Understanding and Managing Diversity in the Workplace

This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of cultural diversity in the workplace. It provides a case study of an Australian agricultural company that trades with China and employs workers from both cultures. The article discusses how cultural differences can affect communication, team management, and productivity. It also highlights the benefits of cultural exchange and learning from other cultures.

1
Managing and Understanding Diversity
[Author Name(s), First M. Last, Omit Titles and Degrees]
[Institutional Affiliation(s)]
Author Note
[Include any grant/funding information and a complete correspondence address.]

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 2
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Diversity in the work place..............................................................................................................3
Advantages of cultural diversity..................................................................................................3
Disadvantages of cultural diversity.............................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................7

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 3
Introduction
The business environment is changing in today’s world and the owners of the business
are adapting the policies of the diversity and also the strategies that may appeal to the clients,
suppliers, vendors and the employees (Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013). Diversity in the
workplace can help in bringing with it a lot of potential benefits as well as it can also bring in the
potential conflicts for the owners of the business that may become difficult to manage (Crisp &
Turner, 2011). The main aim of the project is to find out the advantages, and disadvantages of
the cultural diversity in the work place.
Diversity in the work place
I used to work in an agricultural and the processed food industry in Melbourne, Australia
who trades with china. China is the largest buyer of the agricultural products from Australia. In
the year 2015 only, the agricultural sector of Australia sold the agricultural products worth more
than $ 9 billion of production to China. The trade between Australia and china is growing very
rapidly in the recent years (Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013). The Australian department of
agriculture has already predicted that China will account for 43 per cent of the global growth in
the demand for the products of agriculture within the year 2050 (McMahon, 2010). The
organization in which I used to work had employees of both the cultures that is, the Chinese and
the Australian. There was some sort of differences between the Australian and the Chinese
people but overall the people of both the communities used to work in amity with each other.
There was harmony among the people of the two communities.

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 4
Advantages of cultural diversity
The organization in today’s world have been able to identify the need and the importance
of the investment in the diversity. The organization can get a lot of advantages when the people
from two different separate culture work together. There are many advantages when the Chinese
and the Australian people who belong to the two totally different culture, work together. The
Australians are much more creative and technologically advanced than the Chinese people
(Niebuhr, 2010). When the Chinese people work with them, they also learn from the Australian
people and become creative in their work (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). They also learn to handle
several technologies and machines which is may not be available in their home nation. The
Chinese people are not much strong in English, so working with the Australian can make them
strong in English because the Chinese people need to communicate with the Australians in
English only. Due to the globalization the people of different culture now get a chance to work
and interact with each other (Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013). The Chinese people have a
very strong knowledge of team management, team bonding and the leadership. The people of
Australia can totally learn how to form, maintain and manage the team in a proper manner from
the Chinese people. Having cultural link with different countries also allow the people to learn
the sports of the other nations (Okoro & Washington, 2012). People will also be able to learn and
adapt the cultures and the traditions of each other. Interaction among the people of different
cultures help the people to learn about each other.
Disadvantages of cultural diversity
The cultural diversity in an organization between two communities can help the
organization a lot by increasing the productivity of the organization in several ways but there are
also some disadvantages when people from two different cultures work together (Stahl,

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 5
Maznevski, Voigt & Jonsen, 2010). As the organization is based in Australia so the Chinese
people had to work under the management of the people of Australia, so sometimes the Chinese
people disproved to listen to the management team and always thought that the decisions were
always being taken in favor of the people of the Australia which may not be true also. The
Chinese people have a very strong love towards their culture and they do not prefer to mix
themselves up with any other culture. As a result, they never mixed up much with the people of
Australia and used to be in their own small groups only (McMahon, 2010). The communication
was a big problem in the organization because the Chinese people do not speak much in English
as they are comfortable in speaking in their own native language and most of the people of
Australia do not have much knowledge in the Chinese language so communicating with each
other became a he problem for the people of both the communities (Brunow & Blien, 2014). The
ideologies of the Chinese people and the Australian people are totally different from each other
which also became a major problem from both the communities. The difference in the ideologies
often used to lead to several problems where the communities used to disagree with each other.
There also came the issue of freedom of speech. In a multi-cultural organization people need to
provide respect to the opposite race so the people of both the communities need to think before
they speak anything against the people of the opposite race (Martin, 2014). Moreover, the cost of
training also increased for the organization because many seminars, programs and the lectures
were arranged in the organization to promote diversity in the work place.
Conclusion
There has been a quite a lot of exchange of goods between Australia and china and the
agricultural products is one of the most important good that get exported to china from Australia.
China alone takes the most amount of the agricultural goods from Australia. The organization in

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 6
which I used to work also used to supply the agricultural products to china and as a result that
organization had employees from both the communities of Australia and china. As Australia is a
western country and china is an eastern country so both the communities have totally different
cultures which proved to be both advantageous as well as disadvantageous for the organization.

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 7
References
Brunow, S., & Blien, U. (2014). Effects of cultural diversity on individual
establishments. International Journal of Manpower, 35(1/2), 166-186.
Chrobot-Mason, D., & Aramovich, N. P. (2013). The psychological benefits of creating an
affirming climate for workplace diversity. Group & Organization Management, 38(6),
659-689.
Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2011). Cognitive adaptation to the experience of social and cultural
diversity. Psychological bulletin, 137(2), 242.
Martin, G. C. (2014). The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. Journal of Diversity
Management (Online), 9(2), 89.
McMahon, A. M. (2010). Does workplace diversity matter? A survey of empirical studies on
diversity and firm performance, 2000-09. Journal of Diversity Management, 5(2), 37-48.
Niebuhr, A. (2010). Migration and innovation: Does cultural diversity matter for regional R&D
activity?. Papers in Regional Science, 89(3), 563-585.57.
Okoro, E. A., & Washington, M. C. (2012). Workforce diversity and organizational
communication: Analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of
Diversity Management (Online), 7(1), 57.
Patrick, H. A., & Kumar, V. R. (2012). Managing workplace diversity: Issues and
challenges. Sage Open, 2(2), 2158244012444615.

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY 8
Stahl, G. K., Maznevski, M. L., Voigt, A., & Jonsen, K. (2010). Unraveling the effects of
cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural work
groups. Journal of international business studies, 41(4), 690-709.