Cultural Competence for Public Managers

Chapter 9

Establishing the Organizational Cultural Competence Framework

9.1 Introduction

Many organizations are now more multicultural than in the 1990s. The increased diversity has brought new cultural characteristics into what were once essentially monocultural organizations. Not all the new cultural characteristics are closely attuned to the predominantly monochronic requirements of the organizational culture. Managing diversity is moving from recruitment of protected groups to establishing cultural competence, that is, integrating the diverse cultural characteristics in high-performing organizations. A cultural competence framework facilitates the integration of the various cultural characteristics.

In public organizations, the cultural ...