BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ---------- GRADUATION THESIS TOPIC: THE IMPACTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ON JOB PERFORMANCE: OEA FOREIGN TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES Student : Le Thi Thao Class : K20ATCB Academic year : 2017 – 2021 Student ID : 20A7510161 Supervisor : Mrs. Le Thi Minh Que (M.A) Hanoi, May 2021 17014129067171000000 Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 ABSTRACT The world has transformed into a global village with people traveling to find international partners, build business relationships and optimize their profits. Establishing a sincere, supportive relationship based on mutual respect is fundamental to Vietnamese culture. The main purpose of this paper is therefore to discuss how cultural diversity affects overseas teachers and multicultural organizations as well as offering some potential solutions to overcome barriers in the workplace.
It examines selected intercultural factors to discuss the effects of cultural diversity on foreign teachers and intercultural companies and to provide practical solutions to workplace barriers. The quantitative research methodology was used as the fundamental instrument and the questionnaire survey was assigned to a total of 28 respondents for OEA foreign teachers. The results show common positive effects, including designing a professional work environment, deepening international integration and promoting personal growth. Cultural diversity also enhances the company's reputation, improves teamwork activities, and maximizes individual potential.
Besides, there are significant challenges arising from misunderstandings, psychological and linguistic barriers, conflicting values, anxiety, uncertainty, ethnocentrism and stereotyping, which are caused by inadequate cultural knowledge and the lack of intercultural communicative skills. Thus, adequate training in cross cultural communication and exposure to other cultures is essential in eliminating these obstacles. OEA teachers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with different cultural backgrounds of colleagues, open up to a new culture, engage in teamwork, and share tasks and knowledge. It is important for managers to be proactive in evaluating communication skills, resolving conflicts from a multicultural framework, making necessary adjustments to meet today's increasingly diverse workforce needs and understanding of intercultural communication.
The findings can be beneficial for foreign teachers, school administrators and policymakers in managing cultural differences in the workplace. Keywords: Impacts, cultural diversity, job performance, OEA foreign teachers’ perspectives. Graduation Thesis i Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First, I would like to extend my sincere and deepest thanks to my research supervisor, Mrs. Le Thi Minh Que, M.A, Deputy manager of ATC program, Lecturer of Faculty of Foreign Languages, Banking Academy of Vietnam.
Her clear orientation from the initial step helped me to decide on a topic that I am really interested in and best suited my ability. In the process of finalizing the thesis, Mrs. Que has not only given me clear instructions but also always listened and supported my idea. Her sincerity, meticulousness is a great motivation to encourage me to complete the thesis with all my efforts.
Thanks to her, I realized that I am inspired to overcome the most difficult times. For me, it is such a big honor to work under her guidelines. Second, I would like to thank my family for always encouraging and supporting me in every step of my life. Even though they do not have access to specialized education and just manual labor, they always love and support me unconditionally.
Also, my colleagues in Oxford English Academy –Vietnam, wholeheartedly supported me to complete the survey and shared their viewpoints relevant to my thesis. Without them, my graduation thesis would not be finished. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt respect to all the lecturers of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Banking Academy of Vietnam. I have learned not only languages, soft skills but also valuable experiences in four years in Banking Academy.
From a small provincial student with a lack of basic language knowledge, I can now confidently carry out scientific research thanks to the support of all lecturers in ATC. Although I am not able to say thank you to each, my heart is still full of gratitude and favors received from all of them. Graduation Thesis ii Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 DECLARATION I declare that this graduation thesis is my own study, under the guidance of Mrs. Le Thi Minh Que, M.A, Deputy manager of ATC program, Lecturer of Faculty of Foreign Languages, Banking Academy of Vietnam.
The research contents and results are accurate and have never been published in any study works before. The references are properly cited as prescribed in the reference section. Hanoi, 20th May, 2021. Signature Le Thi Thao Graduation Thesis iii Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT.
iii TABLE OF CONTENT. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF FIGURES. vii LIST OF TABLES .2 Significance of the Study.1 Definitions of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace .2 Main Types of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace .3 The Importance of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace .4 Workplace Diversity in Organizations Conceptual Framework .18 Graduation Thesis iv Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 CHAPTER IV.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Age and Gender .3 The Period of Residence and Work .5 Purposes of Visiting to Vietnam .2 The Evaluations of Common Factors in Multicultural Workplace .2 Cooperation and Teamwork Activities .3 Job Function and Responsibility .5 Compensation and Benefits .3 Impacts of Cultural Diversity on OEA Teachers in the Workplace .1 The Positive Effects of Cultural Diversity .2 The Negative Effects of Cultural Diversity .4 Solutions for Diversity-Related Workplace Challenges .1 For Foreign Teachers .2 For OEA Managers and Policymakers. Summary of Findings. Implications of the Research. Limitations of the Current Study.4 Recommendations for Further Research.
66 Graduation Thesis v Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Explanation C&B Compensation and Benefits CAE Certificate in Advanced English Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other CELTA Languages COVID-19 CoronaVirus Disease 2019 D&I Diversity & Inclusion FCE First Certificate in English MIC Ministry of Information and Communications MOLISA Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs OEA Oxford English Academy OEA UK Oxford English Academy in The United Kingdom PET Preliminary English Test SPSS Statistical Package for The Social Sciences TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages YLE Young Learners English Tests Graduation Thesis vi Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page Figure 2. The conceptual framework of cultural diversity in the 14 workplace. Age distributions 19 Figure 4. Gender distributions 20 Figure 4.
Residence periods 21 Figure 4. Work periods 22 Figure 4. Education Qualifications 23 Figure 4. OEA teachers’ perspectives about job function and 32 responsibility Figure 4.
OEA teachers’ perspectives about compensation and 36 benefits Graduation Thesis vii Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 LIST OF TABLES Tables Page Table 4. Nationality distributions 20 Table 4. Purposes of visiting to Vietnam 23 Table 4. The Cronbach's Alpha results of organizational 25 management Table 4.
OEA teachers’ perspectives about organizational 26 management Table 4. The Cronbach's Alpha result of cooperation and 28 teamwork activities Table 4. OEA teachers’ perspective about cooperation and 29 teamwork activities Table 4. The Cronbach's Alpha result about job function and 31 responsibility Table 4.
The Cronbach's Alpha and descriptive statistics result 33 of working conditions Table 4. The Cronbach's Alpha result of compensation and 35 benefits Table 4. The descriptive statistics result of positive effects of 37 cultural diversity Table 4. The descriptive statistics result of negative effects of 41 cultural diversity Table 4.
The descriptive statistics results of solutions for 46 foreign teachers Table 4. The descriptive statistics results of solutions for OEA 49 managers and policymakers Graduation Thesis viii Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents an overview of cultural diversity in the workplace in general and in Vietnam in particular. Additionally, the significance and purposes of the study are also emphasized clearly before introducing the research questions, schedule and structure.1 Research Background One of the global common phenomena in multinational companies is the diversity of culture, which is defined by the United Nations High Commission of Human Rights as the differences were needed in order to advantage people involved (Almeida, 2007).
This phenomenon has been researched and developed into a topic covered in numerous books, studies and newspapers by a great number of scholars. Ely and Thomas (2001), Brunow (2011) and Martin (2014) analyzed the effects of cultural diversity in the workplace, and each paper demonstrated the different benefits as well as barriers of this subject.al (2007), Robert and Angelo (2017) figured out several conceptual frameworks which illustrated the workplace diversity process in organizations. In addition, during the 1960s and 1970s, The United States of America for the first time saw the need to promote workplace diversity because of the large numbers of employees coming from all over the world, which has become the turning point in avoiding the deliberation of diverse characteristics (Dike, 2013). Obviously, cultural diversity has become one of the most interesting topics in books, papers, seminars, conferences (Atyah, 2015).
Many challenges have been posed for academics to become more involved in the impending social issues of the day and to demonstrate the value of their research in public. The studies of cultural diversity in the working space offered a chance for scholars to explore the unprecedented findings. In Vietnam, as reported by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), a number of individuals and organizations have become concerned about cultural diversity issues when the government has enforced Vietnam's renovation in 1986 and integration policies. Until July 2019, the number of foreigners who have come to Vietnam for work has climbed significantly with more than 81.100 foreigners who are legally working for the various fields in Vietnam, The Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has informed.
This is the premise and foundation of cultural diversity in the workplace, especially in large corporations or multinational companies. For instance, according to FPT’s website published in September 2018, more than 300 IT foreign engineers currently work for this company, which has created a diverse working environment in culture, communication, productivity, problem-solving, etc. However, Graduation Thesis 1 Banking Academy Student: Le Thi Thao Student ID: 20A7510161 (Galla 2005) stated that virtually the quantity of newspaper official national research or journal articles available on the topic was just as rare in Vietnam. Dao (2005), Jung (2012) and Tran (2014) conducted preliminary studies on how cultural diversity affects working quality, corporate culture and human resource management in foreign-invested companies in Vietnam.
The realistic situation has seriously encouraged other researchers to take in- depth papers to identify the greater effects of multiculturalism in international and social organizations. Despite this spate of attention to the subject, the research literature remains sparse and limited about cultural diversity, especially in organizations that have been marginal (Fine, 1996). According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 60% of foreigners experienced culture shock when they joined the labor forces in Vietnam. In reality, although the national companies have spent a lot of money hiring foreign workers, the job performance has not been effective because of the obstacles of cultural diversity.
This demonstrated that these articles related to this subject still have existed many shortcomings. Since many people from different nations came to work in academic contexts, Vietnam should be aware of the potential cross-culturalism. This issue should be identified as benefits and minimized barriers in order to give the foreigners and the local people an atmosphere of mutualism and understanding. In particular, Oxford English Academy (OEA) operated with 100% foreign teachers and Vietnamese staff has faced many challenges of cultural diversity in the work environment.
With regard to OEA - Vietnam, the company, headquartered in Oxford, The United Kingdom, is a city renowned around the world for its vibrant history and culture.