'An awareness of the impact of (national) culture on people in work Essay - 1

'An awareness of the impact of (national) culture on people in work organisations' is important in today's world - Essay Example Despite this, there are theories that argue that cultural diversity has a tendency of contributing to lack of performance in the working environment (D’Almeida, 2007). According to Quappe and Cantatore (2007), Cultural awareness is defined as the foundation of communication and the ability of people to become aware of their cultural values, perceptions and beliefs. This answers the questions that people often have in the mind regarding why things are done in a certain way, how people perceive the world, and why they react the way they do. Cultural awareness becomes an important object when one has to interact with people from other cultures who see things differently, have different opinions, and ways of evaluating things. What is often more appropriate in ones culture could be different and inappropriate in the other’s culture, and this provides an opportunity for conflicts in the work place. With this view, it is therefore important to create awareness and have knowle dge on the impact of cultural diversity amongst work mates. Many researchers have been dwelling around the issue of cultural diversity in organizations and other work places and in the process, many theories have been put in place, the purpose of these researches is to ascertain the importance of having awareness of the impact of multiculturalism in organizations. D’Almeida (2007) found out that the integration of cultural diverse groups has been involved in many parts of team dynamics in organizations with different types of customers, this has increased misunderstandings, resulting in negative effects on the side of production, job togetherness, and the quality of service has been greatly affected. In order to address the issue of negative effects of cultural diversity in organizations, there are varieties of measures that organizations should undertake. One of them is leadership approaches and trainings, which should be good enough to address the issues faced with regard t o cultural diversity. Many issues have to be overcome so that individuals can reach the objective of increasing motivation and targeted productivity levels. Amongst the awareness created is knowledge on individuals’ identities, perceptions on various things, variations in geographical setup, together with the internal and external environments. Beck and Rubaii- Berret, who are cited in D’ Almeida (2007) point out that individuals in the work place must understand and observe morals towards other people in workplace; doing this brings about motivation and effectiveness to the workers and they can therefore reach the targeted production level in the organization. Cultural awareness is very crucial for multicultural groups to maximize their business potential. It helps members of a multicultural group to identify wrong doings and best ways of solving conflicts. This can be effected through training, and by also identifying the most crucial regions that need attention and formal cross cultural awareness. There are various ways in which cultural differences can manifest from within a group of closely related people, and in this case, the workmates. According to, Kwintessential (n.d) creating real cross cultural harmony is accomplished through appropriately designed cultural awareness training. Ways of Creating Cultural Awareness 1. Treating colleagues as individuals To effectively deal with the issue of diverse cultures, people have