Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: The State of the Field

The challenge posed by the increasing cultural diversity of the US. workforce is perhaps the most pressing challenge of our times. Scholarship on this increasing diversity has produced general overviews on diversity and related issues, essays that offer a theoretical perspective and suggest research directions for studying diversity in organizations, and few actual research studies of diversity in orga nizations. The research studies that have been done examine differences in organizational communication in different (particularly national) cultures, examine organizational communication in multicultural contexts, and explore cultural voices in the workplace. Researchers of cultural diversity in organizations must look to alternative theoretical perspectives, such as feminist theories, critical theories, and socio logical paradigms to identify the problematics and methodologies appropriate to future diversity studies. This research needs to document different voices in the workforce, especially those that have been marginalized. Multicultural discourses that incorporate the diverse voices of all workers will not only transform our public and private economic organizations, they will also reinvigorate our public discourses and political institutions, strengthening our social, political, and economic well-being. There have been numerous challenges issued to academics to become more involved in the pressing social issues of the day and to demonstrate, in the public arena, the worth of their studies. The study of cultural diversity and of multicultural discourses in organizations offers an opportunity for scholars to do that.

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