International Business : An Analysis of the Case Study of Sodexo 2022

Running head: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CASE STUDY OF SODEXO
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1INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Introduction
As stated by Hillman (2015), the extensive usage of the process of internationalization or
globalization by the different business corporations had significantly enhanced the scope of their
business on the one hand and on the other hand, substantially enhanced the diversity of their
workforce as well. Rees and Smith (2017) are of the viewpoint that the effective usage of the
construct of diversity renders different benefits to the business corporations while offering them
the opportunity to substantially enhance their workforce productivity or for that matter their
workforce performance as well. However, at the same time it needs to be said that in order to
reap the desired benefits from the usage of the construct of diversity, the business corporations
are required to take the help of diversity management policies and also implement it adequately
as well (Reiche et al., 2016).
In this particular context mention needs to be made of Sodexo which stands at the 6th
position as per the DiversityInc’s 2017 among the top 50 business corporations of the world with
the best diversity management practices. More importantly, the concerned corporation ardently
believes in the idea that the entities of diversity management and performance management are
closely linked with each other and it is because of this particular aspect that the corporation
ardently focuses on the aspect of diversity. Furthermore, an important issue that the concerned
corporation is presently facing can be attributed to the fact that although the corporation had
been able to adequately foster within its workplace in the nation of USA yet it had not been
overly successful in doing in the same in the other nations of the world. Thus, the objective of
this paper is to undertake a critical evaluation of the diversity management practices used by
Sodexo and also to show the manner in which it had helped the concerned corporation to
enhance its performance in its global operations.

2INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Diverse Workforce and Performance
Brannen, Piekkari and Tietze (2017) are of the viewpoint that an important benefit
offered by the construct of diversity management can be attributed to the fact that it helps the
business corporations to substantially enhance their performance. Adding to this, Noe et al.
(2017) have noted that most of the business corporations are presently operational on a global
basis and thus it is seen that they often deal with a diverse group of clients or customers. This
aspect of global business operations of the different international business corporations had made
it important for them to have a diverse workforce which in turn would enable them to effectively
deal with the diverse clients or the customers that they serve (Vassilopoulou, 2017). More
importantly, a diverse workforce also offers the required opportunity to the individual workers to
learn important job skills from the colleagues like cultural competency, social intelligence,
emotional intelligence and others and thereby helps them to perform a plethora of job roles
within the business corporations (Tamzid & Parves, 2017). This in turn not only helps them to
substantially enhance their individual productivity or job performance but also offers the
required opportunity to the business corporations to substantially enhance their performance as
well (Eginli & Narin, 2017).
In the particular context of the corporation Sodexo, it is seen that the concerned
corporation realizes the fact that the performance of the concerned corporation is directly tied up
with the effective management of workplace diversity within the corporation. It is with this
particular objective that the concerned corporation presently is trying to harvest six different
types of diversity within its workplace, namely, “generations, sexual orientation, disabilities,
culture, and origins, and gender”. The success of these initiatives undertaken by the concerned
corporation becomes apparent from the fact that around 50% of the Board of Directors of the

3INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
corporation comprises of women whereas 31% of the global executives of the corporation are
also women. In addition to these, it had been seen that more than 60% of the workers of the
corporation are color people and these in turn have contributed significantly towards the
enhancement of the performance of the concerned corporation.
Sodexo is presently operational in more than 80 different nations of the world and it is
seen that the concerned corporation serves more than “75 million customers every day”. More
importantly, the concerned corporation offers employment to more than “425,000 employees in
80 countries” and the clients whom these workers serve are from different cultural or social
backgrounds. This in turn had made the effective usage of diverse management practices
imperative one from the perspective of the concerned corporation and also the nature of the
services which are being offered by it to its clients. Moreover, the effective usage of the
workplace diversity management practices used by the concerned corporation also becomes
apparent from the fact that the corporation under discussion here had been successful in
generating more than “€20 billion euros in revenues annually”. For instance, by tying up the
diversity management practices with the financial performance of the concerned corporation, the
corporation had been successful in creating the kind of workplace culture wherein it is seen that
the diversity of the workers is not only respected or acknowledged but at the same time
celebrated as well. As a matter of fact, the workers from different backgrounds by interacting or
engaging with each other have been able to learn different kinds of skills or competencies which
in turn had substantially contributed towards the improvement of their performance and also that
of the concerned corporation as well.