Communication for diversity. An exploratory study on the features of internal communication to manage cultural diversity in the italian organizations

Cultural diversity is one of the distinctive feature of our world. In consequences of a complex intertwining of some deep social processes (secularization and modernization, global media evolutions, international migrations), our societies have become culturally more heterogeneous and fragmented than in the past. These transformations involve all the spheres and institutions, thus also professional organizations. The management and enhancement of cultural diversity inside organizations and work environments is a topic that in some sense has always being present in the corporate external communication. Indeed, public relations, marketing, advertising are traditionnally interested in intercepting external various categories of stakeholders (new customers, buyers, audience, media), so they need to know, understand and handle continuously new lifestyles, behaviours, people. In other words, different cultures. But today cultural diversity is emerging also like an internal issue. Especially in medium and large insitutions, corporate world is often characterized by a motley population, that is people with different place and culture of origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, family burdens, etc. In the last decades, equal rights and opportunities thought have drawn the attention on the discriminations and disequalities that afflict organizational cultures, giving some inputs to specialized studies and policies. However, these new sensibilities seem to have taken root mainly in Anglo-American and Northern European countries, whereas they are struggling to diffuse in the rest of Europe. This paper intends to investigate the role that the internal communication can play in promoting and managing the cultural diversity inside the Italian organizations. The difficulties faced by the reserchers in finding case-studies and witnesses available to tell their companies experiences confirm the backwardness of the territory in respect of this issue. Then, this study necessarily is an exploratory research. The first part of the work is an overview on the current situation in Italy, made on secondary data. We have collected and analayzed the most recent researches on the programmes and experiences made by the Italian public and private organizations to promote cultural diversity. Next up, the main action is a focus group aimed at exploring how the redefinition of internal relations can promote cultural diversity inside the organization, and the positive effects that an equality-oriented management can have for the life of the company. The focus group involved about ten training and communication managers working in private, public and non-profit Italian organizations. Finally, it is important to note that the research action presented in this essay is part of a wider European scientific project (Codes, 2017-2019), involving six European countries (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Roumanie). It is focused in a comparative reflection on the relation among cultural diversity, communication and solidarity in our societies, paying particular attention to the educational needs of media, companies, public and no-profit organizations.