Communication Between Cultures

Given the globalized market and the growing diversity of U.S. demographics, con-

temporary organizations face little option but to incorporate cultural diversity and

adapt to the new requirements. Today, companies must market their product to

appeal to a variety of cultures and concomitantly draw on employees of that same

variety. Although these requirements have presented new challenges and problems,

they have also brought numerous benefits to the workplace, and we will explain

three of them: (1) increased perspectives, (2) greater flexibility and adaptability, and

(3) expanded market share.

As you have learned, it is common for people of different cultures to have dis-

similar worldviews and approaches to life.This lack of commonality in a multicul-

tural workforce offers the benefit of expanded perspectives, which in turn can

increase creativity within the organization. Having people with different perspec-

tives focus on a problem will produce more innovative, viable solutions, and col-

laborative solutions are normally adoptedand implemented much faster than when

directed from above. A multicultural work environment also brings about greater

flexibility and adaptability for the organization as a whole. Employees of a global-

ized organization, possessingattributes of various cultures, have already learned to

adapt to changing environments and how to best deal with uncertainty. That expe-

rience provides them with insight into helping the organization as a whole adapt to

changing market conditions and manage newcustomer requirements. This diversity

of talent and experience also offers the organization a venue for expanding their

customer base.

On the off chance that you remain unconvinced of the merits of diversity and

the need for corporations to meet the demands of the globalized marketplace, we

offer you the following example of what can happen when organizations fail to

accommodate. In 1995, theFortuneGlobal 500 list included 147 Japanese compa-

nies, but only sixty-two were listed in 2013, a 42 percent drop. According to aca-

demic reports, this decline was a result of Japan’s inability to adapt to the forces of

globalization. Diversity is a major driver of innovation in organizations today, but

Japanese companies and many of their technologies have remained surprisingly insu-

lar and unable to integrate into the larger global market, a condition commonly

called the“Galapagos syndrome.”Japan’s resistance to change, a product of high

uncertainty avoidance, has also inhibited the growth of start-ups, a prominent driver

of the global economy. The misfortunes of Japanese MNCs attest to the requirement

for contemporary organizations to embrace cultural diversity and acquire intercul-

tural competence.^24

Education in the Globalized Society

Globalization and accompanying migration patterns have significantly changed the

demographic composition of nearly all U.S. and most European Union (EU) nations’

classrooms. Many EU countries have long had diverse populations due to immigrants

from their former colonies. Now, new arrivals from the Middle East and Africa are

making their way to Italy, Greece, and Spain and moving northward into other

European nations. The United States is not immune to these kinds of demographic

shifts in its school populations, as immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and the

Middle East are coming, both legally and illegally, to classrooms in the United States.

Many of these new arrivals bring their children—or in some cases, are children

Benefits of Globalized Organizations 355

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