CIICPD 2023

melting pot into which people of different cultures are assimilated as part of a unified national culture, with a view where cultures, particularly those of minority groups, are acknowledged for their differences within a dominant political culture. Therefore, in a business context, minorities should not only be able to communicate but also feel at ease with their differences. The analysis carried out in this chapter only concerns the Italian context. This chapter builds on a premise that it would be worthwhile extending this study – by the same methodology – to other European countries and other regions of the world in further studies. 2. Multicultural Issues in Counselling There are several reasons why multiculturalism in counselling is expedient to understanding organisational behaviour. The field of psychology was the first to raise scientific awareness of the problem. In fact, it emerged that, in the context of counselling, racial and ethnic minorities, and more broadly, diverse cultures react unexpectedly to traditional counselling approaches, which appear ineffective outside the social ethnic groups for which they were developed; see e.g. Cayleff (1986), Ibrahim and Arrendondo (1986). In response to these findings, a group of scholars published an influential position paper on cross-cultural counselling competencies (see Sue et al., 1982). Their concerns were recognised by the American Psychology Association and later endorsed by the Association for Multicultural Counselling and Development. The paper proposed a framework based on three essential pillars: • Counsellor awareness of how their cultural background affects their assumptions and personal values, possibly determining biases and stereotypes; • Understanding the worldview of a culturally different individual and contrasting their views in a non-judgemental fashion; • Based on the knowledge of minorities’ values and beliefs, develop and adopt the skills to make culturally appropriate interventions. As the reader can see, this tripartite model, which is now the foundation for counselling, could be transposed to organisational behaviours, where skilled managers have to lead without overlapping their own culturally driven hierarchy of values with beliefs and cultural heritage of the employees. In a multicultural environment, the attitude of a manager should be marked by cultural humility, which is characterised by “an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented rather than self-focused” and by “respect and lack of superiority” toward the employee’s “cultural background and experience”. Again, these principles conceived by Hook et al. (2013) for the professional relationship between a counsellor and their clients are also reflected in workplace interactions. It bears mentioning that, beyond mistreatments, prejudices and stereotypes, the lack of respect for cultural differences can be the cause of psychological distress for affected individuals up to the point where help by a professional counsellor is appropriate. At any rate, even without shifting from physiological to pathological conditions, and perhaps to prevent this, the approaches and assessment methods to identify and

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