What is cultural awareness?
why is it important 
what is role of a multiculure manager

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Request for Question Clarification by fons-ga on 25 Jul 2002 02:48 PDT

Hi,

Maybe you can be a bit more specific in your questions: these subjects
have already filled whole shelves with books.

Thanks,

Fons

What is Multicultural Awareness?
___________________________

Multicultural Awareness is a greater understanding, sensitivity, and
appreciation of the history, values, experiences, behaviours,
interactions, affective understanding and lifestyles of groups that
include, but, are not limited to: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexual
Orientation, Religious Affiliation, Socio-economic, Status
Mental/Physical Abilities.

Multicultural awareness from an international management perspective
is more usually concerned with the culture of the host country.

Hofstede and others, summarised in the paper by the Danish University
Consortium, have characterised cultural differences in terms of such
dimensions as: the degree of individualism, degree of uncertainty
avoidance, attitude to authority, importance of social values,
attitudes to emotion and attitude to time.
______

Why is Multicultural Awareness Important?
_________________________________________

“it is now generally recognised that culturally insensitive attitudes
and behaviors stemming from ignorance or from misguided beliefs ("my
way is best," or "what works at home will work here") not only are
inappropriate but often cause international business failure.”
(University of Tasmania)

This question is also related to the following question…

What is role of a multiculture manager?
_______________________________________

Obviously the role of the multiculture manager includes their normal
management functions, however for the purposes of this question I have
concentrated upon the multicultural aspect of their role.
Multicultural awareness can influence virtually every aspect of the
business. The highest profile area would be human resources
management, however marketing, sales and finance are also affected.
Floyd describes management issues such as work practices, business
networks, safety and organizational structure. The role of the
multiculture manager is to ensure that they understand these
influences and to manage for maximum performance.

The Danish University Consortium paper lists issues of concern to
managers such as:

- How universally useful are such techniques as merit rating and 
performance appraisal?
- Should appraisal be on group or individual basis?
- Should people's status be given prominence in work relations or
should greater emphasis be placed on skills and performance when 
dealing with issues of career development?
-Should salaries be related exclusively to performance?  
- How do you manage conflicts?
- Should interpersonal confrontation be accepted among workers (even
encouraged) or should confrontations be subdued?
- What kind of control mechanisms should you institute? Formal or
informal?
- How much emphasis should you place on precision and urgency in
matters  of time when dealing with local workers?
- Should top management set different standards for expatriate and
local  managers?
- Whom should you train together and when? (Catholics and protestants
in northern ireland)
- Should you adopt authoritarian, consultative or participative
leadership  styles?

Lynn’s paper also describes an interesting case study for a
multicultural manager with clashes of communication style and
significant differences in expectation regarding level of detail ,
efficiency, project parameter and timing.

________

Links
________

University of Notre Dame, Counseling Center: What is Multicultural
Awareness?
http://www.nd.edu/~ucc/ucc_multicultural.html#1

University of Minnesota: Definition of Culture
culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and
interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that
are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns
identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing
those of another group.
http://carla.acad.umn.edu/culture.html

Danish University Consortium: Cultural Issues in Mangagement
http://www.environmentalmanagement.auc.dk/Culture%20and%20Env%20Tech%20Transfer%20Proc/Slides%20-%20Lectures%201-3.ppt
_____

David Floyd, International Management. An Established
Discipline? P88 Importance of Assessing Culture in International
Management
http://www.luiss.it/documenti/istituti/ise/review/2001/01/Floyd.PDF
_____

University of Tasmania, Approaches to International HRM
http://www.comlaw.utas.edu.au/management/wps/wps_files/99_01pap.pdf
_____

Search Strategy
Multicultural awareness “international management”
“what is multicultural awareness”
“importance of culture” international management

I would be happy to clarify any aspects of the above - just select
"clarify answer" button.

Regards,

First of all, the "multiculture manager" context of your question
indicates that you are using the term cultural awareness to mean
'sensitivity to cultural differences' in a work setting.  So that is
the response to your first question.

The importance of cultural awareness is directly proportional to the
extent to which you and your team have to work with people from
differnent cultures.   The more cultures represented among the people
you work with, the more important cultural awareness is.

The multiculture managers role is to promote sensitivity towards
cultural differences among the people who work together, and to
increase everyone's ability to implement this sensitivity with
behavior that does not make the person one is dealing with, conscious
of one's own cultural differences.

It's about accepting diversity.  It's about understanding perspectives
perhaps different than your own.  It's about realizing YOU are not
alone on this planet and therefore, MUST peacefully cooperate with
conflicting opinions and traditions.

Multiculture management is academia's NEXT over-thought out curriculum
positioned to FINANCIALLY GAIN OFF of these otherwise simple,
intuitive concepts.

Now, according to academia, we need "managers" to manage and oversee
such relationships.  How about just HIRING eomplyees with BRAINS
instead?