Introduction Every society develops their leaders based on their needs and wants them to maintain

their olden habits that are being followed. The member behaviors of the cultural groups

are based on completely on their people's history among the society. It had been

commonly said that in general, people lacks the capability to understand the lessons

learned from the past- and of course generations have seen continuous faults though

many years continued - Where as in longer periods individuals will join hands together

to the set norms, activities what their previous experience and learning had indicated to

be the best advantage for them.

There could be elected leaders, trained leaders and groomed leaders and could gain

power or can have leadership qualities in them. There could be either autocratic leaders

or democratic leaders, individual or collective leaders, ascribed or merit based leaders

and imposed or desired leaders. The leaders of business usually draw their power in

confirmation with the national structure. From one culture to other culture, leaders could

not be shifted. In United States to a large extent Japanese prime ministers should be

without much effectiveness. In majority of the Arab nations, American leaders should be

in effective. In countries like Norway, Mullahs are not tolerated. Transfers across

nations are increasing because of the globalisation and therefore, it is even more

significant that the creation of teams across the globe and more specifically the leader

selection should be cautiously addressed.

During the present century where there are continuously expanding conglomerates and

multinationals with wider global reach, the global teams and corporate governance

would understand deeper on the staffs and multi cultural organisations.

In general, managers among linear active cultures indicate an orientation towards task.

More importance had been provided to technical competence, giving more prominence

to facts rather than sentiments, more places to logic compared to emotions. They are

oriented towards deals and focused their notice on their staff and the results and

outcomes. They are disciplined while sticking to the plan of actions and inspire the

employees with plans carried out carefully. Managers with multiple activities are

extroverts completely relying on their eloquence and their capacity to force and utilise

force in the form of inspiration. Here completion of human transactions is emotional and

managers take some time to develop contacts and such managers are networking

oriented.

Among reactive cultures leaders are with people orientation and they dominate having

the necessary understanding, patience levels and silent control. Without considering

their levels of seniority such leaders indicate great level of courtesy and modesty. For

the excellent teamwork they supersede for the creation of surroundings with harmony.

Since they have enough experience levels having spent so many years in their different

departments and they have enough balance having the capacity to respond to the

pressures. They are paternalistic too.

Societies because of their diversity are having diversified values and central thoughts

and their leadership and organization conceptuaisation are based on their culture. The

basis of their authority might be on the basis of their levels of achievement, richness,

and education levels ascriptive natures like birth right or charismatic nature. The

structuring of corporations could be done vertically, horizontally or in the form of matrix.

They could be adapted to considerations based on the religion, philosophy and

government and other needs. The authority and its essence, hierarchy or optimum

structure are not viewed in identical by two different cultures.

For understanding the way in which loyalty is gained and knowledge from their staffs as per the

outlooks of corporate responsibility, goals, services or products and policies organizations should

view it within the purview of varied cultures especially, a location like Hong Kong regarded as the

very much multi cultural in the globe. As a British colony Hong Kong has a unique cultural back

ground where the eastern culture meets the western and working atmosphere. Therefore

organisations specifically in the industry of hospitality because of its labour intensive nature, team

works and human resource oriented should be focusing on the issues of cultural diversity

management at these global markets with strong competitive environment.

An organization with success expands and grows their businesses across the globe.

Multinational organisations have significant roles in the process of globalization.

Globalisation trends show that it had led to growth in volume of people on overseas

jobs, locations having varied cultures or at a totally different working environment which

is quite strange. Crowe (2007) observes that this is reflected in enhanced flexibility in

movement, interactions and people. Globalisation foster enhanced growth in getting the

groups of managers with varied nationalities for working together among multinational

corporations continuous teams of management or specific projected related to specific

resources dealing with the important issues of business as shown by Higgs (1996).

Hong Kong has the benefit as the internationally recognized city having faster growth rates in

hospitality business and is one among largest presence of hotel chains with international acclaim

among the Asia Pacific like Hyatt, Starwood, Four Seasons and also the Inter Continental Group

of Hotels which is the target company under this research

Hong Kong had transformed as dynamic modern city owing to its history. British ruled it followed

by the occupation of it by Japan at the Second World War and this makes Hong Kong to have

more exposures to a multi dimensional culture. It one of main entry gate to China and the

fundamental legal principles ensure the individual freedom and rights for Hong Kong people on

the basis of impartial rule of law and judicial system which is independent as indicated by Gov

HK (2011). The data from the Hong Kong Department of Census and Statistics, indicate that the

population is around 7097600, out of which more than fifty percent are female and more than 95

percent belong to Chinese and the remaining five percent to Filipinos, Indonesian, Indian, white

and Japanese etc (Census & Statistics Dept of Hong Kong 2011).

The theory of Hofstede show that Hong Kong is the same compared to other countries in Asia

and the only variation is on the uncertainty avoidance. Hong Kong has very low uncertainty

avoidance. This indicates Hong Kong as a country is taking more risks compared to other Asian

countries. The individualism is lower in Hong Kong and is more of a society with collectivist

nature in comparison to an individualistic society as observed by Hofestede (2011). Hong Kong

is a country with higher power distances and with regard to masculine or feminine culture, Hong

Kong falls in between with moderate one. The Hong Kong culture is quite long term oriented

which clearly indicates the prime characteristics of Hong Kong and its culture.

Present study analyses the Inter Continental Hotel Group (IHG) which is a Multinational

organization having the largest volume of guest rooms across the globe having more than six

hundred forty thousand rooms with 4000 plus hotels spanning over hundred counties throughout

the world (Inter Continental Hotel Group PLC 2011).

As a global hospitality organization the prime goal of IHG group is the creation of great hotels

whose guest just loves it as indicated by Inter Continental Group PLC (2011). Organisation had

stressed the significant satisfied work force and targets to as one among the finest organisations

across the globe as reiterated by its CEO Andrew Cosslette. The data from the Inter

Continental Hotel Group (2011) show that the growth rate of the group is quite rapid especially in

locations of Greater China with the more than 140 new hotels being in the pipeline stage. As

indicated by NRC Handelsblad (2011), there is shortage of skilled labour force among China and

this give more chances and cooperative endeavour among different styles of western

management with working culture of the east. This could develop some issues at different

occasions because of the presence of the diversified working culture atmospheres.

IHG group Hotel at Hong Kong have more than 490 rooms with five star accreditation having

international acclaim as one among best regional hotels. The staff structure of the IHG is quite

diverse and hotel is having more than 450 full time working staffs, more than 190 casual workers

and more than 30 trainees. The managing director is Jean- Jacques Reibel a French citizen and

has the experience in the industry for a long period. Significant management and operations

team members are from western locations like Germany, Norway etc. Many Hong Kong citizens,

Nepali citizens and Japanese citizens constitute the staffs on front line. The hotel boasts a

population of 44 different nationalities as workers and IHG Hong Gong is in recognition as the

organisations with pluralist nature.

IHG had developed a fresh strategy naming it as “winning ways”. The strategy gives a stronger

feeling and significance of a purpose which is shared and is important in forcing the business at

front and also gives them a place where working is enjoyable, fun and great as shown in Inter

Continental Hotel Group PLC 2011).

The corporate spirit is redefined by the winning ways strategy and there is an organisational

culture which is more oriented towards employees. But there is a requirement that staffs should

be following standardised procedures of operations as per IHG requirements. However, in IHG

there is high level use of hierarchical system which is bureaucratic. Staffs does not exceed other

levels of authority. Among the Trompenaar’s four cultures of diversities, this culture could be

equated to Eiffel Tower . Knowledge of domestic cultures are significant as it facilitates to

understand the value orientations of the staffs and it also impact the behaviours of the employees

as shown by Hofstede (2011)

The researcher view that management of cultural diversity, across the work force should not be a

programme or activity, or related to the structure of the organisation. Rather it should be

diversified practice involving the human element and should have integration in the thought

process of both long term and short term.

It is observed by John Hume (1998) that variation is the human essence. Variations happens as

an accident at birth and so should not be looked upon as the conflict source or hate source. The

only answer to such variation to provide respect. The meaning of cultural diversity is, a

nation with many inhabited cultures who live together where there is respect to every

culture rather than providing respect to some specific culture. Crowe (2007) observes

that culture has a significant role to play among the assumptions in work places,

behaviours and different organisational cultures. Trompenaars et al (1997) observes

that it is true that basic cultural variations and the implications are quite difficult to

measure with criteria developed objectively but it has a significant impact in the global

success of the organisation.

The management of cultural diversity concept shows that there is acceptance of a work

force with diversified form of population. The population diversity had both variations

that are visible and not visible. The factors like background, sex, age, race, personality

and significantly, the style of working are part of it. Kandola et al (cited in Crowe 2007)

observe that it is based on the background that harness of such variations should

develop an environment with productive quality where all experience that they are being

valued and their skills are put into use through which organisation meet their goals.

With right and efficient strategy firms could provide justification for the needed

programmes of training and policies. Staffs who are involved might experience some

organisational respect as they are being noticed by management and they strive to

satisfy their requirements and there is some sense of caring from managerial staffs.

There are many Multi National Corporations taking new initiatives for the management

of the cultural diversities and Inter Continental Group has also taken such initiatives.

Since IHG Hong Kong is the direct ownership of IHG, the policies of management and

cultural diversity aptly follows the directions and instructions from the parent

organisation. The researcher expands and uses the Kandola nd Fullerton model of

cultural diversity to IHG Hong Kong and analyses how it works for it? As shown in the

figure the web strategy have eight components visualised as the web created by spider

where the components have mutual relationships. Kandola et al (1994) show that the

eight components forming the model has to be viewed as different form of activities that

Organisation vision IHG has a shared vision across the staffs which are based on common values. As

suggested by Kandola et al (1994), organization promotes and harmonise fair

cooperative efforts across staff of diversified population where staff’s potentials are

capitalized. This provides great unity across the orgnisation for the common aspirations

of the staffs. The mission of IHG Hong Kong is the creation of a great hotel that their

guest loves with more emphasis on guest comforts and service quality. But there is no

encapsulation on the management of diversity principle. The diversity responsibility is

paramount at IHG and it permeates every aspect of its business. This create congenial working

atmosphere for the establishment of effective business association and provides correct fitting

with value and contribution as shown in Inter Continental Hotels Group PLC 2011).

The internal audit provides an indicating on the potential bias in organizations on their policy,

structure and process of management. Even employees surveys are carried out regularly for

understanding the attitudinal aspects, feed backs and assessment of staff requirements.

Feedbacks received are positive and there are indications of satisfied workforce (Inter

Continental Hotel Group PLC 2011). But it could not be concluded that the available data is quite

representative as there are implications from domestic culture with higher power distances as

indicated by Hofstede (2011) that staffs hardly ever go for superior challenge and they tend to be

away from issues since surveys insisted the signature of staffs. To Gain global standards the

diversity officers along with consultants from Diversity Inc. and staffs from head office checks the

standards as it could facilitate the awareness and such external feed backs could improve the

reputation levels by gaining more competitive advantage. As shown in Hotliers (2004), IHG is

positioned at rank no. 14 in the top 50 finest companies of cultural diversity across the globe that

provides great good will and special status in the hospitality industry.

There are not any specific policies which force the staffs for using any specific language

while working. Usage of specific language create communication barrier among the

employees having diversified back grounds. Effective teambuilding avoids such

communication issues. These actions provide human resource organisation coordinated

training development as the information flow is accurate and impartial.

There should be external and internal sharing of cultural diversity which promotes

effective communication and communication strategy is a significant component for all

staffs as it facilitates to understand the issues of diversity and advantages providing

effective feed backs as indicated by Dessler (2004). Based on the values of IHG have

developed their “Winning Ways” strategy which has facilitate the organisational growth.

As indicated in Inter Continental Hotels Group PLC (2011), they stress on the staffs to

hear all views and combine the experience for creating a stronger people group that is

trusted. This encourages of flexible communication at every level across the

organization.

Leadership effectiveness increases with effective communication and there is

transactional leadership at IHG where the leader gives incentives for staffs for meeting

his targets. This enhances the working performance of staffs but could not give any

work meaning to the staffs and there is every possibility of corporate politics, partisan

addressing etc.

There should organisational coordination at all levels and there is a separate office of

diversity at IHG to supervise on the management of cultural diversity issues. As per

their action Plan 2010, every General Managers get the assistance of HR and training

department as the prime coordinating elements. For evaluating the cultural diversity the

diversity office and management conducts audit and evaluate the policy of diversity

once every year. This facilitates frank suggestion and feed backs that could facilitate

revision once there are any issues. IHG Hong Kong is a plural organization and their

goals and focus are on satisfaction of guests and service quality. The strategy of

“Winning Ways” shields the drawbacks with statements like “Celebrating the

differences” and “Work better together” as indicated in Inter Continental Hotels Group

PLC (2011).

 

The Strategy Web of cultural diversity shown by Kandola et al (1994) can be effectively

applied to environment like IHG but there are also few shortcomings like leaving some

aspects of recruiting and training development process. One best channel that could

give new insights to diversity policy of any hotel is induction and it is what keeps the

fresh recruited staffs for having a comfortable outlook about the organisation.

Managing Cultural diversity is more significant in providing much value to the

employees rather than just transforming an organisation in to a profitable or efficient

one. Management of cultural diversity is a process that takes longer periods and the

management should exhibit sufficient calmness and patience and be attentive

throughout. The research suggests that IHG Hong Kong should maintain and stress the

significance and knowledge of employee diversity. Every employee who works for part

time and casual nature could be joining the training done on diversities. The team work

should be encouraged while avoiding typecasts on the circumstances of work. Surveys

done on the staffs should be private for getting more transparent opinions rather than

being not open about it.

Recommend responses to the different needs and expectations of culturally

diverse guests

There should be greater development of culturally competent outcome evaluation

requirements as the Hong Kong is culturally diverse where there are varied

requirements of children and their families with cultural diversity. Evaluations like these

are significant for the support of requirements and the effectiveness of programs that

are culturally competitive. For those programmes that are special, the focus on

effectiveness of descending order is:

Provision of services where there bilingual and bicultural staffs

Utilisation of interpreting staffs with effective training in the preferred mode of

interpretation, team building exercises and strategies of communication

Train the monoculture providers on the client languages.

Service providers should decide if the customers are dominant on English, bilingual or

language of dominant origin. For those clients with English dominance it is significant to

gauge their spoken language at home that includes their schooling types (whether

bilingual or Programmes that are English only). The service providers should

understand that clients belonging to original language-dominant or bilingual in nature

with spoken English might put much energy in apt expression. Here, precedence is

given to communication of cognitive aspects compared to the language of affective

components. Therefore, clients might be seen much flatter or constricted.

Team members at IHG Hong Kong might also utilize bilingual communication in the

form of defensiveness where one language is utilised for communicating and keeping

one language for emotional communication. Team members might communicate few

emotional subjects in a language that are non dominant while gaining few distance

emotionally. At times they also utilize the dominant languages so as to gain experiences

and memories that are meaningful. If there are monolinguals, it is advantageous to

permit the teams to think loudly on the emotional or dominant language for facilitating

and organizing their material meaning fully.

Natural Support Systems

One more factor to notice is the natural support systems of the organisation. The

presence of the natural support systems is important in facilitating the manager to

manage the team issues. Social network assessment also includes the list of

associations and relationships that also includes the background. The present

association with their extended network is specifically significant.

3.2.2 The Selection of the Provided and Transference

The data from the social networks indicate information that is useful which facilitates the

anticipation of the significant problems of potential transference which might be shown

in a service association. The way in which the organisation addresses racist,

ethnocentric and other problems could be visualized in the interpersonal communication

and selection of the associations of the organisation. Once there is availability of choice

it is obvious in the choice of client with a particular provider. Provided with provider

shortages from cultural matching origins for instance clients should be persuaded to

select based on the gender, age, or fluency of the language. Few provide much

importance to languages as others provide much importance to age or genders. But

even in such situation they select their providers having good experience in their

domains of fundamental issue of presentation without considering the ethnic backdrops.

Forced selections should be analysed in the process of assessment and might indicate

psycho social information that are meaningful. The same might also have important

impacts of interventions. The choice that leads to a service relationship having cultural

discordance, the dynamics among social networking of the organisation might be played

out among the interventions. Therefore, it is important that the providers should have

the necessary awareness and sensitivities to the differentiation in power that lie among

them and their clients.

For effective design of service plans, it is significant to understand and accept specified

values, attitudinal aspects, norms and expectations. For an instance, organisation

should understand that relying completely on models of Euro-American (where women

are considered as having assertiveness and independently organized) might not be that

smooth and it could form as inappropriate culture to other women. And more

significantly, such intervention should facilitate every woman in the translation of

understanding and awareness of managing the skills successfully into repertoires

verbally and behaviourally. For few of them the emphasis is lying much on the

nonverbal skills in comparison to verbal ones.

3.2.3 Managing and building teams with a culturally diverse workforce

The employee focus and the issue of diversity had shifted from opportunity of equal

employment to effective management of the staffs and their diversity in the form of

organizational imperative as indicated Torres et al (1992). The continued growth of

globalisation had ensured the continuity of diversity among the workforce. Jhonston

(1991) observe that organisations that recognize the labour force globalisation positively

ensuring the smooth flow of workforce could take the best from these developments.

Based on this strategic organisations should aim to develop changes among their

policy. For succeeding in fresh environment like this, managers should understand and

adapt to values and accept the styles of different cultures and ways of behaviours that

differ from their usual styles.

Managers should have the capabilities to join the problems of the cultural variations

management as per the business requirements and should have the capacity to

address the issues in business, visions and achievement. Work force diversity and its

management should be viewed by managers as the serving opportunity to the customer

requirements while penetrating to fresh to market areas. Creativity, flexible nature and

faster responses to changes could be enhanced with effectively valuing and diverse

workforce management.

Managers for effectively utilising the diversified workforce potential should associate

diversities to each and every function of the business or in their strategy like recruiting,

selecting, placements, developments and planning of succession and performance

appraisal systems and reward systems. Interventions strategies based on the longer

periods should be developed by organisations to face the competition as compared to

solutions developed for shorter periods and strategies. Managers should do away with

blocks while preventing the organisations from the development and utilisations of

systems of full equitability which facilitate workforce for the achievement of maximum

potential.