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Imagine that you are a successful business
person and you work in a company that has just recently
undergone a major merger with a British company. Today you
were in a staff meeting where your employer told you that
there will be an opening for a junior sales director in
your new affiliate in Leicester, UK for somebody from your
company in Finland. You are interested in the job opportunity
because you have always wanted to work abroad and taking
the job would also mean a significant raise in your salary.
You know that the city of Leicester has a thriving ethnic
minority community: a third of the city's inhabitants are
non-white. That is why your employer advises you that familiarizing
yourself with some of the local issues about multiculturalism
may be a good idea before you agree to take the job.
You walk out of the staff meeting feeling
excited. In the meeting, you were asked to devote the rest
of your workweek to becoming your company's expert on intercultural
relations; you were encouraged to use the company's computer
to surf the net, to watch DVDs, and even to read books and
newspapers during working hours. Your mission is to find
information, facts and examples of immigrant experiences,
and reasons and possible solutions for problems faced in
intercultural relations. At the end of the week, at the
next staff meeting, you should be able to understand the
issue of cultural diversity in modern Britain from different
points of view and to explain these to your colleagues so
that whoever decides to go work in Leicester will be prepared.
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