Diverse Culture Work Force in Hospitality industry
Leadership Skills HOSP 185 term Paper
Sheldon Yuan
HOSP 185, Section 2
Jean-Guy Robichaud
November 25, 2016
Introduction
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Nowadays, it is a common phenomenon that there is an increasing number of
people with diverse culture backgrounds working at different positions in Hospitality
industry. According to the research, there are a ton of workforces consist of different
culture groups in America. To be specific, according to Migration Information Source
(2004, as cited in Testa, 2007) reported that the number of foreign-born US residents
has steadily increased from 7.9% in 1990 to 12% in 2003 (Testa). Some people
consider that those people who hold different values, attitudes, and beliefs could be a
challenges to the front line managers to improve the employee’s performance, meet
guest’s satisfaction, and build the relationship with colleagues. The studies (Earley &
Gibson, 2002; Earley & Mosakoski, 2000; Franklin, 2007; Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale,
1999; Ravlin, Thomas, & Ilsev, 2000, as cited in Walker & Aritz, 2014) have shown
that moderately heterogeneous groups experiences significant communication
problems and do not reach their performance potential (Walker & Aritz).
Consequently, it is not hard to see that how to address the right solution and shift
managing way is necessary. However, there are also many individuals who hold the
view that multicultural workforce plays an important role in a hospitality industry. A
research shows that cultural differences can have both positive and negative impacts
on organizations. However undoubtedly, as the reporte from Day (2007, as cited in
Gong, 2008), which illustrated that these differences would not be considered as a
hazards but rather opportunities and benefits (e.g. innovation, competiveness, and
knowledge transfer; increased attraction to minority customers) if they can manage
well (Gong) In short, diverse workforce is beneficial to our field in weak of bring
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different feelings, thinking, and reacting. It is obvious that there are points in both
sides of argument. In the report, it will illustrate advantages and disadvantages to the
hospitality industry, and make a deep analysis of how to implicate leadership on this
circumstance.
Advantage of Diverse cultural workforce
Diverse cultural viewpoints from a multicultural workforce can provide creative
problem solving and solutions in customer service. Employees who are from different
cultural backgrounds could be more sensitive to the problems or challenges from a
customer who shares the same culture, and could respond with a more appropriate
perspective. Therefore, many benefits to a cross-cultural workforce can be found in
the hospitality industry and the following examples were identified in the literature.
Base on the studies, diverse cultural members can provide more information, novel
approaches, and richer perspectives on solving organizational and customer problems
(Korjala, 2012, as cited in Devine et al. 2007). Basically, people from various cultural
backgrounds, when working together can offer more innovative and creative solutions
and provide improved customer service (Korjala). Johansson (2007) further supports
Korjala (2012) by stating that a multicultural workforce contributes and stimulates
new business innovations. Based on the interpretation of the authors above, one could
say that a diverse cultural staff will have a different viewpoint of the world and will
offer different perspectives on opportunities and challenges found in industry.
Therefore, a diverse group of employees could come up with innovative ideas based
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on their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Companies can really profit from a
diverse group of employees, provided that the employer can understand and largely
take advantage of the employee’s different values and unique way of viewing the
world. According to Seymen’s (2006, as cited in Gong, 2008) report, when comparing
homogeneous employee groups, diversified employee groups show outstanding
performance in the long run and efficiently take responsibility to their duties. This
difference is partially encouraged by the increased creativity and novelty in
multicultural teams that come from the diverse perspectives, views and experiences of
their team members (Gong).
Therefore, a staff with diverse cultural backgrounds not only benefits relations with
external stakeholders such as customers, but also helps in creating a healthy internal
organizational culture.
On the other hand, if managed well, a diverse cultural workforce can increase
competitiveness in the working place. There is no shadow of doubt that hospitality
industry will always remain as a competitive environment. In order to survive, staff
are always required to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Consequently,
it is not hard to see that the competitive nature of the industry with a cross cultural
staff can promote and fuel a creative environment as reported by Belfry (1989, as
cited in Gong, 2008). One can draw the following conclusion. A diverse workforce is
beneficial to the hospitality industry as it will improve guest services, create
innovative and inspiring ideas and increase competiveness.
Disadvantage of multicultural workforce
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Through what has been illustrated above, it is obvious that diverse cultural
workforces are beneficial to the hospitality industry. However, there are various
opposite views as well. In the first place, it goes without saying that different cultures
can give rise to communication challenges in the workplace. Doubtlessly, those
communication barriers not only can cause negative influences on working efficiency,
but it can result in misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and damage interpersonal
relationships in working place. Based on the repot, written by Devine (cited in
Korjala, 2012) it shows that communication is a huge challenge for culturally diverse
organizations due to perceptual, culture, and language barriers (Challenges and
problems with cultural diversity para. 2). Moreover, Peterson (2004, as cited in
Korjala, 2012) wrote that Miscommunication is very likely to occur among diverse
organization members. Even if all the people around a table speak English, cultural
differences can create strong barriers to understanding (Korjala). Therefore, the
problems that are caused by culture can be seen a disaster to a company. Particularly,
those problems are more likely a snowball, which highly can contribute to array of
other relevant problems. Secondly, cultural gaps also can cause negatively influence
on mental health to the heterogeneous group. It is a common phenomenon that those
people with different cultural backgrounds could feel themselves cannot be absorbed
into a group. Eventually, there are increasing number of different mental illnesses
appeared, such as self-denial, self-disgust, and less confidence. This problem is
usually happened to the people who have to remove because of the job transfer.
Sevmen (2006, as cited in Gong, 2008) wrote for these people, effective
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communication helps them become more efficient in the work place, reduce their
emotional stress, and ultimately aid them to complete the cultural adjustment
successfully (Gong). Thirdly, the cultural gaps can cause negative impacts on
commitment and loyalty. Based on the article that wrote by Korjala, who reckons that
commitment usually connects to the cultural backgrounds group, and employees feel
loyalty to their original cultural background groups rather the whole organization
which has different cultural group (Korjala, 2012). There is not a shadow of doubt
that it is totally dangerous to the sense of competition and cooperation at working
place. In addition, the cultural gaps cause threatens to the unify of the group. As a
whole, the disadvantages of diverse cultural workforce is to cause communication
challenges, mental illness on the foreigner staff, and negative influences on
commitment and loyalty in the industry.
Implications to the Leadership
According to the both sides (advantages and disadvantages) as shown above, it is
obvious that the question of how to manage diverse cultural workforces well in the
industry is necessarily for front line managers, otherwise those cultural gaps could
cause stress and discomfort factors to a company. In this paragraph, it will introduce
some of approaches for this challenges. At the first place, the company with a
multicultural environment should provide a series of training programs to all
employees. Gong reported (2008) that diversity training and education are necessary
and essential to help companies in the industry to become competitive and successful
(Gong, 2008, as cited in Christensen, 1993). To be specific, the different type of
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cultural training can contribute to employees reducing misunderstandings to a larger
extent. It is a common phenomenon that there are a lot of people could view
foreigners with stereotypes, and it is the main factors of causing communication gap
at workplace. Hence, the training program play an important role of erasing theses
problems and improving the management at some points. Secondly, managers should
increase their managing styles, rather using only one managing way. Korjala wrote
(2012) that the mixture of culturally diverse workforce needs to be managed actively
by supervising, coordinating and directing (Korjala, 2012, as cited in Friday & Friday,
2003, p. 865). Specifically, because the cultural differences, the employees with
diverse cultural backgrounds has their own individual attitude, traits, thinking ways,
and behaviors. Thus, it causes different influences on the managing way. For example,
Walker & Artiz (2014) reckoned that in China, employees want their leaders to be
considerate and benevolent, adhere to the Confucian parental role (Walker & Artiz,
2014, as cited in Hui and Tan, 1996). Consequently, mangers should evaluate every
employee working for them, and figure out the most appropriate managing way for
the employees. Adopting the appropriate managing style not only can improve the
working efficiency, but it can enhance customer’s service quality as well. In brief, for
the more effective managing, managers should take advantage of training programs
for reducing the cultural differences, and adopting diverse appropriate managing
ways, rather using only one way.
Conclusion
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In conclusion, based on arguments offered above, the advantages of multicultural
workforce at working place is to enhance guest service quality, because those
employees are usually better at accommodating customers from their own cultural
background, with similar perspective. Secondly, they can coin some creative ideas
with their unique ways. Thirdly. They can create a competitive environment at
company, and maximize profitability. On the other hand, the disadvantages of the
multicultural workforce are to cause communication challenges, negative influence on
foreign staff’s mental health, and commitment and loyalty to the company. From the
managing effective angle, managers can implement training programs to employees
for reducing cultural gaps, then it can improve the management. Moreover, mangers
can utilize more different types of managing ways for insuring diverse cultural
workforces working efficient.
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Reference
Gong, Qi (Dec, 2008), Managing cultural diversity in Hospitality Industry. (Page 13,
Para 2 & Page 14, Para1 & page 16, Para 4 & Page 22, Para 1 & Page 17, Para 2)
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. Paper
480. Retrieved from: http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1510&context=thesesdissertations
Korjala, Veera, (2012), Cultural diversity in Hospitality Industry-how to improve
cultural diversity workforce, (Page 22, Para 2 & Page 24 Para 3 & Page 26 Para
3) TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES. Retrieved from:
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/55331/Korjala_Veera.pdf
Testa, Mark (n.d). A deeper look at national culture and leadership in Hosptality
Industry. (Para. 5 of 1,1) San Diego State University. Retrieved from:
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman
Walker’, Robyn & Aritz’, Jolanta (2014), Leadership Styles in Multicultural Groups:
Americans and East Asians Working Together (para. 2, 3), International
Journal of Business Communication 2014, Vol. 51(1) 72–92
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