Building Successful Multicultural Organizations: Challenges and Opportunities

With an emphasis on building success in today's multicultural workplace, Fine describes the truly multicultural organization, one that values the cultural differences among its employees and knows how to create policies and practices that encourage the full productivity of all employees. Fine maintains that just to remain competitive as the U.S. workforce becomes culturally diverse, organizations must not only recognize the inherent multiculturalism within their walls, but must actively transform themselves into such organizations. Her book thus explains how cultural differences affect workplace behavior and provides ways for management to work with them, not against them. A practical, challenging, research-based discussion for human resource professionals and management in public and private organizations.

After reviewing the changing demographics of the workforce and discussing how present practices are exclusionary, Fine provides detailed descriptions of the values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors of various ethnic groups and women and the dysfunctional interactions among groups. Nine case studies document diversity initiatives in public, private, and not-for-profit organizations, and lead to numerous concrete ways to train employees in multicultural understanding and create policies and practices that acknowledge, value, and incorporate cultural differences into the organization itself. Fine offers no quick fixes, however; instead, she makes clear that building a successful multicultural organization is a difficult, unceasing process of creating and recreating organizational life. The result is an analytical, research-based discussion for scholars, researchers, and others in the academic community — and a practical guide to the complexities posed by multiculturalism for organization management at all levels in both the public and private sectors.