Impact of Cultural Diversity on Business Performance: A Case Study of Ernst & Young

Running head: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
Research in Business
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course
Date

RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
2
Table of Contents
SECTION I.................................................................................................................................1
Introduction..................................................................................................................................1
Problem Statement.......................................................................................................................2
Main Objectives...........................................................................................................................3
Justification of the Project............................................................................................................4
Potential Research Output............................................................................................................5
SECTION II................................................................................................................................6
Conceptual Framework................................................................................................................6
Religion and Organization Performance......................................................................................7
Employee Value System and Organizational Performance.........................................................8
Race-Ethnicity and Organizational Performance.......................................................................10
Methodology..............................................................................................................................11
SECTION III............................................................................................................................13
Organisation of Study.................................................................................................................13
Project Budget and Justification.................................................................................................14
Gantt Chart.................................................................................................................................15
References..................................................................................................................................16

RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
3

Running head: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
SECTION I
Introduction
The idea of diversity management is proposed as a wide-ranging management style in which the
right work environment is developed for all the staff at an organization. This is done regardless if
of race, gender and religion of any particular employee and are all treated equally. The research
study that will be undertaken seeks to investigate if cultural diversity has an impact on Australian
business organization’s performance. The research study will use Ernst & Young as its case
study for purposes of data and empirical evidence. Cultural diversity is the recognition of the
different backgrounds that different groups of people come from. The differences in cultures as
stated earlier vary due to a myriad of reasons such as religion, age, race-ethnicity et al. These
will be the variables that the study will seek to understand what impact they have on
organization’s performance. The performance of an organization such as Ernst & Young, will be
weighed through the comparison of their previous performance before adopting cultural diversity
management and post-performance after adopting cultural diversity management
Problem Statement
A blend of people that derive from various diverse backgrounds distinctiveness but
within the same social system and these traits are allied to their race, ethnicity, age, religion et al.
Accordingly, treating and coordinating individuals fairly according to their diverse background
and shared outlooks among work staff in the company is known as diversity management.
Lately, diversity with regards to culture has developed as the dominant component of diversity in
Australian organisations. Australia is considered to be culturally diverse in due to the fact that
27% of people are not Australian natives (van Niekerk et al., 2017).

RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
2
As a result of emergence of globalization and underlying demographic trends, there has
been increased competition in the labour market among employers to try and get the smartest of
people. Ernst& Young has not been left behind on this craze as it has taken up a shift to its hiring
culture towards a more cultural diverse labour force (van Niekerk et al., 2017). The top firms in
Australia are adapting this new strategy in order to create globally experienced top management
and training their workforce with the necessary know-how to lead the 21st century personnel that
is more cultural diverse.
For instance, Ernst & Young (EY) is a company which provides internationally
acclaimed professional services such as financial audit, tax, consulting and advisory services to
other companies. EY has about a total of 270,000 members of staff all in different countries in
the world who are from different cultural backgrounds. This research study will take Ernst &
Young (EY) as a case study to investigate whether a workforce of cultural diverse background
impact the anticipated management performance of an organization. The research study will find
the research gap through empirical data of the correlation between cultural diversity and business
management performance. The management performance will be measured in terms of
profitability, customer relations and market niche of the company (Rice, 2015).
Main Objectives

RESEARCH IN BUSINESS 1
3
Overall, the goal of this research study is to investigate the effect of having a cultural diverse
workforce management on the business performance of a company through a case study of Ernst
& Young. The main objectives of this study will be to provide answers the following research
o Does the implementation of cultural diversity management among workforce having a
positive or negative effect on Ernst & Young’s customer’s service delivery?
o Is cultural diversity relevant to the Australian business management organization
performance?
o What are the positive and negative effects on Ernst & Young’s cultural diversity in
management?
o What was the business performance of Ernst & Young after implementation of cultural
diverse practices by the top management?
This research questions will be important to answer if there is need for business organization’s to
adopt cultural diverse management design to attain better general business performance.
Justification of the Project
The advantages of workforce and workplace diversity are well known to many business
managers and firm owners (Wagner et al., 2017). Diverse teams, with their vast knowledge and
skills to look at different problems that may arise at the work place, looking at this different
challenges at different angles and understanding from each member of the team, results in better
solutions that help improve business performance. This is the case of a diverse team compared to