The Impact of Diversity as a Barrier to Effective Teamwork: A Study

This essay examines the challenges that diversity poses to effective teamwork within organizations. It begins by highlighting the increasing diversity in the modern workplace due to globalization and then delves into how this diversity can hinder team performance. The essay discusses various barriers, including communication difficulties arising from different cultural backgrounds, varying employee attitudes, and differing perceptions of work. It also explores how task and personal conflicts, employee satisfaction levels, and cohesion within teams are affected by diversity. Furthermore, it touches upon the impact of diverse skill sets and levels of creativity on team outcomes. The conclusion reinforces the idea that while diversity can be beneficial, it can also present significant challenges to team productivity and overall organizational success.

Diversity is a barrier to effective
teamwork

Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................3
Main Body:..................................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................7
References:..................................................................................................................................................8

Introduction:
Teamwork is a very significant aspect of the business that helps the business to conduct effective
communication with the help of which the employees are able to pass on the information to other
employees and thus the objective of the organization can be achieved (West, 2012). Many
organizations nowadays requires effective teamwork in order to reach the objectives and more
precisely, the sales force of the organizations should conduct teamwork in order to raise the
amount of sales for the organization. Moreover, teamwork is also required in other diverse
departments of the business include operations, marketing, finance, human resource and so on.
But one of the main barriers to conducting effective teamwork is diversity in the workforce and
this can act as a real negative factor for the business which can hinder their operations and also
cause loss (Levitt, 2015). This essay will revolve around discussing the aspect of following
diversity in a team and how can it act as a barrier for the organization.
Main Body:
Due to globalization, individuals or the employees are able to travel all over the globe and work
in any companies that they feel like. This has increased the diversity in the work environment of
the organizations of the modern 21st century but while effective teamwork is conducted, the
diversity of the teams can hinder the teamwork of the organization in many ways. Due to diverse
nature of workforce of the organization, there are many conflicts that can be seen in the work
environment and also communication works as barrier among different employees from different
cultural background which causes hindrances for the organization to reach their objectives (Salas
et al., 2015). There can also be differences in the skills of the diverse employees of a work team
which can also create problems for the organization and this can result in affecting the
performance of the teamwork in the organization.
There are some scholars who though believe that diversity is not a barrier to effective team
working in the organization, but some scholars have provided their view against this and has
stated that diversity is a huge barrier for effective teamwork conduction in the organization and it
might go to the extent of not fulfillment of the mission of the organization in the short run.
Ashton (2010) has stated that though diversity can be a factor in the organization that can help in

solving the problems of the organization, it can also act as a barrier for the organization in terms
of teamwork. According to Dyer et al., (2013) communication is one of the most significant
processes for the teamwork of the organization as it helps the employees to pass information
from one to other and improves the way the work is conducted in the organization (Dyer et al.,
2013). But it is fact that teamwork is hindered when the employees are from different cultural
background and this can result in loss of time in the organization. When the employees are from
different cultural background, one employee might not understand the meaning of the words the
other employee is trying to convey and this can act as a huge barrier for the organization as well
as for the conduction of teamwork. John (2012) opined that barriers to communication can
hinder the process of working and this is due to lack of information gets passed from one
employee to other and without information, an employee cannot work in an organization. For
instance, when the leaders and the employees are from different cultural background in a team, it
can hinder the way of working due to the fact that the employees might not understand the
meaning of the words that the leaders are trying to communicate and this can hinder the work
due to lack of understanding.
Furthermore, attitude of the employee can also work as a barrier in the way of employee working
or performing as a team. Sometimes it can be seen that an employee might have rude attitude
towards other employees while some employees shows affectionate attitude towards others
(Seibold et al., 2009). Myers (2009) has found out in his research that the attitude of a person
differs from culture to culture and also there are a variety of factors upon which the attitude of a
person’s differs. The attitude of an individual is one of the key to success in the organization and
having a bad attitude towards a co-worker can be harmful for the organization. While there are
some cultures, which promotes rough and tough attitude while a child grows up, there are some
cultures that shows affectionate attitude towards the child while growing up. Mauricio (2013) has
opined that having both the attitude in small amount in the employees is required but domination
of only one kind of attitude among the employee can prove very harmful for the teamwork and
this can hinder the performance of the organization. For instance, it can be said that when the
leaders of the team possess a tough attitude and always scolds the team executives or their fault
instead of making them understand their fault and how to work upon them, it can diminish the
productivity of the team and thus can cause the team to underperform (Dike, 2013). For that
reason, diversity can work in a negative way inside the team if the attitude of the employees is

wrong towards the co-workers and this can hinder the business performance by affecting the
teamwork.
The individuals of diverse cultural background also can have different perception towards the
work can this can also affect the teamwork as well. According to Salas et al., (2009), due to
diverse cultural background of the individuals that can work in team settings, the educational
level can also vary between the individuals (Salas et al., 2009). All the cultures across the world
do not receive same kind of education and thus the works generally gets affected while the
diverse members from different culture works as a team. In some cultures, the women education
is viewed in a different perspective while in some culture, the quality of education can be very
low. Thus, while performing a highly qualified work in team settings, if the diverse cultural
individuals come together with lower education, it can give rise to conflict among the team
members and this can affect the individuals’ performance and thus the whole team gets affected
as well. Furthermore, the personality of individuals can also differ due to cultural background
and a person can possess huge motivation power compared to another person from a different
cultural background. This can influence the motivation level of a team as one employee can
motivate others to perform the work while employees with lower motivation due to different
cultural background do not posses motivation power and this can affect the performance of a
team. Furthermore, being quiet while performing in a team or not having an opinion about the
work is viewed in a negative limelight and this can also affect the performance of the team as
well (Sewcharan et al., 2009). Some cultures in the world are quiet as compared to the other
cultures which believe in loud communication. Thus being quiet in the workplace can cause the
information hindrance to pass from one employee to other and being quiet also means being shy
in the workplace which is not a positive factor in the organization and also not at all positive
while performing teamwork.
In some culture, also personal demands during the teamwork are very highly valued while in
some of the cultures of the world, teamwork comes in the first place. Thus, while two of these
cultural people are put to work at the same place and in the same team in the organization, it can
give rise to conflict within the team that can decrease the amount of productivity in the
workplace and can affect the organization (Krawczyk-Bryłka, 2016). There can be two types of
conflict that can arise due to diversity and they are task conflict and personal or process conflict

and both are believed to decrease the performance of the organization. The task conflict can
occur when two different employees form the same group has diverse kinds of requirements and
also attitude towards the work and this can decrease the productivity of the organization as well
as there can be personnel conflict between two employee working inside a team and this can
occur due to mutual disliking between two employees which is bound to arise in some teams that
are culturally diverse in nature. Thus, diversity can affect team work inside the organization
which is very harmful for the organization as it might result in increasing the time of the
organization to reach the objectives and can also increase the cost of the organization for which
the revenue can suffer (Morgan et al., 2014). Furthermore, the employee satisfaction can also
work towards rising conflict between the employees inside a team of an organization. When the
employees are satisfied, they can work towards fulfilling their objectives inside the organization,
while when they are dissatisfied they tend to divert away from the objectives of performing the
work and this might result in decreasing work productivity. The satisfaction of the employee can
be dependent upon the culture, as some individuals from a culture can be happy with modest or
little amount of payment for the work, while some expects higher payment for the services.
When some employees are dissatisfied within a team for lower payment from the part of the
management, it might affect the performance of that employee inside the team and as a result, the
whole team might suffer the same fate inside the organization. Nonetheless, “cohesion” can also
be termed as a determinant of performance in the workplace. “Cohesion” is the process with the
help of which an individual’s attraction towards working in a group or a team is maintained. It
proves the level of satisfaction of a team member while working in a group. Sometimes it is fact
that when the diversity increases in the group, the cohesion might decrease due to the fact that
communication becomes difficult between the employee working in the group and this can also
result in decreasing the productivity of the workers due to lack of satisfaction of working with
other members of the team and thus the team performance might fall in the organization that can
put the organization in trouble (Winkler et al., 2011).
Due to diversity in the team, the skills and the creativity of the members of a team might also
vary. Te cultural diversity can also vary the creativity and the skills possessed by the employees
as well as their ability to work with a team. When the job demands high quality of skills from the
part of the employees and high creativity as well, the employees from different culture which
possess lower skills to perform the work can pose as a barrier for the team and thus diversity in

team can prove harmful for the team performance as it can lack in creativity of the team and also
lack of skills to perform the work (Plimmer, 2011).
Conclusion:
Thus, from the discussion above, it can be proved that diversity though a good measure for the
organizations in order to maintain a global workforce, sometimes it can prove to be harmful for
the team as it might result in the decrease of productivity of the team. Due to the fact that in a
diverse or global team, the communication might differ between the employees and also as their
attitude towards other members and the work can vary, it can pose a treat for the organization
and decrease the productivity of the workforce inside the organization. Furthermore, diverse
employees can though bring in different level of creativity and skills, putting the employees in a
wrong manner can also fuel the conflict among them and thus the maintenance of diversity is
always not possible by the MNCs as it might give rise to conflict (Tekleab et al., 2014). In
addition to this, the personal demand of some individuals might be higher than that of the
demand of the team and in this situations also, diverse workforce can bring in trouble for the
organization as they view their own demands higher than that of the demand of the team. Thus,
though diversity maintenance in MNCs is a necessary factor as per the legal rules and for the
work performance, sometimes it might seriously harm the performance of the employees while
working in a team.

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