The impact of globalization and the ensuing increase in multinational organizations
Introduction
The impact of globalization and the ensuing increase in multinational organizations have necessitated intermingling of people of diverse cultural origin and orientation. These coupled with the interactions at the place of work brings a special blend of challenges organizations face in bid to achieve effectual communication within the organization amongst employees or between the organization and customers. Based on this evaluation, this discussion looks at one organization in the hospitality industry focusing on Marriott Hotels. The choice for Marriott sprouts from the fact that it is not only a multinational player in the industry but the hotel and hospitality industry is highly sensitive to cultural dynamics and therefore intercultural communication must be something of special emphasis for the organization.
Knowledge of intercultural communication is very essential for better understanding of other people with cultural diversity and this goes to include being reliable in communicating with people of other cultures. At the organizational level this is very important be cause it allows individuals from diverse cultures to work together for achievement of a common objective. This necessitates that the individual at the organizational level and the organization as a whole develop a particular model for gathering the skills needed to overcome and deal with all the challenges that come with cultural diversity. For Marriott Hotel to be successful in international operations means that the organization must have developed a strategy to deal with these challenges. All these are assessed by researching answers to the questions below.
Conclusion 1
Intercultural communication is decidedly important in the modern world of globalization characterized by the spirit of the global village. It should be helpful in dealing with the various challenges that accompany cultural diversity and assist employees to form a better workforce in the organization and become effective citizens within the different communities that form nations. Studying intercultural communication enhances individual relations and social interactions. It also helps individual develop understanding of cultural diversity on a personal level actively participate in conflict resolution. Intercultural communication allows individuals to see through the lenses of cultural diversity hence enriched quality of interactions.
The paper looked at the Marriott Hotel in United Arab Emirates and assessed what intercultural challenges it faces as well as the various ways in which the chain hotel deals with these challenges. There is a challenge of coming up with a common language that fits all individuals of different ages and cultural backgrounds. Due to cultural diversity and the ever-increasing age diversity in the hotel chain, Marriott is faced with other communication challenges that relate faulty translation, making assumptions without sufficient clarification, and linguistic chaos resulting from obscurity of language that is age or culture-specific.
To deal with these challenges, Marriott has a program that is meant to bring all the cultural diversities of the employees into one and form an organization-specific culture that every employee identifies with. This is achieved through programs such as “Spirit to Serve” (Marriott Hotels 2014). In addition, the Hotel also employs various communication methods to ensure that the message being relayed is effectively communicated. It uses both formal and informal means to achieve this.
