Cultural diversity at work and its effect on organization, communication, and conflict

Management of cultural diversity in the workplace is examined from the workers' perspective using ethnographic methods. Through participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, and secondary analysis of newspaper reports, a group of Laotian (both ethnic Lao and Lu), Latino (both Mexicano and Chicano), and Anglo custodians and their supporters were studied during a conflict with management over a planned reorganization. Culture is viewed as three sets of factors that influence the setting in various ways. Demographic cultural factors include race, class, ethnicity, status, gender, and ethclass. Deep cultural factors include values and beliefs. Style cultural factors include cultural form (individualism/collectivism), communication (high/low-context), speech and conflict styles, facework, chronemics, norms of justice and reciprocity, and attribution processes. The influences of these cultural factors on organization, communication, and conflict both among the custodians, and between custodians and management are described. Three key problems of intercultural interaction are identified; the problem of diversity, of combining culturally different ways, the problem of truth, of knowing what to believe when culturally familiar patterns are not available, and the problem of voice, of other cultures being heard within the dominant culture. The custodians coped with these problems in various ways. For example, they managed the problem of diversity in their decision making process through a series of bridging roles that spanned the cultural gaps among them. Finally, two models are presented illustrating how workers can cope with their own diversity, and how both managers and employees can cope with differences between organizational culture and employee cultures.