Cultural Differences at Work: How Managers Deepen or Lessen the Cross-Racial Divide in their Workgroups

Abstract

A Brisbane worker recently commented in an interview, ‘I think there's a lot of difficulty just in cultural diversity.’ The worker, a member of a racial minority group, said: If I was to categorise the problems, my frustration here would be more personal, the lack of understanding of issues and people – it is really just diverse people skills. Not understanding that people come from different backgrounds and people just talking out of their narrow experiences, they just don't realise that they are insulting you… (interview with Ayoko, November 1999). What do managers do about these cross-racial tensions at work? Analysis of our interview data revealed that most (80%) leaders do nothing about the conflict. Where something is done, workers often report that it worsens rather than lightens the tension in the work atmosphere.