¶ … cultural diversity issue of non-American employees communicating frequently in their own native language creating an environment of sensitivity and bias amongst the non-Hispanic community. Handling Diversity in an Organization

The contents of this paper focus on the cultural diversity involving Films Recovery Systems, an American company located at the heart of Chicago, Illinois. The paper takes an insight into the issue and also proposes solutions that can resolve the problem. The most important aspect of the paper is that it takes into account the material we find and read in books and compares to what degree the literature is actually applicable in real life situations.

Academic Literature

The study of public administration includes a spectrum of many disciplines, which include psychology, sociology, philosophy and also management sciences. Even though, the nature of public administration does not conveniently classify its elements into components, public administration is primarily categorized to highlight the concepts of organizational theory, organizational behavior, leadership, management, human resource management, economics, policy analysis, budgetary process, finance issues, administrative law, ethics, the practice of social research, program evaluation, democratic governance, and last but not the least public participation. Most of these concepts are incorporated into the management science that is known to us as 'Human Resource'. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

It is very important to study management sciences in an effort to comprehend our surrounding environment in all aspects of life especially, at the work place. By understanding many concepts and theories in this field we can view future prospects with an aim of achieving certain goals at the end. This not only involves an in-depth study of organizations, their structure, and the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations but also coming to terms with the pattern of how this was in the past half-century. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

Fredric Taylor was the first person to carry out an intensive study on the functioning of organizations and the relationship between the hierarchy levels and organizational efficiency and also what is the effect of one on another. In the early 1900's, the work he did was more so related to scientific nature; with his research on workplace functioning, he came up with the most competent structures and functions for an effective organizational process. Later on, Taylor's "Structuralist" approach became popular amongst organizational theorists and remained of great importance for many years serving as the main foundation for "Classical" theorists such as Henri Fayol and Max Weber who championed the notion of bureaucracy as the basic pillar on which an organization stands. [Corporate culture and performance]

The principles of bureaucracy promoted by the German sociologist, Weber, were largely based on the ideals of social equity, which encourages unfailing treatment of workers and primarily focuses on achieving maximum organizational efficiency with the help of predictability, order and precision. The basic tenets of the bureaucratic ideal include:

Each employee within an organization having a specified and official area of responsibility that is assigned relative to the competence and experience of that employee,

Each employee having only one supervisor, thus creating a system of orderly supervision and subordination,

The use of written directions from managers to employees, including manuals containing rules and procedures for employee conduct,

The provision of extensive training for managers and employees alike with a view to enabling them to adequately perform their employment responsibility,

Promotion based on achievement, and The expectation that managers will be consistent and that rules will be complete and learnable.

Human Resources and Personnel Management]

The main essential principles of bureaucracy obviously appear comprehensive to a large percent of the population and but the truth is that in today's times, the current bureaucracies are frequently condemned for being strictly controlled, unresponsive, and run inflexible organizations that are unable to handle the situations. This is why, many bureaucracies are at times said to be institutions whose processes eventually lead to the end of their existence.

Keeping in mind the structural perspectives of the Scientific Management, Classical and Bureaucratic schools of organizational theory are each designed on the positivist thinking, whereby organizations and individuals are viewed according to a specific prototype. The reaction to such thinking, from a behaviorally orientated perspective, focusing on the human presence within organizations, came to be a crucial factor in the field of organizational theory.

The former was best known for the Hawthorne Effect and the latter came to be best known for leadership thinking in terms of Theory X and Theory Y With so many schools focusing on the individual in both the area of Human Relations and Leadership skills, it was obvious that the new area of concentration would primarily be focusing on organizational functions and this is exactly where the theorists diverted their attention to drastically over the years, primarily since, it served as a social response to greater stress on the values of individuality. This change served to throw light on the paradigm of organizational theories, which had previously failed to highlight the importance of individuals within an organization. [Organizations in Action]
With ample knowledge on the history of thought in association to organizational theory, its not surprising that contemporary thinking aims to promote an integrative approach, which aims at accommodating two perspectives of both Structuralist and Behavioral aspects. The "Systems Theory" and the "Contingency Theory" exemplify this paradigm. In the Systems Theory, there is a system of recognition that focuses on the fact that every system is made up of a number of inter-related, interdependent, and interacting sub-systems. In short, it is an affirmation that organizations should be looked into as an open system, which is in a state of constant change because organizations are based on a constant transformation process to produce the required outputs.

The task of human resource as stated in many books is to build an organizational culture based on good communication, comprehensive training and development programs, and also consequent rewards for the individuals performance, ability to take risk, plan well and work in teams. Even if the nature of a culture within an organization is unknown outside its premises, the truth is that its importance cannot be eliminated because culture is extremely influential in determining the degree to which an organization is able to achieve its mission and strategic goals as per plan. [The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture]

Human resource builds the organizational culture so this makes the organizational structure its product because the structure is a reflection of its culture. The task of the human resource department is to create an environment around the situation of an organization because this helps to bring out the best from the employees concerned and also lets the culture remain as it is and also allow certain structures to be re-planned for the better functioning of its counterparts.

To get the best of the human resources in any company is mandatory that at the most basic level, the human resource department can create a customized culture by hiring new members who fit the new culture and simultaneously transferring or firing others who do not fit such a culture. There are a few sophisticated techniques to manage culture. This involves formulating strategies in such a way that reflects the cultural agenda in the process of strategy creation and the definition of the vision statement, since this helps to manage the direction of the information in order to create the culture that allows smooth communication, which highlights the concept of sharing information vs. controlling; utilize motivational tools and reward system that are consistent with organizational values, such as, production incentives or customer service awards. Also areas and functions of budgeting and reporting should be done in ways that promote the desired levels of employee independence and, manage conflicts among workers using techniques that reflect a culture of freedom. [The wisdom of teams]

The head of the human resource management is like a leader itself because he/she has to work on the same principles of leadership. The best way to understand the task of the leader in any project management or any departmental head is to comprehend leadership by evaluating the importance of a "vision" and the achievement of "the output." This implies that it is the head of the project team that is responsible for instilling a vision into the group or team in such a way that the team strives to work diligently to achieves the expected results. Irrespective of whether the vision is penned down by the leader or if the leader motivates others to adopt a vision is not what is of utmost importance, but the significant fact that is crucial is the environment the leader creates with a focused tool to drive the communicated vision. In other words, the vision is defined as a primary aspect of leadership in ensuring that the ideal results are achieved from the employees in any project.

There is great thought with respect to the source of leadership ability. Some of the early supposition was that in this field a successful leader was born with qualities enabling him or…