CULTURAL CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM FOR FIRMS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Increasing nature of cultural diversity in our business environment is a challenge facing managers of today. This is the intrigue of globalization and modern day’s information technology that is creating team to connect operations and to connect different people from different cultures; therefore conflict may arise from these cultures. Culture is multi-layered which means that what you see on the surface may mask differences below the surface. The study analyzed culture, and heterogeneous team behavior, cause of conflict and ways to solve it. It also analyzed heterogeneous problem solving that can derive innovation. The paper therefore present that cultural conflict is inevitable and if properly managed could lead to innovativeness and competitive advantage to an organisation. The study examines different branches of cultural conflicts and identifies opinions of different cultural groups used questionnaires and interviewed people who have worked in heterogeneous team for validation. At the end, the result showed that heterogeneous cultural team is viewed advantageous more than homogenous team.

Keywords

• corporate culture conflict management, innovativeness

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