Managing a multicultural workforce and multicultural customers Essay

Managing a multicultural workforce and multicultural customers - Essay Example Managing a multicultural workforce and multicultural customers The functions of human resource management become more varied and complex when the customers and employees are located around the world. Apart from the factors such as technology, economic systems, legal frameworks and industrial relations, the cultural factors also assume great importance in the managing of a global workforce. And the most prominent manifestation of the cultural challenge is the diversity of modern workforce. Thus the human resource in all transnational business endeavors has become increasingly diverse in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, culture, political views, physical abilities and psychological orientation. This essay aims to explore the thesis that efficient management of a multicultural workforce can serve as a pool of opportunities for businesses that cater to a multicultural customer base. The concept of culture is difficult to define in explicit terms. On a broad and generalized level, culture refers to the set of characteristics and features that defines a group and separates it from other groups. The famous social psychologist Florence Kluckholn has defined culture as â€Å"a patterned way of thinking, feeling, and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, and constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts.† The expert organizational scholar Geert Hofstede has described culture as â€Å"the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one human group from another†.