What are the best approaches to respond to cultural differences?
cultural differences and the effect they have on the hotel industry
Paper details:
NOTE: Please do the methodology part first!!! The methodology part have to be 2,500 words. The respondents are customers of the target hotels.
In this part, sample questionnaire and interview questions must be designed and included in the Appendix.
Moreover, here are some comments from my professor that must be considered during the dissertation project:
1. Interview questions must be designed.
2. Target hotels should be in UK or a specific region in UK.
3. The pages of your work must be numbered. Please use Arial or Times New Roman font, size 12, justified, with 1.5 line spacing.
4. Please cite all the sources.
For more information, please refer to the proposal. (I might upload later in the material)
Working title: cultural differences and the effect they have on the hotel industry
Student Name: Jiawen Jiang
Student Number: G20554406
Module Code:TL4010
To: Martine Claire Middleton
Content page
Abstract
Introduction
Problem statement
Overall aims
Literature review
Chapter 1: Introduction and concept of culture
Definition of culture
Chapter 2: Different types of cultural differences
What is cultural diversity?
Chapter 3: The benefit effects of cultural differences
The impact of cultural difference
Chapter 4: The challenges effect of cultural differences
Methodology
Data analysis
Reliability, validity and generalizability
References
Abstract
These study intents to examine the effects of cultural on the Hotel industry. The study will target the Hotel industry in UK. The study will use primary qualitative data from the staff of the Luxury hotel industry. The study will select a sample of 20 from a population of luxury hotels in the UK. The researcher will use statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) for analysis and presentation of results. The study expects to determine the challenges and benefits of the cultural diversity.
Keyword: cultural differences, challenge, and hotel industry.
Introduction
Globalization has become one of the major contributors to global development. While globalization means a different thing to scholars, Uday-Riley (2006) this is a process that contributes towards worldwide interconnections of virtually all activities. It is through this that has made global sectors to witness boundless limits in terms of the way that people interact. Furthermore, there is now a virtual boundary between organizations, cultures, global interests, nations, and countries. Hotel industry is one area that attracts a diverse number of people that one cannot consider them as domestic. In essence, globalization has had a major impact in ensuring that hotel industry attracts people from different cultures and hence, cultural differences. Just as explained by Albrecht Dilchert &Deller Paulus (2014), is that a hotel venture is more likely to deliver the expected high quality services and products to their target customers when they develop a deeper understanding of their historical cultural backgrounds. However, cultural differences are likely to bring about conflict or misunderstandings.
Problem Statement
Despite the understanding that people experience cultural differences and more importantly in the hotel industry, limited studies have been done. Besides, some of the studies that have focused on the effects of cultural differences have only done it while focusing on other industries. Korjala (2012) examined cultural diversity that exists in hospitality management. Even though the focus of this study is on hotel industry, which falls under the hospitality industry, the latter is wider and hence, harder to generalize the findings as a representative of hotel industry. Studies that have focused on this topic have come up with varying finds concerning differences types of cultural differences that occur in hotel industry, the benefits and negative aspects of cultural differences.
Overall aims
Objectives
a. To conduct literature review of all relevant public sources concerning cultural differences and effect on the Hotel industry
b. To explore the of cultural differences as may apply to the Hotel industry
c. To understand the benefits of cultural differences to the hotel industry
d. To understand the challenges of cultural differences as impacts on the hotel industry
e. To recommend the best approaches to respond to cultural differences that affect the hotel industry
f. To produce a list of recommendations relating to hotel industry as relates to the cultural differences
Questions
a. Are there relevant literatures in public spaces?
b. What the types of cultural differences are as relates to the hotel industry?
c. What are the benefits of cultural differences to the hotel industry?
d. What are the challenges of cultural differences to the hotel industry?
e. What are the best approaches to respond to cultural differences?
Literature Review
Chapter 1: Introduction and concept of culture
The hotel industry forms part of people’s industry. This implies that managers must employ a high number of people in order to deal with all the needs raised by customers/guests. For example, hotels that operate at the Middleton tend to receive different types of guests. This implies that management has to organize on ways that four or five employees work at nightshifts. Some of the key roles done during this time could include auditing of books, looking after the reception, doing some room service among others. Even as the hotel industry continues to expand, managers opt to select of experienced and skilled employees from diverse cultural differences (Fine, 2012). This implies that majority of unemployed individuals move into developed markets with the objective of seeking for employment. Many of hoteliers end up hiring people from diverse cultural background. The objective of this paper is to look into some of the likely effects that come from the employees that come from different cultural background and work together to meet the already established organizational objectives.
Culture refers to civilization or particular society and mostly in terms of way of life, norms, beliefs, and views (Hendel & Kagan, 2014). The wider focus on this topic has also made people to come up with different definitions. For example, Tae-Yeol, et al (2008) applies a subjective nature in terms of a framework that considers people as the primary building framework upon which one can base the cultural groups. Furthermore, the subjective culture considers culture as people that tend to share common values, behaviours, norms, attitude, or values. According to Frenkel (2015), one cannot change cultural values, behaviours, or norms on the basis that culture is always rooted into someone mind. However, DiBenigno& Kellogg (2014) assets that:
Any shared cultural mind-set seem to emerge or occur in a group of people holds assumptions or beliefs. This concept also comes from the premise that culture forms a socially constructed phenomenon by the members. Accordingly, the major concepts here include the cognitive elements such as the cultural knowledge, assumptions, and beliefs (Jarvis & Tint, 2009).
Chapter 2: Different types of cultural differences
One of the recent studies whose focus is similar to this topic includes that of Kumar, 2014). The study looks at the frameworks for intercultural training within the hotel workplaces. The study identified three models that studies cultural difference dimensions-the Kluchohnstrodtbeck model, the Hall’s model, and the Hofstede cultural model. The first model was the first to be developed. The second model provides two major cultural dimensions-the low context & high context, and monochromic & polychromic cultures. The model ended up creating the path between the academic culture and national cultures. The latter model groups culture profiles into identity, hierarchy, gender, truth, and virtue.
Chapter 3: The benefit effects of cultural differences
The cultural differences can pose both benefits and challenges. Some literature has written about benefits of cultural diversity to the hotel industry. This section will select literature material that focuses more on the benefits of the cultural diversity. A basic illustration is as shown below.
Hendel & Kagan (2014) explain that the success of any organization depends on how diversified the workers are. This implies that when an organization tries to assess ways that it can handle issues of cultural differences and come up with plans, the organization might end up reaping many benefits. This occurs because of their socio-cultural aspects, value, wider perspective, and effective execution.
Chapter 4: The challenges effect of cultural differences
Most of the material meant for review in this section involves the cultural differences and their impact on the hotel industry. Of greatest focus is the material that has covered the luxury Hotel. This is because the luxury hotel has more exposure to cultural diversity compared to smaller ones. An illustration is as shown below.
Despite having above benefits to cultural differences, studies have found a number of challenges that comes from a cultural different group. For example, Mcnaughton (2015) explains that cross-cultural challenges come from cultural gaps. The first challenge refers to communication problem. According to Mcnaughton, the problems arise from the language barriers, perceptual, and cultural barriers. Uday-Riley (2006) found that miscommunication has a higher probability of occurring among diversified groups.
Methodology
The current study seeks to use interpretivism philosophy in order to gain a deeper understanding concerning cultural differences that occurs among employees in hotel industry. According to Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill (2008) posit that researchers need to use interpretivism in order to gain a deeper understanding of differences that occurs between humans in their roles as social actors. The current study seeks to use induction approach in order to get a feeling of what happens in the hotel industry and understand the cultural nature of people. The major task here according to Mcnaughton (2015), should involve making a sense of the interview data that will be collected through the analysis of the data. Furthermore, the results of this study would be to formulate a theory. Furthermore, Kumar (2014) notes that research studies that apply inductive approaches are likely to focus on the context in which the events take place. Therefore, this implies that a study of a small sample of hotels that operate in UK, would become appropriate that when using a deductive approach. Feitosa, et al. (2012) explain further explain that researchers that apply this approach are likely to use qualitative data and several data collection methods to understand cultural differences.
This philosophy forms the basis of the study Operationalization. The Operationalization of the study is set by what the study will do and why (including the observational unit), who would be the respondents (answer questions), and when and where data would be collected. This is covered in the subsequent sub-sections.
The nature of this study best applies for a survey research. The target data is mainly in form of experience. This can be best collected through survey. Consistent with Saunders, Lewis &Thornhill (2012), this approach will enable the study to design questionnaire instruments to collect descriptive qualitative data. Furthermore, the strategy will allow the study to collect a large amount of data from a sizeable sample in the most economical way. This implies that the researcher will design structured questionnaires that have standardized questions. The reason for doing this will be to allow for easier comparison of data. In addition, Albrecht et al. (2012) explain that this strategy seems authoritative in general and easy to explain and draw a general understanding of results.
The main observational unit of the study is the experience of the cultural diversity among the customers by the hotel industry. The target respondents of the study are the hotel customers. In order to achieve reliable results, the luxury hotels which have high chances of experiencing cultural diversity will be dully considered for inclusion in the research. Smaller hotels with only a smaller cultural exposure can give unreliable information and do not form part of the research population.
The researcher will collect qualitative data by use of self-administered questionnaires and interview questions. The purpose for doing this will be to achieve a high response rate (Saunders, et al. 2012).
Data analysis
The researcher will use statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) to analyze all qualitative data. More importantly, the study will use descriptive analysis approach to present frequency tables, means, and standard deviations. Furthermore, the data analysis will depend on descriptive statistics to show the level of acceptance on a 5-point Likert scales.
Reliability, Validity and Generalizability
The study will use reliability as a data collection technique and analysis procedure to achieve consistent results. The researcher will develop awareness of participant bias before designing the research. For instance, I will elaborate all the steps to take to give respondents anonymity in all questionnaires. I will introduce a high degree of structure within the questionnaires. This approach will help lessen the threat of observer error towards reliability. The researcher will also use both primary and secondary data to measure validity of data. The study will consider quality issues in order to measure generalizability from the qualitative findings. Furthermore, the study will modify the approach by increasing the number of cases of hotels under study. According to Albrecht, et al. (2014), any study that uses a single case study might draw limited conclusion.
References
Albrecht A, Dilchert S, Deller J, Paulus F. (2014). Openness in Cross-Cultural Work Settings: A Multicountry Study of Expatriates. Journal of Personality Assessment [serial online]. January 2014; 96(1):64-75.
DiBenigno, J., & Kellogg, K. C. (2014). Beyond Occupational Differences: The Importance of Cross-cutting Demographics and Dyadic Toolkits for Collaboration in a U.S. Hospital. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59(3), 375-408.
Earley, P. C., & Mosakowski, E. (2004). Toward culture intelligence: Turning cultural differences into a workplace advantage. Academy Of Management Executive, 18(3), 151-157.
Feitosa, J., Grossman, R., Coultas, C. W., Salazar, M. R., & Salas, E. (2012). Integrating the Fields of Diversity and Culture: A Focus on Social Identity. Industrial & Organizational Psychology, 5(3), 365-368.
Fine, M. G. (2012). Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: The State of the Field. Journal of Business Communication, 33(4), 485-502.
Frenkel, K. A. (2015). How Cultural Differences Impact IT Security. CIO Insight, 1.
Hendel, T., & Kagan, I. (2014).Organizational values and organizational commitment: do nurses’ ethno-cultural differences matter? Journal of Nursing Management, 22(4), 499-505.doi:10.1111/jonm.12010
Jarvis, M., & Tint, P. (2009). Employment, cultural differences and work safety: Estonia example. Economics & Management, 567-574.
Kumar, V. (2014). Understanding Cultural Differences in Innovation: A Conceptual Framework and Future Research Directions. Journal of International Marketing, 22(3), 1-29.
McNaughton, N. (2015). Diversity: it is more than cultural differences. Business in Calgary, 25(4), 68.
Ouellette, S. M., Facal, J., & Hébert, L. (2015). Understanding Cultural Difference Management through Charles Taylor’s Philosophy: Case Studies from the Food Processing Industry. Administrative Sciences (2076-3387), 5(2), 46-70
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. &Thornhill, A. (2012).Research Methods for Business Students, 6th ed., Harlow, Prentice Hall
Tae-Yeol, K., Shapiro, D. L., Aquino, K., Lim, V. G., & Bennett, R. J. (2008). Workplace offense and victims’ reactions: the effects of victim-offender (dis)similarity, offense-type, and cultural differences. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29(3), 415-433
Uday-Riley, M. (2006).Eight critical steps to improve workplace performance with cross-cultural teams. Performance Improvement, 45(6), 28-32.
Wils, T., Saba, T., Waxin, M., & Labelle, C. (2011).Intergenerational and Intercultural Differences in Work Values in Quebec and the United Arab Emirates. Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, 66(3), 445-469.
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