Multiculturalism
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Themes in Management and Change in Africa

Managing Multiculturalism

Consciously manage the dynamics of multiculturalism in order to develop strengths and synergies from these, including the management of equal opportunities of individuals from different ethnic and gender groups to influence the direction of the organization

This can be undertaken from a number of perspectives. In South Africa, as in most African countries, this would involve not only simply managing differences in culture and gender from the point of view of understanding different cultures. It would also involve managing the power relations among people of different cultures (Human, 1996). In South Africa, managing such relationships involves compliance to employment equity legislation on the one hand in order to redress the imbalances both at corporate and regional level, and consciously managing the process of multicultural working on the other hand. There is little evidence from the current research project that multiculturalism is being consciously managed in Kenya, Cameroon or Nigeria. In South Africa, cross-cultural workshops seem to have been undertaken in the mid-1990, but have faded away - perhaps through a belief that the job is now done! Recent figures from the Breakwater Monitor (2000) which monitors employment equity in South Africa through some 200 voluntarily participating organization, indicates that in 2000 African managers comprised 9.52 per cent, 5.53 per cent were Indian, 5.31 per cent were coloured and 79.64 per cent were white. Of the total 78.66 per cent were male and 21.34 per cent were female. There still appears to be considerable room for further redressing the power balances in corporations among the racial groupings, and in further developing awareness sessions and cross-cultural workshops.

Although training courses in intercultural management, and awareness sessions address issues of interaction, they may add very little directly to addressing issues arising from power imbalance within corporation that are culturally related. Nor do they address imbalances within the total stakeholder population. With these imbalances, it is difficult for organizations to argue that simply complying with the legislation is sufficient. Proactively managing across cultures would seem necessary in order to redress some of the power imbalances by building awareness, and  developing general cross-cultural competences. Because of the multicultural nature of most African societies (even apparently mono-cultural Botswana has a surprising diversity of cultural groups that are recognized as being quite distinct) and organizations in Africa (in the small community of Alice in the former Transkei in South Africa, the all-Xhosa community recognize differences between Xhosa from the locality and Xhosa who are not - favouring those clan-groups that were from the immediate locality), South African management in particular, and African management in general seems highly placed to take a lead in developing innovative ways to manage multiculturalism.

One conclusion that may be drawn is that in order to effectively manage across cultures, it is necessary to have an awareness of the types of stereotypes that one is working with, to overcome some of the negatives, and focus on the positive aspects of cross-cultural working: to see multiculturalism as a positive aspects whereby different stakeholders from different cultural perspectives can make a variety of contributions, and where this input is not simply desirable, it is necessary to economic and social prosperity. A starting point in this is for individuals to have a high awareness of their own cultural background, its values, and the contribution that their values, perceptions and expectations can make. Only recently has there been an articulation of the relation of African culture to management through the work of Mbigi (1997; Mbigi and Maree, 1995) in South Africa. Other African countries may be lagging behind in this articulation. Hence, it is also likely that organizations will have to: Next

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