Cross-Cultural Management of Culturally Diverse Workforce: A Challenge Facing Managers in the Global Workplace

Nowadays, there is growing concern on how managers manage cultural diversity considering that many businesses endeavors into international operations. Relative to this, managers were faced with challenges and issues that requires concrete and prompt response on how to effectively manage cultural diversity and the diverse workforce that exist not only domestically but globally. Therefore, understanding with basic tenets of cultural diversity and its importance to organizations should not be underestimated. Hofstedes theory help managers in providing information about cultural dimensions on how to understand cultural differences existing in Multi-National Enterprise (MNE) as an input to developing an effective strategy to counter the negative implications of cultural diversity. Considering that cultural diversity may provide positive and negative impacts to organizations, managers should take into consideration the importance of developing an effective intercultural communication to clearly communicate the intended message to employees of different cultural orientation and ensure unity of purpose and objectives as this create challenge to human resource department of the organizations to embark into a proactive role in managing cultural diversity. Lastly, managers and organizations should develop strategies and plans to ensure that cultural diversity is managed and controlled such that, harmonious working relationship will be achieved with the support of the top management and should be incorporated in the strategic plans and programs of the organizations.