Category: culture

Corporate Culture and Strategy

Corporate Culture and Strategy
Corporate Culture and Strategy

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Corporate Culture and Strategy

An organization’s mission strategy is a précis of the way in which the firm perceives its role and the beliefs the company employs in attaining its objectives. The culture of an organization signifies the professional values an organization espouses which dictate how the company interacts with its customers, partners, vendors and workers. Since the culture of the organization is a driving force in how the business organization carries out its business, it has a significant impact on developing business strategy (Hofstede, 2014).

This paper delves into the topic of culture and strategy. In this investigation of the topic, the subject of culture and strategy is analyzed exhaustively and critically. In particular, this paper provides an in-depth discussion of the relationship between company culture and strategy, importance of alignment between culture and strategy, and how national culture really influences an organization’s strategy.

Correlation between corporate culture and strategy

There is a strong relationship between corporate culture and strategy. In general, strategy is considered as a product of culture while culture, on the other hand, is considered as a product of strategy (Browaeys & Price, 2009). In spite of how good the company’s strategy is, when it really comes down to it, Schneider (2011) noted that it is the people who usually make the difference. At its core, strategy is logical and rational, simple and clear.

Strategy has to be easy to talk about and to understand. A business organization is lost if it lacks a clear strategy. In essence, strategy is the pattern of activities that a company follows as it pursues its long-term purpose. Put simply, it refers to where the company is at the moment, where the company wants to go, and how the company intends to get there (Akbar et al., 2012).

Strategy comprises a number of factors which include the following: objectives and goals of the company; mission statement and vision; and critical success factors, or the things which the company has to get right for it to succeed in its mission. It also includes core values; reputation/brand, which entails developing and communicating meaningful and powerful differences between the company’s offerings and the offerings of the company’s competitors; and positioning, whereby a company builds a preferred and valued position within the minds of its target audience (Cristian-Liviu, 2013).

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Conversely, culture is understood as the set of beliefs which drive the behaviours of workers. These could be things that everyone within the organization knows and shares, in addition to implicit rules. It is worth mentioning that the range of acceptable behaviours of workers in the company is rooted in these underlying beliefs (Weick, 2014). On the whole, organization culture consists of the shared values, norms as well as ideals in a business organization and it actually sets the basis and groundwork for strategy.

An important starting point of understanding the culture of a company is to understand its founding principles: that is, its legacy, heritage, the clients and markets which it serves, and its points of differentiation. Anderson, Anderson and Lee (2015) pointed out that culture of a company is an aggregation of the beliefs and mindset of the company’s workers. It is the manifestation of the mission, vision and principles which bind employees in the organization together.

In the current business world in which sell-offs, diversifications, acquisitions, expansions and mergers are becoming increasingly common, it is becoming very important to understand corporate culture in strategic decision-making. The consolidation of AOL with Time Warner did not succeed because of culture clash as did the DaimlerChrysler merger. Organization culture is a very powerful factor in an organization’s lasting success.

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For a strategy in a company to develop and be successfully executed, that strategy has to align fully with the corporate culture. As such, goals and initiatives need to be established within the company in order to support and establish a corporate culture which embraces the strategy of the company over time (Su, Yang & Yang, 2012). Corporate culture has a significant impact on strategy execution within the organization.

Characteristics of stability: an organization culture that is stable, a culture that would systematically support implementation of strategy, is one which promotes a culture of cooperation, unity, partnership and teamwork amongst staff members. This kind of organization culture would certainly enhance commitment amongst workers and focus on productivity in the company instead of resistance to regulations and rules or external factors which prohibit success.

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Flexibility and adaptability: according to Fombrun (2012), companies which remain flexible tend to embrace change and establish an environment that is open to both communication and production. This creates a model which welcomes cultural diversity and helps in clarifying implementation of the strategy. In any company, corporate culture could serve a number of different purposes such as unifying employees in the company and helping to establish a set of common rules or norms within the company that members abide by.

Goal unification: corporate cultures that are unified, strong and flexible would approach strategy execution and affect execution positively through aligning goals. In essence, goals could come into alignment when the culture of the business organization is working to focus on productivity and getting the mission of the company achieved. This might include shipping out more product items compared to the company’s main competitors, getting products delivered to the company’s clients on time, or similar objectives.

This would create a domino effect within the company which would ensure that all work carried out by every work group and employee within the organization is really focused on performance and on the company’s strategic importance (Dutch, 2013). This would allow corporate culture of the company to be in alignment with strategy execution at the most basic level. Hanson and Melnyk (2014) noted that for this unification level to work, it is important that goal setting aligns with and is supported by processes, procedures, policies and systems within the company, which would help to attain strategy execution and continuing the organization’s cultural integrity.

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Process implementation: part of strategy implementation and cultural alignment entails process implementation. It is noteworthy that processes include the use of technology in facilitating goal achievement as well as the results which an organization is looking for when it works with clients to satisfy their needs. Although the hard problems and needs of a company are attained most of the time, the corporate culture becomes overlooked during the process. This is where processes actually come into place and execution of the strategy slowly comes into existence to maintain and sustain corporate culture and strategies (Dutch, 2013).

Cultural alignment: when corporate culture is in alignment with implementation of the strategy, a company can operate more efficiently within the international marketplace. Corporate culture allows the senior managers of a company to work both as teams and individually in developing strategic initiatives in the company. These might include re-establishing old partnerships and creating new partnerships to continue to deliver the best services and products to an international marketplace (Slater, Olson & Finnegan, 2011).

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Organizational strategic alignment, in its simplest form, is lining up the strategy of the company with its organization culture. For an organization to experience organizational strategic alignment, then its goals, processes and management should align. In order to create a supportive culture, an organization should clearly define the competence of its resources by assessing whether its processes, employees and equipment could actually handle new changes. If staff members do not have the competence for handling a new strategy, then the organization should offer training to improve the skills of its workers and managers.

If there is no sufficient support and training, the relationships between managers and staff members within the organization would suffer and the company would lack flexibility. To establish a culture of support, the top managers need to be involved in organizational strategic alignment from the beginning and provide the right resources to help in ensuring success of the workers and the organization (Yarbrough, Morgan & Vorhies, 2011). Workers should commit to supporting an organization’s strategic alignment and senior managers could help ensure this success by defining the goals of the organization in a clear manner and giving incentives to help workers accept new strategies.

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When strategy and organization culture are misaligned, the misalignment would short-circuit performance and increase the probability that the company will not attain its goals. An organization culture which all employees within the company subscribes to will help in creating focus amongst the workers.

When workers comply with the values and beliefs of the organization, it will give a unified impression to partners, customers and vendors (Bushardt, Glascoff & Doty, 2011). The organization could then formulate a strategy knowing that every member would uniformly apply the guidelines and improve the likelihood that a strategy would succeed.  

In aligning corporate culture with strategy, the following steps are important: first, the senior managers should define their company’s long-term set of guiding principles – the philosophy and purpose –, which are essentially the organization’s identity. A strategic plan would not succeed if the strategic plan is really not supported by these key principles of the company’s core culture.

Secondly, the senior management should evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of the company as well as the external factors which could impact success (Simoneaux & Stroud, 2014). Thirdly, the executives should create the company’s vision and then set strategic goals that are measurable and specific. Fourthly, the senior management should decide the strategic priorities which are in alignment with those strategic goals. It is worth mentioning that strategic priorities are a part of the organization’s core culture.

They are basically the values and principles which could alter given that their function is to align the corporate culture with the organization’s strategy. A company’s core corporate culture has to drive the company’s strategy and align with it (Mintzberg, 2011). Fifthly, with a clear understanding of the organization’s core corporate culture, strategic goals and vision, the top managers should create an action plan with measures for guiding performance. Finally, the senior executives should turn the strategic goals into measurable outcomes. Processes and employees should be aligned with the company’s core corporate culture and strategy (Simoneaux & Stroud, 2014).  

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National culture and strategy

A country’s national culture greatly influences the strategy adopted by a company. National culture has an impact on organizational strategy and implementation of the strategy, and can ultimately result in business failure or success. In essence, all national cultures have an impact on companies in both negative and positive ways, depending on the particular business, the business cycle, as well as the specific strategies being pursued (Hammerich & Lewis, 2013).

Cultural dynamics could either derail or enable performance depending on these different factors. It is important that a company’s senior management recognize the cultural factors which have a negative impact on performance and the ones which could be harnessed to foster superior performance (Hammerich & Lewis, 2013). To formulate strategy, a company needs to identify and interpret strategic issues.

In this process, the company scans, selects, interprets and validates information and establishes priorities amongst issues. The national culture of any country could actually influence this process given that it affects the nature of the relationship of a company with its environment and the nature of the relationships amongst employees in a company (Schneider, 2011). 

Whether it is big company pursuing international growth strategies or a small start-up firm in its initial phases of the growth curve, culture plays a vital role in making sure that the company does not swerve off the path and that it remains on course. Usually, driving and executing effective strategic change is a medium-term to long-term priority for a company’s management.

Likewise, the corporate culture of a company also develops with time, with a combination of active support by the company’s top leaders and voluntary cohesion and dissemination as the company’s purposes and beliefs pervade through the hierarchy. Owing to the intrinsic patience which the company’s top management requires to drive a strategic change and establish a focused culture, it is really sensible that both of them – strategic change and purposeful culture – work alongside each other and not against (Schein, 2012).

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Companies which are highly successful in driving strategic change and implementing it share 3 fundamental principles by which they embrace corporate culture and utilize it in the process as an enabler. Firstly, such companies are aware of differences in global cultures – this factor might be more pertinent and applicable to multinational corporations although it is equally applicable to small start-up firms that have ambitious aspirations for growth.

For instance, knowing the way that a worker in Malaysia would react to a new strategic initiative in comparison to how a worker in the Netherlands would react is of great importance in executing strategic change at the ground level (Schwartz & Davis, 2011). In essence, it implies that the overarching aspects of the strategy should be modified to fit the with local market-level ways of operation.

The second underlying principle is recognizing what culture means to different peoples – Cristian-Liviu (2013) reported that this second principle is more of a challenge for big companies with scale than to new, start-up firms. Within an organization, culture implies different things for different individuals.

In a brand consultancy company for example, the design/creative department might think that their department is really the best place to work in the organization, but the sales and marketing department whose role is to sell the design solutions, might think that the design/creative group’s capabilities are dull and outmoded. Broader changes within the company would impact employee groups in different ways and the cultural aspect of the change should be carefully measured (Schwartz & Davis, 2011).

The third underlying principle entails aligning strategic change initiatives with corporate culture – the Time Warner-AOL and DaimlerChrysler mergers were both in the same industry but still they did not succeed, they both failed. This evidently illustrates the dangers of overlooking culture as a factor when planning and executing a company’s strategic initiatives (Mühlbacher, Vyslozil & Ritter, 2014).

Although both Chrysler and Daimler produced vehicles, the styles of management and the collaboration processes in each firm were driven very much by their nation of origin; that is, the German and American cultural ethos. These 2 cultural ethoses were never reconciled and adapted in the merged organization and they clashed all the time. In essence, every form of strategic planning should take in corporate culture as a factor that impacts success, as well as manpower, finance and capabilities (Weick, 2014).        

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Conclusion

To sum up, there is a really strong correlation between corporate culture and strategy. Strategy is considered as a product of culture while culture, on the other hand, is considered as a product of strategy. For a strategy in a company to be formulated and executed successfully, this strategy has to align completely with the culture of the organization. Thus, goals and aims need to be established within the firm so as to support and establish a corporate culture which embraces the strategy over time.

When organization culture is in alignment with execution of the strategy, a firm can operate more efficiently within the international market. When strategy and organization culture are not aligned, then this misalignment would short-circuit performance and increase the likelihood that the firm would not accomplish its goals. National culture has a significant impact on organizational strategy and implementation of that strategy, and could eventually result in business failure or success.

References

Akbar A. S. A., Salamzadeh, Y., Daraei, M., & Akbari, J. (2012). Relationship between Organizational Culture and Strategy Implementation: Typologies and Dimensions. Global Business & Management Research, 4(3/4), 286-299.

Anderson, G. M., Anderson, M. J., & Lee, J. B. (2015). Defining Corporate Culture. NACD Directorship, 41(2), 36-37.

Browaeys, M. J., & Price, R. (2009). Understanding cross-cultural management (1st ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Limited

Bushardt, S. C., Glascoff, D. W., & Doty, D. H. (2011). Organizational culture, formal reward structure, and effective strategy implementation: A conceptual model. Journal Of Organizational Culture, Communications & Conflict, 15(2), 57-70.

Cristian-Liviu, V. (2013). Organizational culture and strategy. how does it work? An empirical research. Annals Of The University Of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 22(1), 1690-1696.

Dutch, M. A. (2013). A Symbiotic Framework of Human Resources, Organizational Strategy and Culture. Amity Global Business Review, 89-14.

Fombrun, C. J. (2012). Corporate Culture, Environment, and Strategy. Human Resource Management, 22(1/2), 139-152.

Hammerich, K., & Lewis, R. D. (2013). Fish can’t see water: How national culture can make or break your corporate strategy. New York City, NY: Wiley

Hanson, J. D., & Melnyk, S. A. (2014). Culture Eats Strategy … and how to deal with it. Supply Chain Management Review, 18(4), 20-26.

Hofstede, G. (2014). Cultural dimensions in management and planning. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 12(9):81-99.

Mintzberg, H. (2011). Patterns in strategy formation. Management Science, 24 (9): 1-18.

Mühlbacher, H., Vyslozil, W., & Ritter, A. (2014). Successful Implementation of New Market Strategies–A Corporate Culture Perspective. Journal Of Marketing Management, 3(2), 205-217.

Schneider, S. C. (2011). Strategy formulation: The impact of national culture. Fontainebleau, France: ISEAD.

Schein, E.H. (2012). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, Inc.

Schwartz, H. & Davis, S.M. (2011). Matching corporate culture and business strategy. Organizational Dynamics,11(9): 30-48.

Simoneaux, S. L., & Stroud, C. L. (2014). A Strong Corporate Culture Is Key to Success. Journal Of Pension Benefits: Issues In Administration, 22(1), 51-53.

Slater, S., Olson, E., & Finnegan, C. (2011). Business strategy, marketing organization culture, and performance. Marketing Letters, 22(3), 227-242. doi:10.1007/s11002-010-9122-1

Su, Z., Yang, D., & Yang, J. (2012). The match between efficiency/flexibility strategy and organisational culture. International Journal Of Production Research, 50(19), 5317-5329. doi:10.1080/00207543.2011.618149

Weick, K.E. (2014). The significance of corporate culture. In Frost, P.J. et al. (Eds.) Organizational Culture. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publication, 381-390.

Yarbrough, L., Morgan, N., & Vorhies, D. (2011). The impact of product market strategy-organizational culture fit on business performance. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science, 39(4), 555-573. doi:10.1007/s11747-010-0238-x

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The Impact of National Culture on Workplace Behavior

National Culture
National Culture

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The Impact of National Culture on Workplace Behavior

Culture

Culture is perhaps the most influential factors that impact the success of businesses across the world. Culture can be defined as a set of beliefs, values and assumptions that are held in common by a particular group of people. It is important for any business to understand the culture of its business environment as this is crucial to the success of the business. In this paper, the impact of national culture on workplace behavior is discussed.

Secondly, the paper critically analyzes the impact of national culture on organizational practices. Thirdly, the paper presents some of the factors that often act as change triggers in organizational culture. Finally, the paper presents a discussion on some current cultural issues that impact the operations of contemporary businesses.

National Culture and Its Impact

National culture can be defined as set of assumption, values and beliefs that are held by individuals or organization that have the same national identity. A comparison of the individual behavior people from two cultures in an organizational context can help to illustrate how national culture impacts workplace behavior. In this essay, the behavior of Indians and Americans in a technology firm is compared (Perlow, 2002).

There are significant cultural differences between Americans and Indians. American culture emphasizes on individual liberty while Indians believe in interdependence and mutually helping each other. According to Perlow (2002), these attitudes and beliefs can have a significant impact on behavior in the workplace.

According to Hofstede (1983) as cited in Perlow and Weeks (2002), American ranks highly as an individualistic culture while India scores 48 to America’s 98 on the individualistic dimension. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), individualistic people are characterized by emphasis on independence and differentiation from others. On the other hand, collectivists’ individuals are interdependent and thrive on relationships. 

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The impact of individualism/collectivism is apparent in US organization contexts. In the US, an individual is supposed to make individual contribution to the organization which will be rewarded by promotion up the societal hierarchy (Perlow and Weeks, 2002). Workers in the US easily link individual effort and ability to rewards. For example, salespersons will work as direct competitors although they are from the same company.

In contrast, India is a collectivist society where group performance is more important than individual performance. In India, a group of salespersons from the same company are likely to work collaboratively as they pursuit market opportunities for their organization. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), Indian children are taught to subordinate their own personal interests to those of the family and other social institutions.

Later in life, Indians adopt the same attitude where societal or group norms, belief, desires, needs, and values have more priority than those of the individual. People from collectivist cultures have increased pressure to act in an acceptable, effective and legitimate way. According to Perlow and Weeks (2002), the individualism/collectivism dimension has a great effect on the willingness of individuals to engage in collective or cooperative tasks.  

Perlow and Weeks (2002) found that Indian tech workers were more willing to help their colleagues who were faced with difficult task. The authors point out that Indian workers believed that helping fellow workers was an opportunity to enhance their own skills. In addition, assistance in task completion was greatly appreciated by Indian workers who were beneficiaries. In contrast, American workers considered assistance from colleagues an unnecessary interruption in their work. Furthermore, very few American workers were willing to help their colleagues who were experiencing difficulties in completing tasks that were assigned individually.

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The influence of national culture is an indicator of just how profound the impact of culture is in workplaces. Culture is an influential factor that impacts a number of workplace behaviors. According to () , how people work, behave, use language, solve conflicts and problem, negotiate and create relationship is dependent on their culture, and in particular their national culture. This change in behavior is driven by the common values that people from the same national culture posses.

Importance of Values

According to (), individuals learn both conscious and unconscious values from their national culture. People only become aware of their national culture values and beliefs when they are confronted by people with different worldviews, values and beliefs. National cultural differences make interactions and communication between people of different cultures especially difficult. According to (), there are significant variations across national cultures. Unfortunately, many people are biased to judge other using their own cultural norms as reference points or lens.

This biased view holds great potential for conflict, miscommunication and misunderstanding. () points out that diverse cultures lead to diverse behavior which may not be understood by everyone. There is need for contemporary workers to understand, learn and appreciate the culture of their colleagues from other cultural backgrounds and workplaces are becoming increasingly multicultural.

Individual vs Group behaviors and Values

According to Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (), individuals can either be dividend into community or self-oriented. As seen earlier, Indians are community oriented while American are self-oriented. However, even in community oriented culture there is huge difference in the institution the culture identifies with. The Irish identify the Catholic Church, the French with family and country, while the Japanese identify with Corporations.

It may be assumed that the whole society is moving towards individualism but this is not really true. According to (), it is rare for a person to achieve an extraordinary feat without the assistance of other members of society. He notes that nobody has invented an new product on their own.

According to (), the best approach to survive and flourish in a multicultural environments is to adopt our individual values to the group. Culturally adapt individuals can adapt to fit into groups of different culture. Individuals can also behave in a “culturally intelligent” way by seeking to understand other and adapting behavior so that it can be easily understood.  () advises immigrants or expertriate who move into foreign nation to adapt to local national cultures.

He points out that a person could end up forgetting some aspects of the home culture. However, () argues that people working in foreign countries have no choice that to adapt to host cultures as this is the most practical thing to do. However, people will rarely lose their values even if they work in a foreign culture for years.

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Building Multicultural workplaces

People are likely to work with people from different cultural backgrounds in contemporary organizations. It is therefore important to build work environment where people from different cultures can fit comfortably. Success in building such an environment is dependent on the development of common trust, understanding and commitment.

It is important to genuinely connect with people from different individual culture and realize the potential their hold despite the obvious cultural differences. Some of the important consideration to make include:

  1. Is the person from a different national culture relationship or task oriented? Can I we collaborate in a task without first needing to build a relationship?
  2.  Is the person from a low-trust or high-trust society? With individuals from low trust society it takes little time to earn a person’s trust. In contrast, a lot of time and effort is needed to earn the trust of a person originating from a high-trust country.
  3. Willingness to share information should also be an important consideration when working with people from different national cultures.
  4. Does the person come from a direct communication or an indirect communication country? This is an important consideration when passing instruction to the concerned party.
  5. Research the persons cultural background: its is important for members of staff who will be interacting with a person from a different country to know the cultural expectations of their national culture.

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Building trust with people of diverse national cultures is a difficult undertaking that need skillful employment of cultural intelligence. Trust is achieved when cultural understanding, intercultural engagement, and intercultural communication are employed. Cultural understanding includes being aware of our won cultural bias and those of the other party. On the other hand, intercultural communication involves use of both verbal and non-verbal communication and communication styles that can be easily understood. According to (), emphatic listening and respect helps in earning the trust of people from different national culture backgrounds.

Factors that Lead to Cultural Change in Organizations

Leadership Change

Many authors agree that changes in top-level management can contribute or drive culture change in organizations Morgan (2012); Christopher (2012); Beer (2012).  Organizational culture is initiated by the founder of the organization, but it changes over time due to a number of factors (Beer 2012).  Organizational culture changes significantly once the management of the organization changes and some new ideas start to flow in these organizations. However, Beer (2012) points out that organizational culture remains the same in public sector organization despite changes in the top-management of the organization.

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Beer (2012) and Christopher (2012) argue that changes in organizational leadership can either have insignificant or significant changes on organizational culture.  According to Christopher (2012), the personal traits of the leader, the organization’s new strategy, and objectives influence the extent of changes in organizational culture at the onset of new leadership. In organizations where strategy changes significantly, the organizational culture also changes profoundly.

Technological Developments

Advances in technology have had a huge impact in organizations and in particular organizational culture. Technology has the potential to impact culture in different ways. For example, mobile phone, email and internet technology changed the way organizations communicate. On the other hand, technology such as CCTV enables organizations to closely monitor the conduct of workers at the workplace (Maude 2011).

For example, some organizations use strategically placed CCTV cameras to control lateness and absentia from work. Teleconferencing, email and video relay systems allow employee to work from the comfort of their homes or from remote locations.  For example, Walshe and Smith (2011) points out that technology has enabled clients to make online appointments with health practitioner instead of making physical visits. Overall, technology is changing the way work is done in organizations and therefore changing underlying organizational culture in the concerned organizations.

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Mergers and Acquisitions

Christopher (2012) and Moran et al (2011) have linked changes to organizational culture to the merger or acquisition of organizations. Mergers and acquisition bring together two or more organization with different cultures. Obviously, the cultures of some or all the organizations have to change to enable them to work together successfully. According to Moran (2012), the period immediately following a merger or acquisition is especially difficult as employee have to deal with the inevitable clash in cultures.

However, this clash in culture is temporary and new hybrid cultures soon emerge after the acquisition and merger is completed. Sometimes mergers and acquisition involve organizations from two different cultures. In such a situation, the cultural clash is more serious and need more able leadership to manage it.

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In the views of Christopher (2011), effective leaders assist greatly in enabling the emergence of a new organizational culture blend in the case of a merger or acquisition. He argues that leaders need to support employees at all level of the organization to accept and embrace the new cultural changes. Leaders should also raise awareness about the inevitability of change after a merger or acquisition and try to prepare all stakeholders to receive the impending change positively.

4. Changes in External Environment

Changes in the external environment can act as triggers for changes in organizational culture (Morgan, 2012; Primecz et al. 2011; Velo, 2012). According to, changes in the Political, Social, Technological, environmental and legal environment can influence organizations to change their organizational culture. For example, governments may make changes to official workers requiring workers to report to work at 9:00 am instead of 8: am. Organizations will have no choice than to change their policies to suit the change in official working hours.

Cultural Issues in Business Environments

Successful intercultural negotiations

Businesses are engaged in multiple situations where negotiations between the parties are necessary. According to (), language and cultural etiquette forms a formidable barrier to intercultural negotiations. () argues that it is imperative that businesses operating in multicultural environment use the language of the customer. According to (), foreign trade partners may use a different language, think differently and have different priorities while engaging in business negotiations.

For example, in some culture, business meetings are formal and parties are offended if they are addressed by their first names. In other cultures, business meetings are informal affairs where negotiating parties refer to each other by first name. Obviously, two parties from these two cultures are engaged in negotiations they would have difficulties understanding each other. () argues that successful negotiations depend on the previous knowledge of each other values and assumptions.

Differences in negotiation styles are as diverse as national cultures. For example, negotiations between an South American and a North American businessman will be characterized by considerable differences as the true have distinctly different negotiation styles. 

Differences range from the authority of a negotiator to approve a deal, to the level of relationship needed to start business negotiations. In some culture, it is necessary for organizations to build close and personal relationships with negotiators. These relationships are meant to establish fidelity and trust between the two negotiating teams.

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Religious Limitations

Religion moderates the behavior of communities more than any other cultural factor. Religion varies from nation to nation, within nations, and even within local communities. It is important for businesses to respect the religious norms that relate to their business operations. In particular, the advertising area of business is profoundly impacted by religions. For example, religious reason may prevent businesses from advertising alcoholic products, sanitary pads and other culturally sensitive product in some countries.

For example, the Koran (Islam’s holy book) ban the consumption of alcohol by believers. In some muslim countries, believer who are caught intoxicated are severely punished. The impacts of the alcohol ban on foreign businesses means they cannot market alcohol in countries where it is a banned. In addition, alcohol is a taboo subject in most of the Muslim world where people cannot discuss whether it should be legalized or stay banned.

Dressing and Dress Codes

Dressing is an important cultural consideration in businesses that operate across different national cultures. What is acceptable and decent varies from one culture to another. For example, KFC in the United States may be able to dress their female waiting staff in miniskirts and tight tops as this is acceptable in American culture. In contrast, if KFC operates a store in a conservative Middle Eastern country it would be considered indecent to dress their staff in miniskirts.

The backlash for breaking cultural dressing codes can be significant as some government can even cancel the operation licenses of organization that break local dressing codes. Cultural dressing codes also impact the dressing codes organization can use for their employees. For example, it is agreeable in many western countries for women to go to work in miniskirts as part of suits, but the same would not pass for decent office wear in the Middle East.

Furthermore, some communities require women to wear veils whenever they are outdoors. These points are important considerations for organizations who are developing dressing codes for employee in foreign offices.

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 Women vs. men relationships

Women/Men relationships are becoming an important cultural issue that has the potential to influence business operations. In some cultures, some products are for men while other are for women. Another good example is where buying decisions for some products are the preserve of one sex. In some cultures, women make the buying decisions for food items, household items, and sometimes for holidays as in the case of Britain.

For organization marketing to different cultures, it is important to pre-determine the role of women/men in making the purchases decision for the product that you are offering in the market.

Taboos

Taboos vary from culture to culture. For example, in some culture Dogs are considered pets and thought of consuming their meat would be unacceptable. However, the Chinese consider dog meat a delicacy and there are many butcheries stocking Dog meat in China. One of the taboos which touch on organizational culture has to do with acceptance of tattoos in the workplace.

In the United States, tattoos have gained wide popularity and are quickly being accepted in the workplace. However, some workplaces in the US have rules that prevent employees from having visible tattoos. According to (), the prejudice associated with tattoos has faded greatly in the last twenty years and few people feel tattoos can prevent them from securing a job.

Despite this over 31 per cent of Human resource managers assert that visible tattoos can impact a candidate’s chance of getting a job. In contrast, the stigma associated with tattoos is still high in the UK. Most hiring managers thought that visible tattoos on candidates’ bodies indicated they were “thugs” or “drug addicts”. They also argued that ultimately it is customer’s attitudes towards employees with visible tattoos that influence the hiring decision.

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Conclusion

There is little doubt that culture is a powerful force in business environments. Businesses cannot ignore the potent forces of culture in both their internal and external environment. In particular, businesses must remember that contemporary organizations have to work with employees originating from different national cultures.

It is important for them to consider the role differences in national culture may impact the behavior of employees. For example, organizations receiving employees from foreign cultures may need to use special communication strategies to engage and connect with the employees from different national cultures.

Organizations also have their own internal culture which may need to change from time to time. This paper discusses leadership change, merger and acquisitions, changes in external environment, and technological changes as the main drivers of organizational culture change.

The paper argues that good leadership can enable organization smoothly transition into a new organizational culture. Finally, the paper presents several cultural issues that impact contemporary business including negotiations, religion, dress codes and taboos.

http://hrbdf.org/dilemmas/freedom-speech/#.VuK_ShLfrGU

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410897/Tattoos-taboo-employers-Those-considering-body-art-think-twice-looking-job.html

http://www.economist.com/node/21560543

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/11/tattoo-taboo-workplace/15449719/

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Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity

Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity
Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity

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Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity

Abstract

 The concept of spirituality has gained popularity in healthcare.  Faith diversity and spirituality are core components that define people and shape their experiences. This paper implements feedback from the previous works to provide valuable insights into the unique needs, customs, and rituals that can be integrated in healthcare faith diversity.  The paper aims at addressing the seven world view questions and to provide a summary of the comparative analysis of the various belief systems.

The spiritual perspectives on healing will be addressed. The critical healing components common to all beliefs will be discussed.  Additionally, important factors to consider when caring for patients from a particular faith that differ from healthcare providers will be explored. The paper concludes with a reflective summary describing ways the insights gained can be applied into practice.  

Address Several of the Worldview Questions

 A world view refers to the way of thinking about reality. It entails summing up people’s basic assumptions about meaning of life.  To determine personal worldview, one should answer the following seven questions.

  1.  What is prime reality?
  2. What is the nature of the world around us?
  3. What is a human being?
  4. What happens to a person at death?
  5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
  6. How do we know what is right or wrong?
  7. What is the meaning of human history?

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According to my personal world view, the prime reality is that we all believe in a Supreme Being. In my case, I believe there is God, who rules the universe. According to our doctrines, the world was created in six days. We have a personal relationship to this world as man was ordered by God in the Garden of Aden to till the land and multiply, and fill the land (Genesis 1: 26). 

Therefore, Human beings were made in the image of God. In Christianity doctrines, when a believer dies, one is resting with the angels.  We believe that the soul is immortal and continues to live after death (Acts 2:29, 34).  It is possible for human beings to know anything. This is attributable to the fact that were made in the image of God, thus, he has granted this wisdom (Genesis 1: 27).   

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 I am also aware of the processes of evolution and its association with increased intelligence and consciousness.  I am a deontologist supporter. Therefore, I believe that there is nothing right or wrong in the world. These ate notions developed by socio-cultural pressures for survival.  Human history begins when one’s understand their purpose on earth. As Christians, we believe that our purpose is to serve people and to help them live in harmony (Philippians 2:1-30).

Comparative Analysis of the Different Belief Systems

 In Christianity, God is the Supreme Being and is believed to be omnipresent. Christians believe they were made in the image of God. He is the healer and comforter (Psalms 103:2-5).  Christians lacks the concept of self. They are individuals whose souls are bound, and will be redeemed by the return of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, their faith is driven by their relationship with man and God.

This is the only religion that worships the Supreme Being who loved the humanity that he gave his son, to live with them, understand their sufferings and to intercede for them. They believe in doctrines of sins, and the ultimate wage for sin if not repented is death. This is often associated with emotional insecurity especially in Christians who have had estranged lifestyles before (Hardman-Smith, 2013). 

The Christian spirituality doctrine supports repentance and forgiveness; good healing anchors that nurse could be utilized to build and strengthen the patient’s hopes once more.  Christianity also teaches on issues of kindness, love and empathy towards the suffering; e.g. the story of the Good Samaritan (Hardman-Smith, 2013).

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 On the other hand, Buddhist believes that life begun spontaneously. In Buddhist, the greatest physician is Buddha. Buddha   has skills to diagnose and administer treatment in a spiritual manner. Buddhist highly values the self-concept, which is transformed from mental and physical forces. This is an important factor during healing processes. Suffering is associated with the four noble of truths.

They believe in meditation and prayers. Buddhism critical component of spirituality in healthcare is that the community must take care of the sick. According to their teaching, he who attends the sick attends must be kind, compassionate and understanding. These are universal and important or core factors when attending patients from the different spirituality (Probst, 2014).

Spiritual Perspective on Healing

  The holistic model of healing have three spheres including mind,  body and spirit. In spiritual healing, it is the third realm (spirit) that is considered.  Healing the spirit have positive effect of the body and the mind.  This is a broad topic, but the specific  approaches to healing  includes healing liturgies, faith healing, laying of hands, anointing with oil and music meditation. 

The growing demand of spiritual healing has made the  medical community to integrate  some of the critical components of healing in their therapeutic  interventions. The most common critical components of religion in healthcare include prayer, meditation as well as patient’s belief. These are important as they influence the patient’s perception of a disease; and have been found to affect the decision making processes. Additionally, spirituality shapes the patient coping ability (Allan, 2014).

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What patients consider important when being cared for by providers with different spiritual beliefs

Receiving care from healthcare providers with different spiritual beliefs makes a patient feel uncomfortable. The healthcare providers must assess all issues that they consider   valuable during their treatment regimen. The patient’s autonomy must be respected.  Disregarding patient beliefs could lead to dissatisfaction. If the patient is not comfortable to be attended by the healthcare provider, the nurse manage must make arrangements to ensure that she gets a nurse whom they share values and beliefs (Hardman-Smith, 2013).

Creating a healing environment

Additionally, this course work has facilitated my understanding of   healing hospital as described by Laurie in Arizona Medical Centre healing hospital report.  These includes the  physical environments which are set up in a manner that they promote the  patients as  well as their relatives to cope including less noise disturbances as the patients’ needs ample rests to recuperate (Probst, 2014). Additionally, healing hospital must combine technology with the work design. 

This is because it facilitates the healthcare providers to deliver their care more efficiently. This includes activities such as assigning bank elevators to facilitate easy movement of the patients in critical conditions and the healthcare providers.  This helps in maintaining patient’s dignity as well as the preservation if the patients privacy- improving the healing process (Hardman-Smith, 2013).

 The integration of recent medical devices, healthcare informatics and nursing informatics yield efficiency and effective delivery of services. On the other hand, I have also learnt the challenges to anticipate when establishing a healing environment (Marriage, 2013). These includes staff shortages which could result to nurse burnout and lack of adequate facilities that will help give the nurses a healing environment too.

Some of the factors that might affect the concept of spirituality include scarcity of time, lack of patient knowledge and low experiences in managing spirituality discussions with the patients (Allan, 2014).  There are incidences where the patient may want to impose their faith or beliefs to the care provider. For instance, consider a patient requesting a non-religious patient to pray.

For instance; at my work place, we have very short breaks, and there lacks a mediation place. There lacks motivational factors which could be affecting out productivity. I will definitely share the insights achieved with my colleagues; there is just so much that we can learn from this unit- important concepts often overlooked by most healthcare facilities (Hardman-Smith, 2013).

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Reflective summary

 This course has improved my understanding the role of spirituality at people’s place of work.  I have always approached the concept of spirituality with a lot of uneasiness and tension; but from my interaction with the other assignment has enabled me note that my perspective of estranged relationship between healthcare and religion is not a reflective of what is expected in the field.

I have learnt that integrating spirituality in healthcare serves the best interests of the patients (Hardman-Smith, 2013).Therefore, introduction to the worldview was important as it has enable me understand how to approach patients from different cultural and religious background; such that I can now establish a fruitful interaction with the patient- promoting holistic healing process.

In the topic of the phenomenology of illness and disease, it is interesting to learn that suffering, pain as well as disease has features that are universal in human beings; and that their magnitude is influenced heavily by the person’s race, social status, gender as well as religion. By reading Lev Tolstoy book The Death of Ivan Illych, I now understand the universal elements of disease, illness as well as death.

The analysis of the Called to care text book was informative and phenomenon too. I have learnt that my perspectives about religion would influence the relationship with the patient. I have learnt not to underestimate the patients faith and the religious systems, nor should I impose my faith or believes on the patient (Probst, 2014).

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Altogether, learning this unit has enable me understand that patients especially those diagnosed with chronic diseases and are at the end of life stage have crisis of identity. In this context, spirituality must be integrated in care as it entails the search of the lost identity as well as the search of meaning. From the evidence based research, it is evident that spirituality is a coping strategy for most patients (Russell, 2013).

Conclusion

Therefore, every healthcare providers, especially the nurses are expected to integrate the patients culture and spirituality in the patients care plan, and when making health decisions. Additionally, the healthcare providers should not neglect their spiritual wellbeing or psychological health. Maintaining a healthy environment for nursing is important as nurse’s work in stressful environments; and is exposed to patient sufferings as well as death. This unit reminds me of the importance of staying in touch with my religion and feelings that add value as well as meaning to my life- while dedicating care to others.  

References

Allan, F. (2014). The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers Jeffers Steven , Nelson Michael , Barnet Vera et al The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers1048pp £120 Radcliffe 9781846195600 1846195608. Nurse Researcher, 21(6), 46-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/nr.21.6.46.s4

Hardman-Smith, J. (2013). The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care ProvidersThe Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers. Cancer Nursing Practice, 12(3), 8-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/cnp2013.04.12.3.8.s3

Marriage, H. (2013). Book review: December 2013 The essential Guide to religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers Stephen L Jeffers , Michael Nelson , Vern Barnet , Michael Brannigan (eds) Radcliffe Publishing , Milton Keynes pp 1048 £120 ISBN 9781846195600. J Health Visiting, 1(12), 717-717. http://dx.doi.org/10.12968/johv.2013.1.12.717

Probst, J. (2014). Health Care Providers In Rural America. Health Affairs, 33(2), 346-346. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2013.1389

Russell, P. (2013). The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care ProvidersThe Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers. Nursing Older People, 25(6), 8-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/nop2013.07.25.6.8.s11

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The Gender Selection Debate Essay Paper

Gender Selection
Gender Selection

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Gender Selection

Introduction

For decades, sex selection has been a controversial issue. Choosing the sex of a child is often viewed as a justifiable act since there is no harm done to anyone. I believe that gender selection creates balance in a family and it is culturally viewed as a desirable practice that seeks to fulfill social norms. However, there are ethicists who believe that sex selection reinforces the idea of sexual discrimination within our societies (Caulfield & Brownsword, 2012).

This explains why there are renewed efforts from civil societies and government to analyze arguments presented by different authors who either support or oppose the idea of sex selection.

This essay analyzes the meaning of human dignity from two different perspectives. Furthermore, the essay examines how human dignity is defined by our expression of choices and as an inherent value of the society. Based on a case study, the essay describes the social attitudes, norms and circumstance that influence such choices, and their impact on our understanding of human dignity. The essay presents justifications of particular actions concerning sex selection and analyzes some of the features of human dignity that can be put at risk due to actions arising from these two perspectives mentioned therein above.

The concept of human dignity

Human dignity is defined based on the belief that dignity is inherent; hence, human beings posses specific capabilities that are not found in other creatures. It is these features that help to distinguish human beings from other creatures. However, choosing a child’s sex does not define the inherent dignity of human beings. Permitting gender selection is considered as discrimination against a specific gender making it less valuable (Chapman &Benn, 2013).

There are various social reasons for sex selection. Some of these reasons include having a family balance, replacing the deceased child, cultural reasons et cetera. However, these reasons do not define human dignity especially in situations where boys are preferred more than girls. (Kalfoglou et al, 2013).

Kalfoglou et al (2013) views sex selection as an idea that reinforces sexual discrimination. As a result, human dignity is viewed as a situation where a certain gender is prevented from existing and the action is perceived to be justifiable because most people have not been victims of this cruelty. Therefore, individuals created by choice have do not have a reason to complain.

In spite of the reasons that seek to justify sex selection, it is considered to undermine human dignity; thus, causing harm to the wider society. Sex selection has often led to gender disparities in many countries especially in Asian countries such as China and India. This trend has led to patriarchal societal agreements perceived to discriminate girls and women (Mudde, 2010).

The social attitudes, norms and circumstances that influence such perspective

Due to advanced technology, sex selection culture has become popular and this has had a negative impact on females. Parents who are able to access technology have the ability of controlling the sex of their children; hence, they are able to escape the societal stigma of failing to give birth to a son. Many parents avoid giving birth to girls since they are viewed as individuals not worth living .Parents perceive that sex selection gives them the ability to choose what type of children they want in terms of sex. However, this process equates children to products (Webb, 2014).

Sex selection can make parents not to accept some of their shortcomings; hence, lowering the child’s self esteem. Having a strong preference for a specific sex can cause harm for the unwanted sex including rejection and killings to avoid societal blames and eliminate shame. However, proponents of this idea argue that it is normal for such ideas to be rejected at the first instance especially when people are unfamiliar with the idea.

Those opposing the idea of sex selection argue that that having children is not a right that one can put conditions to as children should be viewed as gifts from God (De Melo-Martín, 2013). These arguments are based on our cultural beliefs.

According to Caulfield & Brownsword (2012), traditional patterns of giving gifts recommend that a gift should be taken without putting any condition to it. A gift is something should be accepted unconditionally and the same case applies to children. From a cultural perspective, sex selection promotes the idea of treating children as a commodity, which is more or less similar to buying and selling of children. Choosing some of the features one wants is acceptable only to products like cars or other commodities, but this concept does not apply to human beings. Therefore, sex selection is often used to discriminate a specific gender.

Justification of specific actions in relation to human dignity

Proponents of sex selection argue that everyone has the right to live his life as he pleases so as long as the person does not cause harm or infringe upon other peoples’ rights. The harm principle implies that individuals opposing sex selection need to prove that the action is going to cause harm to others.  In this case, sex selection does not cause harm to anybody. Proponents of sex selection argue that the practice is considered harmful based on sociological and psychological assumptions .They further argue that sex selection is an act that is contrary to religious or moral beliefs (Smolin, 2013).

A report by The Task Force on ethics and laws highlights the common objection arguments used to reject the idea of sex selection. The report indicates that sex selection is compared to mocking God. However, such arguments have been applied to all medical innovations. . It started by rejecting the use of chloroform to relieve pain associated with childbirth. This act was viewed as going against God’s will. Such arguments also applied to the use of inoculation (Li & Pantano, 2013).

Ironically, previous medical innovations viewed as going against God’s will have become part of acceptable medical practices; hence, such objections have not been taken seriously. In fact, such arguments are considered as religious claims .Proponents of sex selection argue that individuals should only refrain from the idea if it contravenes their religious beliefs, but laws should not be imposed on people based on other people’s religious views (Dondorp et al, 2013).

Human dignity that can be jeopardized by actions arising from this perspective

Defining human dignity based on our expression of choices affects public opinion about such ideas. If these perspectives are not comprehensively analyzed through research, public opinion will be flawed. The main concern is that people can use limited philosophical analysis to influence policy discussions .

The definition of human dignity should not be derived from the fact that it is an individual choice, but the practice should be viewed from both public and professional bioethical discussions as recommended by Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproduction (Medicine, 2015).

Human dignity as a societal inherent value

In the second perspective, it is worth noting that the society often values children’s inherent worth. This limits some of the parents’ choices regarding gender selection. Parents who consider gender selections are said not to uphold societal norms and values which is the societal description for human dignity. According to McGowan & Sharp (2013), parents who select their children’s sex because of non-medical reasons are considered to be immoral in the eyes of the society.

From this perspective, human dignity is viewed as pride in oneself or having the sense of self worth as a human being to live a meaningful life .Therefore, any situation that compromises or humiliates this position is considered as a threat to human dignity. Choosing a particular gender over the other for non-medical reasons places expectations on a specific child, and this fails to recognize the personhood of an individual.

Therefore, sex selection fails to adhere to individual inherent characteristics .Children are often viewed as their parent’s property yet they are their own person .Putting too much expectations on the selected children does not give them the respect they deserve; hence, making them not to be autonomous as human beings are supposed to be (Claassens et al., 2013).

Parents who select the sex of their children view their children as a different person instead of the individual the child is suppose to be. Wudarczyk et al (2013) argues that choosing the sex of a child is failing to respect the human intrinsic values of the individual child. In summary, children need to be valued based on their intrinsic worth as human beings. In other words, the values of children should not be attached to specific characteristics.

Social attitudes, norms and circumstances that influence such perspective

In western societies, there is no preferred sex, but selection of sex is based on creating gender balance in the family by having both boys and girls. These common occurrences are observed in Australia, Sweden, and the UK. Even though sex selection does not have negative effects in these countries, Asian countries like China, Korea and India are faced with challenges associated with sex selection due to cultural beliefs. These countries prefer boys to girls and this has led to  more than 10 million abortions within the last 20 years (Moskovian, 2013).

Activists in Asia are calling for the ban of sex selection. However, due to the different reasons parents in the UK and India have for choosing the sex of their children, banning sex selection which is a worldwide practice will not change the situation especially in India. So long as there are religious and economic incentives attached to boys, banning sex selection will not have any effect especially in Asian countries.

Given the fact that majority of UK population would still prefer their first children to be boys, sex selection technology will be misused to fulfill desires of these parents. In Asian countries, banning sex selection will not change the cultural norms being practiced in these regions (Dyal, 2014).

Justification of specific actions in relation to human dignity

There are claims doing rounds that sex selection does not promote the inherent human value, and this is considered as an intuitive reaction, but not a reasonable moral response. The fact that certain human actions are unnatural does not necessary make these actions morally wrong. For example, heart transplant is unnatural but it is meant to save human life (De Melo-Martin, 2013).

The fact that those opposed to the claims that selection of sex should be applicable for medical purposes are not considerate to the fact that medical technologies helps couples with sex-linked genetic disorder to bear a healthy child. This does not translate to misuse of technology to fulfill their personal desires. Furthermore, those in support of sex selection argue that this practice eliminates girls in a humane way as compared to other methods like abortion or neglect, meaning that girls whose birth can be avoided will not be exposed to oppression or discrimination (Tregenza-Parker, 2013).

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In the current health care systems, physicians provide services that do not have direct medical benefits, but add value to individuals who seek for such services like cosmetic surgeries and ultrasound. The same view is applicable when it comes to sex selection. Offering sex selection services is also viewed as misuse of limited medical resources, but offering other services like face-lifts is not considered as s misallocation of limited medical resources. According to WHO Press (2011), the idea of sex selection has been misrepresented in most cases.

The most common argument is that sex selection causes social imbalances of sexes in India and China. The concern whether sex ratio is a threat to the western societies is more of a intuitive reaction devoid of concrete evidence .The idea of calling sex selection a sexist sin is not justifiable because most parents who prefer choosing the sex of their children do so based on the fact that they are motivated by the idea of having children from both sexes. People who believe that raising a boy is different from a girl are those who base their thinking on cultural values of children whereby girls are considered to be different from boys (Cooley &Chesnokova,2011).

Human dignity that can be jeopardized by actions arising from this perspective

The facts that arguments against sex selection are more about their consequences, these arguments are based on assumptions; hence, it is not easy to prevent some of the consequences from happening. It is not essay to draw legal lines to permit some forms of sex selection while limiting others. The main worry in such a situation is how parents are likely to spend their money on technology to ensure that their children are born with the specifications they want.

This can often lead to misuse of technology. The other concern is that if sex selection is acceptable, it will make one sex preferable than the other. As a result, it will make it hard to promote anti-discriminatory measures in several countries (Lee, 2016).

Conclusion

It not surprising that sex selection is controversial. , Different people justify their reasons for gender selection viewing it as a desirable practice that seeks to fulfill societal norms. Others view sex selection as a practice that reinforces discrimination while at the same time it goes against the inherent nature of human value. These two perspectives can describe human dignity from different views.

The case study of sex selection helps us to understand some of the social attitudes, norms and circumstances that can influence our choices and how sex selection from these two perspectives can impact on our understanding of human dignity based on the justification presented in support of this action.

Some of the justifications presented in the essay are likely to influence the perception of individuals in understanding the meaning of human dignity; hence, influencing our actions. In conclusion, it is important to define human dignity from a multi-dimensional perspective as compared to defining it from isolated arguments to accurately establish its meaning.

References

Caulfield, T., & Brownsword, R. (2012). Human dignity: a guide to policy making in the Biotechnology era? Nature Reviews Genetics, 7(1), 72-76.

Chapman, A. R., & Benn, P. A. (2013). Noninvasive prenatal testing for early sex identification: A few benefits and many concerns. Perspectives in biology and medicine, 56(4), 530-547.

Claassens, J. et al (2013). Searching for Dignity: Conversations on human dignity, theology and disability. Toronto. Sun media.

De Melo-Martín, I. (2013). Sex selection and the procreative liberty framework. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 23(1), 1-18.

Dondorp, W., De Wert, G., Pennings, G., Shenfield, F., Devroey, P., Tarlatzis, B., & Diedrich,

K. (2013). ESHRE Task Force on ethics and Law 20: sex selection for non-medical reasons. Human Reproduction, 28(6), 1448-1454.

Cooley, D. & Chesnokova, I. (2011). Sex Selection Abortion in Kazakhstan: Understanding a Cultural Justification, Developing World Bioethics 11, (3). 159–60.

De Melo-Martin, I. (2013). The Ethics of Sex Selection. Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 90.

Dyal, M. (2014). Whether sex-selection for non-medical reasons, using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, should be permitted in the UK. University of Birmingham.

Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. (2015). Use of Reproductive technology for sex selection for nonmedical reasons. Fertility and Sterility, 103(6), 1418-1422.

Kalfoglou, A. L. et al (2013). Ethical arguments for and against sperm sorting for non-medical sex selection: a review. Reproductive biomedicine online, 26(3), 231-239.

Lee, M. Y. K. (2016). From the case of sex discrimination to the ideas of equality and equal opportunities. In Ethical Dilemmas in Public Policy (pp. 111-127). Springer Singapore.

Li, Q., & Pantano, J. (2013). The Demographic Consequences of Gender Selection Technology. Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 95, (5): 1549–1561.

McGowan, M. L., & Sharp, R. R. (2013). Justice in the context of family balancing. Science, Technology & human values, 38(2), 271-293. Current opinion in psychiatry, 26(5), 474.

Tregenza-Parker, G. (2013). Sex Selection for Family Balancing? A Legal and Ethical Analysis.

Smolin, D. M. (2013). Sex Selection, the Missing Girls of China and India, and the Challenges of Technological Control of Procreation. Regent JL & Pub. Pol’y, 6, 49.

Moskovian, A. (2013). Bans on Sex-Selective Abortions: How Far is Too Far?. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 40(2).

Mudde ,A. (2010).‘Before You Formed in the Womb I Knew You’: Sex Selection and Spaces of Ambiguity, Hypatia 25 (3).563–64.

Webb, D. C. (2014). The Sex Selection Debate: A Comparative Study of Sex Selection Laws in the United States and the United Kingdom. South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business, 10(1), 6.

WHO Press (2011). World Health Organization, Preventing Gender-based Sex Selection: An Interagency Statement OHCHR, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and WHO. Geneva. WHO Press

Wudarczyk, O. A.et al (2013). Could intranasal oxytocin be used to enhance relationships? Research imperatives, clinical policy, and ethical considerations.

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Culturally Responsive Leadership in Action

Culturally Responsive Leadership
Culturally Responsive Leadership

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Culturally responsive Leadership

1. Introduction:

Briefly summarize the multiple perspectives represented in the vignette, and describe your perspective on why the dialogue is relevant to culturally responsive education practices

The vignette comprises of different perspectives including policies, practices, and leadership principles that lead to creation of all-encompassing learning environments for not only learners but also families from ethnic and cultural varied backgrounds. The dialogue is important for culturally responsive education practices because it highlights the high expectations for learners’ achievement; integrates history; values and culture of learners’ community in the curriculum.

In addition, the dialogue encourages collaboration in developing critical understanding among the educators and learners to address inequality in the society (Garza et al. 2014). This is important in terms of developing organizational systems in schools as well as district level to empower parents and learners from diverse ethnic and racial societies. The discourse will promote educator leaders, school administrators and district level to lead diverse cultures while working with parents, teachers and the community to create curriculum s structures, education practices and organizational systems in line with cultural values of racially diverse learners as well as their families (Klar & Brewer, 2014).

The dialogue will also be important when it comes to incorporating classroom practices and school leadership. By and large, the dialogue will present deeper insights of cultural and racial inequity. Additionally, the discussion will act as the platform to communicate actions for education leaders can utilize in a transformative manner to promote change in a strength-oriented and enhance equity course in education.

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2. Strategic Leadership Approach:

Describe the immediate response you would have at the Leadership Team meeting, and what leadership theory(ies) supports your immediate response.

Institute Inclusion

I would first start off by instituting inclusion by putting more emphasis on the human determination of what is being learned and its connection to the learners’ experience.  I would also champion the need for unity of purpose where the teaching staff, students and other stakeholder team up on all fronts. With this approach, the institution will hopefully transition into an environment that fosters change.

Treatment of diverse groups equally will form the basis of my strategy. In this regard, practices that foster discrimination will be curtailed through shared learning methods, peer-teaching and discussion groups (Klar & Brewer, 2014).. The leadership team and learner will be governed by statutes.

2. Develop Positive Attitude       Towards creating a mental shift, the leadership would reiterate the need to relate teaching and learning activities to learners experience or previous information.  The institution as informed by the curriculum should encourage students to make choices in content and analytical approaches based on factors such as past experiences, values, needs and competences (Klar & Brewer, 2014).

Moreover, the procedure should support clear learning and problem resolution objectives; impartial and transparent benchmark of evaluation; significant learning concepts; instructional flexibility anchored on style and experiential learning. The need for conferences or meetings between teachers and students will play an imperative role when it comes to fostering culturally responsive educator versus student synergies (Klar & Brewer, 2014).  
3. Enhance Meaning – The institution should provide thought-provoking learning experiences that include higher level thinking and critical probe that highlight tangible issues in an action-oriented way. Discussions of pertinent experiences should not just be advanced but students’ dialect should be used in classroom dialogue (Klar & Brewer, 2014). Through a project and problem resolving approach, students should be allowed to question historical occurrences critically regardless of whether or not the topic is popular. 
Engender Competence – The analytical process of groups should be related to their world view, ethos and reference point.  Moreover, this may also include having in place various approaches for representing knowledge and dexterity that allows for realization of outcomes at diverse forms (Presley, 2014). This then calls for a feedback mechanism and contextualized review.
 

Then, describe how culturally responsive leadership theory would inform your long-term strategy to advance culturally responsive education practices with the Leadership Team. Your long-term strategy may include identifying what additional information you would need to proceed effectively.

            Culturally responsive leadership theory would be at the core of the long-term strategy in the sense that its principles will inform objective facilitation. In turn, this will have the ability to contribute to the development of practical equity structures to address the types of intricate inequities that involve attainment and other associated gaps in education system (Presley, 2014).

Owing to the fact that cultural responsive leadership use transformative principles, the theory would assist me to promote education equity of all learners regardless of their ethnicity, language or race (Garza et al. 2014). Nonetheless, to proceed effectively, I would require these extra information such as critical multiculturalism and also understand leadership actions of persons of color and champion education equity.

3. Synthesis:

Explain how you would use what you have learned from this exercise to address the culturally responsive education needs in the context you serve or hope to serve as an education leader.

I will use lessons learned from this exercise to create awareness among education leaders about the ways of moving their schools from basic understanding about equity to practical action with immediate use leading to changes in education practices. In addition, the lessons will be important in understanding all the vigenetes of culturally responsive leadership while taking into account gender, race, culture and language (Garza et al. 2014).

Besides, the lessons will help me to work towards attaining consciousness among leaders and faculty; instutionalizing organizational systems to help empower underserved learners, their families and the larger society. The exercise will also be a foundation upon which I will use to facilitate procedure to conceptualize equity agendas via meaningful organized activities to ensure schools understand ethnic and cultural differences leading to attainments and associated gaps.

Furthermore, I would use the lessons to comprehend the elements of transformative leadership and multiculturalism as influential strategies to tackle academic and factors separating students can be conceptualized. I would also use this exercise to explore culturally responsive leadership actions of underserved communities who depict a number of intersecting features from discernible; including language, ethnicity, and race to hidden like gender.

References

Klar, H., W., & Brewer, C., A. (2014). Successful leadership in a rural, high-poverty school: The case of county line middle school. Journal of Educational Administration, 52(4), 422. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1660746084?accountid=45049

Presley, S. P. (2014). How leaders engage in complexity leadership: Do action-logics make a difference? (Order No. 3611483). Available from ABI/INFORM Collection. (1502794919). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1502794919?accountid=45049

Garza, J., Encarnacion, Drysdale, L., Gurr, D., Jacobson, S., & Merchant, B. (2014). Leadership   for school success: Lessons from effective principals. The International Journal of Educational Management, 28(7), 798. Retrieved from    http://search.proquest.com/docview/1662671136?accountid=45049

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Culture Responsive Leadership

Culture Responsive Leadership
Culture Responsive Leadership

Culture Responsive Leadership

Culture responsive leadership is essential in every institution as it responds and acknowledges the need for equitable access to education for people of all kinds as well as shaping people’s thinking process. Culture responsiveness would entail strategies to incorporate and improve links between equity and access to education between linguistically diverse communities (Toppel, 2015).

Cultural competence should be intertwined with responsiveness as it enhances better integration of skills, values, attitudes, and knowledge to ensure effective interventions with people from diverse cultures. Culture responsiveness is crucial in empowering students politically, socially, intellectually and emotionally by using of referents of culture to impart skills and knowledge.

Culture responsive leadership is essential in influencing various factors such as equity, outcomes and opportunity in a given educational setting. Culture responsive leadership involves philosophies, policies, and practices that inclusively create better learning environments for populations of culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds (Toppel, 2015). The creation of a culture responsive relationship by the leaders is vital as it helps them make concerted efforts to identify more about the culture and interests of those under them especially students in an education setting.

I had the privilege to interview two people who gave more insight into the issue of culture-responsive leadership. The interview seeks to identify some of the practices adopted by the leaders in enhancing that the policies they use are culture responsive. My first interviewee is a male leader in a university. The interviewee serves in the leadership capacity as a dean of the university who is in charge of the student’s affairs.

He also has the role of overseeing the formulation and implementation of policies that promote culture responsive teaching in the learning institution (McCray et al, 2011). The dean is also responsible for the coordinated planning of the right curriculum to ensure full culture responsiveness.

The second person I interviewed is the chancellor of the University who also doubles up as an organizing secretary of the education board of various private and public universities. She performs both the leadership and managerial roles in all programs started to enhance culture responsive education at the university level. She ensures that the structures are properly made, and procedures followed as well as receiving progress reports from leaders in lower levels such as the university dean. Both leaders adequately provided the required information regarding culturally responsive leadership practices.  

The following questions were used to interview both interviewees who work in a similar capacity as their main role is the promotion of policies and practices that enhance cultural responsiveness through their competence.     

1.    What do you understand by cultural responsiveness and competencies required in ensuring equality and access to education services?

2.    How does the institution promote and advocate for right policies and practices to ensure efforts of enhancing cultural responsiveness are successful?

3.    What are the criteria for evaluating and effective assessment of the policies implementation, and success of adopted practices?

4.    What culture responsive teaching methods have you adopted and are most efficient in leading to the desired results in an education setting?

5.    Which theory of culturally responsive leadership guide you in ensuring full competency while performing your roles in an education environment?

6.    What are the benefits of culture responsiveness and the main challenges experienced during implementation of policies and practices?

The first interviewee who is the Dean of students in the university gave various responses in regards to the questions posed for him during the interview. The Dean of students understands cultural responsiveness as the pedagogy that focuses on empowering the students in various forms mostly emotionally and intellectually (McCray et al, 2011). Competencies entail the adherence and the effective adoption of the right procedures and practices.

According to the dean, competency of a leader has the greatest impact in influencing culture responsiveness in an educational setting. As a leader, the dean has adopted various practices in the curriculum to enhance cultural responsiveness. Establishing inclusion is one of the practices enhanced by the dean.

Such practices are made possible through structures such as cooperative base groups and learning communities while also using procedures such as multidimensional sharing, cooperative learning and collaborative approaches to learning (Santamaria & Lorri, 2013). The use of practices such as experimental learning approaches based on the theory of multiple intelligence to develop the positive attitude is a vital practice aimed at ensuring cultural competence.

The Dean has also ensured policies related to the integration of the culturally responsive curriculum are properly implemented with the objective of access to education to all. Narrative evaluations including responses and measure of satisfaction levels among students are the basis of assessment. Responses by students and other stakeholder involved in cultural competence processes determines the level of equity and access to education to diverse communities which are the outcomes.

The teaching method advocated by the leader include culturally mediated instructions, improved curriculum, and communication of high expectation (Santamaria & Lorri, 2013). The institution advocates for policies and practices for culture responsiveness through various ways such as enhancing a collaborative environment where all work together to result in desired outcomes.

Instilling various norms, beliefs, and values into the school system is also ways of promoting and advocating practices. Having a culture of inquiry when it comes to implementation of responsive culture practices. Due to values, norms and procedures set in the institutions, the dean would adopt ethical leadership to develop critical consciousness among students.

Some strength of the practices adopted includes more integrated education system that can be sustained for the long and efficient address of inequalities issues (Santamaria & Lorri, 2013). Another strength of the practices is the preparation of a student-centered and inclusive curriculum as well as competent participation in the intercultural community. Weakness includes the poor adherence and failure to implement policies effectively due to poor leadership skills amongst some of those overseeing the processes. Cultural destructiveness and cultural incapacity are also weaknesses that hinder success of the practices adopted.

The second interviewee also offered a lot of information regarding the questions about culture responsiveness. She understands culture responsiveness to entail strategies to incorporate and improve links between equity and access to education between linguistically diverse communities. Culture responsive leadership is essential in influencing factors such as equity, outcomes and opportunity in a given educational setting (Brown et al, 2011).

She also believed that universities are doing a lot to advocate for policies and practices for cultural responsiveness. Some of the measures used to advocate the policies include the development of an understanding of transformative, additive and application of social action models. Creation of organization structures in learning institutions to empower both parents and students and from diverse communities and ethnic backgrounds are measures used to support practices and implementation of policies.

Some of the leadership competencies by the chancellor include promoting inclusive instructional practices, the exhibition of an ethic of care emphasizing on high expectations on students when it comes to academic achievement. Since cultural competencies are focused on the classroom teaching mostly, some of the teaching methods the leader advocates for include learning with the culture context and positive perspective methods (Brown et al, 2011).

She believes that responses by students and the increased levels of integration of culture responsiveness in the education system as well-reduced levels of inequalities are essential in assessment and evaluation of policies and practices’ effectiveness.

 The chancellor is also guided by the leadership for the social justice theory which focuses on improvement of educational outcomes and experiences for all students especially the marginalized. Social justice theory also responds to issues of race, culture, ethnicity and language (Brown et al, 2011). According to her, some strengths include the creation of frameworks and structures that are consistent with orientation of culture for ethnically diverse populations.

In this case, the education sector would face fewer challenges relating to cultural responsiveness. Weaknesses include poor implementation strategies and poor collaboration between some leaders and the people which make practices to be ineffective in addressing the problems (Santamaria & Lorri, 2013).

There is evidence that both interviewees have worked hard to ensure their leadership practices are culturally responsive. The first interviewee demonstrates leadership skills by fostering relationships based on responsibility, respect, and care through strategies to enhance critical consciousness among students. Using procedures such as multidimensional sharing, cooperative learning and collaborative approaches to learning are also essential culture responsive leadership practices by the dean.

Some recommendation for him includes the need to incorporate social justice and intertwine it with ethical leadership so as to lead to better integration of evidence-based practices (Toppel, 2015). I would also recommend that he adopts structures that empower people as they are essential in supplementing effective practices.

The second interviewee also has leadership practices that are evidence of cultural competence. Promoting inclusive instructional practices, an exhibition of an ethic of care emphasizing high expectations practices on students when it comes to academic achievement are culturally responsive practices (Toppel, 2015). She also focuses on practices pedagogical practices and curriculum frameworks consistent with cultural orientation.

My recommendation for her is to incorporate other theories in her leadership practices and also learn about people’s past experiences so as to identify the best strategies to handle issues. There are various ways I would address the needs of culturally responsive education e.g. through acknowledging arising differences, validating cultural identity before adopting any cultural competencies (McCray et al, 2011).

My efforts would entail affirming attitude towards people from diverse backgrounds. Incorporating constructiveness learning skills as well as social consciousness would be essential and included in my practices. I would work as a leader to enhance a holistic approach to the effective creation of plans, teaching activities and also identification of assessment methods that identify weaknesses for the quick remedy. In a nutshell, adoption of right strategies enhances the effectiveness of culturally responsive practices.

References

Brown, Kathleen M., Jen Benkovitz, A. J. Muttillo, and Thad Urban. 2011. Leading schools of excellence and equity: Documenting effective strategies in closing achievement gaps. Teachers College Record 113.1: 57–96.

McCray, Carlos, and Floyd Beachum. 2011. Culturally relevant leadership for the enhancement of teaching and learning in urban schools. In The international handbook of leadership for learning. Edited by Tony Townsend and John MacBeath, 487–502. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Santamaria, Lorri J. 2013. Critical change for the greater good: Multicultural perceptions in educational leadership toward social justice and equity. Educational Administration Quarterly.

Toppel, K. (2015). Enhancing Core Reading Programs With Culturally Responsive Practices. Reading Teacher, 68(7), 552-559.

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Applying cultural sensitive care

Applying cultural sensitive care
Applying cultural sensitive care

Applying cultural sensitive care

Legal and ethical consideration

In this case study, there is conflict between the  nurse ethical responsibilities to her patient, legal  responsibility to her employer and legal duty to the physician; which exposes the RN to professional risk. This is a challenging situation as there is inadequate guide in resolving such kind of dilemmas. For instance, the nursing standards and law are vague about rights to ethical decisions made by RNs.  The code of ethics does not offer legal protection to RN who works as patient advocate (Hunt, 2013).

In this case, the role of the nurse is to remain cultural competent.  The RN must respect the patient decision even when the patient’s decision is irrational or wrong. The RN should advise the patient about their clinical opinion without putting pressure on them to accept the RNs advice. While doing so, the RN should be careful not to use words and actions that disrespect the patient values and beliefs (Hinkle & Cheever, 2013).

RNs support to patient decision

The RN can offer support to patient’s decision by (Taylor, Lilis, LeMone, & Lynn, 2011);

  1. Being an active listener

This is important as it helps establish mutual relationship and trust to the RN. It is a way for RN to show their concerns to the patient. The RN should ask the patient about their understanding of the health condition, which will help RN to address any misconceptions.

  • Explain medication detail

Most of the healthcare medical terms are jargons to ordinary people. It is important to discuss all the details associated with the medication, his risk level and programs which could help with the patient cost management and coping strategies.

  • Explore alternative approaches

Some of the patients could be comfortable to seek alternative medication such as herbal remedies or traditional healers. The RN must be thoroughly informed about the alternative medication because some of the treatment could be harmful. If considered as an alternative, the nurse can refer the patient to a certified practitioner. In Some cases, religious rituals such as prayers can be integrated into practice.

Example of major religion

An example of a religion that could possibly be holding similar doctrines is Muslim religion. Devout Muslims can reject medication containing alcohol such as those used during the peri-operative procedures, or medications made from pork derivatives. In medical situations which are not of emergency, the RN should educate the patient, but help them preserve their values and believes (Smith, 2013). This includes exploring other beliefs that do not contradict to their beliefs. These small accommodations could pay off the patient emotional well-being. Therefore, to remain culturally competent care, the RN must perform cultural assessment in order to understand their perception of illness and wellness (Kee, Hayes, & McCuistion, 2015).

References

Hinkle, J., & Cheever, K. (2013). Brunner and Suddarth’s textbook of medical-surgical nursing (13th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Hunt, R. (2013). Introduction to community based nursing (5th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins.

Kee, J., Hayes, E., & McCuistion, L. (2015). Pharmacology: A patient-centered nursing process approach (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Taylor, C., Lilis, C., LeMone, P., & Lynn, P. (2011). Fundamentals of nursing: The art and science of nursing care (7th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins.

Smith, L. (2013). Reaching for cultural competence. Nursing, 43(6), 30-38.

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Culture Shock Case Analysis

Culture Shock
Culture Shock

Culture Shock

Living in a new country is an exciting experience since it encourages explorations in culture, terrain, foods, and lifestyle. However, the differences in culture and customs of different nations bring about frustrations if an individual is not well prepared to adopt and assimilate the new way of life (Ann 2016).

Kelly had high expectations on her new job in Japan which also served as her bridge to promotion if it was successful. Having moved with her entire family, she thought her children would enjoy being in a new environment; her husband would get a new job, and that together they would happily live in Japan.

Kelly did not know how to interact with Japanese employees, her children felt left out in school since most of the kids spoke in Japanese, her husband did not get a job as expected, and the room they were given was too small for its cost and her family. Everything did not turn out well for the family, and they were experiencing the frustration stage of the culture shock stages.

In America, people communicated in English while in Japan most of the people and schools used Japanese which was not familiar to Kelly and her children making it hard to interact and experience the new environment. Thus, the language barrier was one of the main cultural clashes that Kelly’s family experienced in Japan. Women are rarely given leadership positions in Japan such that the employees and client Kelly negotiated with thought she was a man.

While communicating to the employees, only Peter, who was familiar with her culture, openly communicated with her but the rest of the employees were conservative, and they avoided eye contact. Moreover, Michio did not communicate directly with Kelly but with Peter, which made her feel confused making the negotiation process uncomfortable. Japanese employers normally work in teams and have a collective relationship compared to Americans who tend give individual comments without consultations and Kelly had to wait for more than a week to get feedback on their suggestions since she had assumed that they would make individual presentations.

Thus, language differences, the perception of women in leadership, group versus individual working relationships, and expression of interest as seen when the client rejected Kelly’s proposal yet he had said it was good are some of the clashes attributable to culture and customs that Kelly’s family experienced in Japan.

Kelly children thought they would immediately make new friends and start exploring the new country. Kelly thought her proposals would be accepted by potential clients by operating as she used to while in American and other countries, and her husband thought he would get a new job without straining.

However, the children didn’t like the new school since most kids communicated in Japanese, Kelly did not understand her Japanese employees and client, and her husband did not get a job. The expectations of the family were frustrated due to differences in culture and customs of the new country.

Kelly’s family is experiencing frustration stage of culture shock phases. It’s at this stage that people get overwhelmed with language, gestures, and signs that are not familiar (Vif 2015). For instance, foods are served differently, roads are unfamiliar, and classes taught differently for the school going children. Kelly did not understand the gestures of the employees and the client and the house they lived was too small compared to the one they lived in America making life unbearable for the family. The whole family was homesick and desired to go back to America where life was familiar and comfortable.

When Kelly was offered the position in Tokyo, she should have first discussed the situation with the whole family and researched on the culture and customs of Japanese people to avoid extreme frustrations. Also, Kelly should have consulted about the workplace culture of Japanese people so that she would have been able to comfortably interact with her employees and the client for successful results. Prior knowledge of the expected changes in the new country would have helped the family to prepare and adjust without pressure.

Since going back to America would derail the promotion and result in unnecessary expenses and changes such as the school for the kids, if I were Kelly, I would accept the current situation, accept that I did not make proper preparation, and seek for a solution from foreigners who are living comfortably in Japan. As a family, we would identify the things that make us uncomfortable and deal with them without pressure and try to adapt to the new life.

Moreover, we would take Japanese language classes to learn the common vocabularies used by the people, and I would research and consult about the way Japanese carry out their business operations to better understand the employees and prospective clients. 

Culture shock is common for people living in a foreign land, and it is important to research about the customs and culture of the foreigners to avoid frustrations. Kelly and her family had high expectations on arriving in Japan, but differences in language, culture, foods, and personal interactions made their stay unbearable. Accepting the new life and learning the customs of the people through research and interactions with other foreigners is essential in ensuring that the lives comfortably in the new country.

References

Ann, W. (2016). Culture Shock. Retrieved from http://www.harzing.com/resources/living-and-working-abroad/culture-shock

Vif I, (2015). The Four Stages of Culture Shock. Retrieved from https://medium.com/global-perspectives/the-4-stages-of-culture-shock-a79957726164#.2qdq4hvza

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Advancing Cultural Mindset and Integration

Advancing Cultural Mindset and Integration
Advancing Cultural Mindset and Integration

Advancing Cultural Mindset and Integration

Introduction

            Technological advancement has led to tremendous growth of the international trade owing to increase in the rate of global connectivity, a phenomenon referred to as globalization. Globalization provides numerous advantages to both small business enterprises and large corporations some of the advantages include; a large number of untapped client pool and the ability to outsource labor to overseas countries at lower prices than the domestic countries.

On the other hand, globalization also presents numerous challenges, for instance the elimination of international trade barriers has led to increase in competition. Global organizations compete for limited resources such as labor and low materials (Mathews, 2016). Labor forms one of the critical factors of production. In the global markets an organization’s leadership is not only tasked with the onus of hiring top talents but also the responsibility of ensuring that a cultural mindset and diversity of the workforce does not inhibit the productivity of the firm.

According to Wilson (2013), for firms to be successful in the global markets there is need for developing a global mindset that allows cultural mindset and integration. The essay thus evaluates strategies and negotiation process that lead to cultural mindset and integration in global organizations.  

Adopting a Diverse perspective

            The international workforce comprises of cultural mindset diverse individuals. Culturally diversity provides a large pool of untapped talent with the potential of elevating the firm’s productivity owing to the prevalence of creative and innovative employees. However, classical management theories such hierarchy model tends to hinder creativity. This is because the model is based on the need to monitor and control hence workers are tasked oriented and tend to act in the best interests of the superiors as opposed to the best interests of the firm.

The hierarchy model is thus inappropriate in the global market. Executive leaders of international firms should adopt a diverse perspective; that is recognize the individual differences of the workers and strife to encourage creativity of each employee.

            According to Wilson (2013), a diverse perspective elevates the levels of creativity and increases the firm’s productivity by maximizing talent exploitation within the firm. To develop diverse perspective, the leaders should create an enabling environment that encourages individual growth. The basic step in developing a direct perspective is adoption of an inclusive leadership system. According to Davies & Brundett (2010), there is no ideal leadership system that would guarantee success of the firm.

However, the inclusive leadership system incorporates all the necessary leadership skills hence more suited in developing diverse perspective. The basic leadership skills include; technical, human and conceptual skills (Davies & Brundett, 2010 p 78). Technical refers to skills acquired in training while human skills entail the ability to socialize and influence people. On the other hand, conceptual skills refer to the understanding of how the industry function.

            Incorporation of these skills allows the leaders to effectively influence the workforce. They are able to identify motivating factors of each worker and thus set into places mechanisms to ensure that the workers are motivated. One should note that for inclusive system to function, the labor force should be intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation occurs when each labors contributions to the end unit is appreciated.

Wilson (2013), argues that appreciation of each worker contributions to the end product occurs through enhancing the relationship between the leader and each individual worker. According to Wilson (2013), a dyadic level perspective is a prerequisite in developing a diverse perspective, this is because it enhances the leader’s capacity and ability to influence each workers actions.

            In essence, developing and integrating a diverse perspective requires; a leadership model that incorporates all the necessary leadership skills and a healthy leader employee relationship. An inclusive leadership model is not only important in developing direct perspective but also in responding to dynamic changes in the international market system (Mathews, 2016).  Diverse perspective is important in developing a global mindset when dealing with cultural mindset diverse employees. However, the success of the business leadership models crucial in cultivating a diverse perspective greatly depends on the strategies employed.

Strategies that enhance global mindset.

            Effective business strategizing require rigorous evaluation of the business environment and assessment of the organization’s capacity to capitalize on available opportunities while maintaining its productivity. Global organizations require to employ strategies that allow simultaneous capitalization of the international markets and the domestic markets (Vandermootele, 2012).

Therefore, these firms are tasked with the onus of ensuring that the international market strategy fits with the organization’s goals. According to, the success of a firm in acquiring a full culturally integration require superb culturally self-awareness, cognitive complexity, and suspended judgements. In order to develop these capabilities the global organization leadership should employ a glocal strategy.

            The glocal strategy entails incorporating both the local and international business international structures in the organizations operations (Wilson 2013 p 48). However, the leaders and staff need to adopt a global mentality in order to effectively develop a global mindset. According to Mathews (2016), global mentality comprises of three important components which include; global thinking, local thinking and the ability to think and act glocally (p41).

Global thinking allows the organization’s to evaluate cultural mindset differences that would inhibit the success of its international operations, it facilitates the development of cultural cognitive abilities thus help in formulation of the best international expansion plan.

            On the other hand, local thinking creates cultural mindset awareness within the organization’s leadership. Local thinking creates understanding of the local cultures thus enables the organization to implement policies that would facilitate the motivation of its local employees and thus enable maximum exploitation of international workforce through efficient workforce adoption. This is necessary for companies that seek to enter the international market through acquisitions and mergers.

The ability to think locally creates cultural mindset sensitivity and cognition ability that enhance leaders’ ability to influence local labor force by ensuring that the firms operations do not jeopardize culturally obligations of their employees (Mathews, 2016). An example is a firm seeking to operate in an Islamic nation, the leaders need to understand that the Islamic religion sets Fridays as worship days while in most European countries Friday is a normal working day. Such as organization will thus have to close its operations in order to enable its local workers to attend to religious matters.

            Correspondingly, ability to act and think glocally eliminates conflicts that would result from a culturally diverse workforce. As mentioned earlier, the leader’s actions should influence the workforce. Therefore, a leader who is culturally cognitive will influence expatriates in the local company to respect culturally boundaries and thus enhance team building. The global mindset strategy incorporate open communication strategies that enhance team building.

Communication Methods  

            As mentioned earlier, open communication methods enhance the global mindset strategy. This is because they facilitates the acquisition of effective leader work relationship and team building among the employees. Therefore, formulation of effective communication methods is important in developing a diverse workforce while at the same time ensuring consistent productivity.

According to Davies & Brundett (2010), work place productivity and group cultures interrelate. However, in a culturally diverse work place there are numerous barriers to effective communication. Formulation of the communication method thus requires critical evaluation of the barriers and identification of possible methods of evading the obstacles.

         Language barrier is the most common barrier. Language barrier impacts on network heterogeneity which refers to the ability of culturally diverse members to communicate. Another communication barrier is intrinsic competition which impacts on the ability of group members to communicate. Leaders are thus tasked with ensuring that the communication methods employed facilitate to network density and network homogeneity (Vandermoortele, 2012).

To eliminate language barrier, workers should be encouraged to acquire a second language while employing a translator and language translation software should occur in the initiation stages. On the other hand, intrinsic competition can be eliminated through employing effective motivation strategy that is based on individual contributions rather than performance hence encourage information sharing.

            Additionally, upward and downward communication should be encouraged through open group brainstorming. Group forums will not only encourage upward and downward communications but also lead to higher integration which will eventually create a positive interaction of the organization’s productivity and group interactions.

Conclusion

            Globalization has led to rapid increase in business competition. In order to oust competition, global organizations are tasked with the onus of developing a global mindset that encourages labor force cultural mindset diversity while at maintain constant productivity.  A global mindset enables the organizations to maximally utilize the diverse talents through adopting a diverse perspective and developing a glocal strategy. Open communication methods also play a critical role in enhancing the inclusive leadership model which supports efficient global mindsets.   

References

Davies, B., & Brundrett, M. (Eds.). (2010) Developing Successful Leadership (Vol. 11). London: Springer

Mathews, J. (2016). Toward a Conceptual Model of Global Leadership. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(2), 38.

Vandemoortele, J. (2012). Advancing the global development agenda post-2015: some thoughts, ideas and practical suggestions. New York: UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda.

Wilson. W. (2013). Coaching with a global Mindset. International journal of evidence based Coaching & Mentoring.  11. 33-52.

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