Todays Pluralist Society, Its Challenges and Opportunities - Coursework Example

THE PLURALIST SOCIETY Name of Student Course Institution Name of Lecturer Location Date THE PLURALIST SOCIETY Since time immemorial, communities have shown their togetherness in performing specific duties. Work was best done when people from the same social group came together to perform the intended duty. The persons in such social groups were characterized by strong ties to ethnocentrism and aggressiveness in working together in solidarity towards achieving set objectives (Ocasio & Radoynovska 2016, p.296). However, time factor seem to drive such perspectives towards old and long-forgotten viewpoints thereby guarantying them null and void, the current workplace is marked by a conglomeration of people from different cultures brought together with the main aim of achieving a common goal. As time changes, macroeconomic factors becomes complex thereby complicating the work environment. Business organizations take more interest in sourcing for individuals from different ethnic backgrounds, bring them together and let them work together towards making the organizations more prosperous (Carroll & Buchholtz 2014, n.d). However, the organizations are in quandary as to whether the culturally diversified workplace should be left unimpeded where everybody has the will to make personal decisions concerning specific organizational problems or devise constrains in terms of policies and a common culture that would limit the personal approach to organizational problems. The analysis in this essay therefore attempts to assess the pluralism in the context of the modern society, evaluates it challenges and weaknesses associated with it and finally assesses its practicality in the in stakeholders approach to business. It is explicitly certain that modern business organizations require adopting pluralism concept in their stakeholder’s management as a way of booting organizational as well as individualistic performance. Pluralism can succinctly and precisely be defined as the art of bringing together people from different ethnical, religious, racial or social groups into one common workplace to ensure high level of workplace civilization. Valcke et al (2015 p.11) states that pluralism as the theory of multitude groups where people from different cultures team up to counter a given problem or task. However, (Ocasio, and Radoynovska, 2016 p. 290) maintains that in the process of working together as a team, the individuals from the different cultural backgrounds still stick to their norms, values and interests. Many organizations work towards creating a unitary culture where people irrespective of the cultural background are expected to adhere to unconditionally, However, the main concern arises in that the diversified cultures are unique in their own ways and whatever one may perceive right, another person from a different culture might perceive it otherwise thereby making the unitary approach a misleading and erroneous approach to the current business setups. Pluralism promises a more diversified workplace where people can openly contribute to organizational issues unconstrained. As Salmivalli, (2014 pg 201) adds, pluralism is not just limited to cultural diversity but also organizational multitasking where one person can hold two or more positions in a business enterprise. According to the notion of pluralism, ethnocentrism and stereotyping are indeed important factors to consider unlike in Unitarian where they are considered adversaries. The approach devises an ideology that ability of persons to reason, speak and act is shaped by the cultural backgrounds (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014 pg 87). It develops a belief that certain groups of people from identified cultural groups are associated with introversion, low ability to generate ideas, willingness to work collectively rather than individually and takes much interest in working within a constrained environment. However, there is another group of people, as presented in the pluralist approach, who believes in the supremacy of their culture. Such persons are identified to be highly aggressive, extroversive, goal-setters and achievers and prefer working in individualism rather that collectively. Such persons possess the will to lead and influence others rather than being followers to another person’s leadership. Pluralism approach plays a fundamental in creating a common base for leadership and management. It liquefies individuals interests to impose personal will and power on others since every person shall be free to make own judgments and decisions unconstrained by an individual’s influence. The embracement of pluralism has given rise to various benefits as well as setbacks for organizations. But as discussed in the subsequent section, it shall be evident that pluralism is far benefit oriented than retarding. Pluralism adopts the idea of ethnocentrism where a team from a specific cultural group perceives superiority in their culture and believes in developing no any other culture (Mitchell et al. 2016, p.263) additionally as shown, pluralism applies the ideology of individualism which implies that people work best in seclusion. Such beliefs associated with pluralism have certainly led to structural imbalances of power since it attempts to explain that some groups of people are weak, naïve, obtuse and generally indolent. Such people are usually segregated when it comes to leadership and power sharing (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014 pg 87). On a practical ground for instance, if a black and a white applies for a job and all have the same qualifications for the job per se, it is highly probable that the white shall be selected for the job. From such an instance therefore, it can be said that pluralism is unnecessary imp that divides the society instead of joining it together. It fails to realize the special needs of specific group of people by assuming that everybody has an equal place in world of competition which essential is limited in truth and therefore is unworthy in essence of freedom. According to health and human services (HHS), the society should be responsible for the oppressed and deprived, a notion in which pluralism takes total objection. Additionally, pluralism reinstates that every person need to mind own culture hence should always be of free will and choice. Such a notion might at times prove challenging for organizational success since every person would be free to express personal will which might disorient the common organizational goal. Despite the challenges, pluralism has shown tremendous benefits. According to pluralism, each and every individual has the same opportunity to development and leadership. Such a belief stirs hope in employees by making them believe that the quality of their work shall guarantee them a promotion or a better post or pay. Consequently, the employees shall be working determinedly towards better individualistic performance which at long last shall result into higher organizational returns and performance in general. Additionally, pluralistic approach to management brings up an impression that people are composed of different skills and attributes and that organization should do whatever it takes to exploit such skills fully (Valcke, Sukosd and Picard, 2015, n.d) Multitasking, an aspect of pluralism, suggests that highly skilled employees can be assigned one or more duties so as to increase their relevance in the organization and indulge them completely in corporate management so as to increase organizational performance. Further, pluralism enhances leverage of mutual inclusiveness. It brings different people from different cultures together, rates them in the scale of performance and thereafter settles on the most performing people to take up leadership positions. Such an aspect enhances human’s nature of competition in a mutual and unbiased environment by giving everybody an equal opportunity to compete (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2013 pg56). Finally, in pluralism, it is believed that people have different perceptions and ideas on indentified issues. Assembling such diversified ideas and approaches to issues and problems certainly results into a more robust solution. Pluralism is indeed an essential approach to leadership and management and organizational stakeholders should seek embracing it. Over time, organizations tend to acquaint themselves to with the belief on profit maximization failing to recognize the importance on stakeholders. Pluralism has indeed assisted in accepting stakeholders’ approach which realigns organizational orientation from profit based to stakeholders’-based. In the stakeholders’ theory, meeting stakeholders’ interests should be the core interest of an organization not profit. In pluralism, employees, one of the key aspects of stakeholders, form the central part of organizational management hence to enhance their performance, meeting their interests’ needs to be given the first priority as a way of enhancing productivity, just like most MNC’s do. S.I.G, the leading distributor of specialist building products Europe, for instance, applies pluralism in strategically managing its operations across the continent (Bromberg, & Capriott, 2015 pg 500).. On the slogan “Stronger Together” S.I.G believes that meeting its strategies of sales performance, gross margin enhancement, operational efficiency and focus on financial returns begins by determining and appreciating the diversity of the workforce. The company believes that performance can only be propelled when people with different ideas and viewpoints comes together and brainstorms on an issue. The expertise of the workforce is the core value of the company business model where it believes that business quality is derived only if work is done by quality personnel and as such S.I.G invest significant resources in employee development to enhance performance (Bromberg, & Capriott, 2015 pg 500). The employees are given the mandate of setting short-term self-goals which indeed motivates them towards achievement. Most organizations are currently adopting pluralism in managing their stakeholders and in duty assignment. To manage business standards using the approach, organizations are devising ethical standards that must be adhered to. From the discussion, it is clear that pluralism, despite the challenges attached to it has assisted in managing cross-cultural approach to organizational management. It is evident that the contemporary workplace is culturally diversified and devising a common ground for managing such cultures might be complicated hence there is necessity to give room to everyone to decide on their mode of work, whether to work in collectivism or individualism or which decisions to make concerning specific organizational problems dependent on personal will, value and interests. Organizational stakeholders should look forward embracing this ideology in enhancing equity as well as performance. References Bromberg, Y. and Capriotti, E., 2015. SNP-SIG 2013: the state of the art of genomic variant interpretation. Bioinformatics, 31(3), pp.449-450. Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education. Hatch, M.J. and Cunliffe, A.L., 2013. Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press. Mitchell, R.K., Weaver, G.R., Agle, B.R., Bailey, A.D. and Carlson, J., 2016. Stakeholder agency and social welfare: Pluralism and decision making in the multi-objective corporation. Academy of Management Review, 41(2), pp.252-275. Ocasio, W. and Radoynovska, N., 2016. Strategy and commitments to institutional logics: Organizational heterogeneity in business models and governance. Strategic Organization, 14(4), pp.287-309. Salmivalli, L., 2014. Governing the implementation of a complex inter-organizational information system network: the case of Finnish prescription. Valcke, P., Sukosd, M. and Picard, R. eds., 2015. Media pluralism and diversity: concepts, risks and global trends. Springer. Read More