MANAGING DIVERSITY & RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Diversity is the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting (Cox 2001).

Group is two or more people with common interests, objectives, and continuing interaction.

Aspects of Group Behavior:

Norms: standards that a work group uses to evaluate the behavior of its members.

Group Cohesion: “interpersonal glue” that makes members of a group stick together.

Social Loafing: failure of a group member to contribute personal time, effort, thoughts, or other to the group.

Loss of Individuality:  social process in which individual group members lose self-awareness and its accompanying sense of accountability, inhibition, and responsibility for individual behavior.

Here in Colombia, diversity has become an important issue to fulfill  global needs, to enter into global market, to support diversity in population.

Valuing differences: means recognizing and appreciating that individuals are different, that diversity is an advantage if it is valued and well managed, and that diversity is not to be simply tolerated but encouraged, supported and nurtured (Jamieson and O’Mara 1991).

Diversity can be seen as value-added because creativity increases, problem solves easily, innovation implemented, organizational flexibility; or as a barrier because less effective communication, lack of common experiences, lower level of commitment to the group and conflict can appears.

Human capital is a source of competitive advantage when employees possess different valuable skills and they are better matched to the firm’s strategy. So as more heterogeneous a team is the more superior outcomes is going to produce.

According to Slater et al. (2008), what are the actions likely to enhance organization-wide commitment to diversity? Explain which one could be most applied in the context of Colombia.

Diversity becomes a source of competitive advantage when there is a deep commitment to it. That is why is so important to make this commitment stronger. There are several ways to do so:

• Demonstrate how diversity ties directly to the organization’s business strategy.
• Managers are responsible for communicating their beliefs in diversity to all employees.
• Treat human capital as the source of competitive advantage it is.
• Emphasize in team-building and group processes.
• Reach multicultural consumer markets
• Reach multicultural suppliers
• Prepare for conflict.

I believe, here in Colombia is important to implement the pursuit of diverse suppliers. There is a diversity in ethnic groups in the country, for example the   Afro-Americans 10,6% of the population, the indies as 3,4%. Now-a-days there is an awareness of preserving and protecting this ethnic groups and a good way to do so is involving them in the supply chain of an organization. Eventually, if marketing strategies include diversity in their programs, I believe sales will increase. For example, I know a youg entrepreneur who is involving people that live in the mountain to her business as they make “arepas” and she is commercializing them and selling. And this is a value-added to her business because she can say there are 100% natural and that she is contributing to solve the social problematic of the country

RELIGION

Retrieved from: http://tiposdereligion.blogspot.com/2010/04/cristianismo.html

Is a determinant of culture, and thus it diverse from one another. Is the shared beliefs and rituals concerned with the realm of the sacred. Religion gives the status of legitimate to social arrengements and gives offical approval as promoting sense of belonging.

International business is affected by religions because as I already said, religion determines cultures. When there is a system already established, people will act according to it. Religion will tell what is good or wrong.In some countries, they live religion in an extreme way, so having business with people there encourage managers to learn about their religion and what to do in order to avoid problems caused by ignorance.

What is the dominant religion in Colombia? What are the religious implications for doing business here? Give examples.

Christianism is the most popular religion in Colombia. There are minorities as well, and Colombian constitution guarantee the freedom of beliefs but, nevertheless, this country is a really religious one, and follow sacred customs in time.

Religion beliefs will tell if a business is moral accepted or not. People are guided from their heart to make decisions.

When a project is about to be done, people pray for help, and make promises they accomplish after their favor is done. On the other hand, people are thankful to god if something results in a good way within the organization. They celebrate mass inside the organizations.

Holly week and Christmas here are holydays so commercial places may be closed during this week because managers respect  these kind of customs.

Religion as a determinant of culture will always be important in order to have a successful cross-cultural relation.

REFERENCES

1. Organizational Diversity. Sin Kit I. Class 2011-1
2. Religious Implications. Sin Kit I. Class 2011-1
3. Slater, Stanley F., Weigand, Robert A., Zweilein, Thomas J., 2008. “The business case for commitment to diversity” Business Horizons 51: 201-209
4. Thomas, David A., 2004. “Diversity as Stratefy”, Harvard Business Review, September 2004, 98-108
5. Hartman, L and Werhane, P. 2009. The global Corporation: Sustainable, Effective and Ethical Practices –a case book. Rotledge, New York. Chapter 5, p 168-181. Islamic Banking and Finance.
6. Image retrieved from: http://tiposdereligion.blogspot.com/2010/04/cristianismo.html