Cultural Diversity in Global Business

INTRODUCTION

Background

To maintain the business in the global market, the organisations need to understand the concept of cultural diversity and manage the changes in the existing functions professionally (Hunt, et al., 2018). The terms cultural diversity refers to recognition and respect for the different religion, age group, gender and race. The consideration of these elements is beneficial for an organization to develop a healthy and competitive working environment that increase performance and productivity (Deresky, and Christopher, 2015). The proper knowledge and understanding of cultural diversity are important for the organizations to offer equal value to the staff members, celebrating differences and increase the collaboration among the employee to contribute to the achievement of goals and objectives (Hampden-Turner, and Trompenaars, 2020).

Aim and objective

Aim

The study aims to analyse the importance of cultural diversity on global business planning and management of McDonald's.

Objectives

To understand the effects and importance of cultural diversity for the global organization

To analyze the impact of cultural diversity on business planning and management of McDonald

To identify the issues in managing cultural diversity and approaches to manage them to achieve business goals

Research questions

1. What is cultural diversity and its importance for the international organization?

2. How cultural diversity is influencing the business plan and management of the company?

3. What are the factors affecting cultural diversity and strategic approaches to overcome their impact?

METHODOLOGY

To manage and complete the research in a systematic manner, the researcher will apply the appropriate tools and techniques. To analyse the importance of cultural diversity on business planning and management of an organization, the researcher will use interpretive philosophy that will help to understand both positive and negative impact on the planning of the company. The approach that will be applied by the researcher would be deductive that helps in analyzing different concepts of cultural diversity and how it can support a company to meet the business goals by managing the behaviour of employee (Snyder, 2019). The design of the study would be exploratory which will help the researcher to identify the importance of cultural diversity using different ideas and trends used by the companies in the global market. This design will help to develop a strong research background and critically analyse the importance for the company (Kumar, 2018).

The type of study will be qualitative which will support the researcher in planning, collecting and analyzing the data considering the input of the respondents and comparing the findings with the previous studies. The involvement of human experience will be beneficial for supporting the arguments and justifying the objective of the study (Flick, 2015). The collection of data will be done using the primary approach utilizing the questionnaire method for the survey. Apart from this, the researcher will use a non-probability sampling technique for selecting the sample of 100 staff members of McDonald and distribute the questionnaire through an online medium. Now, to analyse the data, the researcher will use the frequency distribution and graph method (Pandey, and Pandey, 2015). By using this method, the researcher will interpret the input of the sample and critically discuss the finding.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Cultural diversity and importance

The term cultural diversity is consideration of different value, belief and ethnic approaches that followed by the people as per their background of community and social environment. The culture and value of community are having a direct impact on the perception, learning, needs and management action of individual that create the differences in solving the problem and managing the operations (Trax, Brunow, and Suedekum, 2015). The leading organizations are expanding their business in overseas markets and looking to craft improvement in workplace diversity. This kind of approach is helping these companies to understand the actual needs of the target customers and offer them the products and services as per the culture. As per the views of Lambert, (2016) the involvement of different culture staff is also helpful for analysing the business issues and focus on the different perceptive to plan the strategy that could help in retaining and attracting the customers. The results of maintaining cultural diversity are innovative and helping the management to improve the decision making and planning of the successful strategy to meet the goals (Nathan, 2016).

Challenges and approaches

There are various challenges for companies that affect the cultural diversity management planning of the business actions. The major challenges that influence business planning and management due to cultural diversity involve the lack of trust, different perception and changes in the approach of working as well as communication (Elia, Petruzzelli, and Piscitello, 2019). The management needs to focus on these to craft improvement in the planning and achieving the goals. However, to manage cultural diversity, the management could apply different strategies that involve the promotion of open communication and foster a strong relationship among the workers to manage the operations (Kamales, and Knorr, 2019).

ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

To complete the study systematically, the consideration and implementation of ethical policies are beneficial. For the current study, the researcher will follow ethical standards like prior consent from the respondents, ensure them that privacy will be maintained and this study will be used for educational purpose only. Moreover, the researcher will not copy any information from external sources and implement the instruction of the mentor to completing the research.

PROJECT TIMELINE

The research will follow the timeline for completing the study. According to the proposed time table for the study, it will be completed within 160 days from starting. The research will start the main research from September 2021 and try to complete it by April 2022. The major activities of research will involve planning of topic, introduction, research background, research methodology, data collection and analysis as well as findings of the study. The researcher will follow the estimated time for each activity and submit the research on time.

REFERENCES

Deresky, H. and Christopher, E., 2015. International management: Managing cultural diversity. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Elia, S., Petruzzelli, A.M. and Piscitello, L., 2019. The impact of cultural diversity on innovation performance of MNC subsidiaries in strategic alliances. Journal of Business Research, 98, pp.204-213.

Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project.

Hampden-Turner, C. and Trompenaars, F., 2020. Riding the waves of culture: Understanding diversity in global business. Hachette UK.

Hunt, V., Prince, S., Dixon-Fyle, S. and Yee, L., 2018. Delivering through diversity. McKinsey & Company, 231.

Kamales, N. and Knorr, H., 2019. Leaders with Managing Cultural Diversity and Communication. Asia Pacific Journal of Religions and Cultures, 3(1), pp.63-72.

Kumar, R., 2018. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage.

Lambert, J., 2016. Cultural diversity as a mechanism for innovation: Workplace diversity and the absorptive capacity framework. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 20(1), p.68.

Nathan, M., 2016. Ethnic diversity and business performance: Which firms? Which cities?. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 48(12), pp.2462-2483.

Pandey, P. and Pandey, M., 2015. Research methodology: Tools and techniques.

Snyder, H., 2019. Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104, pp.333-339.

Trax, M., Brunow, S. and Suedekum, J., 2015. Cultural diversity and plant-level productivity. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 53, pp.85-96.

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