Jessica, a recent college graduate, is the only Hispanic member of her new work team. In an unsuccessful attempt to help her fit in, co-workers Peter and Alex tease her and make jokes about her background. As a result, Jessica feels angry, uncomfortable, and determined to succeed in spite of their treatment. After her boss extends her probation period, stating a need to improve her teamwork skills with these same co-workers, she talks with other employees who share their frustrations and successes in feeling unfairly treated. She finds out that the company has a policy about mistreatment without a stated way to report problems, which leaves her in a quandary as to what to do. Simultaneously, her co-workers feel that her inability to fit in is being blamed on them.

This case illustrates the challenges employees face when interacting with co-workers from different cultural backgrounds.

Mistreatment—interactional, distributive, procedural, or systemic abuse of employees taking place at both interpersonal, and institutional levels on the basis of cultural diversity.

Organizational culture—a set of practices, beliefs, assumptions, and ways of interacting shared by members of an organization.

Strategic ambiguity—the degree to which a communicator chooses to send messages with multiple possible interpretations.

Theoretical Briefing

Cultural diversity is a critical issue for organizations in the United States Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. experienced a 57.9 percent increase in the Hispanic/Latino population and a 48.3 percent increase in the Asian population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). The result is that people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds work together on a daily basis. Cultural diversity has potential benefits as well as challenges (Cox, 1993; Oetzel, 1998). Diverse organizations and work teams can be more creative, flexible, and better at problem solving than homogeneous organizations. However, diverse organizations may also experience greater conflict and less group cohesiveness (Cox, 1993; Oetzel, 1998). Organizations need to address the concerns of employees from a variety of cultural backgrounds and address conflict and cohesion issues if they are to attract and keep a productive workforce (and achieve the benefits of diversity). A numbe have been developed to better understand the impact of diversity in organizations.

One theory, which is particularly helpful for illuminating diverse peoples’ perspectives, is standpoint theory (Allen, 1998). Standpoint theory was developed by feminist scholars in order torecognize the many positions of women and people from non-dominant cultures. There are multiple perspectives (or standpoints) from which to observe any organization or interaction, not simply the dominant perspective and a single minority perspective. For example, Jessica comes from one position based on her background and experiences. She is a Latina and a newcomer in the organization. Her cultural groups (female and Hispanic) traditionally have not had a lot of power in the United States Additionally, as a newcomer she does not have a lot of positional power in the organization. From her standpoint, the comments of Alex and Peter were inappropriate, insulting, and meant to exclude her from the team. Alex and Peter are European American men who have been in the organization a while and fit in with the predominant organizational culture.

Additionally, they are partly responsible for creating the team’s culture. From their standpoints (and that of the team), they were trying to make Jessica feel welcome and part of the group. They feel that teasing is helpful to develop working relationships. In an absolute sense, neither of these perspectives is right or wrong (although the ethnic jokes and comments are certainly inappropriate). lems from multiple viewpoints, we can better understand the disadvantage of members of groupss can foster a positive and productive limate that will result in greater productivity and employee satisfaction. However, the perspectives do create and recreate power imbalances in organizations. Standpoint theory stresses the importance of asking about different people’s perspectives in order to understand power in an organization, the first step to emancipation of employees from the dominant reality (Allen, 1998; Dougherty, 1999). People who come from non-dominant groups can often see organizations as outsiders and may have insights into the workings of the organization that are not obvious to those who come from dominant groups. Through dialogue, Jessica may be able to help Alex and Peter better understand their organization and their own cultural perspectives. However, it is often difficult for those with less power in an interaction to initiate this type of dialogue. From Jessica’s perspective, Alex and Peter have not expressed an interest in hearing about her perspectives. Although Alex and Peter have interacted with Jessica, they have not asked her about her perspective or views or how she would like to be treated within the organization. Without a dialogue, none of these participants can benefit from hearing the perspectives of the others. By attempting to look at organizational prob how conflict occurs and how to solve it.

Additionally, one other important feature about their standpoints is that the parties have different styles of communicating from which to understand the other parties. Deborah Tannen (1994) described these patterns from a cultural difference perspective. Cultural differences are general patterns of cultural values, attitudes, and communicative behavior associated with specific sets of individuals. Tannen argued that women and people from non-dominant cultures have different communication styles than men and people from dominant cultures. For example, in this case Jessica communicates in an indirect way during confrontation, while Alex and Peter utilize a direct style of communication. The differences in the styles end up exacerbating the problem. Further, Tannen explained that cultural differences work to who do not have power, and to the advantage of members who have power.

Organizations need to address diversity on a structural level, in terms of policies and procedures. Simultaneously, they also need to provide assistance for organizational members to help them develop interpersonal skills that will help them learn to interact with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds and develop constructive workplace relationships. By increasing awareness of differing standpoints and communication styles, organization.

1. Is this situation one of mistreatment? Why or why not?

2. What do you think Jessica should do? What should Peter and Alex do?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each suggestion Jessica receives from coworkers?

4. How would you evaluate the appropriateness of the employees’ behavior in workgroups?

5. Is the mistreatment policy an example of strategic ambiguity? What are the advantages and disadvantages to ambiguous policies?

6. Do you think companies should have a policy against mistreatment? What procedures would you implement for such a policy?

7. How might you change an organizational culture that is not supportive of diversity?

8. What other concepts and theories provide an explanation for what happened in this case?

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Tannen, D. (1994). Gender and discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Meares, M. M., Oetzel, J. G., Torres, A. B., Derkacs, D., & Ginossar, T. (in press). A critical analysis of employee mistreatment and muted voices in the culturally diverse workplace. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 32 (1).

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Diversity Inc.: <http://www.diversityinc.com/>

National Organization for Women: <www.now.org>

Words Can Heal: <www.wordscanheal.org>

Diversity/Careers in Engineering and Information Technology: <http://www.diversitycareers.com/>

Business.com: <http://www.business.com/directory/human_resources/diversity/>