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In this study, accepting the value and importance of the official organization, it is aimed to assess the idea that unofficial organization is real and important at least the official organization. Becouse at the same time organizations are feelings system, it is beneficial to determine the role of the human in the organization and to regulate the...
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... This has two serious implications for sustaining firm's competitive advantages across countries. First, MNCs need to develop cross-cultural capabilities which encourage people from diverse cultures to work together in harmony (Bertolino, Truxillo, and Fraccaroli, 2013;Eze et al., 2017;Mehmet and Aşçı, 2016;Ahmady et al., 2016). Second, because both the salad bowl and melting-pot theories of multiculturalism are applicable in organizational and international contexts, MNCs need to strategically align their multiculturalism to enhancing their corporate image, corporate social responsibility or sustainability agenda, and collaborative partnerships with SRIs (Buckley, 2011;Moosa, 2002;Dunning and Pitelis, 2008;letto-Gillies, 2005). ...
In the past two decades, multinational corporations (MNCs) have come under enormous pressure to address issues relating to multiculturalism, as part of their international business (IB) strategies. Addressing multiculturalism issues has become urgent for MNCs seeking to sustain competitive advantage and achieve UN’s Sustainable development goals (SDGs). Our objective is to test the hypothesis that multiculturalism does not positively and significantly impact firms’ business strategy. We adopt quantitative methodology, comprising a Questionnaire Survey via Qualtrics of 318 MNC employees selected from 10 UK-based MNCs between April and June 2020. SPSS multiple regression analysis of the data, reveal three key findings: a/three measures of multiculturalism, namely, ‘liberalism’, ‘heterogeneity’, and ‘retention’ have positive but statistically insignificant effects on business strategy; b/‘heterogeneity’ has the greatest effect, followed by ‘liberalism’, and ‘retention’ has the least effect; c/in a declining order, salad bowl multiculturalism positively impacts ‘product differentiation’, ‘focus strategy’, and ‘low-cost leadership’. These findings contribute to IB research and practice given the increasing relevance of issues of sustainability, social responsibility, governance, and the urgency to achieve UN’s SDG goals in every country. Future research would adopt mixed research methodology to provide a holistic understanding of the association between multiculturalism and business strategy.
... It is clear in the resourcebased view (RBV) literature that MNCs need BoDs with core competencies in multiculturalism and dynamic capabilities for creating the enabling organizational culture for achieving superior performance results over their competitors in both domestic and international markets (Barney et al. 2001;De Wit, 2020). Developing competencies and capabilities require Board members from diverse cultures to work together (O'Donovan, 2018;Eze et al. 2017), with clearly defined roles to achieve long-term or strategic goals (Mehmet and Aşçı, 2016;De Wit, 2020). This will enable BoDs to act as trusted advisors to their MNCs, on a wide range of business strategy issues relating to multiculturalism e.g., equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace (O'Donovan, 2018). ...
Multinational corporations (MNCs) continue to experience lack of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at the Board level, due to misconceptions about multiculturalism and how it interacts with organizational culture to influence Board members’ business strategy decisions. Our motivation is the urgent need for critical research on how multiculturalism influences business strategy, with the aim to provide a novel holistic framework linking multiculturalism with resource-based and market-based views of strategy. We adopt a qualitative methodology comprising of 18 semistructured interviews and four case studies of UK-based MNCs. Thematic content analysis of the interview data reveals four findings: a/EDI are attributes of multiculturalism; b/lack of consensus on how multiculturalism strategically benefits organizations; c/effective alignment between EDI and business strategies is a source of sustainable competitive advantage, d/the paradox of saladbowl and melting pot perspectives should be managed through parallel processing. We contribute to knowledge by specifying the multiculturalism role of Board members in terms of aligning demographics with sources of MNC’s competitive advantage. Because the generalizability of the findings is limited due to our small sample-size, future research would determine the causal relationship between multiculturalism and business strategy in a representative sample of MNCs.
