MANAGEMENT OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY: IMPLICATION FOR ORGANISATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS. A CASE STUDY OF ASOKORE RURAL BANK LIMITED, OFORIKROM AND KWADASO BRANCHES, KUMASI

Abstract

Due to globalization, a great many people claim the world as their workplace resulting in a very culturally diverse workforce. Workforce diversity has become an important issue in today’s organizations. Diversity exists when an organization’s members differ from one another along one or more important dimensions such as race, gender, age, colour, physical ability, ethnicity, etc. (Thomas and Ely, 2001; Kundu and Turan, 1999). Since it’s not possible to have organizations without people, managers are increasingly gaining awareness of the importance of people for organizations’ competitiveness (Orlitzky, 2007). It is against background that the researcher deems it expedient to conduct this study to investigate the implications of cultural diversity for organizational competiveness of Oforikrom and Kwadaso branches of Asokore Rural Bank Limited. This exploratory study used both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data from 47 respondents which comprised the total number of workers of the selected branches. The study revealed that the grounds for cultural diversity include age, gender, educational qualification, culture (social traditions), race, religion, language, values, ethnic groups and psychology (individual mind-set). It also found that cultural diversity and its management affects not only organizational competitiveness but also the ability of the organization to achieve its goals. Among others, it is cultural diversity management policy that need to be established and also for workers to be consistently trained on cultural diversity management issues.