Executive summary
The research report strives to carry out an investigation to gain an understanding about cultural differences in workplace, the impact, and the preventions in the context of Singapore. The focus will be employees on Singapore work environment. Cullen & Praveen (2014) explains culture as the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts etc.

Nick (2012) points out that in Southeast Asia, Singapore has become a newly industrialized nation, which was hailed as a great economic success during the last 2 decades and the countries traditions of its culture still play a major role in business activities. While Stanton & Nankervis (2011) argues that the national culture of Singapore is high in power distance and this has lead the superiors and subordinates treat each other as unequals in the country. Singapore has also been called is also called a “nanny state’ by Nick (2012), because it is a work culture in which people are supposed to do exactly what they are told and there is no decentralisation or any opportunity for lower level employees to make suggestions. The research used both primary and secondary data collection method to collect information about the question at hand.

Research found that Clearly the problem of conflicts due to culture is prevailing both in work conditions and everyday life in Singapore. These have huge implications for the businesses, especially in a fast passed globalized business. Conflict at work is common in multinational companies around the world, but as Joana, John, Luthans & Bovaird (2014) states, conflicts in human resource due to culture can be very dangerous for companies and may even lead to its failure. Finally the author provides a number of recommendations that will enable the companies to reduce the cultural conflicts in Singapore and make the companies more productive. The suggestions include Develop and implement a plan to include diversity in the work place plan, Emphasis more on training and development in regards to multi cultural working environment etc.

Content page
Introduction..........................................................................................................................
Aim & Objectives...............................................................................................................
Literature review..........................................................................................................................

Critical Analysis of the Methods........................................................................................ • Research design & Data collection techniques used............................................... • Sampling process....................................................................................................
Research findings: the Data to be used in This Report.................................................... • Cultural diversity in Singapore & work place Discrimination............................. • Challenges of doing business in Singapore and working in Singapore............... • Why do cultural issues cause issues in Singapore/Work place............................ • Singapore’s Business Organisational strategies and HRM practices................... • Findings from mailed Questionaries.....................................................................
Results and Discussion......................................................................................................
Implications for the Business Decision & recommendations...........................................
Conclusion........................................................................................................................
References.........................................................................................................................

Introduction
In this research, the author aims to carry out an investigation in to the topic or the business problem of work place conflicts and cultural differences in Singapore. Cullen & Praveen (2014), explains culture as the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts etc. Rajshekar (2014) points out that culture plays huge part in how an individual lives, works and perceives a situation and these differences can lead to people having issues while working together. Furthermore with world fast becoming a global village due to globalization and the rise in multinational companies are soon making work places totally diverse with employees from all sort of culture working together. This trend has seen a rise in work place conflicts and it has got the task cut out for the Human resource managements to sort it out. Singapore is no exception due to its work diversity of its workers.
Varma & Budhwar (2013) points out that Singapore is a well developed country located in South East Asia with a highly diverse culture. The ethnic makeup of Singapore is Chinese 76.7%, Malay 14%, Indian 7.9%, other 1.4%. Stanton & Nankervis (2011) attributes a lot of the issues in human resource management in Singapore due to the cultural difference of the country. It is evident that such a well developed and multi cultured country Singapore, has started facing internal conflicts and cultural differences among individuals. Conflicts in organisations are becoming inevitable clash that occurs between the formal authority and power due to which individuals and groups are affected. As a result there are disputes in dividing the revenues, completion of work and how it has to be done for how long. Manley, Sanders, Shaun & Webster (2013) argues that hhaving different culture employees in an organisation can develop communication problem, high internal conflict mainly in the working environment which is influence by high cultural context society such as Singapore. Each individual will have different ideas, methods, working style which brings in conflict between them due to their different competing needs and demands to which different individuals respond in different ways. Not only between individuals can it happen between departments, unions and management as well. Consequently, it is important for companies to embrace and understand the conflict management styles which will have positive conflict outcomes that will lead to improved relationships, job satisfaction and retention of employee. Below let’s look at the methods that are used for research and the research findings that have been achieved.
Aim & Objectives
The aim and objectives of the research are as below:

• Aim: The aim of this research work is to gain an understanding about cultural differences in workplace, the impact, and the preventions in the context of Singapore. The focus will be employees on Singapore work environment.

• Objectives: In order to achieve the major aims of this research, the author have outlined the objectives we are going to find.

1. What is Conflict? And why does it arise?

2. To what extend does workplace conflict affect the Singapore’s work environment?

3. How companies deal with internal conflicts that are caused by cultural difference?

4. Why are preventions important to bridging cultural difference?

5. How do prevention programs differ? 6. What kind of approaches and actions a company can take to prevent conflict cause by cultural difference?

Literature review
Literature review has been defined by Creswell (2013) as a critical evaluation of information that is found in the literature related to the area of research. In short literature review looks to describe, summarise, clarify and evaluate previous studies and researches carried out in the area the researcher is carrying out now. Denzin & Lincoln (2011), states that a literature review should give a theoretical base for research and help the author determine the nature of research by looking at all works which are in the relevant field. There have been a number of studies that have looked at the Singapore. Lets critically evaluate the culture and work culture in Singapore by looking at previous studies done in this area by other authors. Nick (2012) points out that in Southeast Asia, Singapore has become a newly industrialized nation, which was hailed as a great economic success during the last 2 decades and the countries traditions of its culture still play a major role in business activities.
The racial identity of Singapore’s work force is diverse and is as seen in the diagram below.
[pic]
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2013/12/10/a-look-at-demographic-change-in-singapore/

While Stanton & Nankervis (2011) argues that the national culture of Singapore is high in power distance and this has lead the superiors and subordinates treat each other as unequals in the country. Singapore has also been called is also called a “nanny state’ by Nick (2012), because it is a work culture in which people are supposed to do exactly what they are told and there is no decentralisation or any opportunity for lower level employees to make suggestions. It has been found to be a common practice for the Singaporeans work force to characterize themselves as having a Kiasu mentality, which translates in to the fear of losing.

Eddy, Lyons & Linda (2013) argues that not only does the Kiasu mentality pervade for work , but also pervades in attitudes towards education, work, and other aspects of the people’s lives. Yet this peculiar attitude is often found to be very competitive in nature as it emphasizes the desire to survive and ensure that one gets the best deal for themselves. Khatri (2004) points out that such a culture could limit creativity and risk positive risk taking as Kiasu is driven by more of the fear to lose than the desire to succeed. Both Stanton & Nankervis (2011) and Nick (2012) have identified the basic cultural values and norms that have helped underpin the Singapore’s prosperity include the practice of tripartism, national unity, racial and religious harmony. It is statement quiet contrary to work place conflicts that arise in work place. Singapore have been seen to have people working together in harmony from different cultures, but that doesn’t mean there are no HR issues and conflicts related to cultural differences. The highly diverse work space in Singapore is seen to be a problem with more and more foreign workers being depended upon by the country. The following diagram shows the extent.
[pic]
Source : http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2013/12/10/a-look-at-demographic-change-in-singapore/

Gagne & Bhave (2012), notes that being human beings from different cultures working together with different beliefs and perceptions, there is prone to be friction and issues in every multi cultural organisations. With more than 75% dominance of Chinese population, the traditional Chinese values are quite influential in many local business activities. But also being a fast developed country, there is clear indications that the society is shaped by western values and the younger generation is much influenced by western culture (Nick, 2012). The presence of the mixed unique feature of national culture goes on to makes Singapore’s HRM practices more complicated for the Human resources managements and interesting from the researchers point of view. There are a number of studies looking at the Human resource management and the culture of Singapore. However the author is going to use all the available secondary resources and research more about the work place conflicts in the Singapore companies and come to understand why it happens and how it can be minimised or stopped. The author aims to attain all the aims and objective of the study. The details of the research are as below.

Critical Analysis of the Methods
This session will look at the research design that is going to be used, the methods that are going to be sued for data collection, the sampling process to analyse the data that are gathered. • Research design & Data collection techniques used
Research design is simply a design or a plan that is used to carry out the research. It involves the research methodology, research process, research philosophy, sampling process and the analysis of the gathered data. In order to carry out an academic research the researcher has to form an effective background knowledge about the research, knowing how to carry out a research, what all are the process involved, how it could be done and what type of data to be used in research and finally how it could be analysed and utilized in meeting the research aim and objectives. “Research can be seen as a process of expanding the boundaries of our ignorance.” A methodology in research is an introduction to the research which explains about what and how to carry out a research and it needs to be understood precisely to help the effectiveness of the research. A research needs a design, a philosophy, an approach, data collection and sometimes participation of other individuals and measures and techniques for data collection. A methodology explains what all are used by the researcher in this research. An interpretivism philosophy could be chosen by a researcher following an inductive approach. In an inductive approach, the purpose would be to get a feel on what was going on, so as to understand better the nature of problem. “In an inductive approach, theory is developed from data collected on the basis of real life situation.” Identifying the real life situation is significant for this research and thus an inductive approach will be preferred for this research.
The method the author aims to use to study the cultural conflicts in the human resource in Singapore is predominantly secondary sources of data, number of case studies along with a primary data collection tool of mailed questionnaire from sources found on the social media website namely Facebook. The author being in Australia has physical and financial constraints to gather data for the research from Singapore. So the author is going to collect data in regards to culture, human resource management, business organisation in Singapore and then go on to interpret it to find out the answers to the research questions and objectives. The major techniques the author has used for collecting data for this report are as below. • Literature review: majority of the data collected and information obtained were through conducting the literature review. A very large number of books, journals and other secondary sources were used extensively to gather information for the research. The literature review gave insight into the research topic. • Emailed questionaries: The author used the social media website Facebook and requested 30 members from the Singapore area workers to participate in a small survey of 10 questions over survey monkey.com. Out of the 30 people requested 24 of them agreed for taking the survey over email. But after sampling only of 20 of the replies were deemed of good quality and used for research. This is the major source of primary research in this research. • Case studies: previous case studies looking into the research topic of HR in Singapore and all the problems that come with multi-culturalism are looked into to gain further knowledge. These are finally used to write the finis about the study along with other sources of data collection. • Observations: Since the author of this research report has been working in a multi-cultural organisation, the power of observations from real life situation has also come to be used in the research. This is the closest first hand or primary information the author has in regards to the topic of HR and affect of culture on it. • Internet: Most of basic information required for this research like information’s on companies, basic knowledge on the topic etc was accessed through well known reliable sources on the internet. The internet has been used extensively for the completion of research. • Secondary sources: majority of the data have been collected from secondary sources like books, journals, trade magazines etc. The limitation of time and constraints on space and money has made the author choose secondary data for the completion of research.

Sampling process
No matter how the data is collected there is prone to be mistakes and collection of unnecessary data for the research question at hand. Therefore inorder to cut back on mistakes and drawbacks of the research being conducted, the process of sampling is primarily used in research. Creswell (2013) explains sampling as the process of choosing only a limited number of populations from the overall population of data gathered with the aim of identifying the impact on the whole population. This sampling process helps the researcher to understand exactly as to the measures that are to be considered, what type of data need to be collected and finally how the research is going to affect the whole population. Sampling is a helpful measure that reduces the overall cost involved in unproductive activities and also goes on to reduce flaws while keeping all the focus on data collection. In the sampling process, the person doing the research can choose from random sampling or convenience sampling. In this research the author strives to use convenience sampling
The reason for this choice is that random sampling is most suitable when the duration of research is high and also in the case that each and every individual chosen for the population have great probability in getting involved. In this case the data collected are all secondary in nature and hence convenience sampling has been used. Convenience sampling is the process of obtaining samples on convenience and could be performed in a very short period of time. The negative aspect of the convenience sampling would be the possibility of a bias approach from rhe researcher going to impact the overall study. But due to requirement of a legitimate study, the researcher in this case uses the convincing sampling process with carefull attention given to avoid any type of bias. The limited time period for the study and the availability of resources has pushed the researcher towards choosing convenience sampling. The entire time researcher spent on ineffective and wrong ideas have been corrected with the help of sampling.

Research findings: The Data to be used in This Report
Singapore, although people still name this country a ‘nanny’ state, with a so called ‘authoritarian capitalism’ economic model and combination of a selective degree of economic freedom and private rights with strong-armed control over political life (Khatri, 2004), this nation has already become the financial hub in the Southeast Asia. The Singaporean economy has made a transition to be high-tech, service-oriented, and knowledge-based. In Singapore, practices are an amalgamation of administrative systems inherited from British system and also strong authority and power distance orientation of the Chinese or Asian Culture (Khatri, 2004) Singapore has also been influenced by Japanese multinationals and American subsidiaries. From the above discussion of HRM practices in both countries, it can be concluded that both countries were deeply influenced by local or regional heritage, as well as the significant influences of MNCs from Japan and US. Japanese multinationals emphasize life-long employment and use decision making and compensation systems similar to Japanese firms. Subsidiaries of American organizations bring greater goal-oriented, outcome-based management practices. Singapore have been benefited from the MNCs’ HRM strategies Singapore achieved such a great success was that the country changed its values to the dominance of advanced western values, and the centralist government implemented different strategies to adjust the whole economy properly to the strong trend of globalization. However let’s look at the cultural issues in Singapore and how the actual Singapore work culture is. • Cultural diversity in Singapore & work place Discrimination: Singapore as stated earlier is very culturally diverse. Moore & Sciera (2014) cautions one that while on the surface working in Singapore might look perfect and where people of all ages, creeds and races coexist, the truth is far from this simple. Fenny (2013) also states that discrimination in Singapore is very much a nuisance for businesses and employees alike from different cultures. According to Moore & Sciera (2014), discrimination and cultural issues in the diverse Singapore are more often than not very visible to outsiders. The three large cultural ethnic groups in Singapore despite having normal relations do have problems. But very few bad news comes out as the laws governing the press, journalism and internet are very restrictive. There seems to be discrimination in almost every aspect of life in Singapore where the Chinese majority enjoys over other ethnic majorities like Indians or Malaysians. The job adverts at times clearly state that they are only looking for Chinese staff and Indians do not apply. Another case of cultural divide is in the case of real estate agents who are not willing to provide housing for people from Indian or Malaysian origin. Moore & Sciera (2014), brings to our notice that despite Singapore priding itself as a metropolitan city and a non racial nation, the racial lines is more than a reality in the workplace and everyday life. While there is clearly issues related to race and culture in Singapore, acts such as Sedition acts have made it impossible to have a debate in regards to matters such as race, ethnicity, religion etc. This would mean that despite the existence of a problem, the normal citizens really don’t have much say as to stop this. However Fenny (2013) argues that, the existence of MNC’s around Singapore have been striving hard to ensure that the cultural and race issues do not blow out of proportion in work environment . But the recent ethnic violence where 23 Indian Singaporeans were arrested says otherwise. Al Shamsi (2013), states that xenophobia or negative attitudes towards at least a part of foreign population exits in Singapore, but the threat is not too much. There has been loud spread agitation that the local population of Singapore believes that they are losing work to foreign workers, this has led to more than one hostile situation of workplace bullying. Also Moore & Sciera (2014), points out that there is a trend in which the local government have been said to be favouring the locals by providing them better housing, education etc. The issues seem to be spilling over to work places, despite the many MNC’s functioning in the country. • Challenges of doing business in Singapore and working in Singapore: cross cultural issues have been argued to be the major challenge of doing business in Singapore. Other aspects like ease of doing, business, quality work force, less expenses, government support all goes in favour for Singapore for a foreign company or workers. Singapore is a country that stresses on relationships while doing business unlike the west it is all about money. Also the fact that being a diverse country with different cultural group makes it lacking in common identify and also a confused generation at times due to influences form both the east and west (Nick,2012). • Why do cultural issues cause issues in Singapore/Work place: Fenney (2014) states that Singapore’s working population is more diverse than even London, in terms of people from different cultures working together. Also this certainly creates a lot of ripple and tension during work. According to Fenney (2014), the major issues in regards to culture that causes problems at work are as follows. a) Different styles of communication: the way people communicate changes drastically with cultures. Words have different meaning and even body languages are totally different. Some gesture might mean positive in a culture and totally negative in another culture. This creates tension in work place if the staff is not made aware of the difference in communication due to culture. The point is that even in English speaking countries, some words may be used differently to other countries. So a huge cultural mix of Caucasian, Indian, Chinese will certainly have communication issues if not handled well. b) Different attitudes towards conflict and its resolution: Singaporean’s do not confront and consider conflict negatively and they tend to take it easy. While in US it might be seen positive and something to solve. This difference might create tension amongst the employees as to how to deal with a conflict. It is totally up to the top level management how to deal with conflicts. c) Diverse approach towards work completion: Singapore being an Asian dominated country tends to get in to business and complete a work by slowly building relationships at the beginning of the shared project and slowly build towards more emphasis on task completion towards the end. While Europeans and Americans tend to focus on completion immediately and do not stress much need for relationship creating etc as they expect the relation to build when they work on the task. d) Diverse decision making styles: Singapore businesses are usually hierarchy oriented with a family taking in charge of making business etc, while countries from the West usually delegate the process. This could again lead to misunderstanding if not taken care of. e) Different attitudes towards disclosure: in few cultures it is okay to share feelings and be emotional at work, while in some it is not seen as appropriate.
The above are a few of the many aspects that could be causing the stress in working conditions in Singapore due to cultural differences. But it can be noted that, culture causes issues not in Singapore but also in other countries of the world that are multi cultured. But the Singapore government’s rules and regulation of being strict and quiet have made it kind of impossible to talk about these issues in public. Let’s looks at how Singapore companies go ahead with Human resource management ion regards to recruitment, selection, remuneration etc.

Let’s look at the Organisational strategies and HR practices in Singapore to gain further understanding.
Singapore’s Business Organisational strategies and HRM practices
He we use the strategic typology model which relates to HRM practices in companies proposed by snow and Miles. It is been used to understand Singapore’s human resource practices as it provides the author with a greater understanding of how the HR practices work and how much role culture does play in it. Let’s look at the issues in Singapore in regards to HR and culture. a) Recruitment and selection process: this is one of the most important functions of any human resource management team. This is about ensuring that the most ideal candidates are attracted for the job and those they are selected after going through appropriate tests. This has been found to be one of the most challenging function of the HR department in Singapore last 2 decades (Nick,2012). The aspect of labour shortages due to either unavailability of local workers or their unwillingness to do certain jobs led to huge problems and the requirement for workers from other countries and cultures. This influx of foreign workers provided enough skilled man power but led to other HR issues. Khatri (2004) states that due to the Singapore Company’s lack of effort to create a sense of harmony, belongings or commitment job hopping became another major issue. Also the recruitment and selection process where seen to be unfair and not transparent by majority of foreign workers in Singapore. This could have been a fuel to cultural tension at work place where foreign workers felt less appreciated for their effort. b) Training and development process: despite the fact that Singapore businesses concentrated on training and development when becoming multinational, Rajasekar (2014), notes that many important aspects of the function was missing. Nick (2012) points out that even when almost 4% of the payroll expenses were going for training and development, there was clearly lack of emphasis on handling cultural differences, lack of evaluation process, training need analysis etc. All the emphasis on training seems to be from the view point of only reducing costs or increasing quality. The emphasis on employee satisfaction, employee relations or employee fulfillment were clearly missing in Singapore businesses. c) Rewards and payments: Gagne & Bhave (2012), stressed that the rewards, remunerations and payment in Singapore’s business were found to bias, This meant that different employees from different cultures more often than not got different pay scale for the same work. Example would be the local population of someone with international passport from countries like USA would get paid more for the same job if done by Indian employees. But Nick (2012) points out that, this bias in payment have reduced drastically as modern methods of management are being implemented in Singapore. This salary bias also could have fueled cultural differences and issue for human resource management. Also only the top companies in Singapore gave incentives and motivation while the small companies did not. They blamed the top level management for not supporting any form on employee incentives.
Findings from mailed Questionaries
A total of 10 questions were asked in the emailed questionaries to 30 possible employees working in Singapore. The population for the survey was found using Facebook and their permission was soughted. Out of the 30, 24 of them replied and after carefull self analysis 20 of them were deemed valuable and fit for further analysis. Out of the 20 selected populations, 8 of them were women and 12 men. All of them working in different fields such as accounting, IT, construction etc in Singapore. The questions asked for the interview are added to the appendix of this report. The population age was between 25 and 40 and had been working in Singapore for more than 1 year to 10 years. Also 9 out of 20 were of Indian citizens, 7 Chinese and 4 for Caucasians.
The findings of the study were consistent most of the time as found from the previous literature reviews, case studies and other secondary research. 7 of the Indian workers had felt that culture was a huge problem in work place , while all Caucasians agreed to the presence of issues that were racial and cultural. Not surprisingly, Chinese workers did not feel that they were much issues due to culture as only 3 stated that cultural issues were an issue. This is consistent with Moore & Sciera (2014), when they stated that Chinese majority of Singapore had it easier than other cultures. But all the people agreed to have issues at work due to culture and 17 of them stated that there were not enough effective training or development activities form human resource management to solve the problem. Also due to being anonyms the employees agreed that the topic of race and culture were not a topic that was encouraged to be talked about. So it clear that issues are left unattended in regards to culture and race even though many problems arise out that when at work.

Results and Discussion
This section will look to explain in details the results that were found as the part of the research methods used. From carrying out the emailed questionnaire, literature review and going through a number of case studies, through researcher observation and self analysis the author have come to find a number of important results. The major findings of the study in regards to the effect of culture on human resource in Singapore companies are as follows. • Clear existence of work place tension due to cultural difference in Singapore: certainly there is more than evidence from the above stated research as to work place tension in Singapore due to culture. The point is that each and everyone is aware of the phenomenon but not much seemed to be done to reduce it at the moment, other than effort from big multinational companies. • Huge changes in Singapore’s work demography in the past three decades leading to scare of the locals being out numbered: It was found that there were a realistic treat that the locals would be outnumbered by foreigners in Singapore in the near future. The influx of foreign workers have been a boon and a curse in some ways for Singapore and this is certainly one of the most important causes of creation of work place tension due to culture and race. • Issues due to limited availability in every sector: Other problem that is causing cultural issues at work is the limited availability of work in Singapore. The competition is very high not only for work for housing benefits etc. The country is very small when taken in comparison to other economies and the number of jobs are every limited, this puts stress on the local community and the government to protect the local population. This sometimes lead to discrimination in work place and outside for a foreigner. • Limited mindset of population: Sometimes cultural mindset pushes problems even when they are not really there. Example would be the case where the locals think foreigners as job stealers; this could lead to work place tension and create uneasiness. • Non confrontational culture and tough Singaporean law: the only reason why the cultural issues at work and outside is not becoming more violent or more in to news is that culture of Singapore people to be non confrontational. Also the law is very strict in regards to talk or report freely about culture, race, religion etc. There is a culture of keeping things under the raps in Singapore and wishing it will go away. • Increased awareness of the issue of culture and HRM: the Human resource management of majority of all companies is aware of the aspect of cultural tension during work leading to conflicts. Also there are efforts to curb conflicts at work arising out of culture. But the question remains, how important do the HRM see these issues as and what are they doing. Apparently they are not doing enough to stop cultural issues through training and development etc. • Emphasis provided by companies for managing cultural related HR policies still at minimum in Singapore: there are small steps taken too sought out cultural issues at work and reduce the conflict. But it is nowhere near as it should be in a cosmopolitan city like Singapore. There is a clear need for more efforts, strategies and financing inorder to weed out this social evil which could hamper growth in tough situations • Employees from foreign locations find it intimidating at times when working with locals and the labour turnover rates in smaller local companies are huge. The companies seem to not understand that if checked and created harmony amongst workers from different cultures, the productivity will certainly go up.

Implications for the Business Decision & recommendations
Clearly the problem of conflicts due to culture is prevailing both in work conditions and everyday life in Singapore. These have huge implications for the businesses, especially in a fast passed globalized business. Conflict at work is common in multinational companies around the world, but as Joana, John, Luthans & Bovaird (2014) states, conflicts in human resource due to culture can be very dangerous for companies and may even lead to its failure. Furthermore Manley, Sanders, Shaun & Webster (2013) states that cultural disputes at work can further more hamper the productivity of the company and render it unable to compete with more efficiently organized companies in regards to Human resource. In the case of Singapore, what is more curious is that the problem is ignored and swept under the carpet by both companies and the government and this could lead to major issues if their economies slowdown and the going get tough.
There is a need that companies in Singapore understand that the business world is evolving and the world is becoming a more of a global village, where there is no space for problems like cultural issues to bring down productivity and quality. So the companies certainly have to take the issue head on and strive to reduce it or complete erase the issues that arise due to work place conflict. There is little the businesses can do in order to change the governments mid set towards dealing with cultural issue in Singapore, but the business can strive to make their work force effective to work in a multi cultural environment. The following recommendations stated by the author after carefull analysis of the research findings will prove to be effective in reducing the work place conflicts due to cultural issues. • Asses the diversity in the work place: first step would be measure how diverse a work place is. That is how many employees come from where and what their culture and such. It is important to know how diverse the work place is before going on to fix the issues regarding to culture. • Develop and implement a plan to include diversity in the work place plan: Choosing a survey provider that provides comprehensive reporting is a key decision. That report will be the beginning structure of your diversity in the workplace plan. The plan must be comprehensive, attainable and measurable. An organization must decide what changes need to be made and a timeline for that change to be attained. Once it developed the top level management must put all its efforts to implement the plan to implement it effectively. • Emphasis more on training and development in regards to multi cultural working environment: time and resources have to be set aside to train and develop the employees in all areas of their work and also dealing with multi cultural work force. Diversity training must be carried out effectively at the required interval of time. • Ensure to ward off change resistance with inclusion of all employees: Employees will almost certainly be against change of any sought most of the type. This can be minimized by making sure that all the employees are included in the change process and their ideas and opinions are heard. To be inclusive is very important if the company is striving to be culturally oriented and diverse. • Create an environment and attitude of openness in the company: the company must strive to encourage all the employees to be open and free to voice their opinion. It is important that the employees feel that they are equal value to all. • Ensure as much possible diversity in the leadership: if the leadership is not as diverse as it could be , there is nothing HR can do to make the company more diverse. The leadership should strive to more diverse whenever possible to have people with right skills at the right job. When the leadership is diverse, the employees will be more confident and open and there would lesser chance of culture causing any conflicts. • Concentrate of employee satisfaction: the management should ensure that the employees are satisfied, well motivated and remunerated. Its only when employees feel the self worth they work to their potential without stress. When employees are satisfied certainly the conflicts would be reduced.
Conclusion
To conclude this research, the author is of the opinion that, Singapore is still a far way from becoming more culturally diverse. In other words, the cultural conflicts in Singapore will take some very hard work from companies and the government to get rid of. But it is equally important that the companies strive their best to avoid conflict of all type as it is about surviving in the highly competitive business world. To put it simply, a company with less cultural conflicts would be a more productive company and will have a more quality and productive work force.
At the moment in Singapore, the laws and regulations by the government looks like they are trying to hide the problem of cultural conflict, but it is totally up the businesses to take things into their own hands in their company and do everything they can to reduce and eliminate cultural conflicts at work place. The above recommendations can be used by the companies to their advantage. It is essential that the companies understand that it is to their best interest that they did everything possible to eradicate the evil of cultural conflicts at work. The author is optimistic that the business will catch on to reduce the conflicts at work through effective plan making and implementation despite it being hard work. The fact that the awareness of cultural conflicts at work has increased amongst the general public and workers is a positive sign to work on.

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