Exposing Business School Students to Cultural Diversity: Becoming a Minority

Abstract

During five years of teaching Organizational Behavior at the graduate and undergraduate levels to students in a School of Business, I have come to the conclusion that it is difficult for most students who have grown up in a middle class, homogeneous environment, to understand and appreciate individuals from backgrounds that are different from their own. This conclusion clashes with continuing demands by both the business and academic communities to educate our students to become sensitive to foreign cultures, to become aware of and open to different value systems, and to develop an understanding of the social aspects of a pluralistic society (Neureiter, 1984; Nanus, 1984; Pollock, Bartol, Sherony, and Carnahan, 1983).