Essay on Diversity in the Workplace

Submitted By rambojatt
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Table of Contents
I. Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
III. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
IV. Aritz & Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
V. Bouncken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
VI. Cronin & Weingart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
VII. Knouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
VIII. Muir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
IX. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
X. Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
a. Table 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
XI. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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III. Introduction
As Canada has continued to open its borders to immigrants from across the globe, our population has become increasingly diverse, as has our work force. In the last few decades, managers have faced the challenge of incorporating new management strategies to lead these mixed teams. These groups are composed of members from different countries, with different cultures, and different schools of thought. Naturally then, the gears may not be moving in the same direction amongst the independent minds that compose these teams. However, without cohesiveness, organizations may risk efficiency. Further, a multicultural workforce has been noted to face communication barriers, and social isolation as well. These issues have sparked an interest in research in this area, and many scholars and academic researchers have set out to discover management strategies to remedy these issues, and promote team cohesiveness.

IV. Aritz, J, & Walker, R. (2010). Cognitive organization and identity maintenance in multicultural teams. Journal of Business Communication, 47(1), 20-41.
Aritz and Walker use discourse analysis to observe communication practices in intercultural decision-making meetings, specifically involving native English speakers and participants from East Asian countries. Their study found that group composition affected communication patterns as participants moved from being a majority to a minority in a group.
The study found that as native English speakers became the minority in a group, their latching behavior increased, which the study describes as a high-involvement conversational style. Their findings show that native English speaking team members do not simply maintain their communicative behaviors, but diverge in terms of their participation patterns as the group

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composition changes. For a detailed comparison between U.S born english speakers and native speakers of East Asian Languages see Table 1.1.
Furthermore, the article found differences between people from different cultures regarding the way they work and socialize with others. While some cultures had more confrontational communicators, others had more