MNG81001: Managing Cultural Diversity and Communication Report

This report analyzes the critical role of strong communication and diversity management in multinational companies, using Sunshine 100, a food manufacturing company, as a case study. The report addresses the challenges of managing a global marketing team with members from diverse cultural backgrounds. It includes an email draft from Jane, the Marketing Director, to her team, outlining initial concerns, proposed strategies like cultural training and corporate travel, and expected benefits such as improved collaboration and decision-making. The report also evaluates cross-cultural competencies like interpersonal skills and cultural empathy. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of regular communication and corporate travel to minimize conflicts and enhance understanding among team members. The conclusion highlights the significance of establishing strong communication channels and encouraging cultural exchange to foster effective decision-making and conflict resolution in global business operations.

Running head: CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND COMMUNICATION
Cultural Diversity and Communication
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................1
Contextualization:........................................................................................................................1
Purpose:.......................................................................................................................................1
Thesis statement:.........................................................................................................................1
Answer i:..........................................................................................................................................1
Answer ii..........................................................................................................................................4
Regular communication among the team members:...................................................................4
Corporate travel:..........................................................................................................................5
Answer iii.........................................................................................................................................5
Interpersonal skills:..........................................................................................................................5
Cultural empathy:........................................................................................................................5
Answer iv.........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................6
References:......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction:
Contextualization:
Communication plays pivotal roles in business decision making in business
organizations. The fact holds even more importance for multinational companies employing
workforces in various countries having diverse national culture. Diversity of workforce
undoubtedly leads to innovation but poor understanding of each other’s culture leads to conflict
among employees stationed in different countries. It has become very important among the
CEOs and the senior level managers in organizations to establish strong communication in
between their employees based in different countries.
Purpose:
The purpose of the assignment would exploring the roles of strong communication and
diversity management among employees. The crux of the study would be formed by Sunshine
100, a food manufacturing company based in Australia having operations in diverse markets like
the Middle East, India and the UK, each having diverse national culture.
Thesis statement:
Strong communication and diversity management enhance decision making and
conflict management in multinational companies.
Answer i:
To: Jane, Director, Marketing, Sunshine 100, Brisbane
From: The sender

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Subject: Discussion initial concerns, strategies and expectations in relation to the global
marketing team designed to market KidsEats in the global market on the first telephonic
conference call.
Message:
Hi team,
Agenda of the meeting:
The agenda of the meeting would be holding discussion on the initial concerns, which the global
marketing team members of Sunshine 100 would encounter while collaborating in order to
market KidsEats in the global market. The agenda of the meeting would also include recognizing
the strategies, which would be implemented in order to deal with the concerns and the benefits
which would be derived as the outcome of implementation of the strategies. The agenda would
aim to shed light on the task relationships and task behavior of the team. The meeting would be
held on September 20, 2019 at 11 am as per Australian time. The aim of the meeting would be
establishment of comfortable member bonding and agreeing on common business goals.
Key messages which Jane should include:
Jane should include the following key messages in her initial email in order to attract the
attention of the team members:
Message 1. Initial concerns:
The global marketing team consisting of Chris Milne, John Frazier, Emma Smith,
Kaya Botha, Li Xiu Yang, Sandeep Patil, Bruno Campus and Marwan Parham, is liable to
encounter several initial concerns, strategies and expectations. The first concern is that the

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global marketing team of Sunshine 100 developed to market KidsEats consists of members from
different countries each having its cultural perceptions. For example, Sandip Patil is from India,
Bruno Campus from South America while Marwan Parham is from the Middle East. Thus, it is
evident that these members would have differences in their respective national cultural
perceptions, which would create communication gap among them. The second concern is that
there may be conflicts among the members owing to the differences in their cultural perceptions
which would jeopardize the operations of the team altogether. The third concern is that the
conflict in between the members of the marketing team would lead to generation of low revenue.
The fourth issue, which the marketing team would face, would be differences in the local times
in the different markets in which the members are based.
Message 2. Strategies:
The management of Sunshine 100 would be required to make and implement three
strategies in order to deal with the three issues recognized above. The first strategy would be
providing training to the members about diverse cultures and their perspective. This training
would provide the members an in depth knowledge about cross-cultural perceptions, which
would in turn develop a clearer understanding as well as respect about each other’s culture
(Verčič, Zerfass and Wiesenberg 2015). This would result in smoother communication among
the team members, which would reduce scopes of conflict in between the members of the newly
global marketing team of Sunshine 100, thus meeting the second issue. Stronger communication
among the members would result in making and implementation of more appropriate decisions.
This would result in generation of higher revenue from the sale of KidsEats all-round the globe
(Sağ, Kaynak and Sezen 2016).
Message 3. Expected benefits:

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It could be expected that the implementation of the aforementioned strategies would
attribute Sunshine 100 with several benefits. The first benefit, which the cultural training of the
global marketing team members would attribute, the company would be higher level of
collaboration and information sharing among the members present in different markets (Sanden
2016). The second benefit, which could be expected to achieve would be formation of more
appropriate business strategies suited to the macroeconomic conditions of each of the markets
like the Middle East and the UK. The third benefit, which could be expected from the global
marketing team would be generation of high profits owing to implementation of marketing
strategies aligned to the global market.
Answer ii.
Jane could manage all the differences in between the members of the global marketing
team of Sunshine 100 pertaining to disparities in communication styles, worldviews, customs,
rules and roles of each team member by using the following strategies:
Regular communication among the team members:
Jane should encourage the team members to communicate with each other on regular
basis on the official platforms. Development of strong communication skills would enable the
members develop stronger understanding about each other’s culture which in turn would
facilitate in better mutual understanding. The regular meetings would also enable the members
develop clearer understanding about their roles and the rules of the company (Bird and
Mendenhall 2016). Thus, it is clear that holding regular meetings would enable Jane to develop
stronger communication within the team, clearer understanding about each other’s’ customs,
roles and responsibilities in between the team members.

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Corporate travel:
Jane should encourage the team members to travel to each other’s countries of operations.
The team consists of members of as many as eight nations with diverse socio-cultural values.
This would enable the members to develop succinct ideas about diverse macroeconomic
conditions prevailing in different nations. This would also enable them to develop clearer
understanding about each other’s cultures and customs. This in depth understanding about the
customs would strengthen the communication in between the members (Van Dyne, Ang and Tan
2016).
Answer iii.
The following are the cross-cultural competencies, which can be applied to the individual
members of the global communication team and the team as a whole:
Interpersonal skills:
The members of the global communication team should exhibit strong interpersonal skills
and acknowledge differences in individual communication styles. Remaining focused on the
marketing goals would facilitate more opportunities before the team members to collaborate with
each other, thus developing better understanding about each other’s culture (Sanden 2016).
Cultural empathy:
The members of the global marketing team should hold and exhibit cultural empathy
towards each other’s cultural background. This would allow the global marketing team members
avoid conflicts on the grounds of cultural differences and in fact encourage them to interact on
regular basis, thus boosting cross-cultural communication among the members (Scott and
Wildman 2015).

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Answer iv.
An evaluation of the aforementioned two main key task namely, regular communication
in between the members of the global marketing team and corporate travel, which would be
implemented by Jane, would succeed in minimizing future problems and conflicts among the
members of the team. First, regular communication would enable the team members in
developing understanding about each other’s customs. Secondly, corporate travel of the members
to each other’s locational market would enable them to develop better understanding about the
macroeconomic conditions in each other countries (Lvina 2015). This would in fact encourage
them to collaborate on higher levels to form strategies, thus minimizing of conflicts.
Conclusion:
One can conclude from the discussion that management bodies of business organizations
should establish strong communication among their personnel heading their regional operational
markets. As far as the case study is concerned, it can be pointed out that Jane from the very
beginning should stress of development of strong flow of communication in between the regional
heads of the company. She should encourage the regional heads to travel to each other’s
locations. This would enable the members to develop a strong understanding about
macroeconomic conditions of different nations and diverse national cultures. This would
ultimately lead to dynamic decision making and minimize conflicts among the regional heads.

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References:
Bird, A. and Mendenhall, M.E., 2016. From cross-cultural management to global leadership:
Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.115-126.
Lvina, E., 2015. The Role of Cross-Cultural Communication Competence: Effective
Transformational Leadership Across Cultures. Jurnal Ilmiah Peuradeun, 3(1), pp.1-18.
Sağ, S., Kaynak, R. and Sezen, B., 2016. Factors affecting multinational team
performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 235, pp.60-69.
Sanden, G.R., 2016. Language strategies in multinational corporations: A cross-sector study of
financial service companies and manufacturing companies. Aib Insights, 16(3), p.18.
Scott, C.P. and Wildman, J.L., 2015. Culture, communication, and conflict: A review of the
global virtual team literature. In Leading global teams (pp. 13-32). Springer, New York, NY.
Van Dyne, L., Ang, S. and Tan, M.L., 2016. Cultural intelligence.
Verčič, D., Zerfass, A. and Wiesenberg, M., 2015. Global public relations and communication
management: A European perspective. Public Relations Review, 41(5), pp.785-793.