Hofstede’s five dimensions of cultural differences

• What are Hofstede’s five dimensions of cultural differences that affect work attitudes? Using these dimensions describe the United States.

Individualism vs. Collectivism

The individuals believe they should make their own choices and be responsible for them, they are concerned about losing their social frames, in contrast the collectivism involves the loyalty and group thinking in order to create hormonal work process. The individualism encourages individual achievements, as collectivism enhance the impotency of equity.

High power distance vs. Low power distance: Some countries use high power distance clarify who the boss is and that they possess the power to make decision, they have more privileges then the employees. In countries with low power distance, the managers seem more equal to the employees to enhance trust in the organization.

High uncertainty avoidance vs. Low uncertainty avoidance

In countries with high uncertainty avoidance the workers avoid conflicts and follow certain routine in order to lower the possibility of mistakes who are not going to be accepted by others. Quite the opposite, in countries with low uncertainty avoidance, employees tend to accept the individual differences, therefore they take more risks and are considered as more creative.

Masculinity vs. Femininity

A cultural differences can divide the genders on their responsibilities in life. In masculinity countries the male is the one who works to support the family. In femininity countries the equity is important and the female can be the one who supports the family and the man is the one taking care of the household.

Long- term orientation vs. Short term orientation

Long- term orientation value the future, while the short term oriented countries the past with their traditions and respect. The study shows the US as the biggest individualists with weak power distance and as a big individualism acceptance they tolerate differences having low uncertainty avoidance. A country where the men are the strong type and support the family, masculinity, as well as short term oriented.

• What are the primary sources of diversity in the U.S. workplace?

1. Cultural diversity, the increased globalization increases all kinds of diversity, including the cultural. One company might have employees from multiple countries working together in one environment. The variety of cultures increases the skills requirements and expectations. For that reason, organizations need to provide different trainings for their employees to keep them well educated. The racial difference is part of the cultural diversity. African American and Hipic are more likely to live in big cities with higher level of crimes, and lower education, therefore there is lower job opportunities and the number of African American or Hipic on managing position is low. The managers need to be prepare to deal with the diversity of cultures plus prevent the risk of creation of stereotypes or racial discrimination.
2. Gender diversity, through the years the number of occupied women with higher level of education is increased dramatically. More and more women attend collage earning not only bachelor degree but busters and doctorates. Regardless the better education women still cannot bypass the barrier of the middle management. Even after the increased number of women politicians and managers, the benefits and the seleries still remind lower than the men. One of the big challenges for organizations is to promote equal opportunities and benefits for employees no matter of their gender. Women also face the conflict with her domestic responsibilities. Not only women but men also can face gender discrimination when their occupation is in a typical female job, such as nursing or social worker.
3. Age diversity, more than ever before the number of middle aged Americans workers and once at 65 years old is raising and the number of young employees is declining. It is expected 20% of the population in 2020 to be 65 and over years old. We can divide the age diversity in four generations: silent generation, they take small percentage of the organization and usually are part of the management, born between 1930 and 1945; baby boomers, who outline everybody else, they are the middle- aged employees who are known as more reliable, better experienced, educated and prepared to perform the job; baby bust born between 1965 and 1976, who are strongly related with their families and want to grow within an organization faster; the last generation is called Y, they challenge the rest of the groups because of their knowledge of modern technologies who they grow up with. Older workers seem to be better satisfied with their job, and have good influence on the young population and better their negative opinion; managers should consider this fact and use it as their advantage.
4. Ability diversity, as an individual every worker has a different abilities, whether or not disabled. Fifty percent of the people with disabilities are unemployed. The Americans with disabilities act gives equal rights to people with disabilities to be employed as long as they can perform the job. The act covers permanent and temporary disabilities, plus big range of disease. Even before the act was written companies like McDonalds and Pizza Hut build special programs to train disabled people, and educate them to perform in save environment.
5. Diversity can be in a form of sexual orientation, religion, or social status. Even nowadays people are not feeling secure to admit different sexual orientation because of the lack of understanding and accepting. Some companies offer special trainings, benefits, support groups, and marketing strategies in order to support gay rights.

• What are the potential benefits and problems of diversity?

Diversity can be beneficial for the workplace but also can cause some problems. The benefits include: attracts and retains the best human talent through the use of various management skills. The diverse work environment can be beneficial for improving marketing efforts, as multicultural point of view discus marketing plans. The diversity could be valuable for the promotion of creativity and innovation, some companies use diversity in its best, by combining teams from different cultural background. As a consequence of diverse workplace that increase the experience, critical thinking and expertise within an organization and results in better problem solving and enhances organizational flexibility. On other hand, diversity enhances some challenges among an organization. Changes are usually considered as a threat; also managers need to understand that people feel better working with someone who is exactly like them rather than someone different, that is one of the problems, resistance of change. The second problem is lack of cohesiveness. Individuals who come from different background can face problems to become part of the group. Communication problems might occur, the lack of communication might lower the group effectiveness and in addition slowed decision making, which is another issue some organizations meet.

• What is the reality of the glass ceiling? What would it take to change this reality?

The glass ceiling is a metaphor used to describe a barrier that stops women and minorities from rising into the upper level of management.

Although women increased the level of education dramatically through the years they rear have an opportunity to manage to a level more than middle. It is believed that the increasing of the globalization and the diversity among the organization the number of women as a CEO or other upper level of management would increase as well. In order to remove the glass ceiling the rights, benefits and payment among an organization need to become equal. Educational programs are needed in order each individual to accept the diverse at the workplace, from the lower to the upper level of the organization, so the management can benefit the most of the ability of each individual no matter of the gender. America needs to take an example of some western countries whose politicians and CEO are female at the same percentage as the male.

• What are some of the ethical challenges encountered in organizations?

1. Employees rights is one of the ethical challenge in organization. With the increase of use of technologies some new issues raised, such as whether or not the computer monitoring is invention of privacy, or the importance of collecting data with safeguarding purpose excuse the managers. Employees as a citizen of the US have freedom of speech, drug testing is not allowed if there is not a certain prove that certain worker might of use drugs, people with HIV or AIDS are proved to be productive as much as before and cannot be layoff if they can perform the job. People who carry HIV have the rights to keep their condition as a secret because of possible refusal of their coworkers. To create better work environment for everyone companies need to educate their employees so they can better understand the situation.
2. Sexual Harassment can be consider as a physical as well as verbal attempt or creates hostile work environment. In order to lower the possibility of sexual harassment the claims and complains need to be taken very serious from middle and lower management. There are three types of sexual harassment: Gender harassment includes sexual jokes and unfriendliness against a gender; Unwanted sexual attention, involves unwanted touching or pressure of dating; Sexual coercion, when sexual favors are offer in exchange of promotion or other kind of job related benefit exchange.
3. Another ethical challenge for the organizations is the organizational justice. The concerns are whether or not the company used the right procedures to allocate money and the decision of this allocation was thoughtfully taken with skills and competition, also if people were excluded from the process based on gender or race.
4. Whistle-Blowing, when a worker inform for something wrongfully done within their organization. Sometimes the information might prevent investors, but in some cases a whistle- blowing can be used from individual to threat the organization and benefit themselves financially.
5. Romantic involvement, can cause conflict of interests, lower the productiveness and even be hazardous for the workplace. Romantic involvements can be used as carrier beneficial for one in exchange of sexual favors. Despite the fact that the romance at the work place can be inefficient the manager cannot control it with rules and policies. 6. Describe the difference between distributive and procedural justice? The distributional justice deals with the fairness of bonuses and celeries. The distributive justice was questioned when the economy crises started, because many organizations layoff employees but the CEO`s celeries remained high. The procedural justice concerns the process of allocation of money, for celeries and bonuses, whether or not all the legal requirements are followed and the people who voted the decision where correctly choose.

• Why do employees fear technological innovations and how can managers help employee adjust?

Technologies are proved to increase the organizational performance, by festering the communication and the work process. Regardless the technologies help workers with their daily performance, people fear the inability to compete with technologies and this inability might cause their job. It is the manager’s obligation to help and reduce the employees fear from technological innovation. As a beginning the employees need to be introduced with the new technologies in early stage and levels of training should be provided so workers can feel better prepare of using them, and perform in their best. Supporting groups and enhancing conversation between them, a dialog might help employees to not feel lonely. A personalization of a technology could increase the security of the individual, and allow them to share it within the group.