Developing Multicultural Competence

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RUNNING HEAD: DEVELOPING MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE TO IMPROVE CROSS-RACE WORK RELATIONSHIPS Jane Doe HURES 5153 Operations Management Developing Multicultural Competence to Improve Cross-Race Work Relationships University Professor John Doe 13th March 2013 As the workforce endures to diversify, it will become more and more imperative that organizational leaders cultivate specific skills to lead multicultural concerns and relations. A theoretically-based diversity training program to cultivate multicultural competence in trainee members was evaluated using a pretest–posttest nonequivalent-control-group design. Outcomes displayed positive change in responses to interracial circumstances at work, mindfulness of psychosomatic freedom, and lesser contemporary discrimination arrogances, even after monitoring for pretest scores and diversity of life practices. Outcomes also support a link between training and multicultural competency in the workplace. It has been estimated that approximately two-thirds of U.S. organizations have implemented some type of diversity training program (Esen, 2005). Companies are providing more and more training programs on diversity in the workplace. More literature is being printed on this particular subject as well. Even though much has been written about diversity in literature nowadays, no clear definition appears in what is meant by multicultural competence. Cox and Beale (1997) suggest that diversity competency is “a process of learning that leads to an ability to effectively respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by the presence of social-cultural diversity in a defined social system” (p. 2). Chemers and Murphy (1995) contend that leaders of diverse work groups need to be sensitive to differences when they exist and find ways to reduce the negative impact of stereotypes. Furthermore, they argue that effective
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