School-based

Violence: A Sociological Perspective. Canadian Journal of Family and Youth/Le Journal

Canadien de Famille et de la Jeunesse, 12(1), 260-268.