Managing an Effective Cross-Cultural Team - the CHSP Committee at the UPS Dubai Operations Centre - Case Study Example

Developing and Managing an Effective Cross-Cultural Team Introduction: Organisation Background This report will compare theory and practise in the management of a cross-cultural team in a business operation, specifically, the Comprehensive Health & Safety Process (CHSP) Committee in the UPS Dubai Operations Centre in the United Arab Emirates. UPS (formerly known as United Parcel Service) is a US-based company and now the world’s largest parcel delivery and shipping company, operating in 220 countries (UPS, 2011). The information about the organisation was obtained in an informal interview with an acquaintance who was employed at the facility for a total of six years, and for part of that time served on the CHSP Committee. The CHSP Committee at the UPS Dubai Operations Centre is a good subject for the study of cross-cultural teams for several reasons. First, as is common throughout the UAE and particularly so in foreign companies, the organisation has a large number of foreign workers (Thekkepat, 2011); in this case, most of the warehouse employees were from South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and the Philippines, while the management and administrative staff was made up of native Emiratis, Americans, and Canadians. Second, the Arab and Islamic culture of the UAE provides unique cultural factors to the work environment. And third, because UPS is a global company with many consistent processes and procedures used in all its facilities worldwide, there is a basic organisational framework to which the team had to adapt. The basic organisation of the Operations Centre consisted of a management team; an administrative department; a receiving department responsible for managing the flow of shipments into the Centre; a sorting facility; and a shipping department responsible for the flow of sorted shipments out of the Centre, either to local destinations in the UAE, or to the airport-based shipping facility for overseas destinations. The CHSP Committee consisted of eight members: two representatives each from the Inbound, Outbound, and Sorting areas, one from the administrative office staff, and a member of the management team. All the committee members served for an indefinite period of time, that is, until they either asked to be replaced or left the company, except for the management representative; the senior managers rotated the position amongst themselves, taking turns approximately every three to four months. The general duties of the CHSP Committee were to investigate and make recommendations on any safety incidents such as accidents or injuries that occurred, any safety concerns raised by any employee, and to conduct occasional inspections of the facility to ensure that it and the employees were complying with UPS’ safety guidelines. Committee meetings were generally held on a monthly basis, with resulting recommendations forwarded to the General Manager for approval; if approved, these would then be communicated to the rest of the workforce and adopted as standard procedure. Theoretical Foundations of Team Dynamics and Management Cross-cultural Adaptation Theory and Social Cognition Theory are two theories which essentially describe the way in which people from different cultures communicate with one another, and understand each others’ communications. Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory describes a process by which a host culture and a guest culture – for example, a foreign worker from India or the Philippines in the UAE – “translate” each others’ communications (Kim, 2009: 2). Some forms of communication are universal, such as common facial expressions for happiness, fear, surprise, anger, or sadness, which gives people from different cultures a common ‘starting point,’ so to speak, from which to begin understanding each other (Russell, 1994: 102). Other cultural characteristics such as ideology, moral, and ethical orientations, however, have to be communicated more directly (Ralston, et al., 2006, p. 103); the process of adaptation comes from peoples’ being able to identify similarities or differences from their own cultural characteristics. Social Cognition Theory also involves communications, but goes further to address the behaviours of a person by describing his or her actions as being the result of two pairs of factors: Cognition and Motivation, and Person and Circumstances (Mitchell, et al., 2000: 975). The person and the circumstances are the person’s own cultural background and the one he finds himself in, while cognition is the way in which he understands his cultural setting, and motivation is his purpose for understanding it (Gelfand, et al., 2007: 481-482). So in a work environment, a common focus for people of different cultures – such as the responsibilities and objectives of the CHSP Committee – reduces differences in circumstances and motivation, and therefore can reduce conflicts arising from cultural differences and difficulties in communications (Leung, et al., 2005: 371). The Normative Management of the CHSP Committee According to Theory As described by the former Committee member, the ‘ideal’ design of the CHSP Committee as described by UPS could be said to maximise the communication and cultural factors described by Cross-cultural Adaptation Theory and Social Cognition Theory. The team was designed to be non-hierarchical, that is, a team of equals in which each member’s regular job duties or level of authority was irrelevant. The team could also be said to have a ‘common language,’ the safety issues and concerns described by the guidelines and procedures set forth by the company, which were presumably the same for all UPS employees and facilities around the world. Recommendations by the team would then be reached by consensus, since everyone would have the same objective, each understanding it in the same context, regardless of their own cultural orientations. Thus by plan the CHSP Committee conformed to theory, but in practise it apparently did not, as is discussed below. Differences Between Theory and Practise The most significant difference between the ideal of the ‘non-hierarchical,’ consensus-based group structure and the CHSP Committee in practise is that a clear hierarchy within the group actually was present, and there seems to be two reasons for this. First was the strong influence of the Islamic business culture, which automatically gave the team member from management a position of authority within the group. Islam prescribes a strong ethic of fairness and equality among workers, but also places a strong responsibility for workers’ welfare upon the leader of any organisation, casting him in a paternalistic role in relation to subordinate workers (Rice, 1999: 347-350). Thus the management member of the Committee expected and received a significant amount of deference from the other members. There was also, to some extent, a separation between members from different departments which caused other members to defer to them on safety issues in their areas; for example, if a disagreement arose about how to address an issue in the sorting facility, the point of view of the team member from that area would usually prevail. Another factor was the occasional change in team personnel as team members moved on and were replaced; this created a hierarchy within the team based on seniority. This formation of a “pecking order” in the group can be explained by structuralisation, wherein new group members carried their normal expectations and experiences with authority with them into the group, and absolutistic dependency, which describes a natural formation of a clear structure within a group to reduce conflicts amongst the group members (Modlin & Faris, 1956 and Schroder & Harvey, 1963, in Tuckman, 1965: 76). The danger the divergence from the ideal arrangement and interaction of the CHSP Committee presents is that its intended purpose – to solve safety-related problems and prevent new problems from arising – might not be completely achieved. Committee members might not feel free to express concerns or disagree with others in the group because of what they perceive as their relative social position; for example, if the management team member has an idea that others in the group actually think is not very good, they may not wish to present a different idea out of deference to his authority. This is actually a common problem in the management of global companies, the need to balance the requirement for consistency in business practises across the entire organisation with the unavoidable cultural or social conditions in local areas (Scroggins & Benson, 2010: 411). UPS has approximately 3,600 CHSP Committees worldwide involving about 30,000 employees, but only one set of guidelines that all should follow (UPS Pressroom, n.d.). As the experience of the CHSP Committee in Dubai suggests, in some areas there is very likely a conflict between maintaining the company-wide standards and managing an effective team. Thus, the recommendations to be made should address two levels: the organisation of CHSP Committees on a company-wide basis, and specific recommendations for the CHSP Committee at the Dubai Operations Centre. Recommendations The first recommendation is that UPS allow for greater flexibility in the make-up of CHSP Committees at the local facility level. The concept of the non-hierarchical, cross-functional team was developed by UPS in the United States, and is thus a very ‘Western’ concept; as the experience in Dubai has shown, despite the prescribed design, the team at the local level will naturally evolve into something that very much resembles the prevailing organisational culture. It would be a reasonable assumption that UPS’ safety protocols could remain the same and continue to be applied consistently worldwide, but the standards could still be met by CHSP Committees in different forms. How the Committees might be formed and function in different countries would have to be examined on a case-by-case basis, but the Dubai Operations Centre can serve as an example. First, to eliminate potential problems arising from structuralisation and absolutistic dependency, the period of service on the Committee should be fixed. If all the Committee members served for an equal amount of time – for example, six months – seniority within the group would be eliminated. Second, the role of management in the CHSP Committee should be clearly defined. Under the current arrangement, the Committee makes recommendations to the top management for approval and implementation, but while a member of the management team is serving on the Committee. If the recommendation-approval-implementation process remains the same, it would be better to eliminate the management role on the Committee, which would help to ‘flatten’ the Committee’s structure. There is a risk in doing this, however, that the more uniform social make-up of the team members – i.e., all being “line” employees – would lead to a narrower perspective on the safety issues to be addressed and might result in some matters being overlooked (Bassett-Jones, 2005: 173), management oversight and approval would continue to serve as a check on the Committee’s activities. As an alternative, the management team member’s role can be expanded to make him responsible for the approval of any recommendations developed by the Committee. This would serve two purposes; first, it would acknowledge the leadership role that seems to naturally develop under the present circumstances, and second, it would put the approving management authority in a position to take part in the recommendation process, which may lead to better decisions. Another change that may make better use of the ‘natural order’ that develops within the Committee would be to give members responsibility over their particular work areas; for example, team members from the sorting facility would have the primary responsibility for overseeing safety issues in that department. Discussions and recommendations could still be developed within the team as a whole, but with some weight given to the people who are most familiar with the areas in question. This type of arrangement is simply an acknowledgment of a natural tendency of people in work groups to focus and set their priorities according to the areas where they are most comfortable or where their expertise lies (Neumann, Miller, & Holti, 1999: 218). While these changes would represent a significant departure from the original concept of the CHSP Committee as described by UPS (UPS Pressroom, n.d.), they should be considered in the proper context. UPS’ business is to provide parcel shipping and delivery services; conducting its operations in a safe manner support that objective. Therefore, if changes are made to remove potential cultural and social obstacles and conflicts from the management of safety through the CHSP Committees, UPS’ main mission will be better supported. References Bassett-Jones, N. (2005). The Paradox of Diversity Management, Creativity and Innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 14(2): 169-175. Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M., and Aycan, Z. (2007). 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Journal of Business Ethics, 18(4): 345-358. Russell, J.A. (1994). Is There Universal Recognition of Emotion From Facial Expression? A Review of the Cross-Cultural Studies. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1): 102-141. Scroggins, W.A., and Benson, P.G. (2010) International human resources management: diversity, issues, and challenges. Personnel Review, 39(4): 409-413. Thekkepat, S.K. (2011). Multicultural Workforce Requires Multicultural Leadership. Gulf News (online), 25 March 2011. . Tuckman, B.W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6): 384-399. Reprinted in Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, 3 (Spring 2001): 67-81. UPS. (2011). About UPS. . UPS Pressroom. (n.d.). UPS CHSP Committees Fact Sheet. . Appendix: Organisational Chart of UPS Dubai Operations Centre Read More