Question

The Science of Skin Color

You will write a weekly blog reflecting upon these issues, but rather than offering an unsubstantiated opinion on these matters, you’ll be expected to offer a unique but informed opinion supported by scholarly research and empirical evidence.

please consider the following.

1. 1 citation of an academic source (a relevant peer-reviewed article) from outside of class. Hint: Wikipedia is not an academic source. Sources may not be reused week-to-week.

2. 1 citation of a news media article relevant to the topic.
3. At least 1 audio or visual element that adds substantial content to support your argument. This could be a link to a video, pictures, etc.
4. 500 words.

Answer 1

The need of multiculturism and cultural intelligence to manage diversity and inclusion in companies

With the advent of technological evolution and increase in the level of awareness, companies have become ardent advocates of diversity and inclusion. The companies want to hire diverse workforce. The primary objective behind this is that a diverse workforce at the company facilitates innovative and out of box thinking and helps in strengthening the overall competitive advantage of the company in the market. Multicultural organization is one which appreciated the diverse background of its employees and encourages the employees to come up with unique perspectives based on their varying backgrounds and heritages. Multicultural organizations are great propagators of diversity and inclusion and usually are companies with positive employer brand.

Changing workforce: The baby boomers are retiring and the millennials are taking their place in the business setting. Millennials prefer companies which have flexible policies and are functional, without any kind of bias or discrimination. Hence the companies need to increase their diversity and inclusion rate so as to attract millennials.
Gender issues: All kind of gender issues get sorted when the company inculcates diversity and inclusion and offers equal opportunities to all.
Minorities and immigrants: Various companies are adopting a paternalistic approach to integrate the minorities and immigrants in their workforce. This makes the workforce diverse as well as projects company with a positive employer brand.
People with disability: Companies are making special changes and accommodations to include people with disability in their workforce. Such employees are specifically referred to as people with special ability and are treated positively by the company.
The challenges that a company faces in managing diversity and inclusion are:

Ethnic and cultural differences among the employees
Conflicts leading to cultural insensitivity
Miscommunication in the project teams due to presence of members with diverse backgrounds
Different understanding of workplace etiquettes
Varying work style may lead to inconsistency
Cultural intelligence is one of the most essential competency for leaders and managers of a diverse company, which aids them to work effectively in any kind of cultural background. It helps the leader to propagate a culture of diversity and inclusion. The leader will be able to adapt to the new cultural setting effectively, if he is culturally intelligent.

A leader must inculcate the Cultural intelligence model in his leadership style to facilitate his interaction with diverse employees:

Acquire: The leader must acquire knowledge about the culture and value system of the employee
Build: The leader must build his strategic thinking so as to understand the differences between his culture and the culture of the employee. This will help in keeping a note of aspects which can have emotional and sentimental value to the employee
Contemplate: This evaluates the willingness of the leader to do an interaction with an employee of different culture and background
Do: Once the leader feels that he is ready and has inculcated the details of the employee’s culture, he can go and interact with the employee, quite freely
If a leader or the management of the company did not have cultural intelligence traits, managing diverse workforce at the company can be quite difficult.

The challenges that a company faces in managing diversity and inclusion are:

Ethnic and cultural differences among the employees
Conflicts leading to cultural insensitivity
Miscommunication in the project teams due to presence of members with diverse backgrounds
The companies strive hard to maintain a diverse background. Culture intelligence is one of the most essential competency for leaders of a diverse company, which aids them to work effectively in any kind of cultural background. It helps the leader to propagate a culture