• Advanced Manufacturing
• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Biotechnology
• Construction
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Geospatial Technology
• Health care
• Homeland Security
• Hospitality
• Information Technology
• Retail
• Transportation

For detailed information about the high growth, high demand sectors consult the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH).

In short, the 21st century offers job-career seekers, applicants and workers high growth potential and enriched career opportunities. As a Global Career and Technical Education Author/Lecturer, current data suggests 60 percent of new job openings will be filled with 30 percent of applicants or workers.  So, my thoughts for competitive seekers are will we be prepared for the massive growth? Will applicants be looking in the right places for job-career success? Who will be qualified for the new job openings? Will we be able staff the qualified workforce?

Success in the 21st century is about information, strategy and executional habits!

Listed below are some of these forces that are changing the business setting.

1. Technological Innovations. Internet, microprocessors, automation, information hi-way, etc., these are some of the technological innovations that are penetrating the business community and are affecting the way companies compete. For instance, more and more companies are focusing on online marketing models to sell their products or services.
2. Globalization. Local companies feel that they already saturated their local market and the only way for them to grow is to tap the market of other countries. The world economy is becoming a single market place resulting to intense competition among multinational and local companies.
3. New Breeds of Workforce. Due to globalization, employees from all sorts of race and nationality are moving to and from these multinational companies. Diversity of the workforce is changing how companies are being managed.
4. Deregulation. Government regulations are changing the way business operates. The protectionist policies of the government are now being dismantled from one country to another. Affected companies must beef up their operations since their respective government will no longer be there to guard their turf.
5. Emphasis on Human Capital. More companies are producing more services than tangible products. Even manufacturing firms are adding value added services to their physical products. The growing importance of services led to the emphasis on education and human capital. Companies are relying more and more on the skills and creativity of their employees. As such, they are investing more capital on “knowledge workers”.

These mentioned forces are changing the way companies compete with each other. The new business landscape is becoming more and more merciless to organizations that are unprepared to meet these challenges. Companies who are not committed to the doing even more than their best will probably die and become food for the worms.

The interventions in age management are the kinds of things that organizations can do, in other words, the tools of age management. These tools have grown over the years. Today, the tools can be classificated in the following categories: changing attitudes; recruitment; training, development and promotion, wage policy; ergonomics and job design; health and well being; exit policy; and redeployment.

“Good practice in the employment of older workers consists of providing an environment in which each individual is able to achieve his or her broad potential without being disadvantaged by their age”

Walker (2005)

For any age management strategy to be successful it is necessary backing from senior management, a supportive HR environment, commitment from the ageing workers concerned and careful and flexible integration. Methodology

First, we did an appointment with Petra de Saa Perez, teacher of Administration and Organization of Companies in the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. This appointment was by email, and we asked her if we could do an e-interview, with the program Skype. She accepted it, and our group and another student, who also chose the same topic, did the e-interview. The e-interview was 31th of March (Monday) at 18:00 hours. It was a very dynamic interview, although in the beginning there were some problems with the internet conexion, and the image was not clear. However, in the middle of the e-interview the conexion was fixed itself. We were 10 minutes asking about our topic and also 10 minutes of questions of the other group. She also sent us some documents which we did not add because the documents were in Spanish. Some questions asked in the e-interview are the following:

• What are the main factors who have influenced the necessity of the age management?
• In what do consist the age management?
• Which are the benefits of adopting this strategy?
• Do you know any company who is adopting this strategy? What did happen in this company? And the results?
• Can this company be used like an example to other companies?

Like we said before, the e-interview was so dynamic, and also interesting. The most important thing that we can extract of the interview, because she repeated it many times, is that every problem in the company about the ageing workforce is going to be different to other one, because each problem of the Human Resource has to be solved regarding the person, not the employee. However, she also emphasized that every company must to remove each existing age barriers.

She was continually referring to practical examples, with real companies with who she has been working.

After this primary research, we collect more information in internet, where there are some really interesting articles, and we finish with our conclusion.

The Business Context

There are some factors that have influenced in the creation of this Human Resource strategy, the age management, such as:

Demographic shifts

Developed countries are nations with a very old population. For example, in U.S. the number of workers over 55 is projected to nearly double from 2002.(1) In appendix one you can see how organizations are preparing for the possibility of a shortage of workers due to the retiring baby boom generation in U.S.

Globalization

New markets are opening, with more competitors, facility the flow of knowledge. Therefore, strategies in Human Resource are advantages from the competitors.

Technological change

New technologies are continuously changing, needing to improve the skills of the people.

Business strategies

Innovation puts added emphasis on collaboration, process excellence, leadership, customer service, subjects belonging to the Human Resource department. Also age diversity in an organization is widely regarded as a business strategy, because of the transfer of knowledge/skills.

Personal factors

Most old workers want to continue working. For example, 11,8% of population aged 65 to 69 was active in labor force in Canada in 2001.(2) Some factors are:

• Enjoy in their work
• Find a meaning in what they are doing in their job
• Economic factors (do not have a private pension plan, to be widower/widow, etc.).
• Workers who have not been in the labor market for many years

Moreover, there are other factors more linked with the needs of the older employees, such as:

• Personal health problems
• Declining physical energy levels
• Stress due to rapid change in technology
• Family care responsibilities
• Support an elderly family member

Organizational factors

Also the organizational factors are so important in the implementation of this strategy, for example:

• Not enough workforce productivity
• Surprise workforce issues
• Too few employees
• Too many employees
• Wrong employees
• Wrong skills
• Not enough innovation

Really, everybody is going to become old, and for many people this means some deterioration of physical or mental capacities. Life is finite and decline is gradual. The goal of the Human Resource in this topic is a successful and rewarding career in which neither mental nor physical decline inhibits performance. This is almost a utopia, but any approximation to this goal would be really successful, and for that is necessary the age management.

Advantages of the aging workforce

Motivation

There are some studies who prove that the motivation increase with age (see table below).

If an employee is more motivated, he is going to do his job successfully and he will not leave the ship.

Experience

It is not necessary to comment this point; everyone knows that older employees have more experience than younger employees.

Organizational knowledge

Retention of older workers gets to keep the organizational knowledge, knowing who is who, and what you should do if something happens.

Ability to mentor or coach

The experience accumulate during the years of working can be teached to the other members of the organization, keeping the skills in the company.

Low turnover

Older employees are more faithful to the company than younger, because they need to maintain a family, to pay a mortgage; they are not promiscuous to travel, or to change their life. They need stability, so the cost of turnover is going to decrease.

Good work ethics and maturity

It is a common belief that older workers are going to be more mature than younger, but in this case, it is not true. It depends only on the person.

Other advantages

There are more advantages, such as greater less competition and more experiences shared; ability to cope with life's pressures and problems better; knowledge of specialist and technical functions; loyalty and confidence; being able to apply more general and life skills to problem solving.

Furthermore, some studies(3) have shown that the aging workforce stay longer in their jobs, therefore, they contribute to the long-term performance of a company, older employees have low levels of absenteeism and are flexible in their working hours and conditions.

Disadvantages of the aging workforce

Health problems

Like we said before, everybody is going to become old, and for many people this means some deterioration of physical or mental capacities. Therefore, the main problem of the aging workforce is the health.

Adverse to change

Every organization needs new ideas in order to survive, and older employees are not going to formulate this ideas, and even they will refuse new ideas propose for other employees.

Other disadvantages

• Limiting career opportunities for younger staff
• Technological challenges
• Reluctance of the organization to invest in high-cost training

Removing age barriers

First of all, saying that older adults should not be viewed as a homogenous group. Each person is like a world. However, in order to understand this internal world of each one and, therefore, provide the necessary environment in which each individual is able to achieve his/her potential, the company must remove the age barriers existing with the tools mentioned above.

Recruitment

Focusing the HR department's attention on growing capability by introducing new career development schemes aimed at attracting workers of all ages. How?

• Increasing maximum age limit
• Elimination of particular age barrier
• Support of self-help group to promote their own employment
• Training programmes to promote recruitment policies

Training, development and promotion

Contrary to the popular belief, older employees are as interested in training as the young workforce, and if you offer developmental opportunities to the ageing workforce will ensure that they know that you value them. Therefore, you should, among others:

• Develop training and educational programmes, in particular for older workers
• Open existing training and educational programmes to ageing workers
• Create a learning environment and a workplace mentorship for older workers
• Evaluate the performance
• Promote age-specific policy in the organization

Flexible work practices

Flexible work practices are all the innovative ways employers and employees can agree to structure work to accommodate business and individual needs. Some ways are the following:

• Phased retirement
• Part-time work
• Job-sharing
• Working from home
• Flexible work hours
• Flexible leave options
• Creating a flexible work practices policy
• Job rotation

Ergonomics, job design and prevention

It consist in maintain a workplace that is healthy and safe for all the employees, visitors and customers. For that, you should:

• Ensure that a person issuited for the task and can carry it out safely
• Adapt duties to suit older workers
• Rotate physically demanding or repetitive tasks
• Train all employees in injury prevention strategies
• Ensure that workplace lighting is adequate for the job
• Mix of young and older workers

In the appendix two you can find a table with the incentives offered by employers to help retain workers older than 50.

Conclusion

Age management is a strategy of HR which has born because of macro factors and social factors of the western society. This strategy is fulfilling a demand social, necessary for the improvement of any company because the future is going to be the aging workforce. The baby boom of the 60s is now growing, and there are so many people who are going to retirement almost at the same time. And what is going to happen if there is not sufficient younger workforce? What is going to happen with the western economies? Taking into consideration this question, it is easy to see the importance of the Human Resource for the future. They are going to address the economy, maintaining older workers, or recruiting more, taking into consideration their problems, and providing the perfect environment in order to achieve the best potential of each employee, who is the major asset of the companies.

Moreover, a good practice in age management can suppose an improvement in the company, increasing the motivation, the transmission of knowledge among the employees, and even the productivity. The advantages of the older employees are much more than the disadvantages, only if you manage well, because, like said Petra de Saa in the e-interview “each person is totally different to the rest, each one is like a world”, therefore, you are not going to be a good manager only for recruiting older employees. Age management is constant, it needs a supportive Human Resource environment, the commitment from the older employees and also from the younger's one, and a careful and very flexible integration. Age management is, simply, the future.

• Demographics

  This refers to the characteristics of a population or workforce where the organization is situated. Examples of this include age, gender or social class. This type of trend may have an effect in relation to pension offerings, insurance packages, employee benefits and others.

• Diversity

  The differences within the population/workplace. Recent changes can be seen in the number of women working in the organisations compared to decades ago. With the advent of globalisation, organisations become more culturally diverse and working patterns change to part-time, casual, seasonal positions to be able to handle the societal and the global market changes. Human resource has to make necessary adjustments to be able to take into consideration the different ethic and legal implications of their decisions with regards to HRM policies intended to protect employees. Employers have to contend with various issues that affect its employees such as rise in discrimination, unfair dismissal and sexual/racial harassment cases in recent years. These cases could have negative effects to employees in particular and the organisation in general. Anti-discrimination legislation over the past 30 years has provided a foundation for an increasing interest in diversity at work which is “about creating a working culture that seeks respects and values difference.”

• Skills and Qualifications

  As industries move from manual to more managerial professions in nature, there is a growing shift for more highly skilled graduates. If there are few skilled laborers in the market, employers are forced to compete by offering financial rewards, community investment etc.

Recruitment methods are broad and different, it is important that the job is described correctly and any personal specifications stated. Job recruitment methods can be through job centres, employment agencies/consultants, headhunting, and local/national newspapers. It is important that the correct media is chosen to ensure an appropriate response to the advertised post.

To understand fully what the "business case for diversity management and equal opportunities" really is, it is important to know the meaning of business case. Business case pertains to a planned proposal for business change based on terms of costs and benefits. This is an initial requirement before a huge project is undertaken and is necessary for a number of project management processes.

The business case is expected to address the business need of the project. It must include the reason for undertaking the project, the perceived business advantages, options involved complete with the reasons behind choosing which option to carry out, the projected costs, risks and gap analysis.

Business Case for Diversity Management

The “business case for diversity” simply means that companies believes that employing a diverse workforce allow them to be in a position to understand the demographics of the customers they serve much better making them better able to thrive in the marketplace than companies that hire only a limited group of employee demographics. Also, a company that supports diversity of workforce is better able to address employee satisfaction and retention issues.

It is important to note that diversity in workforce means employing people without discrimination to gender, age and ethnic or racial backgrounds. Since globalization is the current overwhelming trend in business, diversity in the workplace is a better accepted and applied concept now more than ever.

The business case for diversity has been examined by a number of researchers and no research support was found to support the “diversity business case”. Also, in US companies are not allowed to hire on the basis of race or ethnicity for whatever profit reason it may be.

An important requirement of the business case is how a company uses its diversities. This is called inclusion. If the company has a diverse workforce yet the employer does not take advantage of the wide range of experience within his organization then it could not enjoy the advantages offered by background diversity.

Diversity issues change with time. Implementation of diversity is more often than not limited to the Human resources department. UK companies see it as a tool to a good economic case that enables them to reach new markets. Diversity then becomes an extra marketing tool to bring in new customers.

Diversity could either be superficial or deep-level. Superficial diversity refers to differences in gender, race and nationality. Deep-level refers to differences brought about by knowledge and cultural values. It is often noted that in a company setting increase interaction among a diverse workforce lessens the significance of superficial diversity and increases the importance of deep-level as the team learns how to function as a unit. According to studies, in deep level diversity, the informational diversity or the differences in knowledge contributes positive results to the performance while value diversity or differences in cultural views could lead to negative results.

Certain processes could have positive contribution to deep level informational diversity. One is the need to share unique views with others. In a group setting though, members tend to discuss what they have in common rather than their differences. In order to encourage sharing of unique knowledge, it is important to let the group know who has knowledge on certain things.

Also, instead of group information sharing, debate should be encouraged so as to allow members to challenge the ideas of other members. Processing deep information that way could lead to positive results.

Critics of business case for diversity believe that it is not effective because there is currently no published research that shows how surface-level diversity can improve the organization. Also, most research shows surface diversity to have no or even negative results to employees' performance.

Legal Issues Surrounding Diversity

UK employers are cautioned in using “diversity programs” because no court has ever found programs to be enough reason to have hiring preferences. This is in compliance with anti-discrimination laws practised by UK companies. This forces UK companies to comply with diversity laws.

The Business Case for Equal Opportunity

The "business case for equal opportunity” strives to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace in order to reap the following benefits: more productivity among employees, higher moral in the workplace, higher staff retention, reducing complaints and the time involve in resolving them and to make the company more appealing to employees.

According to Guy Russo, McDonald"s CEO, “commitment to Equal Opportunity makes good business sense because it ensures a company attracts and retains the best people. EO policy also provides confidence to employees that they will be treated fairly and receives equal access to opportunities."

The business case for equal opportunity intends to create an environment where people are not excluded from activities on the basis of permanent traits such as race, disabilities, creed, religion, gender and others. The "business case for equal opportunity" must enable employees' similar access to education, employment and health care. Also, employers are required to implement action plans that allow participation of minorities and women in the workplace. The "business case for equal opportunity" must provide an equal opportunity policy statement, analysis of the current work force, recognition of problem areas, creating goals and timetables for employment opportunities, particular action programs to address problem areas, promote community action programs, and creating an effective internal audit and reporting system.

To indicate that an employer practices equal employment opportunity, abbreviations such EOE or MFDV (or Male, Female, Disabled, Veteran) are added in job advertisements.

Critics of the "business case for equal opportunities" pointed out that methods of finding out if equal opportunity is carried out is not complete. Opportunity as a matter of fact is difficult to measure. In reality, equal opportunity in employment is considered to be present if people of similar abilities achieve similar results after doing similar amount of work.

Similarities of Business Case for Diversity Management and Equal Opportunities

Both "business case for diversity management and equal opportunities" aim to employ people without discrimination as to age, sex, race, creed and others. These thrusts are intended to maximize opportunities within the organization.

Business cases for both diversity management and equal opportunities must comply with the legal frameworks of the country like the anti-discrimination laws in the UK.

Both "business case for diversity management and equal opportunities" rely on the results of the implementation of business cases. A company that does not take advantage of its diversity or in the implementation of equal opportunities will not most likely reap its desired benefits in the end.

Both business case diversity and equal opportunity aims to promote positive results in employees' performance.

Culture is an important emphasis to both business cases.

Emphasis in differences in cultural or informational views is considered important in business case diversity. While, business case for equal opportunities would much rather emphasize employee similarities.

Employee satisfaction and retention are important to both.

Differences

Diversity business case is sometimes used as a marketing tool to penetrate new market shares. Equal opportunity is a tool to achieve the best employees by providing a safe and equal social environment.

Business case diversity is more concerned of managing diversity to the company's advantage. Business case equal opportunity is aimed to promote employees' well-being.

Cooperation among employees is strongly encouraged in business case for equal opportunities. In business case diversity management, there is more to be gained if employees do not focus on common grounds but in their diversity of knowledge especially in informational diversity.

Business case for equal opportunities is more concerned with employee relations rather than contributions as practiced in business case diversity. Maintaining or promoting high morale among employees is an important tool to achieve equal opportunities for employees.

In addition I will discuss the challenges the company will face in developing a cross-cultural organization based on current cultural issues affecting organization on a theoretical and empirical basis. In addition I will discuss how cultural issues in Thailand will affect the phase of change and how to overcome resistance to change using effective strategies in Thailand in a cross-cultural context and building an organizational culture, which is inclusive of diverse cultural perspectives and accepts diversity and minimize conflict and intolerance.

Pros and cons of different organizational structure and the most suitable organizational structure given the cultural dimensions of Thailand:

The organizational structure is the means to combine tasks, technology and human resources to achieve organizational objectives. There are two opposing forces in designing organizational structure. They are grouping similar tasks together to enable specialization so that people can focus on what they do best and the need to integrate functions so that they work as a system and not optimizing a sectional objectives, which is conflicting with the organizational objectives as different grouping may have different interests and values. That is in all organizations there is a need to balance these opposing forces so that it is suitable given the nature of technology, human resources, and products.

The traditional organizational structure can be a hierarchical functional to be done centrally and line of communication are top down and there is upper level management; middle level management and lower level management and the employees and they may have different functions like marketing, production, human resources, administration, finance, information technology purchasing and stores etc.

As well managers make decisions mostly individually or in a group regarding the operations of the organization and employees mostly do not participate in the decision-making process and they accept formal authority of the management and they like specific instructions in doing their tasks and the company produces less variety of different products.

The advantages of this organizational structure is enhanced co-ordination and control, efficient use of managerial and technical talent, improves organizational perspective within the organization, centralized decision making which enhances control of activities and reduce discretion of middle and lower level and employees to make decisions which is not compatible with organizational objectives as well it enables career paths in specialized areas.

The disadvantages are as there are specialized units they may have different values and interests and pursue short-term goals and also reduce communication and co-ordination. In addition it is difficult to establish uniform performance standards because sub unit objectives may differ and conflict with each other and there fore difficult to establish uniform performance standards.

Another organizational structure also can be a matrix organizational structure where a combination of functional and divisional structures is used where the individuals have to be responsible for project manager and functional manager. The advantages of matrix organizational structure is that it utilized specialized personnel and equipment effectively and also make mangers to have a broader range of experience and responsibility. The disadvantage is that it causes uncertainty and intense power struggle and work relationship becomes more complex as well decision make take longer time than in other organizational structure.

As one can see from traditional organizations they have vertical boundaries, horizontal boundaries external boundaries such as suppliers, customers and regulators and boundaries of location, culture and markets. So an international organization can also have a boundary less organizational structure if there is high trust and have a common shared interests.

These organizations can have flexible organizational boundaries, use of teams, and build mutually beneficial relationship and communication flows with internal and external parties. The advantages of this organizational structure are it uses the talents of all employees, enables co-operations between functions and divisions, faster response to changes in external market conditions, it enables to coordinate key suppliers, customers and other partners as it benefits all parties.

The disadvantages are it is difficult in practice to overcome political boundaries, lack of common vision and leadership, which may cause coordination problems, democratic processes may be time-consuming, trust is not at high level may affect organizational performance.

The cultural dimensions as per Geert Hofstede are power-distance, uncertainty avoidance, Individualism Vs collectivism, masculinity, long-term orientation Vs short-term orientation. Power distance means the inequality in society accepted by the social structure. Thailand is more unequal compared to US.

According to Geert Hofstede rank of 64, which is very high and shows a high level of inequality in wealth and power, which is due to the acceptance of Thai society because of their cultural heritage rather, inequality forced upon the population. Thai society also is a society, which avoids uncertainty by rules, regulations, and religious practices and by laws. They like certainty and they tend to be risk averse. For example the Geert Hofstede ranking for Uncertainty avoidance is very high for Thailand like the power distance ranking.

In US individualism is encouraged compared to Thailand. That is in Thailand relationships are valued than anything else compared to US. Thai values collectivist norms than individualism because of their society encourages strong relationships where everyone take responsibility of the group than every body to themselves and to stand on their own feet like in US.

The masculinity refers to the assertiveness and competitiveness of societal members. According to Geert Hofstede the masculinity ranking is 20, which is very low. This shows the Thai culture is not very masculine and the males and females have traditional roles in society and the society reinforces these roles.

As discussed above as Thai culture more readily accepts authority and like certainty and not like ambiguity and risk averse modern organizational structures like matrix and team organizational structures are not suitable to Thailand because the Thai culture like rules, regulations and safety and like to avoid uncertainty.

In this cultural and religious context the traditional bureaucratic organizational structure with group decision-making is more appropriate to the Plastic company at least in the initial stages to become established in Thailand. However as all cultures are dynamic and after they expose their culture and overcome resistance effectively they can move to a more modern organizational structure with an incremental change process rather than a rapid change process which is not viable in Thailand cultural context.

The challenges the Plastic company faces to build a cross-cultural organization in Thailand:

Challenge of change power dynamics

When the company introduces new employees who are different from the traditional cultural background the existing players will perceive or experience an erosion of power.

This may reduce commitment to the organization. As well they also increase power struggles because they compete for scarce resources and with this the inclusion of new employees and the dynamics of this interact with unstable power structures and can lead to poor performance due to high labor turnover, absenteeism and perceived procedural injustice. At the initial stages of intolerance and tolerance stages the managers must mange the power struggles within bounds by appropriate strategies and inter personnel skills to move the organization where the diversity is valued by all employees and by all levels of management.

Challenge of diversity of opinion

As discussed above the introduction of new employees may increase the diversity of opinion in any issue in the workplace. This increases the possibility of mis interpreting communication and can leas to more conflict in the organization and in some circumstances if the conflict is excessive if not managed well by the managers and leaders in the organization may lead to poor performance. Lack of political skills and conflict resolution skill and real concern for tolerance than lip service may inhibit the use of skills and talents of new employees from different cultures if the diversity opinion and the resulting conflict are not managed effectively.

Challenge of perceived lack of empathy

The diversity of opinion is linked to the lack of empathy. Perception that managers and leaders do not have the capacity for empathy with followers may lead to most disruptive in organizations where it is characterized as intolerant. Many may have a lack of empathy to people from other cultures. This may place the leader or manager in the middle of a political battle between different factions. If managers in deeds and words do not show the followers that all are respected and their needs and concerns are appreciated and manger perceptions and anticipate to misperceptions and situations then this may lead to poor performance and organization and will not move towards a more appreciative of diversity and genuine cultural tolerance within the organization.

Challenge of perceived and real tokenism

If new employees are hired under a quota system to fill vacancies from different cultural background or from different face may be perceived that they are hired not because of their talent but they are from a different background. This may produce mistreatment of the newly recruited member and the employee may become uncomfortable and may become alienated because of mistreatment by the other staff and peers.

There fore quota system must be not a method to increase diversity in the organization. However even if recruited on merit a person from a culturally different background the existing staff may perceive tokenism because they attribute they are recruited because of race, age or gender.

As well if tokenism is perceived the failure is attributed to race, age and gender and if success happens they attribute to the benevolence of the organization or to happenstance. This may affect the self-esteem of the employees and lead to poor performance if these perceived perceptions are not managed effectively.

Challenge of participation

Participation is an essential process in a diverse workforce organization. However at an initial stage participation is difficult to achieve because the voice of different groups are not heard and implemented. If participative processes are not adequate and every one has a voice then he organization will not move from an intolerant organization to a more appreciating organization which value tolerance and diversity of opinion and creativity in an organization and genuinely value the possible benefit of diversity.

Challenge of overcoming inertia

If leaders are familiar with rapid agreement and implementation from a more homogeneous culture and have to spend much time resolving diversity issues in a diverse organization particularly in a tolerant stage where the leader has to resolve all diversity issues and may have problems of inertia as these sap lot of energy. If they don't take steps to address this challenge effectively as diverse organization can become dysfunctional if they loose their vision and their inertia.

Cultural and other issues affecting the phase of change in Thailand and how to overcome resistance to change in Thailand by the plastic company:

As discussed above Thailand's culture avoids risks. That is it needs certainty and likes stability. In addition it's not a masculine society and it lacks assertiveness and competitiveness. These cultural characteristics are not conducive to a dynamic change process and like a planned change with limited disruptions to its social and religious system. As well in Thailand is a Buddhist country and it affects its economic system to a greater degree and most of the people are short-term oriented and not long-term oriented.

These characteristics do not allow for a fast changing business world in Thailand. There fore given the risk averse character of most Thailand people the change process must be slower and the phase of change must be slower. However all societies change and evolve over time. If the Thailand economy grows in the future due to global economic influences the cultural climate also change.

However as Thailand is a strongly a traditional conservative country the changes in culture may take a long time compared to other Asian countries like Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore. The US plastic company must understand this in the phase of change and the strategies they adopt to manage change effectively.

As well the challenges to make the organization as a cross-cultural organization as discussed above will take a lot of time and it also retards the phase of change in Thailand. To overcome resistance to change the top management must support a new organizational culture and must re define its vision and values and communicate all levels of management and also enhance the managers cross-cultural knowledge by appropriate training if they require training in this field and also give opportunities to work and pair with Thai employees and also improve their ability to resolve conflict and enhance cooperation.

In addition they also can address the issue of acquiring language skills, which may increase their acceptance in the Thailand work place. By appointing managers who are skilled in resolving conflict and have a tolerant approach to a variety of opinion also may increase the use of talents of all employees including the Thailand employees at all levels. The managers must have good leadership skills and other cultural and political and perceptive skills so that they can anticipate misinterpretation and misperception and situation they can arise and minimize damaging conflict or erosion of self-esteem of Thailand employees at the initial stages when the organization is intolerant to a new organizational culture.

In addition the managers can be a role model for US employees and The Thai employees and must be mentor and facilitator to resolve any work problem and also be a person to resolve inter personal dispute and perceive by the employees that they are objective in all deliberations and show empathy and are not biased to any group. This is vital for the organization to change to become more productive and take acceptable risk in new market opportunities in time as well also increase the organizational performance.

The human resource policies also can be reformed so that its pay structure and other human resource policies help to reinforce diversity and the benefits of diversity and cross-cultural understanding so that it minimizes the damaging conflicts and to forge integration and find common ground other than parochialism or ethnocentrism which may alienate some employees and not enable to use their talents fully to achieve the organizational goals.