Research proposal-The relationship between cultural diversity and employee performance

Introduction

Cultural diversity in the workforce has grown as a trend over time due to increased globalization of businesses. Organizations have paid attention on the issue of cultural diversity since employees have varying ways of analyzing and thinking thus variety of perspectives. Cultural diversity in the workforce has positive and negative effects to an organization in terms of performance and management of the employees. Committed workforce has been the urge of every establishment within the current competitive business environment. However, cultural diversity has affected the commitment of the workforce forcing organizations to pay attention to management of cultural diverse workforce. Ideally, the perception of an employee regarding to the workplace setting greatly impacts their attitudes and job behaviors particularly in the current content where there is cultural diverse workforce environment. Cultural diversity in workplaces has been as a result of values, traditions, beliefs and norms of an employee based on their age, race, gender and ethnicity (Brown, 2008). Diversity in the workplace has raised an important topic over the past few years. This is because most multinational companies have embraced cultural diversity with much acceptance and management of diverse employees. This will explore the cultural diversity and its influence to employee performance.

Aims and objectives

The dissertation will aim at exploring the relationship amid cultural multiplicity and employee performance. The thrust of this dissertation is investigation and exploration of the connection between cultural diversity and employee performance. Development and advancement in science and technology has enabled people from various cultural backgrounds to work together in companies as employees. This ability of different cultural b backgrounds working together has led to opportunities and challenges within the establishments. This brings about how different cultural diversity affects the employee performance in an organization.

Cultural diversity has been considered to bring a new perspective in the workplace. This is because most organizations have tried to manage diversity for the success of their operations. With regards to this, it is important to estimate how much influence does cultural multiplicity in a workplace has to do with worker’s performance to the company. This dissertation is intended to shed light on the influence of cultural diversity on worker performance and commitment to their work in the company. The findings will give a revelation as to whether cultural diversity has a positive or negative relationship to the performance of an organization.

The objectives include:

• To examine consequence of cultural diversity on worker performance
• To explore the connection amid cultural diversity and worker performance
• To determine major factors of work settings and its effects on the performance of employees
• To explore how workforce diversity and workforce commitment add to the achievement of the establishment.

Theoretical basis

Earlier research on workforce multiplicity has suggested that cultural multiplicity can either be helpful or damaging to worker’s performance. For instance, workplace diversification can be certainly linked to problematic solving and creativeness whereas it can be damagingly related to teamwork and cohesiveness. Considerably, proper workforce multiplicity actions in the field of human resource management are alleged to facilitate both business and worker multiplicity that has permitted creativity (Martin, 2014). Relatively, the sense that cultural multiplicity brings about both helpful and damaging impacts to organization performance, businesses are quickly trying to mitigate the negative impacts and capitalizing on the positive effects. The management and acceptance of cultural multiplicity has been endorsed and considered optimistic tool in organizational and social management directed at preventing and solving group issues as well as societies (Martin, 2014). With regards it is significant to understand the connection between cultural multiplicity and employee commitment and loyalty to the organization.

AlJenaibi, 2011 argues that the positive impact of cultural diversity in the workplace is the improved tendency of the personnel in the organization to overcome culture shock since business are expanding with increased global network. Employees with different cultural backgrounds come with various experiences that they are able to share with each other thus being productive. The different ways of analyzing matters and thinking have improve their performance in the organization when they work as a team. When cultural diverse employees are put in a group to achieve goals they rely on vast knowledge vase through which they are able to achieve better.

According Mazur (2010) multinational organizations have been in the midst of cultural transformation and change. The global markets are demanding companies that will remain competitive relevant and flexible to adequately reaction to the market changes. Workforce diversity and commitment of employees in the content of international markets has attained significant attention. Considerably, McKay, Avery and Morris (2008) argue that the perception of employees towards significant work setting has impacted their work attitudes and behaviors especially in the current world of business environment. Work setting has influenced the performance and job satisfaction of the employees. As diverse workforce brings about the feeling of satisfaction and identification, it has been accepted by researchers that diverse and committed workforce is related negatively to the employee turnover (McKay et al., 2007). Generally, a working environment with diverse workforce is considered as the degree to which an establishment concentrates on the maintenance of a flexible workplace.

Amaram (2007) argues that diversified work environment ensures a positive connection among the employees and the organization with regards to who employees feel about their jobs. Amaram (2007) adds that the level of comfort within an organization is higher when a committed and diverse workforce is higher contributing to the success of an organization. With a conducive working environment in a culturally diverse workforce imbued with varying positive attitudes such as performance and job satisfaction are linked.

Numerous researches have been carried out on workplace multiplicity both locally and internationally. Mkoji and Sikalieh (2012) conducted a research on the impact of character extents on routine of the organization. Then main aim of this research was to survey how personality extents effect the organization’s performance. Elsaid (2012) carried out a research on the impacts of multicultural workforce multiplicity on routine of worker in Egyptian medical establishments. The research examined influence of age, sex and learning variety in the medical industry that was well-known for a diverse workforce. The statistics collected through self-administered surveys that shown that there is a great discrepancy in worker performance when the employees are diverse. When the culturally diverse employees are placed in a group their differences and other variables can hinder their development. Another research was carried out by Emiko and Eunmi (2009) who deliberated on the diversity organization and its influence to employee’s obligation proof from Korea and Japan The investigation has labelled the various certainties in the organization t of diverse workforce and examined how the practices have impacted the attitudes of the employees in work. The outcomes revealed that diversity organization has triggered constructive influence on the obligation of employees.

Research methodology

The methodology will explain how the data was collected and how the research was conducted. This will allow the readers to evaluate the validity and fallibility of the research. The research will be an exploratory study which will be used in achieving understanding of the opinions, fundamental reasons and inspirations. This will offer insights into the issue of cultural diversity and employee commitment and develop hypotheses and ideas relevant to the data collected.

For the research, the data collection method to be relied on will be individual interviews in order to get the different views and perceptions of employees and management on the relationship between employee commitment and cultural multiplicity at work. The key advantage of interview in this kind of investigation is that they are suitable in obtaining more detailed information about perceptions, feelings and opinions (Creswell, 2017). In this case, this will be useful to obtain opinions and views on the state of connection between cultural multiplicity and employee obligation and loyalty within work. They will permit more detailed questions to be asked and at the same time they receive a high response rate.

Research design

The research design defines the research type. This is can be considered as an inclusive approach that will be relied upon on the diverse working during the research in a rational and coherent manner (Creswell, 2017). This will guarantee that the results addressed the study questions and problems. Considerably, in this dissertation, a descriptive research approach will be relied on to conclude the relationship amid cultural multiplicity in the workplace and employee obligation and loyalty in the company. The descriptive will involve describing and observing the behavior of the respondent without impacting them in any manner. This will be important in obtaining the general overview of the subject without influencing the normal behavior of the individuals.

Research plan

Data collection

Data that will be relied on the research will be both secondary and primary data. The secondary data will be obtained from secondary sources such as journals and articles that are essential in offering information about previous research that is linked to the research. This will be important in comparing the findings of the current research as well as drawing meaningful conclusions (Crowther and Lancaster, 2012).

On the other hand, the primary data will be obtained from interviews conducted to get the insights, opinions and perceptions of employees and the managed. Analysis of both the primary and secondary data will be important in for data examination and reasoning. The interviews will be conducted both face to face and telephone interview in order to save on time since some of the employees are too busy during their working hours. The two forms of interview will effectively enable acquiring the nature of information that will be essential for the research.

Sample size

Primary data will be collected from a fixed multinational company where 15 respondents will be participants of the interview. The 15 respondents will be middle level workers and officials. This sample was obtained through considering various personal distinctiveness such as the range of age (27-40 years), work experience and qualification (degree level) as well as few performance assessments on their performance in the organization. This sample design will be essential in obtaining meaningful data for the intended purpose which is to explore how cultural diversity influences or relates to employee commitment and loyalty within the organization.

Instrument and measure

Data will be collected through semi structured interview that will occur with a set of unstructured set of questions that the respondent is expected to respond to. The questions to be asked during the interview will be asked depending on the requirements and type of respondent being asked. In all the questions during the research, their views will be used to gauge the respondents. The interview will occur for 20-30 minutes but will progress mostly on a normal conversation related to the research topic. The research questions will allow the respondents to give answers that the researcher can make quick judgement since they are direct and have been linked to the life of an employee in a culture diverse workforce.  For instance, the interview questions that can be asked during the research can include:

1. Why do you recruit employees from diverse cultural backgrounds?
2. What are some of the benefits of recruiting people from diverse cultural settings for the establishment?
3. What are the challenges or shortcomings?

Procedure and analysis

During the interview, the respondents will be allowed to give their opinions or views as responses that will be recorded by the interview. The interviewer will make it clear to respondents in case of technicalities in understanding the questions during the interview. After the collection of data, relevant information regarding the research topic that was gathered will be used to examine on the association between the cultural multiplicity and worker commitment. The outcomes will be present used to display the relation or variance with other researchers that have explored on the relationship of employee commitment and cultural multiplicity in the workplace.

Ethical considerations

For the drive of validity and credibility of the research and analysis of data, it is relevant out the research in an ethical manner. Therefore, to ensure that the research is conducted in an ethical manner it will be important to put into consideration major ethical issues such as collection of data, usage and storage of data during the research. The research will have carried both face to face and online and will tell the 15 respondents the importance of the study. Respondents will also need to answer and respond to the interviewer truthfully and they have the right to stop the interview anytime. The interview will be varied out anonymously and information will be confidential. All actions will be based on the willingness of the participants and the urge not to harm the participants. The results of the research will be authentic and data will not be changed at any time. Relatively, the research will not disclose any information that will be given by the employees or management officials.

References

Amaram, D. I. (2007). Cultural diversity: Implications for workplace management. Journal of Diversity Management, 2(4), 1-6.

Brown, S. L. (2008). Diversity in the workplace: a study of gender, race, age, and salary level. Capella University.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.

Crowther, D., & Lancaster, G. (2012). Research methods. Routledge.

Elsaid, A. M. (2012). The Effects of Cross Cultural Work Force Diversity on Employee Performance in Egyptian Pharmaceutical Organizations. Business and Management Research.

Magoshi, E., & Chang, E. (2009). Diversity management and the effects on employees’ organizational commitment: Evidence from Japan and Korea. Journal of World Business, 44(1), 31-40.

Martin, G. C. (2014). The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. Journal of Diversity Management (Online), 9(2), 89.

Mazur, B. (2010). Cultural diversity in organisational theory and practice. Journal of intercultural management, 2(2), 5-15.

McKay, P. F., Avery, D. R., & Morris, M. A. (2008). Mean racial‐ethnic differences in employee sales performance: The moderating role of diversity climate. Personnel psychology, 61(2), 349-374.

McKay, P. F., Avery, D. R., Tonidandel, S., Morris, M. A., Hernandez, M., & Hebl, M. R. (2007). Racial differences in employee retention: Are diversity climate perceptions the key?. Personnel psychology, 60(1), 35-62.

Sikalieh, D., & Mkoji, D. (2012). The influence of personality dimensions on organizational performance.