Diversification of the American Workforce: Impact on Interaction betwee

Diversification of the American Workforce: Impact on Interaction between Managers and Employees Abstract The diversification of the American Workforce has changed the way managers interact with employees. This diversification is due to tighter labor markets, increased immigration, and women entering the workforce. Cultural factors, not present before, have caused managers to develop new methods of tasking, motivating, and educating these diverse employees. Essentially these new methods have been a change in interpersonal behavior, the way a manager acts and re-acts to employees. This change in behavior was necessary to increase productivity and maintain a competitive edge in the market place. I. Introduction In my Cultural Anthropology course, I had to learn and memorize the definition of culture; â€Å"Culture is an organized system of learned behavior patterns, always made manifest in a group, making that group distinctive from other groups†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This definition was the basis for my understanding and ability to learn about other people, different than myself and from different backgrounds, during my studies in Anthropology and Psychology. This definition has the key element of what culture is, a system of behavior distinctive to a particular group of people. These behaviors range from cultural norms to religious beliefs. In business, the effectiveness of an organization rests on the ability of the management to interact with its employees and to motivate the workforce to accomplish the goals of the company. This ability of interaction between the manager and the employees depends on the managers understanding of the cultural differences between himself and his employees. The masculine form is only being used as example for the purpose of this paper. It is understood that the managers will most likely be male or female. An organization is affected by cultural factors on many levels. The top management forms the basic foundation of an organization when they set the primary goals for that organization, the reason the organization is in business. An example would be that a car company in the United States of America would have the ultimate goal of making large amounts of profit for it’s stakeholders. This goal is derived in the root cultural tenant of capitalism. The United States was founded with capitalist ideas and so American managers will have capitalist ide... ...behavior towards diverse employees and learn to understand the cultural differences between them will undoubtedly increase productivity and gain a competitive edge in the market place.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   VI. References Bernstein, A. and Rozen, S. (1992). Neanderthals at work. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Bowman-Kruhm, M. and Wirths, C. (1998). Discrimination and prejudice. New York: Rosen Publishing. Burns, J. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row. Chaleff, I. (1995). The courageous follower. San Francisco: Berlett-Koehler Publishers. Creating a diverse workforce. (n.d.) Retrieved March 1, 2003, from http://www.businessweek. com/adsections/diversity/diversework.htm Daft, R. (1988). Management. New York: The Dryden Press. Devoe, D. (1999). Managing a diverse workforce. Retrieved March 1, 2003, from http://archive.infoworld.com/articles Kotkin, J. (1993). Tribes: how race, religion, and identity determine success in the new global economy. New York: Random House. Kowalenko, K. (2000). Increasing diversity in America’s science, engineering, and technology fields. Retrieved March 1, 2003, from http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/inst/dec2000