Cultural diversity is a source of international competitive advantage. Critical evaluation

Résumé du document

Most companies employ people from different culture and aim to manage them in the best possible way, in order to use this diversity to their advantage. The management of such workers must be adapted to meet their needs. To become a real international competitive advantage, cultural diversity in the company has to be seriously managed and thought out. While it can lead to a great success id managed well, it may also cause the failure of a company that is unable to do so. A clear knowledge of the cultural diversity that firms deal with in the modern business scenario provides a genuine international competitive advantage. Firms must develop a good understanding of the culture of others countries if they want to be efficient on their markets. For instance Americans could lose Japanese clients if they failed to understand that Japanese use a period politeness to signal their intentions, and Europeans could easily be offended by the informal attitude of the Americans.

Extraits

[...] According to Crokett, the diversity in the company should be viewed as a business strategical distinguished it from the competition. Advocates of the value in diversity hypothesis suggest that work team heterogeneity promotes creativity and innovation. As Bell Atlantic's CEO Ivan Seidenberg confirms. According to him a team culturally diversify make better decision. He argues that his company needs much more diversity because everybody in the room is the same, you'll have a lot fewer arguments and a lot worse answers." (web The same logic is advanced by Lucent's CEO McGinn: "Diversity is a competitive advantage. [...]

[...] When this work is well done therefore the cultural diversity is only an advantage for the company. References Brazzel, Michael. "Building a Culture of Diversity in the Cooperative Extension System: A Paper to Foster Dialogue and Discussion about Pluralism in Extension." ECOP and ES-USDA National Diversity Strategic Planning Conference, Denver, Colorado, September Colvin Geoffrey (1999), "The 50 Best Companies For Asians, Blacks, And Hispanics", Fortune 19 Jul 1999, Vol 140, Issue pp 52-57. Crockett, Joan (1999), "Diversity as a business strategy", Management Review, Volume 88, Issue p 62. [...]

[...] If we want to do a kind of summarize of main advantages of cultural diversity and how it creates an international competitive advantage, we can talk about DiStefano and Maznevski (2000). They explain the competitive advantage created by the diversity by the nature of the culture. They say that culture affects all our manners to be. It affects on how we think, what we decide to do, how we construe things and believes and how we execute our ideas. It is the main source of creating value in a company. [...]

[...] But those opportunities don't just benefit local customers. Innovations and ideas are shared throughout the HSBC network, so everyone can benefit. Thanks to this organization, HSBC can answer to the customer's waiting all around the world. (web The overall workforce has to share the same backgrounds, sensitivities and experiences with the markets it serves and with the communities in which one it operates. According to Crokett (1999), a diverse workforce fosters increases brand loyalty and develops a greater customer growth and retention. [...]

[...] They consider the diversity of its workforce as a real global advantage. By their viewpoints, experiences and differences in cultures, YORK considers that their labour contribute to solve problems and requirements of customers innovatively. YORK considers diversity as a competitive advantage allowing the company to answer strongly and on the long term at customers waiting. They take care about the sensitivity of people when they want to recruit. It's not just a CV; rather it is an ability to do the job in creative, innovative and personal way bringing news ideas for the company. [...]