Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T02:48:53.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural Differences at Work: How Managers Deepen or Lessen the Cross-Racial Divide in their Workgroups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Oluremi B. Ayoko  and
Charmine E.J. Härtel
Get access

Extract

A Brisbane worker recently commented in an interview, ‘I think there's a lot of difficulty just in cultural diversity.’ The worker, a member of a racial minority group, said:

If I was to categorise the problems, my frustration here would be more personal, the lack of understanding of issues and people – it is really just diverse people skills. Not understanding that people come from different backgrounds and people just talking out of their narrow experiences, they just don't realise that they are insulting you… (interview with Ayoko, November 1999).

What do managers do about these cross-racial tensions at work? Analysis of our interview data revealed that most (80%) leaders do nothing about the conflict. Where something is done, workers often report that it worsens rather than lightens the tension in the work atmosphere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , August 2000 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Works Cited

Agyris, C. 1962. Interpersonal Competence and Organisational Effectiveness. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
Bass, B. M. 1990. Bass and Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: Theory Research and Managerial Applications, New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Berscheid, E. 1983. ‘Emotion’. In Close Relationships. Kelley, H. and Associates. New York: WH Freeman and Company.Google Scholar
Boucher, S. and Hesketh, B. 1994. ‘Power distance, individualism/collectivism, and job related attitudes in culturally diverse work groups’. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 25: 233–257.Google Scholar
Brehmer, B. 1976. ‘Social judgement theory and the analysis of interpersonal conflict’. Psychological Bulletin 83: 985–1003.Google Scholar
Cox, T.H. and Blake, S. 1991. ‘Managing cultural diversity: implications for organizational competitiveness’. Academy of Management Executive 5: 45–56.Google Scholar
Brewer, N., Wilson, C. and Beck, K. 1994. ‘Supervisory behaviour and team performance amongst police patrol sergeants’. Journal of Occupational Psychology 67,1: 69–78.Google Scholar
Bryne, D. 1971. The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fleishman, E.A. 1953. ‘The description of supervisory behavior’. Journal of Applied Psychology 37: 1–6.Google Scholar
Fujimoto, Y., Härtel, C.E.J., Härtel, G.F., and Baker, N.J. In press. ‘A field test of the diversity-openness moderator model in well-established groups: Diversity has affective, behavioural, and cognitive consequences and openness to dissimilarity moderates these consequences’. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Google Scholar
Gardener, H. 1983. Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hambrick, D.C. 1994. ‘Top management groups: a conceptual integration and reconsideration of the “team” label’. In Shaw, B.M. and Cummings, L.L. Research in Organizational Behavior. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 171–213.Google Scholar
Harrison, D.A., Price, K.H. and Bell, M.P. 1998. ‘Beyond relational demography: time and the effects of surface-and deep level diversity on work group cohesion’. Academy of Management Journal 41: 96–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Härtel, C.E.J., Barker, S. and Baker, N. 1999a. ‘A model for predicting the effects of employee-customer interactions on consumer attitudes, intentions, and behaviours. The role of emotional intelligence in service encounters’. Australian Journal of Communication 26, 2: 77–87.Google Scholar
Härtel, C.E.J., Douthitt, S., Härtel, G.F., and Douthitt, S. 1999b. ‘Equally qualified but unequally perceived: General cultural openness as a predictor of discriminatory performance ratings’. Human Resource Development Quarterly 10, 1: 79–89.Google Scholar
Härtel, C.E.J. and Fujimoto, Y. In press. ‘Diversity is not a problem to be managed by organisations but openness to perceived dissimilarity is’. Journal of Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management. Google Scholar
Härtel, C.E.J. and Fujimoto, Y. 1999, August. ‘Explaining why diversity sometimes has positive effects in organizations and sometimes has negative effects in organizations: the perceived dissimilarity openness moderator model’. Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings. Google Scholar
Hofstede, G. 1993. ‘Cultural constraints in management theories’. Academy of Management Executive 7: 81–94.Google Scholar
Hodgett, R.M. and Luthans, F. 1994. International Management. McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Jackson, S.E. 1991. ‘Team composition in organizational settings: Issues in managing a diverse workforce’ In Worchel, S., Wood, W. and Simpson, J. Group Processes and Productivity. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Huy, Q. 1999. ‘Emotional capability, emotional intelligence, and radical change’. Academy of Management Review 24: 12.Google Scholar
Jehn, K.A. 1995. ‘A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict’, Administrative Science Quarterly 40, 2: 256–283.Google Scholar
Jehn, K.A. 1997. ‘Qualitative analysis of conflict types and dimensions in organisational groups’ Administrative Science Quarterly 42, 3: 538–566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, P., Ashkanasy, N.M. and Härtel, C.E.J. Accepted, pending revisions. ‘The effect of job insecurity on employee innovation: a bounded emotionality analysis’. Academy of Management Review. Google Scholar
Jordan, P.J., Ashkanasy, N.M, Härtel, C.E.J. and Hooper, G.S. 2000. ‘Workgroup emotional intelligence: scale development and relationship to team process effectiveness and goal focus’. Human Resource Management Review. Google Scholar
Mayer, J.D. and Salovey, P. 1993. ‘The intelligence of emotional intelligence’. Intelligence 17, 4: 433–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milliken, F.J. and Martins, L.L. 1996. ‘Searching for common threads: understanding the multiple effects of diversity in organisational groups’. Academy of Management Review 21, 2: 402–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nemeth, C. 1986. ‘Differential contributions of majority and minority influence’. Psychological Review 93: 23–32.Google Scholar
Nystrom, P.C. 1978. ‘Managers of the hi-hi leader myth’. Academy of Management Journal 21, 2: 325–331.Google Scholar
Raven, B. and Rubin, J. 1976. Social Psychology: People in Groups. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Ross, R.S. 1989. ‘Conflict’. In Ross, R. and Ross, J. Small Groups in Organizational Settings. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 139–178.Google Scholar
Salovey, P. and Mayer, J. 1990. ‘Emotional intelligence’. Imagination, Cognition and Personality 9: 185–211.Google Scholar
Schein, E.H. 1992. Organisational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Tannenbaum, S.I., Salas, E. and Cannon-Bowers, J.A. 1996. ‘Promoting team effectiveness’. In West, M.A. Handbook of Work Group Psychology. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Thorndike, E.L. 1920. ‘Intelligence and its uses’. Harper's Magazine 140: 227–235.Google Scholar
Yukl, G. 1989. ‘Managerial leadership: a review of theory and research’. Journal of Management 15, 2: 251–289.Google Scholar