CULTURAL DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT MODELS AND ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATIVENESS

Abstract

Many researchers agree, that cultural diversity has positive influence on an organization – encouraging creativity, adaptivity, problem solving, knowledge transfer, creating conditions for innovative ideas and perspectives, however it also increases probability of conflicts, loss of trust as well as other challenges. Therefore, Ikegami et al (2017) equates cultural diversity to Schrödinger‘s cat – a dual state of existence, at the same time it is an asset to an organization and a challenge. Cultural diversity is currently receiving increasing research intensity. There have been various studies conducted analysing opportunities created by cultural diversity on various levels. Also, widely analysed are cultural diversity influences on organization and relation between cultural diversity and innovation. However, there is a lack of research that focus on “how to manage” cultural diversity to achieve innovativeness or innovation. This is due to cultural diversity on its own not being able to guarantee these outcomes. The aim is to investigate how to enable innovativeness in an organisation while managing cultural diversity. Firstly, cultural diversity management and relation to organizational innovation are discussed; secondly, the cultural diversity management models are analysed. Comparative analysis and synthesis of scientific literature were used to conduct the research.