The proposed project is designed to investigate the range of approaches used by multinational organizations to handle cultural diversity and their relationship to employee productivity, job satisfaction, and intergroup attitudes. Foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, U.S. subsidiaries of Japanese companies, and similarly sized domestic units of U.S. corporations will be assessed in terms of their approaches to cultural diversity at the organizational level. Using methods derived from organizational diagnosis and organizational culture perspectives, as well as newly developed questionnaires for key organization members, data will be gathered about programs, procedures and policies related to organizational awareness of multicultural issues and organizational handling of cultural differences. To investigate the implications of different organizational policies and practices regarding cultural diversity on individual employees, a subset of organizations representing the range of approaches will be studied in greater depth. At these sites, additional surveys of approaches will be studied in greater depth. At these sites, additional surveys of employees at different levels will assess variables such as job satisfaction, work related behavior, and individual perspectives on cultural diversity. Comparisons of these variables among organizations will permit making inferences about the relationships between organizational and individual level variables.
