Cultural Diversity, Article Critique Example

This article has been critically analyzed in four areas. First of all, the title of the article is very general and doesn’t give specific clues into the content of the article. Secondly, the author seems to have relied upon personal experience and old sources in the preparation of this article and a more appropriate approach would have been to use real-world examples to back-up the arguments made in the article. Thirdly, the author could have conduct personal research such as sending questionnaires and surveys to management and the employees in order to discover cultural diversity practices that work and that don’t work. Fourthly, the author didn’t choose an original topic nor did come up with any original ideas that have not been touched upon many times before. Investigation of specific cultural diversity practices that work might have been a more appropriate choice. In addition, the author could also have researched the cultural diversity practices that have global applications.

Title’s Critique

The title of the article is too general in nature and doesn’t reveal much about the content of the article except the fact that it has to do something with diversity. The reader doesn’t know beforehand whether the article may deal with the benefits of cultural diversity, challenges of cultural diversity, cultural diversity trend at workplace, or something else. In addition, the article title doesn’t mention whether it applies to U.S. only or all the countries in the world.

Methodology analysis and measurements

The greatest issue with the article is that the author’s opinions have been presented as facts. The author has not disclosed how he reached the conclusions and what studies have been done to support author’s assertions in the article. The article was published on December 28, 2009 (Albright Jr.) but the most recent reference used by the author dates back to 2001 while the oldest one came from 1990. A lot has changed in the last two decades yet the author’s recommendations have been based on the studies between eight and nineteen years ago.

A better approach might have been to use real world examples of corporations who have managed diversity efficiently and have been reaping its benefits and others who have done a poor job of managing diversity. In addition, the author could have used examples from numerous industries to indicate that cultural diversity benefits irrespective of the nature of the workplace. The author could also have included statistical studies that investigated the best practices of managing cultural diversity and made its recommendations on the basis of objective data analysis. The author makes suggestions to promote cultural diversity as a practice rather than a policy but once again, fails to provide research support for his suggestions.

Assessment of research design and results

The author’s suggestions seem to have come from his personal experience as well as the sources consulted that have been mentioned at the end of the article. The author didn’t conduct any investigative study to determine the latest trends as well as the best practices being employed to efficiently manage cultural diversity and reap its social and economic benefits. Another serious shortcoming of author’s approach has been to use dated sources whose suggestions may not be practical anymore because a lot changes in a decade or two.

A better approach might have been a mix of questionnaires and surveys. The author could have sent surveys to both the management and the employees at the organizations at companies that have a good reputation for cultural diversity as well as those who have a poor reputation. The author could also have conducted interviews of the CEOs to capture information that might not be possible in surveys and to encourage CEOs to give open-ended responses (Media College). In order to ensure that the sample is a fair representation of the general workplace, the author could choose samples from numerous industries spread throughout the U.S.

Article’s conceptualization and originality

The author seems to have addressed the issues faced by the organizations in the U.S. and should have specified the geographical limitations of the suggestions. U.S. is probably the most diversified country in the world and here social values have changed in favor of cultural diversity at workplace but that may not be the case in many other countries, even developed ones like Japan (Kinicki and Kreitner). Moreover, the workplace characteristics mentioned in the article seem to focus more on for-profit organizations than non-profit organizations and the author should have stated so. The article touches upon a subject that has been mentioned countless times and doesn’t bring any originality to the topic. The fact that approximately two decades old sources were used should say something about the popularity of cultural diversity as an article subject. The author could have brought more originality by going into specific cultural diversity practices that have proved to be effective and probably have global application.

References

Albright Jr., Richard A. “Cultural Diversity in The Workplace.” 28 December 2009. 24 February 2012 <http://www.sooperarticles.com/business-articles/human-resource-articles/cultural-diversity-workplace-2517.html#ixzz1nDqR8Me2>.

Kinicki, Angelo and Robert Kreitner. “Developing Global Managers.” Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills & Best Practices. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008.

Media College. “Open-Ended Questions.” 24 February 2012 <http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/open-ended-questions.html>.