Strategic Human Resource Management of Ethnic

& Cultural Diversity in Airline Industry

Case Study of Emirates Airline Dubai

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Case study Organization 1

1.2 Rationale of Research 2

1.3 Aims and Objectives 3

1.4 Research Questions: 3

2. Literature Review 3

1. Definition of Cultural Diversity 3

2.2 Cultural Diversity in Organizations 4

2.3 Implications of Cultural Diversity 5

2.4 Ethnicity 6

2.5 Conceptual framework 7

3. Research Methodology 8

3.1 Research Strategy 8

3.2 Research Approach 8

3.3 Time Horizon 9

3.4 Sampling Procedures 9

3.6 Data Collection 9

3.6.1 Types of Data Collection 9

3.6.2 Secondary Sources: 10

3.6.1 Primary sources 10

3.7 Data Analysis 10

3.7 Limitations of the research 11

3.8 Expected Research Outcomes 11

3.9 Ethical Considerations 11

Research Schedule 12

References 13

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1. Introduction

With the availability of state of the art technology and arrival of global communication

technologies, employees are now connected together more than ever before. This fact has not only

influenced the current educational systems, but also the enterprises and other working institutes to

provide best services to their target consumers in an effort to self-promote their organisations and

take advantage of these recent developments. Moreover, effort and strategies are also conducted

to retain the best skilled workers and to attract new human resources from similar industries

through a well-managed human resource management system. In this way, any enterprises that

anticipate this need to develop policies and procedures, and accordingly get the best resources than

their rivals, can take a competitive advantage and prove their effectiveness in the market (Brown,

2008).

As per stated by Robbins (2009), workforce diversity for an organization is defined as a diverse

workforce with employees which are different from each other in terms of age, race, gender,

ethnicity and educational profiles. Workforce diversity is an important issue for management to

be considered for developing new policies and practices or revising the previous one. Normally,

diversity is seen in a specific way, and mostly issues such as race or gender dissimilarities and

their connections with laws helps in giving them safe status. Many researchers have defined

diversity in a broader way, suggesting that individuals can be influenced in the form of style of

their thinking as well as how they behave and work through a well-directed ethnic and cultural

diversity management system (Robbins, 2009).

Hence it can be argued that strategic human resource management of ethnic & cultural diversity

can be considered as an extremely important tool which can be used to improve the overall

performance as well as productivity of any organisation. This research this aims to further

investigate the relevance of this statement, and the following organisation has been selected as a

case study to undertake this research;

Case study Organization; Emirates Airline

Emirates group, established in Dubai, is an extremely cost-effective organization with above

50,000 employees and just about US$18.4 billion turnover. Dnata and Emirates are the airlines

constituting the Emirates group; Dnata is providing the air services throughout the world while

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Emirates airline is an international award winning airline. At this time, Emirates is providing air

services in almost six continents and to above 125 destinations on a current fleet of 180 extensive

and broad airplanes. For continuing the achievements and accomplishments of the Emirates group,

it is necessary to employ high class people, who can easily take advantage of working and living

in an international and up-to-date city that is contributing in providing the most attractive ways of

living. The employees of the Emirates belong to almost above 160 nations and are offered tax-free

incomes, different packages and further benefits and at the same time an opportunity to improve

themselves to promote and extend their relation with the Emirates group (Emirates, 2016).

1.2 Rationale of Research

It is essential to recognize the demographics in Dubai in order to understand the variety and

multiplicity of doing a job in Dubai. The population in 2012, according to the census governed by

the statistic centre of Dubai, is 2.1 Million, out of which UAE nationals are only 25% of the total

population. The remaining 75% includes the employees from all over the world including India,

Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh as well as the United States, and the western and European countries. The

experts from the western countries mainly belong to the United Kingdom with an estimated

population of about 100,000 (Dubai Gov., 2016).

Therefore, diversity management has become a major human resource concern in most of the

organizations in UAE. Diversity within the group is the foundation and is always essential for the

success of a company. For example, the Emirates airline covers above six continents and 120

destinations across the world with its crew from around 137 nations speaking almost 58 different

languages (Emirates, 2016). To search for the right employees for the job, the recruiters regularly

travel around the world. The recruitment strategy’s main constituent includes how fluent a person

is in a particular language required to go with the demographics of a definite zone. For example,

for a flight going from Dubai to ant city of Brazil must include the crew members who are aware

of the Portuguese language. Hence, evaluating the sensitivity of cross-culture in Dubai is also an

important factor, for this reason almost 50,000 employees every year from all over the world are

screened from which only 4,000 are able to get the jobs in Emirates Airlines (Emirates 2016).

In this situation, the management of multicultural employees with diverse ethnic backgrounds play

an important part in devising human resource strategies and achieving performance targets from

these employees. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the underlying strengths and

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weaknesses of employing a large and ethnically diverse workforce, and Emirates airline operating

from UAE is probably one the most suited organisations to complete this research.

1.3 Aims and Objectives

As discussed previously, the primary aim of the proposed research is to evaluate the strategic

human resource management of ethnic and cultural diverse workforce in the airline industry of

Dubai, which is a well known diverse region. The Case study of Emirates Airline is selected for

this research for the reasons stated in the previous section

The stated objectives of proposed research are:

1. To assess the theoretical framework of ethnic and cultural diversity in the airline industry.

2. To identify the challenges and opportunities of HRM of culturally diverse workforce in

Emirate Airlines

3. To determine the strategic HRM practices prevailing in Emirates Airline Dubai to manage

culturally and ethnic diverse workforce.

4. To recommend suitable strategies to improve strategic HRM in Emirates to achieve desired

performance goals.

1.4 Research Questions:

The research questions are hence derived for this case particular study are;

1. What are the main challenges and opportunities of strategic management of cultural and ethnic

diverse workforce in Emirates Airline Dubai?

2. How does ethnic cultural diversity impact the organizational performance in the airline

industry of Dubai?

3. Can the management strategies related to Ethnic & Cultural Diversity be optimized to enhance

the productivity of the airline industry?

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2. Literature Review

3.1 Cultural Diversity Background

Cultural diversity is a known fact which needs no introduction; as there are various cultural norms

that exist with each having its certain characteristics (Baer et al 2007). At the first sight appears,

even delineating a culture seems not an easy task to begin. Moreover, Brown, (2008) asserted that

being attentive towards it in this era is a casual routine due to the involvement of globalization in

exchanges and acceptance of societies towards one another. While this attentiveness cannot assure

the perpetuation of cultural diversity, although, it has given much clear view to the topic. Cultural

diversity is one of the major concerns of society that is connected with the rising range of

community codes between and inside the societies. It is a clear fact that, terms like living styles,

social interactions (between generations, male and female, etc.), codes of conduct, lingual forms,

planning of private and public regions have no longer been defined as single models or think as a

terms of unique illustrations. The evolution of local communities on political platforms in the last

few years have been based on the struggle of various groups, including both natives, non-residents

and impoverished groups, especially who have faced discriminations based on age, gender and

cultural origin in our societies. Political institutions have in the perspective thought itself being

challenged, and in various countries cultural diversity has set up its place in politics for this very

reason.

On a similar note, Kundu, (2003) declares that Cultural diversity has significant influence on

political insinuation; because it suggests ourselves to become free from the terms like ‘Stereotypes’

and ‘Bigotry’ i.e. we can allow others with their differences and complications. In this regard,

researchers suggest that it makes a way to rediscover our humanity by our very diversity. Cultural

diversity has proved itself being a valuable resource which not only improves cultural intellect,

but also scientific collaboration for the improvement and cultural peace.

3.2 Cultural Diversity in Organizations

In terms of its internal functioning, each team must be effective to meet organizational goals and

efficiently supervise the relations with others in the organization. All the way through these

relations, teams can access the necessary resources and can influence which is favourable for the

teams as well as for its members (Owoyemietal 2011). To successfully administer workplace,

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range as suggested by Soltani, (2010), the Human Resource supervisor should transform from

partisanship i.e. “our way is the best way” analysis to ethnically comparative perception i.e. “let’s

take the best of a variety of ways”.

This transfer has to be embedded in the administrative structure of the Human Resource Managers

plan, organize, principal and control of executive resources. However, diversity cannot be simply

characterized in actuality. In order for organizations to become successful, they need to increase

their business and customer support via mitigating human resource complications and by

nourishing the talents of employees. In order to meet this requirement, the organization can look

forward to recognizing the significance of diversity and encouraging modernization and

improvement.

The essential civilizing environment that encourages a comprehensive atmosphere provides for a

strong leadership and dedication. In order to execute the management practices, efficient

communication, knowledge, education, guidance and training can of course facilitate the

management. Hence, the justification for managing and accepting diversity is in no way any less

convincing (Owoyemi et al 2011). The necessity for diversity programs will mean so much to the

flourishing organizations in future, as new opportunities and potentials come up in the business

environment. More than ever before, today the world needs more diversity. The personal attributes

such as religion experiences, traditions, civilization etc. can make the individuals distinct and turn

the world we live live-in into a one globalized society.

3.3 Implications of Cultural Diversity

With an entrance into the new century, cultural diversity has been placed at a central position.

There is various evidence which suggests that globalization and liberalism in the market will

preach cultural equivalence, and also reduce any already existing imbalance between cultures and

societies. On the other side only few have asserted that; the various forms of cold wars and veil of

political beliefs always comes up with new ideologies, religious, cultural and even traditional

breakouts, promoting ‘clash of civilizations’ in one form or another. Scientists have already

warned of the risks to the Earth’s atmosphere caused by human activity sketching the destruction

of biodiversity and the vanishing of habitual ways of life due to the shortage of resources for living

a modern life (Jackson, & Joshi, 2004).

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Moreover, ‘Diversity’ is a uniting call for those who criticize constant socio-economic

discriminations in urbanized civilizations. At the same time, it is proposing a challenge to the

ideology of global collaboration: it is cited by some to compete globally recognized human rights,

while other for example, UNESCO has a firm view that fully documented cultural diversity

empowers the individual human rights universality and make sure use of effective practices to

preserve these rights (UNDP 2012). The fundamental goals of the UN related to cultural diversity

are as follows

1. To understand cultural diversity and all its connected parts, by trying to demonstrate the

difficulties of the procedures at job, in the similar way picking a main idea from a pool of

possible understandings.

2. To throw light on cultural diversity and its benefits in regions like language, education,

communication and inventiveness with their inherent features apart, can be thought as essential

to safeguard and encourage cultural diversity.

3. Prove the importance of investing in cultural diversity to investors and decision makers as a

need for intercultural conversation. Since it will change our thinking towards sustainable

growth but it proves to be a building base for practicing universally known human rights and

liberty. Furthermore, can help to make strong social bonding and democratic authority.

3.4 Ethnicity

Multicultural workforce is becoming more popular in the new epoch (Zgourides et al., 2002;

Inmyxai, S. & Takahashi Y. 2010). In general, diversity is directly proportional to use of

employment teams so that increase in diversity would result in increase of use of workforce, with

the aim to raise collaboration between participants which would result in improving both business

efficiency and employee contentment. Even it has been seen that workforce is more diverse now

in terms of age, parallel interest and traditional values and increased diversity is seen too in our

educational institutes (Zgourides et al., 2002). It is a fact that enterprises have adopted the

multicultural environment due to the increased trend of multicultural societies consequently

encompassing domestic, educational and religious beliefs. The distinctions in cultural features

were predictive of team scores, According to Zgourides et al., (2002). This can be explained as the

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benefit of having culturally different views for problem solving that will result in improving the

performance of a team after the teams understand how to make the most of these differences.

Timmermans et al (2011) concluded that innovation is a process which usually needs

communication between employees and derives their various features from all stages of an

organization. Nationality, age, cultural background and other such recognized features can result

in developing pessimistic results for the organization. Minorities can face challenges like less job

satisfaction, problems with nationality, and apparent discrimination etc. (Timmermans et al.,

2011). However, with the increased growth in minority groups few of the hurdles just disappear.

As per Timmermanset al., (2011), ethnicity can be proved as an intermediary for social foundation

and distinct qualities in ethnicity can be beneficial for creative execution, since it expands the

perceptions and points of view in the firm (Soltani, 2010). Besides, in view of Timmermans et al.

(2011), a few levels of mixed qualities in ethnicity may be connected with development, but high

levels of differences in ethnicity may negatively influence the environment since disputes can arise

in inner circles because of differences in social classifications (Dahlin,2005).

3.5 Conceptual framework

In order to improve any company in its performance, there is a high demand to take great care in-

terms of its team's relations with other internal departments. Each team must be in good relations

with not only its internal members but also need to have better dealings with other teams and

personnel (Ostergaard, et al 2011). This relationship will result in the form of efficient usage of

resources as well as effects in a way that is better for both the team and its constituents (Brown

2008). In view of the literature reviewed in the previous section, following conceptual framework

is devised for this research:

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Cultural Diversity

Organization

Strategic HRM policies

Organizational Performance

Ethnic Diversity

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3. Research Methodology

As suggested by Saunders et al (2012), structured plan of research proves as a guide for any study

and it promotes the discussion of methods used in a particular study. This study is based on

pragmatism philosophy which supports both ‘subjective’ as well as ‘objective’ methods.

Moreover, it relies on empirical testing of data in real business conditions (Base, 2006).

Furthermore, a descriptive research method can be used in this research study which supports

research positivism paradigm, and focuses on objective treatment for the selected dependent as

well as independent variables. A descriptive approach will help to analyze the relationship of more

variables, especially for quantitative data. On the other side, exploratory research can also be used

for this study, however it is often adopted for difficult and subjective problem solving. Exploratory

strategy will hence will only be partially used to explore detailed information / qualitative data

gathered from interviews of Emirates managers and associates.

3.1 Research Strategy

As stated by Bryman (2008) interviews, case studies, observation and experiments can be chosen

as a research strategy in order to collect data for any particular study. This survey method has been

planned to be utilized to collect data because this method suits positivist philosophy which is the

main philosophy of this research. Schwab (2003) suggested the Survey method as simple, precise

and suitable to collect data from huge samples. Furthermore, Interviews of managers or associates

of the Emirates company will be conducted which will help exploratory elements of proposed

study. Interview is subjective in nature, and will be used for qualitative data collection for the

research.

3.2 Research Approach

Schwab (2003) detailed that there are two commonly used methods in social sciences research

named as inductive and deductive. Deductive methods refer to top down methodology, it is used

to testify the theory to construct ideas and then design hypotheses. In contrast to this, inductive

theory is based on exploratory inquiries regarding any complex problems that need detailed

explanations. As clear and objective data collection methods are used in the suggested deductive

approach, the proposed research will use both quantitative as well as quantitative data, along with

top down ways of data collection.

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3.3 Time Horizon

The cross sectional methodology is needed to gain information regarding the influence of

organizational abilities on productivity at a particular time period i.e. at the time this study has

been conducted (Saunders et al 2012). On the other side, there is an option of choosing longitudinal

research methodology but this type needs long time periods and recurring research, but this is not

appropriate for proposed research.

3.4 Sampling Procedures

Employees from different departments of Emirates can be selected for the sampling of data, with

preference to the human resource in management positions. Furthermore, purposive sampling will

be used for this research for the data collection. As per Malhotra, 2005, purposive sampling

technique can help an analyst to only gather those respondents which are qualified, which is

assumed to be beneficial for this study. This sample will be consisting of employees from different

departments. In addition, three randomly chosen human resource departmental managers will be

consulted to gain qualitative data through interviews.

3.6 Data Collection

3.6.1 Types of Data Collection

Qualitative and quantitative are the two types of data gathering techniques to be used for this study.

Quantitative technique involves data collection which is numeral form this method is appropriate

for objective study which relies on positivism philosophy. On the other side, qualitative data

collection involves interviews and is applied on exploratory research; in this study both

methodologies are used.

3.6.2 Secondary Sources:

As per Schwab (2003), secondary sources of data can include various literature articles, research

papers, published data and books. This secondary data will be used to outline the background and

literature review segments of the final research report, and also to draft the questionnaire and

interviews. This will be done after identifying the fundamental research gaps and interesting facts

on the subject under the study.

3.6.1 Primary sources

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Primary data can be gathered by survey and interview. Survey processes are used as it produces

large amounts of data without much effort. This scheme is effective since the researcher will not

have to travel or spend a large amount of budget. The survey questionnaire will be carefully drafted

to achieve the objectives of this research. In order to find out about key performance parameters

which are not available online, interviews are planned to be conducted in order to acquire direct

information from managers. This research includes three interviews conducted from managers of

Emirates airline Dubai.

3.7 Data Analysis

Data collected from employee’s surveys will be processed through statistical tools such as MS

excel. The findings regarding dependence and relations of performance and internal capacities are

resulted from using regression and correlation analysis techniques. The qualitative data is collected

through interviews and will be examined by ‘Thematic analysis’ which involves important themes

will be sketched with the support of answers from interviews.

The more important factors regarding data are its validity and reliability. Validity and reliability

can be improved by choosing right research tools and suitable samples, and structuring questions

properly which are relevant to the study and are in understandable form (Malhotra, 2007).

3.7 Limitations of the research

1. There is limited reach to scholarly work, related information and investigations moreover,

information regarding research on documents of Emirates also has limited access.

2. The partial way in to applicable information statistics related to problem will result a limited

collection of quantitative data

3. Time slot allocated for the study is short, so with respect to subjective information analysis

and few discussions, meetings would take more time than predicted. Consequently, this time

gap will affect the completion of the final report.

3.8 Expected Research Outcomes

1. Research design formation to evaluate the cross cultural issues management to achieve

sustainable performance of Emirates in UAE

2. Examining the practicality of management exercises and policies which helps for best use

of resources to manage cultural conflicts.

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3. Recommendations to suitable management practices and systems to address current

difficulties in order to attain maximum performance in Emirates airline or any other

multinational company in UAE.

3.9 Ethical Considerations

According to Bell and Bryman (2007), researches which are based on primary data collection faced

various challenges. The ethical factor comes mainly into considerations where interviews are being

conducted for the subjective data. These foundational ethical principles will be followed in the

current study:

1. Participant’s privacy will be assured by keeping provided information safe from public

sharing.

2. Before the beginning of the survey, permissions should be taken from participants.

3. Sensitive and optional collected information is kept confidential

4. Secondary resources for information could be from multiple resources so that their

copyrights must be respected.

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Research Schedule Following is the proposed study schedule:

Research section January

2017

February

2017

March

2017

April

2017

Literature Review

Writing Literature Review

Writing Introduction

Research Methodology writing

Data collection process

Statistical Data Analysis

Writing final report

Conclusion

Final Report

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