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I hereby present my appreciation to Ms. Regina Chu, the Director of Training and Developmentand

Ms. Theanna Wong, the Training Officer from InterContinental Hong Kongfor providing the

precious information to the successful completeness of this report.

Also, by this opportunity, the author would like to appreciate Ms. Atta for her kindly teaching and

giving advices for conducting this report.

 6$      

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If a company wants to gain loyalty and the understanding from their employees according to the

viewpoints of corporate¶s commitment and goals, policies, services or products, they have to

understand those aspects means in different cultures. Particularly in certain places, like Hong Kong,

one of the most multiculturalcities in the world, the historical factor of the British colonization made

Hong Kong to have a unique east meets west culture and working style.Thus, companies, especially

the hospitality industry, since it¶s naturally a very labor intensive, team working and human oriented

industry, have to real focus on this issue of managing cultural diversity among the growing

fiercecompetition in the market.

A successful company commonly develops and spread their business internationally. These

multinational corporations (MNC) have played an important role in globalization.The trend of

globalization leads to the increasing numbers of people working overseas, a place with different

culture or even in a totally strange and new environment. It also reflects the ³increased ease of

mobility and communications for organizations and individuals´ (Crowe, 2007). The globalization

means that ³An increasing needs to get groups of managers from different nationalities to work

together in MNCseffectively either as enduring management teams or to resource specific projects

addressing key business issues´ (Higgs, 1996).

With the advantages of being the international city and the rapidly growth of the hotel business,

Hong Kong is one of the greatest concentrations of international branded hotel chainin the

Asia-pacific region, such as Hyatt, Four Seasons, Starwood and last but not least, the Intercontinental

Hotels Group that is going to probe into in this study.

Hong Kong is a modern, highly dynamic cityfollowed under the rule of British and shortly

occupation of Japan during the WWII which makes Hong Kong strongly influenced by other¶s

culture, especially the British. Now, being the major gateway to the Mainland China, ³the Basic Law

ensures the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong are based on the impartial rule of law and

an independent judiciary´ (GovHK, 2011). Giving the data from the Census and Statistics

Department of Hong Kong, there are 7097600 inhabitantsand 55% are female. Chinese has the

majority of 95% among the total population and the other 5% are Filipino, Indonesian, White, Indian

and Japanese etc. (Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, 2011).

TheHofstede theory indicated that Hong Kong¶s is almost identical with other Asian countries,

except the level of uncertainty avoidancewhich is dramatically lower. It shows thatHongkongese

tends to be a greater risk taker than the others. Hong Kong's Individualism ranks fairly low which is

a ³high level of emphasis on a Collectivist society as compared to one of Individualism´ (Hofstede,

2011).Besides, the theory also shows that Hong Kong has rather high power distance, moderate

between culture of masculinity andfemininityand long-term orientated which can describe the

features of Hong Kong¶s culture.

The InterContinental Hotel (IHG) that is going to investigate is a MNC, whichhas more guest rooms

than any other hotel company in the world with 640,000 rooms and over 4,400 hotels in 100

countries around the world (InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011).

³IHG is an international hotel company whose goal is to create Great Hotels Guests Love´

(InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011).This company emphasizes the importance of employee

satisfaction and wantsto be one of the best companies in the world said by Andrew Cosslette, the

CEO of IHG.
The hotel group is growing rapidly, especially in the Great China Area with 147 new hotels in the

pipeline (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2011). The skilled labor shortage in China (NRC

Handelsblad, 2011)providesopportunities for the cooperation between the western management

styles with the eastern workers and will occasionally create problems and conflicts because of the

very different culture background.

InterContinental Hong Kong is a 496 rooms¶ five-star hotel, internationally acclaimed as one of the

best hotels in the region.Having a culturally-diverse workforce structure, the hotel works with around

460 full time workers, approximately 196 causal workers and 30 trainees on average. Jean-Jacques

Reibel is the managing director, coming from France but has worked in the States for long years. The

majority of other head managements from both management and operationare coming from the

western world, such as Norway and Germany. On the other hand, the front-line staffs areidentified as

local Hongkongese,Nepalese, and Japanetc. With total 44 nationalities working in the hotel, the hotel

can be recognized as a very pluralistic organization.

IHG formulated a new strategy called ³Winning ways´. ³The Winning Ways provides a strong sense

of shared purpose, and is critical to driving the business performance forward, as well as making us a

great, enjoyable place to work´. (InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011).

The³Winning Ways´re-defines the corporate spirit and culture to be more employee-oriented.

However, the employees are necessary to strictlyfollow the Stand Operation Procedures of IHG.

Moreover, there is also a highly implementation of the hierarchy system with bureaucracy in the

organization.The employees never overstep one's authority. From the organization structure and

culture, it can be defined as Eiffel Tower in theTrompenaars' four diversity cultures. Understand the

corporate culture is important since it becomes more important in local employees¶ value orientations.

Also, it affects the staff¶s behavior (Hofstede, 2011).

From the points of view of the author, in managing the cultural diversity approach among the

workforce; it shouldn¶t be like a ³program´ or in a ³structure´ within the organization, but with more

humanized diversity practice and integrated into short-term and long-term thinking.

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Cultural diversity means a country where havingloads of cultures living together and be respectful to

other cultures besides your own. ³Culturealso plays a significant role in workplace assumptions,

behavior and organizational cultures´(Crowe, 2007).Nevertheless, ³The more fundamental

differences in culture and their effects may not be directly measurable by objective criteria, but they

will certainly play a very important role in the success of an international organization´

(Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997).

The concept of managing cultural diversity is to ³accept the workforce consists of a diverse range of

peopleis to accept the workforce consists of a diverse range of people. The diversity consists of

visible and non-visible differences which include factors such as sex, background, age, race and

personality and more importantly, the working style. It¶s founded on the premise that harnessing

these differences will create a productive environment in which everyone feels valued, where their

talents are being fully utilized and in which organizational goals are being met´ (Kandola &

Fullerton, 1994 cited by Crowe, 2007).

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The mission statement of InterContinental Hong Kong is to ³Create Great Hotel Guest Love´.

Through this statement, the author found out that the company is rather focus on the guest expedition

while their stay in the hotel and the service quality, but without emphasizing the diversity on their

workforce. In addition, it hasn¶t encapsulated the principles of managing the diversity.

For the $  , it¶s one of the ³big main reasons why organization had

taken action´ (Kandola & Fullerton, 1994'75) and the specific and critically important aspect or of an

organization. Commitment is needed to be visible and achievable and evidently communicate in

action but not only with writing. Besides, the top managements have to accountable towards

themselveswhile making the commitment to be fair to everyone.

In IHG, it stated that, ³Our commitment to diversity and inclusion extends to all aspects of our

business. This includes ownership, supplier relationships, recruitment, community relations,

franchising and marketing. It means creating a working environment and establishing business

relationships in which every group fits, feels accepted, has value and contributes´(InterContinental

Hotels Group PLC, 2011). To oversee the diversity, the group set up the Office of Diversity which is

led by the senior diversity executives. They formulate and establish the policies and review them in a

yearly based. In InterContinental Hong Kong, training department is mainly responsible for

providing those diversity training and oversee the implementation at all levels in the hotel. However,

the targets who mainly receive the diversity training are mainly from middle management or above.

Thus, the author believes that it¶s necessary to promote the diversity training to all people in order to

treat everyone rational and fair with the equal opportunity to take part in.

The process of  is rather essential. To have an internal audit can

reveal the hidden issues as well as the potential bias that may existwithin the organizationstructure,

policies and management process. In InterContinental Hong Kong, other than the internal audit, there
is also the employee survey conduct in a regular basis for collecting the attitudes, feedback and for

assessing the needs from the staffs. The feedbacks are positive and there¶s always a high satisfaction

with 93% on average. However, the data may not berepresentative, since the affect from the local

culture of high power distance (Hofstede, 2011) that the employees are rarely challenge their

superior and avoid trouble because the survey require staff to sign their names.For reaching the

world standard and the requirement from the Office of Diversity, inspectors from the Research

companies, such as DiversityInc and also the executives from the head office will check the standard

and comments. It can increase the awareness of the issues. The good feedback from the externals can

also enhance the company¶s reputation and gain competitive advantages. In 2004, the IHG rewarded

withno.14 among the 50 top best cultural diversity companies in the world (4Hoteliers, 2004), and

this gave a goodwill and status among the industry continuously.

Company needs to Y  ;  before applying the policies. The objective and the action

plan should be clear and can integrate and fit in the business needs. The management has to

effectively communicate with their subordinates and to gain the support from them. It needs to be

flexible and quantifiable within the set time scales as well.

IHG stated ³e recruit and promote individuals based solely on their suitability for the job without

discriminating´ and ³e ensure that our training programs, including leadership and management

training, are inclusive and non-discriminatory´(InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011) as their

objectives. The first statement is undoubtedlyindisputable. However, the for the second one, the

author thinksthat it¶s unspecific and unclear regarding who is going to give the training and whom is

going to receive the training. Due to the limit of budget and policiesrestriction, non-permanent

employees are not being allowed to be attending the training course, and it¶s kind of unfair to them.

The statement also doesn¶t indicate the flexibility and the time-scale which makes it to be

immeasurable to the hotel.

AY  should be implementing and extend across the entireorganization. The

individual should be accountability for their responsibilities. The management should be accountable

for running the system and modify the system to ensure the fairness (Kandola & Fullerton, 1994',1).

In the hotel, there are no such policies that forcing the employees to use a particular language while

at work. This may leads to the communication barrier between the staffs with different background

since it¶s not most of the people speak Cantonese or English. Team-building is an effective way to

overcome this problem. It¶s good to see that the application of joining the activities is fair and open

for all levels of employees in the hotel. The activities usually organize by the Human Resources or

the Training Department in order everyone can receive the information accurately and impartially.

For the <    , the information that regarding to the cultural diversity should be

shared out throughout the organisation internally and externally. ³Implementation of communication

strategy is a vital element to ensure all employees understand diversity issues and benefits, hence,

solicit feedbacks´ (Dessler, 2004).³Winning Ways´ that mentioned in the front, is a set of behaviors

by IHG based on our values that are helping IHG to become a very best company. In the session that

focus on their employees, it emphases that they³listen to each other and combine the expertise to

create a strong, focused and trusted group of people´ (InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011). It

shows that IHG encourages communication between all levels and lines in the organization structure.
Communication underpins effective leadership. InterContinental Hong Kong is under the

transactional leadership. Its core ideal is the leader who provides incentives for the employees to do

what the leader wants as an exchange. It¶s good for increasing the work performance, however it

doesn¶t provide the meaning of works to those staffs, and the company is very likely to be full of

corporatepolitics,special treatment, people are try to take creditrivalry and exclusion strife.

The Y
   needs to take place at all levels within the organization. As stated on the above,

IHG has set up the Office of Diversity to oversee the issues of managing cultural diversity.

According to the IHG Reconciliation Action Plan 2010, the General Managers with the assist from

the Training and HR Department have given to be the key coordinators. Theirresponsibility is to

keep supervise the implementation and to promote the alertness of the cultural diversity.

For the<   .As have said, the Office of Diversity and the hotel top management audit and

evaluate the hotel¶s diversity policy in a yearly basis. It should be continuously to have the

evaluation process while managing the cultural diversity, which can allow the opinion and feedbacks

and be revised quickly in case there¶s any problems revealed.As have said, the Office of Diversity

and the hotel top management audit and evaluate the hotel¶s diversity policy in a yearly basis. The

feedbacks should be given from or to those employees to keep their attention to the importance of the

diversity. The strategies of MCD should be reassessed after the evaluations.

All in all, the InterContinental Hong Kong is a pluralisticorganization and running under the

transactional leadership. The setup of the Office of Diversity enable to company to manage to

cultural diversity issue independently with professional view. It has the clear guidance for

implementing the diversity policies. However, their mission statements and goals are focus on the

guest satisfaction and service quality rather than mention about the aspects on cultural diversity with

the employees. Nonetheless, the ³Winning Ways´ strategy compensate the shortages with the

statements by the ideal of ³Celebrating the differences´ as well as ³Work better together´

(InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, 2011). Whatever the MCD policies success or not, the postural

of initiative imposed to the public create the positive feeling to the general public and can benefit

back to the company while gaining the competitiveadvantage and reputation.

The Kandola and Fullerton Cultural Diversity Strategy Web is good for applying to the situation of

IHG, but there¶s a loophole of missing the parts of recruitment and training development.Induction is

somewhat a channel can provide an insight of the hotel¶s diversity policy which makes the new

employees to have a better impression.

Cultural diversity management is not just about for making the organization to be more effective and

profitable, but to value the employees. Managing cultural diversity is a long-term process so the

management should be patience and keep eyes on it continuously. It¶s recommend by the author that

the InterContinental Hong Kong has to keep emphasize the importance and awareness of diversity to

the employees. All staff including the part-time and casual workers can able to join the diversity

training. Encourage team works and avoid stereotypes among the working environment. The

employee survey can be anonymous in order to embolden them to give out the ³real´ opinion instead

of keeping by themselves.
±

  


1.c 4Hoteliers (2004),

nterContinental Hotels Group recognized for its diversity efforts, [Online].

Available at' http'--www.4hoteliers.com-4hots_nshw.php?mwi=1451 (Accessed' 13 March 2011).

2.c Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, (2011), ¢opulation and vital events, [Online].

Available on' http'--www.censtatd.gov.hk-hong_kong_statistics-statistics_by_subject-index.jsp

(Accessed' 15 March 2011)

3.c Crowe, D. (2007) Cultural Diversity in the orkplace. Dublin' Irish Management Institute

4.c Dessler, G. (2004) Human Resource Management. 9th ed. Harlow' Pearson Education Limited

5.c Garschagen, O. (2010), Chinese labour shortage drives up wages, RC Handelsblad, 4 March

6.c GovHK (2011), Hong Kong ± The Fact, [Online]. Available on'

http'--www.gov.hk-en-about-abouthk-facts.htm (Accessed' 15 March 2011)

7.c Hofstede, G. (2011), Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Resources, [Online]. Available at'

http'--www.geert-hofstede.com-geert_hofstede_contrarian_position.shtml (Accessed' 15 March

2011).

,.c Higgs, M. (1996) Overcoming the problems of cultural differences to establish success for

international management teams, Team ¢erformance Management: An

nternational Journal

9.c Hofstede, G. (2011), vAR Hong Kong China Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Explained,

[Online]. Available at' http'--www.geert-hofstede.com-hofstede_hong_kong.shtml (Accessed' 15

March 2011).

10.cInterContinental Hotels Group (2011),About us ± Overview, [Online]. Available on'

http'--www.ihgplc.com-index.asp?pageid=16 (Accessed' 16 March 2011)

11.cInterContinental Hotels Group (2011),Corporate responsibility - Community - Our people -

Diversity and equality, [Online]. Available on' http'--www.ihgplc.com-index.asp?pageid=762

(Accessed' 13 March 2011)

12.cInterContinental Hotels Group (2011),

HG hotel and room world stats. London' IHG
13.cKandola, R. & Fullerton, J. (199,) Diversity in action: Managing the mosaic. 2nd ed. London'

Institute of Personnel and Development.

14.cTrompenaars, F. &Humpden-Turner, C. (1997) Riding the waves of culture: Understanding

cultural diversity in Business. 2nd ed. London' Nicholas Brealey Publishing.