Cultural Variances and Emotions Dissertation

“A critical review of how cultural variances may affect employee emotions in the articulation of individuals’ dissatisfaction”

Abstract

In the modern era of business industries where trends like globalization and talent migrations are becoming more dominant than ever before, presence of cultural variance in a workplace is increasing to an unprecedented level. Growing diversity in the workplace structures needs to get properly managed by the HR practices within the organization through proper management of cultural variance by developing a workplace culture of open-discussion, equality, and non-judgmental views on other people’s beliefs and cultural customs. However, to enhance the overall quality of HR management practices in a business in context of cultural variance, the most important factor is to understand the way cultural variance exists within an organization and its implications on the organizational culture, employee satisfaction, and work motivation.

In this dissertation, the case of cultural variance in business industry context is evaluated and it identified that workplace diversity cannot be fully ignored by businesses in modern industries that are highly knowledge-driven. Keeping the importance of skilled and experienced workforce, a business should have expectations of fostering a diverse group of employees ranging across different genders, skin colors, ethnicity, religion, language, and age. Using an interview process that included ten interviewees, it is found that HR practices in a business should attempt to create an accepting workplace culture to foster diversity in the workplace to develop cultural variance effectively. Theoretical assessment of cultural variance revealed that success and willingness of employees to work in a diverse workplace would differ from one region to another in similar fashion to that of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Evidences are found that suggest that cultural variance has a strong correlation with workplace culture and employee motivation for work, which can provide a business competitive advantage. Some recommendations are made for business to create a cultural variance in the workplace for higher employee satisfaction and skill retention.

1.0 Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

In modern era of businesses where trends like globalization, skill migration, and open international trade barriers are quite dominant, formation of a diverse workforce is very common. While there are many advantages that cultural and demographic diversity can offer to a business such as access to people with different point-of-views and market perceptions, it can also lead to some issues that require proper management. Cultural variance refers to the behavioral and personality traits of employees that change from one culture to another to a very significant degree. In this research paper, employee emotions are reviewed for employee dissatisfaction depending on the variable of cultural variance in a business workforce context. The topic of this research study attempts to conduct a critical review of how cultural variance may affect employee emotions in the articulation of individuals’ dissatisfaction.

1.2 Background of the research

Culture can be defined as the shared element that is capable of providing the standards for communicating, evaluating, believing and perceiving (Thomas and Peterson ,2017). Culture depends on the geographic location and historic period as well. Emotions can be defined as the feelings that remains for a short period of time and come from a cause that is properly known (Pilch, and Turska, 2015). Pilch, and Turska (2015) also stated that the cultural variance can impact the emotions of the employees in a significant manner. The impact can be positive or negative. According to Allen, Diefendorff, and Ma (2014), the emotions of the employees’ impact on the job satisfaction level of the employees. The emotion of the employees can provide the employees the motivation to work or it can also affect the motivation of the employees to work. As a result of this, negative attitude and poor performance can be seen within the work place. Thus, it can be said that emotions influence motivation. According to Thomas and Peterson (2017) motivation level of the employees impact the job satisfaction level of the employees in a significant manner. Hence, emotions are responsible for the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the employees within the work place.

According to Vidyarthi, Anand, and Liden (2014), it has been found that there are three primary elements of emotion and these are conscious experience, expressive behaviors and physiological arousal. Vidyarthi, Anand, and Liden (2014) also stated that all these three key elements emotion i.e. conscious experience, expressive behaviors and physiological arousal are directly impacted by the culture of the person. In the workplace, cultural diversity impacts the above mentioned key elements of the emotion as well. Hence, cultural variance and emotions might have an impact on the satisfaction level of employees and these can potentially serve as a significant reason behind dissatisfaction of the employees within the work place.

1.3 Research aim

The primary aim of this dissertation paper is to assess how cultural variances amongst workers within a workplace influence their feelings that reflect their dissatisfaction. In an effort to achieve this goal, existing theoretical literature would be reviewed along with an interviewee method of data collection where interviewees belonging to different national cultures would be asked questions to identify their cultural variance and differences in factors impacting employee emotions.

1.4 Research objectives

. While workplace diversity has gained a lot of attention among researchers, the issue of cultural variance impacting employee emotions and satisfaction levels is often underestimated. Conducting this research would help identifying the extent to which cultural variance impacts employee satisfaction and whether existing HR policies in UK retail industry account for cultural variance. The objectives of this research work are listed below:

1. To comprehensively understand the concept of cultural variances and its association with an organisational / culture
2. To determine the fundamental factors of cultural variances that often affects the employees’ emotions (either positively or adversely)
3. To study the key impacts of cultural variances on employees' emotions that increase their dissatisfaction at work

1.5 Research questions

1. Following research questions are set to find answer to in this research process that will ensure that the issue of cultural variance is investigated from all relevant aspects, including – employee satisfaction, employee emotional attachment, sense of belonging, and improvements that can be made in UK retail industry to account for cultural variance. These research questions are: How is the cultural variance related with the culture of the organization or working environment of the organization?
2. What are the cultural variances that positively influence the emotions of the employees and that affect the emotions of the employees?
3. What recommendations can be provided to lower the dissatisfaction level of the employees at the work place?

1.6 Research rationale

In present time, the cultural diversity is a very common aspect in any working environment. At the same time, it has also been seen that now a day, most of the employees remain dissatisfied within the work place. It is a possibility that employee emotions can vary significantly depending on their cultural background and consequently, even contribute to employee dissatisfaction. Therefore, this research aims to understand the concept of cultural variances and its association with an organization environment / culture and also its impact on the emotions of the employees. This research also tries to understand and analyze the factors that impact on the emotions of the employees due to which the employees remain dissatisfied.

1.7 Structure of the paper

The structure of this dissertation is set in a standard dissertation format while retaining intuitive nature of information flow ranging from establishing the concept of cultural variance through literature review to collecting data using interview method to identify evidence-based reality of cultural variance contributing to employee dissatisfaction.

Chapter number	Name of the chapter	What the chapter contains
1	Introduction	In this introductory chapter of the dissertation paper, the researcher discusses the background of the research topic. This chapter also contains the aim of the research, the research objectives, research questions and the rationale of the research. In addition to these, in this chapter the structure of the entire dissertation paper is also included so that by studying this chapter, an overall idea regarding the entire dissertation paper can be obtained.
2	Literature review	In the literature review chapter of this dissertation, existing literature is reviewed that relates to the issues of cultural variance in workplace. In addition to this, Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions is also used to establish a basis for the research rationale. This chapter builds a link between employee dissatisfaction and cultural variance using theoretical models.
3	Research methodology	In this chapter of the dissertation, the research methodology and data collection methods are selected with a justification for the selected methods. This research study will adhere to qualitative methodology of research to account for subjective attributes of employee emotions and uses interview process (n=10) as the method of primary data collection.
4	Findings and analysis	In this chapter, the data collected using the interview method of data collection (n=10) is presented in unaltered form while also analyzing the responses from the participants. Participation in the interview process is kept anonymized. Data collected is in qualitative form to retain subjective attributes of participant responses.
5	Discussion	This chapter in dissertation entails a thorough discussions of the data analysis process and findings from the interview method. It is identified that there is indeed a positive and strong correlation between cultural variance and employee emotions. A need for businesses to pay attention to cultural variance is also identified in this chapter.
6	Conclusion	This chapter summarizes findings of the research study performed and makes some recommendations to businesses on the ways of managing employee satisfaction by acknowledging cultural variance and making cultural variance a part of HR policy making.

2.0 Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the research on cultural variances that affects the emotions of employees in the context of dissatisfaction. It provides the cultural dimensions and techniques that include the process of the culturally diverse workplace. In this chapter, a detailed survey is performed of existing recent literature that discusses the issue of employee emotions in different cultural contexts along with its impact on the organization and employees themselves. The objective in this literature review process is to find and establish a relation between the reasons for dissatisfaction among employees and cultural emotional variance.

2.2 Cultural Variances and Emotions

Ashkanasy (2002) made the argument that rise in knowledge-driven industries has required organizations across different industries to transform the organizational structure to keep the employees satisfied despite constantly changing needs and demands of the employees. Changes in many industries are moving the organizational processes towards digitization and knowledge-centric business solutions, which means that employees who do not have proper knowledge do not get to enjoy full benefits of such a transformation (Ashkanasy, 2002, pp. 307 - 38). The changed structure of organizational processes has created a new struggle between the labor force and management as employees are able to convey their problems, but management are not offering solutions to the issue of lack of knowledge. According to Almutairi (2015, pp. 16-23), cultural diversity has been researched by various professionals and researchers due to it having inherent links to business organizational processes.

Emotions are the direct responses to issues, events, objects and relationship that are significant to individuals. Organizational change can trigger negative and positive emotions in an employee depending on a series of factors: the valence of outcomes, the change process that is utilized, the timing, speed and frequency of change, nature of leadership and employee personality and intelligence (Gertler, 1995, pp.1-26). The factors described by Gertler (1995) perceives the employee emotions without taking organizational factors into account and focuses solely on personality and emotional needs of an employee working in an organization. While the interpersonal characteristics and attributes of an employee do play a part in employee emotions, it is inherent that the organizational factors get impacted by organizational culture. The culture of an organization plays a significant role in generating emotion, either influencing or changing the employee emotions to become either expressive or suppressive. The culture employed by an organization will help or hinder employees and adjustment on the level of emotional satisfaction of the individual (Nicholson, 2016, pp. 103 - 113). The culture of an organization is considered as the beliefs, set of considerations, customs, values, norms, rules, belief, artifacts’ and traditions. It is vital that the organizational culture of a company is made to suit the needs of its employees, which would not be a one solution fit all organizations situation. For instance, Ashkanasy (2002) identified a study that most technological organizations adopt a preferred organizational culture without taking into account cultural background of the employees or their perception (Ashkanasy, 2002, pp. 307 - 38). In following this process, these companies attempt to ensure that the organizational culture is established that is compatible with emotional and operational needs of the employees.

Bergheim (2015) explored Affective Events Theory (AET) as a psychological model that concerns with workplace culture and employee mood influencing employee performance. It is also concerned with employee behavior and the way it is influenced job satisfaction. According to AET, the behavior of employee is highly influenced by emotions that they experience at the workplace (Bergheim, 2015, pp.27-36). This signifies that many aspects of an organization indeed get impacted by the emotions of the employees; and at the same time, organizational culture also has a direct impact on the emotions that employees face and how employees handle emotions in the workplace.

2.2.1 Cultural Typology of Quinn and McGrath

The studies conducted by Previte, Russell‐Bennett, and Parkinson (2015) utilizes a model known as CVM (competing value model), which is also known as McGrath and Quinn typology. The model was developed in 1981; it highlights the conflict between change and stability among external as well internal environment. It has four main characteristics; the first is clan culture that is based on the norms of the organization, and values that are concerned with affiliation (Previte, 2015, pp .12 - 24). In clan culture, the leadership is participative and the interaction among members in promoting. With respect to the information available, the organization uses collective method, for instance, the high degree of participation in consensus and communication building. The motivation initiative is from involvement and sense of involvement that is shared among individuals (Rosinski, 2010). Sense of involvement among employees contributes to their sense of belonging towards the organization and creates a positive emotion among employees towards the company and other employees of the company.

2.3 Effect of culture on Organizational structure and Environment

According to Jalal (2017), cultural values are related to the relationships between tasks and the sharing of power among subordinated and superiors in the organization, all of which have an impact on the operational structure of a company. In a workplace structure, there is no location independent of the unique individual (Jalal, 2017, pp. 1 - 8). Every position is referred to as personal characteristics of the individuals, especially for authority rank and status. The relationship between positions in the structure is referred to as the relationship of subordination and superiority among incumbents (Rosinski, 2010).

The culture can be referred to as norms, beliefs and values that member of group share that is developed by expectations and shared history. It is not possible to frame the culture geographical boundaries due to multiple groups that exist within boundaries. Vary and Teerinkangas (2016) represent that continuum of culture in a market is followed through a culture of social class and by industries, finalized through organizational culture (Klüppel, 2017). Every market structure has an infinite number of cultures and certain subculture exists in the organizational culture. The nature of organizational culture has various consequences for initiating the relationship between performance and employee satisfaction (Ashkanasy, 2002, pp.307-38). It turns out from cultures to prove to be a weak indicator of profit, sales and growth but strong predictors of employee satisfaction, quality and overall performance of the organization (Graebner, 2017, pp. 1 - 32). This finding is likely the main reason that business organizations are not traditionally known to care about employee emotions and consequently, not put emphasis on establishing a positive organizational culture, because it does not have strong impact on sales or financial performance.

The organizational culture is considered significant in determining individual’s satisfaction, commitment and longetivity with the organization and playing an important role in the organization. Mishra (1995) argues that higher level of commitment increases the performance of employees and results in great employee retention. Viswesvaran and Rooy (2010) suggest that employee satisfaction increases the performance of individual but also increases customer satisfaction and productivity (Nicholson, 2016, pp. 103 - 113). The cultural environment of the organization is linked with employees’ performance and the lack of supportive environment results in dissatisfaction. The researchers concluded that in comparison to satisfaction, commitment has stronger and constant relationship with performance and organizational culture (Vidyarthi, 2014, pp . 232 - 244).

In cases where an organization combines a high variance of employee cultures, it results in greater influence of reduced autonomy of performance, which is represented by increased turnover and decreased retention of employees and negatively influences the culture-performance relationship. Existing studies in the area of organizational culture represent that efficiencies in organizations are realized when cultural conflicts are kept at minimum (Jalal, 2017, pp. 1 - 8). It is also suggested that when cultural differences in an organization are high, the efficiency is overweighed due to rise in number of cultural issues. The satisfaction level of employees to perform depends on the cultural differences between employees. This has influences on performance management as measuring the procedure of motivating, defining and measuring employee’s satisfaction level is important to develop a business strategy that ensures the success of the organization. The responsibility of management is to maximize utilization of human resources of the company and from the analysis performed in this study, it is clear that taking care of the needs of employees at the workplace is an important part of the process. The management has the responsibility of trying to concentrate on the efficiency of performance and level of satisfaction of employees in a culturally diverse workplace (Graebner, 2017, pp. 1-32).

According to Klüppel (2017), the cultural variations and employee’s satisfaction have become very significant in the digital age of businesses with a high internal diversity becoming more common than ever before. State of employee satisfaction in organizations has always been a key area of research among scholars (Klüppel, 2017). The reason behind high interest in employee satisfaction is the that employee satisfaction often has direct correlation to talent retention, appeal to new talent, organizational efficiency, and productivity The diversity may reduce or enhance job satisfaction level of employees. Gaining insights into the ways organizational culture affects employee’s workplace behavior helps the management to enhance the positive attributes while reducing the factors that negatively influence employee job satisfaction (Cascio, 2018)

Bergheim (2015) suggests that the employee's observation of power and authority result in the cultural impacts. The craving for equality in the workplace is strong in the United States, however, in various parts of Asia and European industries, the level of gap between authority and employees is very significant and it is expected by the employees as part of the traditional culture (Bergheim, 2015, pp.2 7- 36). The employees in the US are observed to be dissatisfied with increased structured authority standards, seeking higher involvement in decision making. The societal culture in United States puts emphasis on empowerment of employees while in some other regions such as Asia and Europe, this aspect of an organizational culture is undervalued. However, Jalal (2017) said that dissatisfaction becomes prevalent if employees perceive inequalities in advancing organizational performance and see it as a barrier to succeeding in reference to collective organizational culture in Asian businesses where exceptionally talented individuals might feel that their team is holding them back. With a higher emphasis on effectiveness of a positive workplace culture, businesses now are trying to manage organizational culture in the most optimized way to increase employee satisfaction and in turn, organizational performance. For an organizational culture to be effective, it should also align well diverse employee culture in the region that the employees are experienced with.

Establishing a suitable organizational culture increases employee engagement and this is observed by HR policies in an organization. Therefore, it is a common practice among HR departments to deploy a positive organizational culture. In an organizational structure, personnel who have a higher degree of interaction with other employees, are usually in a better position to make decisions about organizational culture. (Vidyarthi, 2014, pp . 232-244). Understanding the diverse point of the HR, for the purpose of tailoring the relationship among various employees helps to initiate the pride of achievement for the organization (Walker, 2014, p. 151).

Lu (2016) suggests that to upsurge immigrant workers in certain regions has resulted in reaffirms the need for businesses to engage in developing a suitable organizational culture. With the rise in competition across various knowledge-intensive industries, importance of employee retention and employee empowerment is increasing rapidly and accordingly, the need for business to create a healthy organizational culture is important (Lu, 2016, pp.210-235.). Grandey (2007) examined that cultural differences in work emotions of employees and identified that emotional factors is significant to understand impact of employee emotions on the organization. As more and more companies outsource the service functions as export companies and oversees to countries, managers need to be alert of potential strain over employees for the need of the emotional representation within the norms of culture. From the perspective of practitioners and researchers, understanding the cultural variation influences the labor process that helps to ensure the employee that can give quality service that matches sustainability needs of a business (Gertler, 1995, pp.1-26). The cross-cultural emotional studies are sparse, the current research represents an attempt to show identifies the cultural differences across different cultures in employee objectives and expectations (Nicholson, 2016, pp. 103 - 113).

The emotional aspects of employees in workplace have been researched through testing that whether the predominant emotional labor model in previous studies operates in different ways in the context of variables or the relationship between key variables across the cultural backgrounds. The evidence for variation can provide the moment for formally incorporating cultural factors among the applications of emotional employees in service jobs (Klüppel, 2017).

2.4 Individualism-collectivism and Emotions

Graebner (2017) suggested that the individualism-collectivism culture and emotion are the commonly observed factors in cultural variation research that define a culture for its employee emotions. The individualistic cultures value empowerment of the individual over the collective group and helps to promote autonomy, uniqueness and separateness (Graebner, 2017, pp. 1 - 32). The countries with high individualism e.g., U.S consider employee emotions as the right of individuals and as being representative of the personal experience (Cascio, 2018). The emotional expression is complicatedly enhanced in individualistic culture as personal expression, with norms that represent emotional expressions as an individual. On the contrary, a collectivistic culture puts higher emphasis on success of the group over the individuals. These cultures promote harmony and cooperation within group instead of promoting the assertive individual behavior (Gertler, 1995, pp. 1 - 26).

Ekman (2012) suggested a neuro-cultural theory of facial expressions of emotions that use and display the rules. The model represents cultural differences as universal determinants of facial expressions (Nicholson, 2016, pp. 103 - 113).

The individuals in collective culture make the difference between group of employees with same cultural values and diverse cultural groups so the corporation is usually high in the similar groups and in culturally diverse groups it is unlikely without implementation of a strong and supportive organizational culture . The behavior of employees in a workplace gets highly influenced by the collectivism or individualism aspect of the organizational culture (Fullerton, 2002). The individuals use to manipulate the attitude and behavior, involving, emotional behavior, depending on with whom they use to communicate across different workplace teams. The difference between one’s behavior for the a member outside of formal organizational team is differentiated in the collectivism promotion workplace cultures in comparison to the individualism dominant organizational cultures. In other words, employee communication with members of team and other employees will rely significantly on whether or not the organizational culture promotes individualism or collectivism (Gertler, 1995, pp.1-26).

2.5 Culture and emotional interaction among employees

There is a strong resemblance in how the emotions are represented across the culture variations. The meta-analytics performed by Engversen (2006) represents the cultural difference in expressions of emotions with subtle actions and languages. As per this study, the individuals are only around 9% of accurate when evaluating emotions in the voice of the members of their own cultural groups and 7% of the times accurate while examining emotions in face of members of a cross-cultural group (Engbersen, 2006). It represents that interaction among the culture of expresser and the observer culture may be moderate the connection among capability to impact others through emotions display and the level of competence. The members of similar cultural groups need to capture the signals of expresser’s attitude, goals intention ad attitudes due to interaction among partners that are likely to interpret the emotions in the correct way. In contrast, the members of various cultural groups need to be expected to miss social signals (Graebner, 2017, pp.1-32).

According to Bergheim, (2015) the cultural values may impact the way individual employees respond to displays of various emotions. This study suggests that showing employees their workplace errors and fault has consequences on the behavior of Asians most common in form of slight anger and animosity (Bergheim, 2015, pp.27-36). In discussions, researcher states that employees showing anger is the worse consequence with the employees of Asian origin due to negative outcomes of anger as a emotion in workplace, which undermines the value of respect and mutual-appreciation. According to Engbersen (2006), a constant reasoning is presented in existing research studies show the level of anger due to cultural changes and variations within the organizations (Engbersen, 2006). Allen (2014, pp.21-35) found in his research study that in case of African employees, if they are faced with anger from consumers, their dominant emotion is of humiliation and embarrassment. Such emotions are likely to have a behavioral impact on the employees with shift in their emotional state.

The cultural difference in the theoretical framework of emotions helps to represent the cultural variations in emotion. In this process, use of cultural dimensions of Hofsede (2012) is very useful to compare the cultural variability and various perspectives of emotions to the outcome of previous research. The cultural dimensions of Hofstede represent the level to which a national culture puts emphasis on individualism or collectivism. In cultural changes and its influences on the emotional expression is represented by Hofstede’s dimension of the individualism collectivism. The individualistic culture highlights the independence of each individual and in this culture, the interest and personal requirement are valued as compared to the goals. In the individualistic culture, the individuals have in-groups that ties among person and in-groups that are unstable (Ahammad, 2016, pp. 66 - 75). The individuals at individualistic culture have understanding and better at meeting with outsiders and forming the new groups. In collective culture the employees may be induced to meet their personal has of the collective that is stale in the group. There are fewer in-groups in a collectivistic culture that tend to be stable than in individualistic cultures (Ashkanasy, 2002, pp.307-38).

Engbersen (2006) focused on the emotion and reaction antecedents to the emotions among the employees to interpret the attitude towards emotions, it is found that certain cultural differences are explained by an individualism-collectivism construct. According to the study of Izards (1971), participating employees were asked few questions regarding attitude towards emotions to make employee emotion understandable and gain insights into the subject. It indicated that there is indeed an interaction between emotion and culture in all the scenarios of workplace (Jalal, 2017, pp. 1 - 8). Gidykunst (2014) suggests that the more individualistic a culture is, the lower is the extent to which people experience anger in organizations, and fewer the number of individuals experiencing desire to excel individual needs over group satisfaction (Allen, 2014, pp. 21 - 35).

According to Engbersen, (2006) the findings of Izards were constant with including the collectivistic and individualistic cultures, while in collectivistic culture the emotional dependence is desires. In explaining the relationship, negative in nature between individualism and expectation to experience the interest they state that it may be due to filling the void (Engbersen, 2006). As the individuals in collectivistic type culture represent duty and order they feel a requirement to engage in various tasks that are of interest instead of obligation for the satisfaction of employees. Matsumoto (2013) explored and suggested that people in individualistic cultures are likely to show positive emotions and not display their negative emotions to members of the out groups in comparison with individuals in collectivistic cultures. According to Ahammad (2016), the cultural changes and increased variations in organization results in increased range of employee’s turnover and minimizes the assets (Almutairi, 2015, pp. 16 - 23).

Bergheim (2015) represented that when the member of individualistic culture communicates with members it represents more as a one-to-one relation as self-out-group relations. Individualistic culture uses to increase the expression as cohesion representing emotions among the member of out-group while collectivistic culture use to hinder less cohesion producing emotions with the members of the out-group (Bergheim, 2015, pp. 27 - 36). The variations in the range of emotional behavior show among organization in individualistic culture is greater as compared to collectivistic culture it as due to an individualistic culture that use to motivate and enhance the variance in emotional expressions (Jalal, 2017, pp.1-8). There is a range of emotional expression in individualistic culture as compared to collectivistic cultures. According to Matsumoto (2012) examined the simple hypothetical data over the range of anger that is expressed from US individualistic, and the collectivist from Japanese to their friends in the organization (McDermott, 2017, pp. 579-597). The American represented the level of anger to be high due to cultural variations with their friends and Japanese expressed the level of anger to be low to the friends in the organization due to cultural issues.

3.0 Chapter Three: Research methodology

3.1 Introduction

The chapter presents understanding about the design, type and methodologies that are used for making the outcomes of the dissertation effective. The strategies used to collect and analyze the data are stated for providing understanding about the way approached in terms of accessibility.

3.2 Research philosophy

The gathering of data, investigation and analyzing is maintained through the philosophy of research. In general there are three types of philosophies that can be used for obtaining fruitful results and support in the research, this includes; realism, interpretivism and positivism research philosophies (Smith, 2015). The objective manner for collecting data is focused in positivism research philosophy, it is the method that provides evidences about the tools and statistical methods used for data collection. However, the subjective type of research is collected through interpretivism approach, it involves qualitative method by focusing on humanistic research topologies (Brinkmann, 2014, pp. 1008-1010). The focus of this research study is on interpretation and investigation of a social issue in a business context as the study has the aim of identifying implications of cultural variance on employee emotions and employee emotions. Keeping this into consideration, a realistic investigation would get conducted while making use of realism philosophy of research. In pursuing this philosophy of research, it is expected that most authentic findings would be achieved that have their basis in reality rather than relying on theoretical assessment only.

3.3 Research approach

Inductive and deductive are the two types of research approaches used for investigating the topic. The development of theories is based on inductive approach, the existing data and information is captured through theories for generating effective and authentic results (Brinkmann, 2014, pp. 1008-1010). The approach follows bottom-up mechanism for presenting the information. However, statistical data is collected and analyzed through deductive approach, it is the method that is effectively used for testing different theories that assists in obtaining and suggesting results (Silverman, 2016). The research approach selected for this research study is inductive approach which provides a way of gathering data from authentic sources and developing a theory or hypothesis based on this. The investigation is focusing on realism philosophy that supports inductive research approach.

3.4 Research design

Research design is the process that is used to shape the whole work, it can be done by exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research design. Descriptive research design helps to describe the data and variables of the research work in an effective manner (Vaioleti, 2016). With the help of this research design, the population or sample characteristics can be described. The limitation of this design is that it not addresses the requirements in terms of research questions (Brinkmann, 2014, pp. 1008-1010). Furthermore, it is identified that explanatory research design helps to identify the particular issue with the research work. This research design helps to connect different ideas so that the cause and effect can be identified and linked properly (Ledford, and Gast, 2018). Being aware of the scope and direction of this research study in social and cultural issue, the research design chosen is exploratory research design. The reason behind selecting this research design is its alignment with inductive research approach and the ability to explore all options and hypothesis for most accuracy. Adopting exploratory research design ensures that the research subject of cultural variance in workplace is analyzed from all perspectives to find the most suitable finding that is detected through data evidence.

3.5 Research strategy

The research methodology strongly depends on the research strategy as it is the key factor of the whole dissertation and design the method for obtaining the requirements to meet the objectives of research. Thee research strategy makes the work suitable for being successful in the process, however, there are different methods used in the research strategy, this includes; survey method, interview method and case study analysis (Flick, 2015). These are the strategies used as primary research strategy, all these methods have pros and cons which depends on the way the method linked with the objectives (Flick, 2015). The type of secondary data strategy is based on the use of key words for selecting appropriate sources of data. Semi-structured interview transcript is used as primary data search, it allowed the researcher to collected the responses of the participants about the employee that belongs to the retail organization of UK, however, the selected participants for the interview were the nation of people. A total of 10 participants associated with the filed were selected with the view of generalizing the transcript of interview. The notion behind conducting the semi-structured interview was to identify the perception of cultural variance and its treatment from the point-of-view of the employees. The participants selected for the purpose of the interview process of data collection belong to three different Asian countries, which allows collection of data-based evidence to understand and identify presence of a cultural difference among the interviewees. This differentiation itself would indicate the need for HR managers to recognize and focus on cultural variance as a factor in a diverse workplace. The researcher paid high attention to comprehensively understand the concept of cultural variances and its association in the culture and environment of the organization, however, it helped in determining the fundamental factors of cultural variances that often affects the employees’ emotions (either positively or adversely). The impacts of cultural variances on employees' emotions that increase their dissatisfaction at work were elaborated through the strategies.

3.6 Research data collection method

The types of data collection method are primary and secondary, these are the two types of data collection methods that presents variety of data that is used for attaining the objectives of research. Primary data is the first hand data collected by the researcher specifically for addressing the research questions and for attaining their answers (Ledford, and Gast, 2018). In this regard, primary data was collected by maintaining confidentiality of the participants. This provided comprehensive understanding about the concept of cultural variances and its association in the culture and environment of the organization, however, it helped in determining the fundamental factors of cultural variances that often affects the employees’ emotions (either positively or adversely). The impacts of cultural variances on employees' emotions that increase their dissatisfaction at work were explored. The researcher obtained consent of the participants prior to involve them in the research. Not individual participant was forced to involve in the research and they were allowed to leave the research anytime they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

3.7 Sampling method and size of sample

The primary data collection requires sampling to consider and select population, mainly, it describes the process for targeting population. There are different type of sampling methods, this includes; probability & non-probability sampling method (Glesne, 2015). The probability sampling method consists of sub-process like simple probability sampling, systematic sampling and random sampling method. While, the non-probability sampling process consists of convenience sampling and judgmental sampling process (Taylor, Bogdan, and DeVault, 2015). It is stated that change in the process of sampling method also changes the parameters and importance of sample size.

Sampling method used in this research is random sampling, it is an effective approach for providing freedom to the researcher about the way to meet the requirements (Mackey, and Gass, 2015). However, appropriateness of the method depends on the selection of approaches and its use. Sampling process requires enough number of participants to collect data from different participants to ensure that the participants randomly selected participants are able to effectively represent the overall population as a sample. For the semi-structured process, the sample size is kept at 10 total participants. The reason behind selecting ten participants was to realistically stay within time and budget related constraints as the data collection method of interview is time-consuming. It was possible to potentially make use of questionnaire survey of data collection to include a higher number of participants, but doing so would have lowered the quality, reliability, and ability to accurately interpret participant responses subjectively. The participants selected for the interview process of data collection were selected from a single industry to retain a level of consistency in terms of industry the interviewee works in. Retail industry in particular was selected for ease of access to the retail chain employees who originally come from different cultural origins. For most reliable results, a selection criterion was set to only include participants who have actively worked in the retail industry of UK for at least five years. Putting this eligibility criteria helps in ensuring that all the participants have enough experience of the industry to make informed contribution to the data collection process.

People with different cultural origins such as Indian, Chinese and Pakistanis were selected for conducting interviews.

3.8 Plan for analyzing the gathered Research data

It is obvious that data must be properly analyzed after collecting it to get appropriate outcomes, however, analysis depends on the selection method that suits the dissertation topic (Taylor, Bogdan, and DeVault, 2015). The research applies both primary and secondary sources for gathering data, however, both type of sources are associated with qualitative research methodology. The primary data is analyzed through interpreting the responses given by the participants, while, the responses are compared with the secondary data collected from wide range of sources. It can be explained as the discussion section contains interpretation of responses and analysis section of chapter four contains comparison and results obtained from the sources. The sampling method used in the process of data collection and analysis is random sampling.

3.9 Ethical and accessibility issues

Ethics are the key factor considered by the researcher for obtaining effective results by maintaining the principles codes of conduct (Mackey, and Gass, 2015). It is identified that the main issue that arises ethical concerns are data protection and confidentiality of participants. Somehow, participants face challenges to share information with the researcher, in this regard, protection of data is provided by the data protection Act 1998. All the data collected is kept protected and safe from all the unauthorized members or parties. The research data will be stored for one year after the completion of the dissertation it will be destroyed. In addition to this, with clear understanding and attention the secondary research data is collected. It has been ensured that the secondary sources are authentic and valid. At the same time, it is also ensured that the secondary research papers selected are taken from recent studies, from 2013-2018. While conducting the interview, the researcher faced time management problem, for avoiding this, online platforms were used for conducting interviews.

3.10 Research limitation

The research work is performed using a primary data collection method of interview process . Therefore, adequate time was required for collecting primary data. A Gantt chart was designed by the researcher prior to start this work, the chart was consisting of time duration to complete each section and chapter, while, due to time management concerns the researcher find real difficulty in completing the chapters or research in specified time period. More analysis could improve the quality of results, which becomes difficult due to shortage of time.

4.0 Chapter Four: Data Analysis

This chapter presents the finding of the research that was done with the help of semi-structured interviews transcript, which was distributed to 10 participants. The selected number of participants are employees working in different UK retail organization over the past five years which belong to different nationalities such as Indian, Pakistani and Chinese. The respondents who answered the interviews were from different age groups while the segregation according to different ethnic backgrounds were 4 Indian, 3 Pakistani and 3 Chinese. The respondents names have not been mentioned and they will be referred to as Interview A, B, C, D as Indians while Interviewee E, F, G are Pakistanis and then Interviewee H, I, J will be represented as Chinese. The results of the analysis have revealed that cultural variance within the working environment of the organization varies from organization to organization. Further it has been found that diversity of experiences at different positions was essential for understanding the how these individuals have identified the role of cultural variance with the working environment of their organization.

The interview questions were designed to have detailed information from the interview with employees belonging to different nationalities. They are presented below:

Question 1:	Do you know relation of cultural variance with the working environment of the organization?
Interview A:	“Diversity and cultural variance in the workplace is one of the most significant factor for having successful operation of organization.”
Interview B:	“Presence of cultural variance within the organization can support linkages between technology adoption and organizational growth.”
Interview C:	“It has been observed that gender barriers, cultural barriers and language barriers are the most significant communication diversities which in always under discussion in board rooms of major organizations. There exists a strong relationship of cultural variance with working environment which can open doors to many nationalities and cultures.”
Interview D:	“Employees are always in search of working environment within the organization which will allow them to seek opportunities, learn different cultures and communicate well to become a well-rounded individual.”
Interview E:	“The culture of an organization is a binding component which holds the organization together and it is what determines the success or failure of an organization.”
Interview F:	“Culture are set of common norms shared by a society but when it comes to an organization then acceptance of cultural variance is essential because it will formulate the organizational hierarchies.”
Interview G:	“The relation of cultural variance with an organization is a broad term which provide opportunities, diverse knowledge and insightful approach to business problems.”
Interview H:	“People are always in search of working environment especially organizations which will provide them opportunities while embracing cultural variance, allow them to hold on to their careers without losing their identity in the process.”
Interview I:	“An atmosphere of understanding and support prevails in an organization where cultural variances are embraced and adapted according to their working environment.”
Interview J:	“The environment of cultural variance provide working atmosphere which encourages everyone to strive for perfection.”

Question 2:	What are the ways that can be used for relating organizational relation with cultural variance?
Interview A:	“Effective communication is considered necessary for the success of an organizational relation with their employees and customers.”
Interview B:	“The relation of organization with culture is a complex procedure as workplace etiquette varies with culture.”
Interview C:	“The concept of punctuality differs between cultures and organization which at times lead to misunderstanding or negative cultural perceptions.”
Interview D:	“The varying cultural values in the working environment prepare individuals to face challenges and utilize the opportunities for working across borders.”
Interview E:	“Varying cultural elements provides opportunity to experience, culture, life & commerce in today’s dynamic business environment.”
Interview F:	“The cultural values determines the level in which employees feel free to express their ideas freely.”
Interview G:	“Cultural variance in an organization provide new ideas of doing things along with the level of risk an organization is willing to experiment.”
Interview H:	“The organizational hierarchy and attitudes towards management roles vary with culture hence there needs to be a balance maintained in both.”
Interview I:	“Comprehending the significance of both verbal and non-verbal communication is necessary for relating organizational relation with cultural variance.”
Interview J:	“Experiencing varying cultural perspectives for managing organization provide unique insight into business practices which are being followed all over the world.”

Question 3:	The relation of cultural variance provides any support to the organization?
Interview A:	“Organizational culture is dependent on core values of an organization.”
Interview B:	“The cultural variance is correlated positively with organization.”
Interview C:	“Organizational standards are defined keeping in view varying cultures and employees working in that company.”
Interview D:	“Cultural diversity among employees and organization emphasizes responsibility towards work.”
Interview E:	“The culture of an organization also determines the level of job satisfaction.”
Interview F:	“Encouraging and supportive environment provided at all levels of the organization.”
Interview G:	A standard level of punishment, praise or appreciation is determined when any organization focuses on cultural diversity.
Interview H:	“Cultural variance supports organization in work recognition and job satisfaction.”
Interview I:	“Diversity in culture and organization creates an environment which emphasize innovation.”
Interview J:	“A clear vision can be articulated through acceptance of cultural diversity in organization.”

Question 4:	How cultural variance impacts on the emotion of employees?
Interview A:	“A strong relationship is created with employees which encourages participation at all levels.”
Interview B:	“Employees feel motivated and work together to reach an agreement.”
Interview C:	“Acceptance of cultural variance increases consistency for completion of assigned tasks.”
Interview D:	“Effective transfer of western style of management is observed where individuals belonging to different nationalities unite and work.”
Interview E:	“Team oriented leadership is evolved which encourages collaboration.”
Interview F:	“Western management is deeply rooted in its own socio-cultural phase which completely supports cultural diversity.”
Interview G:	“Employees believe in self-sacrifice for the betterment of the organization.”
Interview H:	“A cultural gap is present between Chinese and Western style of management”
Interview I:	“Management encourages the aspects of new idea and innovation which increases employees trust in the organization for which they are working.”
Interview J:	“Employees are able to work in real-time circumstances and they know how to gain the loyalty of their subordinates.”

Question 5:	What you say, cultural variance impacts positively on the emotions of employees?
Interview A:	“Yes cultural variance leave positive impacts.”
Interview B:	“Cultural variance leave everlasting effects on those who are involved, it can be positive and negative.”
Interview C:	“Yes to some extent.”
Interview D:	“There are conflicts which do arise between employees which must be managed tactfully.”
Interview E:	“Mostly the situations in which the company operates determines the impact of cultural variances.”
Interview F:	“Yes I have experienced positive impact on emotions of employees.”
Interview G:	“In my opinion there are both combined effects i.e. both positive and negative.”
Interview H:	“According to my perspective there are at negative impacts of cultural variance on employee emptions.”
Interview I:	“I have 50-50 perceptions about cultural variance on employee emotions.”
Interview J:	“Initially it was very difficult to adjust with cultural diversity and work with employees who belong to varying cultures. Slowly it becomes adjustable.”

Question 6:	Cultural variance have negative impact on the emotions of the employees?
Interview A:	“No in not my opinion.”
Interview B:	“Yes to some extent there are negative impacts.”
Interview C:	“No there are no negative impacts.”
Interview D:	“Conflicts are mostly observed hence there are negative impacts.”
Interview E:	“The working environment decides the cultural variance and its impact hence it is situation dependent.”
Interview F:	“No negative impacts.”
Interview G:	“Both positive and negative impacts.”
Interview H:	“According to my perspective there are at negative impacts of cultural variance on employee emptions.”
Interview I:	“Mixed perceptions about cultural variances.”
Interview J:	“Working environment alter with changing requirements hence cultural variances can leave both positive and negative impacts.”

Question 7:	Can it cause harms to the organization?
Interview A:	“Yes negative impact can damage organization reputation.”
Interview B:	“Yes it can harm the face value and reliability of the organization in market.”
Interview C:	“Yes organization suffers in the end because no team orientation if perceived negatively.”
Interview D:	“Conceptual barriers are created which can cause harm.”
Interview E:	“Negative perceptions does not promote adaptability for an organization.”
Interview F:	“No there are no immediate harm to the organization but it makes difficult to attain long term vision and goals of the company.”
Interview G:	“Positive impact is extremely necessary and it should be promoted while negative impact if perceived will harm company’s name.”
Interview H:	“Organization becomes vulnerable to competition, yes it causes harm.”
Interview I:	“Negative image of an organization reduces growth prospects of company.”
Interview J:	“Yes, it will cause harm to the organization.”

Question 8:	Can it create dissatisfaction level in the employees and the workplace?
Interview A:	“Cultural variance supports diverse behaviors hence there will a balance maintained at all levels.”
Interview B:	“Employees are treated equally hence there is no dissatisfaction level.”
Interview C:	“Leadership style is followed by management which supports team building and participation at all levels.”
Interview D:	Equal treatment of employees without considering any cultural variances at times create dissatisfaction levels.
Interview E:	“Communication barriers exists due to cultural variances hence employees feel neglected by supervisors at times.”
Interview F:	“Promoting a culture where there is no race, ethnicity, color or cast encourage positive culture in the company.”
Interview G:	“Workplace disputes can be put forwarded in an organization easily which supports cultural diversity.”
Interview H:	“Western leadership standards and administration have concentrated providing support and benefit to the employees hence there is no dissatisfaction.”
Interview I:	“No bias behavior is observed with employees, managers or subordinations if it promotes cultural variance.”
Interview J:	“People who are not accustomed with western traditions will initially feel lost in company which promotes cultural variance but it will impact the productivity of an individual and not on the company.”

Question 9:	What are the betterments needed in the cultural variance to introduce positive impact on the organizations?
Interview A:	“Adaptability”
Interview B:	“Removing communication Gap”
Interview C:	“No ideological or political constraints”
Interview D:	“Power distribution should be done wisely”
Interview E:	“Old school of thoughts should not be embraced and new paradigms must be followed.”
Interview F:	Consistency at all levels whether it is internal or external elements.
Interview G:	“Promoting the culture of organizational learning.”
Interview H:	“Defining organization strategic direction and intent.”
Interview I:	“Empowering more young generation regardless of culture.”
Interview J:	“Work on strengthening core values of the company which will help in attaining company’s goals and objectives.”

Question 10:	What recommendations can be provided to lower the dissatisfaction level of the employees at the work place?
Interview A:	“Comprehending management practices which are not culturally bounded.”
Interview B:	“Employees must be encouraged to trust each other and anyone can be relied to perform any type of work.”
Interview C:	“Every individual should be free to openly discuss their ideas and express their emotions with openness.”
Interview D:	“Employees tend to avoid each other due to cultural diversity but it should not be encouraged as it demotivated the workers.”
Interview E:	‘The management of the organization should come forward and express their feelings and observations with employees and let them know that the company is willing to take risks.”
Interview F:	“Autonomy of power should be exercised as it helps the employees to help others without fear.”
Interview G:	“Working in collaboration will provide chances to discuss and share concerns with one another and then prepare strategies and implement them together.”
Interview H:	“Employees should be motivated to work under conditions which involve job stress and challenges.”
Interview I:	“Organization has to undergo a learning curve phase where employees are working from varying cultural backgrounds.”
Interview J:	“Management should support equality and equal opportunity must be provided to every individual willing to work.”

The results of the interviews has helped in identification of the following themes of the study:

Cultural Variance Relation with Organizational Culture

Diversity in the work-place, today, is no more plainly a black/white, male/female, or old/young phenomenon. It is much more intricate in nature and rather interesting as well. It is about how individuals of different backgrounds relate to each other, how they interact with each other, and where and when is it that they need to be careful about not bordering on disrespect.

Factors which influence employee emotions (Positive/Negative)

An advantage of a workforce that is dynamic and diverse is that it can avail the skills of several other employees at the workplace who come from different backgrounds, hold varying view-points and possess unique talents as well as limitations. The business cards of workers in a particular Fortune 100 company, is rather a telling example of this benefit. These cards appear to be rather ordinary at first glance, but when looked at closely, the raised Braille characters of employee information was quiet clear.

Diversity is bound to increase in the next few years to come and only those organizations will be successful which can recognize the importance of workplace diversity. Intercultural diversity is associated with the ability of workers to produce their full output effectively despite of having diverse environment. Having workplace diversity attracts lots of differences but is the key to overcoming such obstacles and lead culturally through different groups.

The greatest challenge which an organization faces when trying to adopt more inclusive environment is to have assimilation from members present outside the dominant group. Another new challenge being faced by managers working in a diverse environment is handling miscommunication within an organization. In workgroups which are acknowledged as culturally diverse it was found that the cross-cultural differences are obvious and lead to several bad issues.

Key Impacts of Cultural Variance towards Work Dissatisfaction

Managing workplace diversity focuses more on the maximization of employee’s abilities and their contribution towards organizational goals. The managers are responsible for managing diversity tactfully, which means acknowledging differences happenings at various phases and enhancing good management practices by preventing discrimination. The significance of organizational diversity has increased with the linkage of organizational culture. Despite the fact that we have too many technological advancements going around the international relations, it necessitates towards dealing with one another on person-to-person basis. It is also observed that with the increase in age, older employees tend to disregard the fact of having diversity and their acceptance of such changes starts decreasing. Hence it can be concluded that managing workforce diversity has become an important issue for both government and private organizations. Initially the workforce diversity was emerged with the concept of introducing equal employment opportunities in the workplace but now this idea has expanded into including individuals from different races, cultures, nation regardless of their religion, cast, color or creed.

5.0 Chapter Five – Discussion

After evaluating the analysis which was related to cultural variance and its association with the working environment of the organization it was observed that most of our respondents’ favored cultural variance and its diversity. Therefore, it can be ascertained that cultural variance is associated with age, nationality, gender, religion, language, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status within a particular community. Cultural variance bring strength into an organization because it allows non-judgmental and open-minded behavior to be practiced at all levels. Organizations which support cultural variances require commitment because if differences are created then they will lead to miscommunication. Therefore, it is necessary to address such issues instantly which will otherwise weaken group while the prejudices will eventually worsen the effect.

The interviews conducted with diverse workforce shows no preconceptions and there has been a stable working association between staff and managers at all levels. Further it is observed that integration of the diverse workforce is high owing to heterogeneous members. Such organizations which favor cultural variances along with technological innovations prefer organizational culture which does not take into account cultural background of their employees which is in accordance with literature discussed by Ashkanasy (2002). The workforce which have been interviewed differs widely with respect to culture at national level but still they are working in teams in cooperation with each other. Hence Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism and collectivism can be related with cultural changes and their influence on the emotional expression of the workforce. Majority of the responses provided in response to query as what are the ways that can be used for relating organizational relation with cultural variance most of them favored collectivism instead of being individualistic.

Considering the responses which have been collected for relation of working environment with cultural variance 25% Indians, 20% Pakistanis and 10% Chinese individuals agree with the presence of cultural diversity within organization. If the responses collected from interviews are evaluated as per the cultural dimensions of Hofstede (2012) then it is found that the national culture does leave an impact on the organizational culture but it is not is not influential to such extent that it will become an obstacle within the workforce. This can further be clarified from the figure which shows Hofstede insights of interviewees who belong to three different countries while they are working in UK retail industry:

Figure 1:CHOSEN COUNTRIES COMPARISON (6 DIMENSIONS OF HOFSTEDE)

On the basis of interviews performed with individuals’ belonging to various nationalities the above percentages have been identified. This model will provide a deep understanding of the cultural parameters can be made in association with the dimensions identified by Hofstede. The interview results are also in accordance with the identified percentages in figure. Below we will discuss some of the key attributes which are directly associated with our research:

5.1 Power Distance:

• Here it is apparent that 80% China sits in higher rankings of power distance index (PDI), hence it is a society which believes inequalities. Chinese people do not think negatively against power abuse by superiors hence they can easily adjust is any hierarchical structures of an organization.
• India stands second on power distance index category which has scored 77% which indicates that an appreciation towards hierarchies and present a clear top down approach. In Indian culture real power is centralized and communication is directive in style.
• Pakistan has scored very less which is about 55% hence it appears that power distribution is equally distributed in this society which is also in accordance with the views we have collected from our interviews especially from question 1, 2 and 3.

5.2 Individualism:

• China scores 20% in this category as it is a society which support highly collectivist culture hence people act for the interests of the group and not for individual basis. This attribute act negatively when hiring on individual basis is considered hence employee commitment to the organization is low because personal relationships prevail over organization hence culture play significant role here.
• India has scored 48% on this category hence it is a society which supports both individualistic and collectivist traits. The collectivist nature is dominant in this culture hence individuals are expected to act for the benefit for group. Promotions and hiring are based on personal associations.
• Pakistan has scored 14% in this category which means it is a completely collectivist society which manifest strong close term commitment towards groups, teams and organization. Initially it seems problematic for such individuals to adjust in UK culture which is greatly in support of individualism. Hence for this category Indian individuals can easily adjust in such organizations which supports individualism.

5.3 Long Term Orientation

• China scored 87% on this dimension which means that it supports pragmatic culture hence people believe that truth depends on time, context and situations. Therefore people belonging to such societies can easily adapt to situations which favour changing conditions which is the case of almost every organization. This is the reason why Chinese interviewees have greatly favoured cultural variances and adaptation in changing conditions.
• India has attained 51% in this dimension which is in accordance with the views of western societies which are in same percentage range. Societies which favour this category favour changing realities and does not hold on to beliefs. They can thus adjust easily in any conditions which favour the organization for which they are working.
• Pakistan has scored 50% in this dimension therefore it is still a struggling society which prefer to maintain time honoured traditions and norms. Hence the individuals belonging to this culture need to work more on the pragmatic approach similar to Chinese individuals who encourage thrift and efforts in modern education which is the only way to advance at every level and prepare for the future.

Figure 2:COMPARISON WITH UK CULTURE

Overall it can be concluded that the cultural values which are proposed by Hofstede (2012) are sufficient enough to explain the cultural variances and its association with the organization. However, each organization has a different way to manage cultural diversity and therefore the outcomes are different when they are applied to UK retail sector organizations because they are progressing and advancing with time and thinking of applying new paradigms in their management.

6.0 Chapter Six – Conclusion and Recommendations

6.1 Conclusion

Diversity in the workplace has been one of the most discussed workplace factors in recent decades and the discussion is fueled by the growing trend of businesses hiring most suitable employees for the work in a highly knowledge-intensive era of businesses, which inevitably leads to formation of a diverse workplace. Once a workplace is established as a diverse workplace, it now becomes the responsibility of organizational human resource management policies to ensure that the business is taking leverage of the diversity rather than getting handicapped by the diverse nature of workplace system. It is found that improper management of a diverse workforce can easily lead to groupism within the organization and create a scenario of uncooperative workplace groups, causing the business to experience lowered productivity. However, when properly managed, diversity can be used as a significant advantage for the business as a diverse workforce brings different perceptions, thought-process, and market awareness to the conversation.

As part of this research study, an interview process was followed to gather data from participants. The focus of this study was on natives of Asian nations of Pakistan, India, and China, currently working in UK retail industry. A total of ten participants took part in the interview process, all of whom were selected on the basis of their more than five years of active job in UK retail industry. The objective of this study was to identify employee emotions being linked to cultural variance in their workplace and understand the implications on employee dissatisfaction. As per the results of the interview process, it was found that the employees belonging to Asian countries showed a natural favorability towards working for a business that harbors cultural variance and offers existing diversity. For these participants, existing cultural variance signifies a positive workplace environment where they will feel respected and appreciated in a diverse workplace environment. It is also identified that businesses have to maintain a refined HR policy that maintains cultural variance in all cases, which works as a strong commitment of the company towards the employees and diverse workplace culture. Failing to do so can easily lead to mixed messages reaching to the diverse workforce and create communication flaws. For these reasons, it is an inevitable need for businesses to make sure that any issue even a minor misunderstanding that threatens sanctity of cultural variance. Using Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions, it was identified that the attachment of employee emotions with the state of workplace cultural variance would be higher in case of Asian workers in comparison to their British counterparts due to their lower sense of individualism. It is apparent that if a business fails to create a sense of trust for cultural variance among the members of diverse workforce then the HR policies of the business can contribute towards employee dissatisfaction.

6.2 Recommendation

On the basis of finings of the interview process of data collection and review of theories of employee satisfaction, some recommendations can be made to help businesses achieve a high degree of employee satisfaction through enhanced cultural variance in the workplace. These recommendations include the following:

• Generate a sense of teamwork: From the review of the responses received from the interviewees combined with the results of Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions, it is clear that a significant part of diverse workforce would have a cultural inclination towards anti-individualism. Promoting teamwork in the workforce would help these employees feel fulfillment of their emotional attachment with the business while also helping all the employees get familiar with the cultural attributes and beliefs of others.
• Hire trained HR professionals: In a workplace scenario, it is always the responsibility of HR managers to define policies of HR and the way employees within the company are treated. With the issue of cultural variance being a real possibility in case of a diverse workforce having business, it is recommended that the business hires HR managers and company representatives who have geocentric approach towards business processes and recruitment processes. A manager who adheres to geocentric approach would consider all employees equally as per the concept of geocentric approach, which would help the HR manager establish policies that are effective in the workplace by being aware of the different cultural values of all the employees and giving equal priority to the cultural needs and beliefs of the employees.
• Protecting cultural rights and beliefs of the employees: Any kind of cultural dispute or discrimination should be strictly prohibited by official guideline and strict measures should be implemented in the workplace that avoid any kind of discrimination. In this process, a multiculturism approach of management can help a business significantly as the whole purpose of multiculturism is to become familiar with the different cultures that the employee groups belong to and accordingly, understand the cultural sensitivities of all the employees. Having a multiculturism approach would also help the management team in ensuring that all cultures are treated equally, and the point-of-view of each culture is understood effectively by the management team.
• Promoting workplace equality: It is recommended that a business that hires or has a diverse group of employees promotes and adheres to policies of workplace equality for all employees. This approach ensures that employees belonging to all cultural groups and demographics can feel comfortable and valuable to the company, serving as a satisfied and motivated employee for the company.
• Transparency in rewards: All business operations and reward systems should be maintained in a transparent manner to effectively communicate equality provisions to employees.
• Communicating cultural equality: Without a clear sign or communication from the senior management or administration team, employees may generate a sense of uncertainty regarding the views of management team about workplace diversity, which can lead to employee dissatisfaction. To avoid this issue, it is recommended that the management team embraces diversity and cultural variance by clearly communicating it and adding a commitment to protect workplace diversity in the organizational culture and vision.

Having a diverse workforce can truly help a business in creating a competitive advantage and appealing to new talent simultaneously. The detected strong correlation between cultural variance in workplace and employee satisfaction makes it an obvious need for businesses to follow these recommendations.

7.0 Chapter Seven– Personal reflection

Working on this research study has been a good learning experience for me and I found this process very interesting method of learning HR policies in a real-world setting. Prior to exploring this dissertation subject, I found the issue of workplace diversity to be a single-issue subject- whether diversity in the workplace can help a business gain a competitive advantage. To this question, I always developed a point-of-view that workplace diversity is like a double-edged sword of opportunity and risk, results of which would depend on the effectiveness of organizational culture and HR policies of the company. While I still stand by the same sentiment, I had never thought of workplace diversity with such depth to evaluate the case of cultural variance with a serious consideration. It is true that in a workplace scenario where employees from all walks of life come together to work, perception of the employees for different practices and policies changing on the basis of their cultural background and belief system is a natural expectation.

Throughout the research process, I was intrigued by the potential impact of cultural variance in a workplace and the reasons behind selecting interviewees from three nearby and border-sharing countries – India, Pakistan, and China were also important to me. India and Pakistan share a common heritage and history as a combined nation prior to division in 1947 and since then, religion has been the most devising factor between the two cultures. Comparing these two countries for cultural variance had the objective of identifying the sheer significance of cultural differences between two neighboring countries that prominently share a cultural history, language, and religions practices. The findings were surprising to me that even the extent of cultural variance between India and Pakistan was significant, which leads to me believe that this value would be much more different and impactful for two cultures that are different in geographical location, religion, economy, social structure, language and traditions. Findings of this research study has made me accept cultural variance as one of the most important factors of HR management in a large-scale business with a diverse workforce. In my opinion, cultural variance awareness and management can be effectively used by a business to gain a competitive advantage to keep the existing employees satisfied and appeal to the diverse workforce from other companies as well.

Completing this research project has enabled me to have a deep understanding of the importance that cultural variance has in a workplace setting. Having this knowledge is very useful and valuable to me, and I anticipate that this lesson would help me excel in my career objectives of adorning a leadership role in a business and becoming a good manager in a competitive business industry. For a manager of future, the ability to effectively manage a diverse workforce would likely be a necessary need, judged from the way multinational companies are growing in popularity and most competitive business are accepting and adopting a diverse business culture.

At the conclusion of this project, my opinion is strongly in favor of adopting a multiculturism attitude in the workplace from the perspective of a future manager. I believe that following multiculturism approach provides the right attitude to equally treat and understand the cultural differences within the employee pool and having the cultural awareness to manage the cultural variance. Going forward, I would make efforts to be more receptive to cultural differences of my colleagues and generate a cultural sensitivity towards other cultures for their values and belief systems.

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Appendix

Interview questions

1. Do you know relation of cultural variance with the working environment of the organization?
2. What are the ways that can be used for relating organizational relation with cultural variance?
3. The relation of cultural variance provides any support to the organization?
4. How cultural variance impacts on the emotion of employees?
5. What you say, cultural variance impacts positively on the emotions of employees?
6. Cultural variance have negative impact on the emotions of the employees?
7. Can it cause harms to the organization?
8. Can it create dissatisfaction level in the employees and the workplace?
9. What are the betterments needed in the cultural variance to introduce positive impact on the organizations?
10. What recommendations can be provided to lower the dissatisfaction level of the employees at the work place?