Cross-Cultural Leadership and Communication and Workplace Conflicts

Case Study Analysis: Cross-Cultural Leadership and Communication and Workplace Conflicts

Case Study Analysis One

Management of Conflict in the Work Place, A Case of Organizations in the United Arab Emirates

In this case, the United Arab Emirates is said to be the nation with the largest migration rates in the world. The nation has a workforce drawn from all over the world. People come from as far as Pakistan, the United States of America, Australia, the Philippines, and other nations to do their work in the United Arab Emirates. Because of this large workforce of people who come from all over the country, the country may find itself at loggerheads maintaining workplace diversity and also meeting the cultural diversity of these large groups of people drawn from different cultures (Al-Jenaibi, 2014).

Other problems that are experienced in the country include, lack of defined roles and responsibilities between the employees, poor communication, tension among the workforce, and inability of the employees to cultivate interpersonal relationships. In this case, the social identity theory and the organizational communication theories are applied in the classification, analysis, and understanding of why some workplace conflicts occur the way they do in the region (Al-Jenaibi, 2014).

According to the number of participants that were interviewed at least 36% of the employees do face conflicts due to lack of understanding between their colleagues and sometimes conflicts due to issues of jealousy. 45% of the employees do face conflicts because they have not understood the culture, the norms, and the ways of the people who live in the United Arab Emirates (Al-Jenaibi, 2014). 12% of the employees appear to have conflicts with other customers for reasons such as lack of understanding of the customer needs and sometimes even the language barrier. Some 26% have conflicts with their manager for the simple reason that they are not meeting the expectations of the managers (Al-Jenaibi, 2014).

In this case study, the employees agree that a faster resolution of the conflicts before they become bigger, having a participative approach towards the resolution of conflicts where it is not only the managers that are involved in the process of resolving the conflicts but the whole organization, will assist as one of the conflict resolution mechanisms.

Case Study Analysis Two

Leadership and Organizational Conflict Management: A Case of the Greek Public Sector

The five-point Likert scale, Rahim Organizational Conflict Measure Of Inventory-II measure was used to determine the impact of the different types of leadership such as transformational leadership, the laissez fairez leadership, and transactional leadership on the management of the institution especially the Public Procurement institution that is mandated with developing and also validating all the public procurement contracts in the country (Samanta & Lamprakis, 2018).

Questionnaires were developed and given to a set of managers in this institution. Of essence, the impact of these leadership analyzes on the organization was focusing on how the company manages its expenses, issues of public trust, and the ability of the firm to meet its goals and obligations. The depiction of the data, i.e. the profile of the manager was according to the age, gender, and the number of years that this particular worker has given service to the organization and the educational qualification of the employee. From the education analysis, most of the managers in this institution were graduates who had attained a Masters and other Postgraduate degree programs. Pearson correlation coefficient was one of the methods applied in the management and analyzes of the hypothesis (Samanta & Lamprakis, 2018).

From the analysis of the results, it was discovered that a laissez fairez leadership style was the main cause of the non-constructive and non-conventional methods of managing the conflicts within the organization. A transactional leadership style was deemed to be one of the most effective ways of managing organizational conflicts effectively and constructively. It is this leadership style that was also said to be the most trusted in helping the organization achieve its goals (Samanta & Lamprakis, 2018).

Summary of the lessons learned

Involving the employees in the conflict resolution process, avoiding issues of procrastination and communication appears to be one of the best strategies that the organization may apply to resolve some of the conflicts that involve diversified organizational types with employees from all over the world. A type of leadership especially the transactional leadership style can affect the conflict management process. Some leadership styles like the laissez faire leadership can lead to unorthodox means of solving organizational conflicts.

Benefits of cross-cultural management in the business

Cross-cultural management helps organizations maintain productivity and teamwork among the diverse workforce in the firm. It promotes taking advantage of the unique talents and the skills of the employees. It creates an avenue of learning and understanding the culture of all the employees at the workplace. Intercultural management promotes teamwork in the firm and gives the firm the power to operate on a global level and increase cooperation with other international organizations. It increases the networking level in the organization while at the same time promoting the exercise of effective leadership at the organization (Rosew, 2011).

References

Al-Jenaibi, B. (2014). Managing Conflict in Workplace. International Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship, 165–184. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-4753-4.ch011

Rosew. (2011). The Advantages of Intercultural Communication. The Classroom | Empowering Students in Their College Journey. https://www.theclassroom.com/advantages-intercultural-communication-12066503.html

Samanta, I., & Lamprakis, A. (2018). Leadership and organizational conflict management: a case study of the Greek public sector. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331682474_Leadership_and_organisational_conflict_management_a_case_study_of_the_Greek_public_sector