Skip to main content

Diverse Workforce Helps Build Business

Image result for Multi cultural business
http://knowledge.insead.edu

The Future of Business is Multi-cultural
It's a fact of our changing society:  businesses, especially service businesses, that want to succeed with minority customers should consider hiring frontline employees who represent those ethnic groups, particularly when the business caters to Hispanics or Asians, a recent UT Arlington study contends.

 Elten Briggs, associate professor of marketing, and Detra Montoya, clinical associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business analyzed the influence of shared ethnicity on consumer behavior using an experiment and a survey. The experiment focused on 112 Hispanic customers of a financial services firm in a major U.S. metropolitan area. The survey asked 285 Asians, Hispanics and Caucasians in a major U.S. city about marketplace experiences that could be attributed to their ethnicity.

 "The study showed that culture plays an important role in the interaction between businesses and customers," said Briggs. "Customers may feel like they have some common ground with the service representative or sales person if there is a shared ethnicity."
(Past research shows that most business owners and managers tend to hire people they would like to be friends with - and not the candidate or candidates who best fit the job description or the customer perception.  Something to keep in mind the next time you hire for a front line position.  - Ed.)
The influence of culture on interactions between contact employees and customers is becoming an ever-important consideration as marketplaces worldwide continue to diversify.  Rachel Croson, dean of the UT Arlington College of Business, said Briggs' research points to the fact that the future of business is multi-cultural.

 Businesses that Succeed will be Those Who Customize Customer Experience
Suggested Reading
Click on Image
"The future of business will involve an increasing diversity of the customer base of many firms, both within the U.S. and internationally. The businesses that succeed will be those that understand how to customize the experience they give these customers," Croson said. "Dr. Briggs' work identifies how to do this effectively, and will have important implications for both the practice and theory of marketing."

 "The study shows that when when customers share the same ethnicity with their salesman or customer service agent," Briggs said, "they generally have a more favorable perception of the business."

 Briggs noted that with Asian and Hispanic customers, the relationship between customers and agents was even tighter because they often were linked through a common language.
  • The experiment demonstrated that when Hispanic customers thought their customer service or sales representative would be of the same ethnicity, it increases the chances of the customer patronizing the business.
  • Hispanic and Asian survey respondents reported having better retail and service experiences with employees of the same ethnicity, often perceiving that they were receiving preferential treatment from the employee.
*  *  *  *  *

 Story Source: Detra Y. Montoya, Elten Briggs. Shared ethnicity effects on service encounters: A study across three U.S. subcultures. Journal of Business Research, 2013.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Facts of the Small Business Survival Rate

Back thirty years ago when I first wrote about small business, a hoary and horrible statistic was bandied about, even by some of the most experienced entrepreneurial pros: "80% of new businesses fail in their first five years." 

This "statistic" has appeared in more places than you can imagine, from the leading small business magazines, books, presentations by employees of SBDCs, the SBA, SCORE, Chambers of Commerce, even professors on the college level - who should know better than to quote un-sourced numbers.  It still shows up in small-business blogs today.

For some years, I searched for a source of that statisitic.  Never found where that number came from, leading me to believe that some self-appointed expert made it up.  To quote a character from the popular television show, M*A*S*H, "Horsepucky." 

Here is the truth about the survival rate of new start up businesses in the U.S. economy from two unimpeachable sources, The Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundati…
6 comments
Read more

Earn a Living Shining Shoes. . . Really

Earning a Living as a Bootblack
Can someone make a living shining shoes in today's economy?  At on time there shoe shine boys as they were called were found on street corners across the country, thousands of them.  Many were from poor families and worked to help support themselves and their families.  Today, I found three established shoe shine stands in downtown Seattle, plus two bootblacks, the traditional name of those who shine shoes, working on the streets of Seattle.

Meet George Johnson, age 74 on October 20th, a self-employed operator of a shoe shine stand in downtown Seattle's Rainier Place.  George has been shining shoes for the last sixty years, starting in Arkansas and ending up some thirty years ago at the Washington Athletic club a few blocks from his current location.
"Sixty years," I asked him the day we met.  "You ever think of retiring?"

"Gonna work until I can't do it no more," he replied.  "I don't even think about i…
1 comment
Read more

Illegal Immigrants Start Legal L.L.C.'s, Create Jobs While Awaiting Deportation

The situation is a little like a story from the Twilight Zone.

Illegal immigrants can't get driving licenses, vote, or get benefits, but they are legally able to start Limited Liability Companies often creating jobs for legal U.S. Citizens.  All the while waiting to find out if they are going to be deported because they are, admittedly in most cases, in this country illegally.

It's long established that new immigrants to the U.S. are far more likely to start a business, and in so doing, create jobs often filled by U.S. citizens.  I mean, the sun rises in the East, the sky is blue, and immigrants create jobs - it's that level of certainty.

So why do certain elements in Congress,  allegedly pro-business, pro-growth, and pro-job, scream and yell about immigration as though it's a total drain on the economy?  If anything, immigration has been and will continue to be a boon to our economy, creating both wealth, new jobs and even new industries.

Here's an article from the L…
6 comments
Read more