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Intercultural Communication within the Aviation Organizations in the United Arab Emirates
Introduction
Businesses have been developing massive ideas aiming at expanding their markets. The expansion is expected to go beyond the boundaries of the countries of origin of those businesses. The whole world comprises of different nations with different cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, communication is central to the day to day running of businesses. In order to win a customer’s attention in your product, there is the need to establish polite and gainful relations with the customers that are made through communication. Organizations in the Aviation industry are some of the organizations that expect to deal with different cultures most of the times since they offer their services across the world. Therefore, these organizations are characterized by intercultural communication within the organizations themselves and also with their customers. Intercultural communication is a form of communication used to share information throughout different social groups and cultures. According to Pillar (2011), intercultural communication describes communication procedures and problems that naturally appear within societies that are composed of people from different ethnic backgrounds. Intercultural communication is helpful in business since it builds cultural intelligence in customer service and other business communication practices (Knapp, 1987). The study will help in developing an understanding of intercultural communication in the aviation industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The understanding will help in fine tuning the customer service towards meeting customer requirements.
Purpose of the study
The main purpose of the topic is to see the communication in regard with intercultural communication within organization in UAE. Private aviation organizations in the UAE include Empire aviation group, Dana ExecuJet, Gama Aviation, Medex Aviation, Prestije Jet, Emirates Aviation Services, FJR Private Flight. To ease the analysis, three private aviation organizations Aerovista, Emirates Aviation Services and the Etihad will be chosen in this research . The paper aims at finding out the effectiveness of internal intercultural communication in the United Arab Emirates Aviation industry.
Rationale of the study
The study is important since UAE is multi-cultural, and her aviation industry comprises of people from various cultural identities. Therefore, effective inter-cultural communications are important for the industry to function properly. The study will help in understanding the most commonly used mode of communication within the UAE. It will also generate more knowledge on the reasons for the commonality of a certain language or mode of communication. The cultural group with the largest number of customers will also be identified. The question of the way communication is carried out between the UAE aviation companies and their clients and whether the clients are satisfied with it or not.
Literature review
Public relations industry concentrates on creating and maintaining good relations with clients of an organization. Creating good relations with clients is enhanced using brand management, media relations, advertising among others. Intercultural communication is a topic that requires the deeper understanding in the current business environments since the business entities are interdependent globally. Washington, Okoro and Thomas (2012) assert that today’s market trend is increasingly becoming global, and the current business requires people to travel to foreign countries and communicate effectively with foreign clients. It helps The companies to take the advantage of the opportunities that are available in a culturally diverse marketplace environment. As a matter of fact, business professionals have a responsibility of upholding business etiquette. Business etiquette is the expected rules of behavior for intercultural communication (Chaney & Martin, 2007). Learning the proper etiquette skills in the international level is a key element in the success and growth of businesses globally (Bovee and Thill, 2010). Upholding the cultural differences will enable the business owners and the decision makers to understand the reasons why people act the way they do and the ways of handling them in different countries. According to O’Rourke (2010), failure in international business assignments is mainly caused by the inability to understand and adapt to foreign ways of acting. He adds that this failure is claimed to be caused by incompetence that is not the case. Carte and Fox (2008) support the idea and assert that it is very important to learn about the cultural differences around the world so as to reduce the risk of failure.
There are different perspectives of business relationships in persons of different nations. For example, in the United States a personal relationship is separate from business (Martin & Chaney, 2006). Martin and Charney (2006) add that many people in the United States view a business relationship as short-termed while in China, it is viewed as lifetime commitment. According to Martin and Charley (2006) Chinese people believe in win-win negotiation strategy. This strategy allows winning by both sides thereby increasing the strength of their relationship. The Asian cultures have a style of business etiquette based on their high-context communication (Bovee & Thill, 2010). In high context communication, people reduce their reliance on verbal communication and concentrate on non-verbal conveyance of messages.
Spinks and Wells (1997) argue that effective intercultural communication is part of an organization’s global business strategy. They add that the global communication is the most important part of international business. They further developed cultural factors in global communication which are contracts, space, time, friends and associates, gender, privacy, competition, change, efficiency, work ethics, practicality, religion, individualism, class/caste system, social customs, materialism, formality and equality (Wells and Spinks, 1994). Ways of enforcing contracts differ across different cultures (Spinks & Wells, 1997). In the United States contracts are essential while in other cultures, they are not highly regarded, and their violation has no consequences. Social customs are acceptable in some cultures while, in other cultures, they are not. Informal dress is lack of concern for the business in some cultures while, in other cultures; it is acceptable. Therefore, all of the above factors have different applications and implications across cultures. In the aviation industry intercultural, communication is a central area of discussion. It is a central area of discussion because the nations are now in a circle of international interdependence (Pranee, 2010).
Intercultural Business and Communication Context.
Most nations are tied to the world system of economic reciprocity, and most nations have a minimum of one plus inside their borders another country requires that. No nation is completely independent (Pranee, 2010). Markets and cultures continuing to converge and major enterprise have taken over the chance to travel the world. Convergence ends up in increased foreign competition. International firms more and {more} participate in varied international business arrangements involving joint ventures between two or more organizations that share within the possession of a business enterprise. World competitors face each abroad, and reception as tariffs reduce, markets are deregulated. Society collaboration associated cooperation is necessary in organization's success.
There are varied problems once living or operating in a very foreign setting. Communication across cultures is tough. An important impact of business globalization is that the development of diversity within the staff. Effective world enterprise communication skills are the backbone that supports the dealing of business round the world. Managers operating world business develop cultural acquire and fluency cultural- sensitive communication tools. The event of social control communicative skills are difficult as a result of management is often viewed otherwise from culture to culture (Pranee, 2010).
Importance of Cross-Cultural Communication Study
Communication covers all aspects of organization activity. It is a method by that thing achieves in world organizations. For world managers, effective communication may be a crucial ability as a result of the manager's coming up with, organizing, observance and facilitating functions to become operational solely through communication. Society communication makes sense when 2 managers from completely different cultures exchange meanings in each verbal and nonverbal ways that they both understand (Pranee, 2010). Everything a world manager says is expected to be understood by the majority of listeners or recipients of the message. Society communication happens when two or more managers from completely different cultures exchange meanings with each other (Pranee, 2010). Verbal communication is that the primary ways that to encipher a message. The person is ready to convey a good deal of extra data through tone of voice, facial expressions, postures, gestures, use of non-public area, timing, eye contact. A difficult space for world managers is that the coding and decipherment of messages so their original that means understanding within the correct method. Proactive steps by each the receiver and person shall improve the general society communication method. Additionally, feedback is wanted by a person to assess whether or not the first message received as supposed. If not, follow-up messages should be sent (Pranee, 2010). Most multinational managers, when planning to recognize people from a special culture, are left with the impression that it's laborious to reason host-country nationals' behavior into a straightforward communicate effectively. The effective communication is with vendors, customers, establishment, and different key stakeholders in host countries, information concerning culture, communication vogue, and preferences are crucial. Sadly, world organizations do not give adequate cross-cultural and language coaching to they're short to be world assignees. Such coaching programs will facilitate international managers to know their own culturally determined stereotypes and communication preferences in arranging to build them much acceptance and understanding of the communication preferences of managers from completely different cultures. A lot of probable misunderstanding shall happen because the "Global Focus" problems are particularly essential once virtual team members’ are from various cultures and detached geographically.
Language is a major barrier to intercultural communication. There are about 6,000 languages that are spoken in the world today. Learning and mastering a language takes time. Therefore, managers are expected to understand and be able to speak the language that is used by their customer. Pranee (2010) argues that it is pointless to consider English as the only language that can be used everywhere in the world. He, advocates on the use of as many international languages as possible. Managers should also be able to use facial expressions appropriately to express themselves (Pranee, 2010). Another barrier that hinders effective intercultural communication is the extent of information exchange. For example, the meaning of lifting a palm steadily may not have the same meaning in all cultures. It may also have different meanings within the same culture and in different contexts hence the need for understanding other peoples’ culture.
However, the above literature does not provide a complete assessment of the effectiveness of intercultural communication within the airline industry. In fact, hardly any studies have been developed to address the issue of intercultural communication in the aviation industry. Studies about UAE and the intercultural communication have not been developed either. Due to lack of related literature, my study will focus on developing understanding of intercultural communication within the aviation industries in the UAE so as to enable other researchers to come up with related studies. The study will aim at answering the question of how effective intercultural communication is within the three aviation organizations mentioned earlier in the United Arab Emirates. To avoid bias in results and reporting, the study will use three different airlines from three different cities in UAE.
Methodology
This chapter presents the sampling that will be done to answer the stated research questions. It further explains the participants who will be considered in the sample and their characteristics. Variables to be measured along with their definitions feature in this chapter. The materials to be used in the data collection are defined in this chapter. Finally, the chapter gives an explanation of the methods of data collection to be employed as well as the whole procedure that will be followed in carrying out this study.
Participants
The study will consider respondents under different employment levels in companies in the aviation industry and mainly the personnel that are involved in communications. These will include company executives, human resource managers, pilots, customer care personnel, flight attendants and other aviation industry employees. Company executives and human resource managers are considered on the reason that they communicate with employees. Pilots communicate with flight staff and passengers. Customer care personnel communicate with clients and the other aviation industry employees communicate with the management. The study will limit the participants described above to be only those who work for the five organizations; Air Arabia, Royal Jet, Emirates Airlines and the Fly Dubai.
Sampling technique
The study will use a simple random sampling technique in the selection of respondents from each organization. Simple random sampling is highly applicable in public relations related research since it helps eliminating bias in sample selection (Austin, 2014). In this method, I will write the names of the intended officials per category and assign them numbers which I will then use a random number generator to select the intended number of respondents under each category (Ember & Ember, 2001). For example, I will write down the names of customer care personnel in the Emirates Airline and assign them numbers. I have approached four companies in different cities in the UAE. These aviation organizations are Air Arabia that is based in Sharjah, Royal Jet that is based in Abu Dhabi, Emirates Airlines and Fly Dubai based in Dubai. From the each of the five organizations, I intend to choose two senior executives, three human resource personnel, four pilots, six customer care personnel, six flight attendants and five employees in other sectors from each of the four organizations. The organizations will also be selected randomly from a group of organizations in the aviation industry in the United Arab Emirates. Random selection helps in minimizing bias in collecting information from one city that limits generalizations about UAE. The above criterion makes a sample size of 104 respondents.
Data collection
Data collection will be done using a questionnaire that will take only 15 minutes of the respondent. The questionnaires will be sent to the selected respondents via email. The questionnaires will contain closed questions depending on the variable to be measured. The respondent is expected to fill in the spaces provided for the open ended questions and for the few closed questions, the scale is provided where the respondent is expected to choose either one or may of the choices provided. All the questions are necessary, and any questionnaire with unanswered questions will not be included in the analysis. The questionnaire will have three sections where section one will be seeking to capture demographic information of the respondent which include the age, gender, job category, years of experience in the aviation industry and the level of education. Section two will be capturing responses that will answer the general research question of the effectiveness of the intercultural communication which will be open ended in nature. The third section will contain some specific questions like the barriers to effective intercultural communication, contribution of the cultural diversity to the organization’s culture among others. This section will have both closed and open ended questions. Finally, the questionnaire will end with exit question of how effective is the intercultural communication within the respondent’s organization and what should be done to improve the effectiveness.
Variables
This section defines the variables to be studied and starts with the research questions. The general research question was; how effective is intercultural communication in the aviation industry within the organizations in the UAE?
Since the paper will be assessing the effectiveness of intercultural communication in the aviation industry within the organizations in the UAE, the specific research questions are;
RQ1: What are the obstacles to effective intercultural communication in the aviation industry within the organizations in the UAE?
RQ2: How does cultural diversity contribute the culture of the organization?
RQ3: How sensitive are the employees of the aviation organizations in the UAE towards other cultural groups?
RQ4: Does working together with people of different culture improve innovativeness and creativity among employees?
To answer the above questions, data will be collected on various variables.
Effectiveness of intercultural communication
According to Redmond and Bunyi (1993) this measure comprises of three items. The first item involves asking the respondent the number of languages that they understand as used by their counterparts or clients. The respondents are expected to give a brief explanation of different cultural groups they have ever come across in their lines of duty and the different languages they use. The respondent is also expected to include the languages they have come across along with their levels of understanding of those languages. The question of whether the respondent is able to communicate well with people from different cultures will be included. The respondents will also be required to rate their ease in resolving misunderstandings with their clients or in their lines of communication. The responses under this aspect will be coded for analysis. For effective intercultural communication, the items are expected to return above 50% of positive responses. For example if more than 50% of the respondents are able to communicate well across different cultural groups, then the item shows effective intercultural communication.
Cultural sensitivity
Cultural sensitivity is the ability to identify other people’s ethnicity and act accordingly and is measured using two three-point Likert-type questions (Bernal, Bonilla & Bellido, 1995). Questions to be used in assessing cultural sensitivity are, “rate the level of awareness of the culture of the people that you deal with in your line of duty”. This question will be answered on a three point scale for always aware, sometimes aware and not aware at all. Another question on cultural sensitivity will be, “do you consider other people’s culture when communicating to them?” Also, this will be answered on a three point scale of completely consider, somehow consider, and I do not consider at all. The respondents will be required to give the reasons for their status in considering other people’s culture. Reliability of the scale will be assessed using the Cronbach’s (1951) alpha whereby an alpha value greater than 0.50 shows that the scale is reliable. The respondents’ experience in the intercultural workplace is also important and will be included in the questionnaire. Experience will be measured in terms of years. In addition, respondents will be asked the number of foreign languages they are conversant with and the ones they use most of the times in their work places. Again, the question of how often the respondents are required to switch from one language to another when communicating with their clients was also to be answered.
For the question of barriers to effective intercultural communication, the respondent is expected to write a list of the barriers that they have identified and their reasons. Lastly, concerning contribution of cultural diversity to the organization’s culture, the respondents are expected to answer four yes or no questions. The first question is, “does working with culturally diverse group increase commitment of workers?” The next question is grading innovativeness and creativity in a company with people of different cultural backgrounds which was: Do you notice increased creativity and innovativeness in the workplace when employees are culturally different? The other question was: Does having people of different cultural background in your line of duty improve the image of the company? This question is used to assess the effect of cultural diversity to the image of the company. Lastly, communication effect of cultural diversity will be assessed by the question; do you notice lower level of communication between workers while they are working with people of other cultures? The results will be analyzed using graphical presentations and conclusions made (Mazur, 2010).
Material
The material to be used will be a questionnaire with three sections as presented below;
Questionnaire
The purpose of this research is to investigate the intercultural communication in the aviation industry within the organizations in the UAE. We are interested in your opinions about the intercultural communication in your organization. The information you provide will be kept confidential and will not be shared for other purposes outside this research.
SECTION ONE: DEMOGRAPHICS
Please answer the following questions by ticking or writing briefly appropriately.
1. Gender Male Female
2. What is your highest level of education?
i. Primary School
ii. Secondary School
iii. College
iv. Others, Please specify ………………………
3. What is your age group?
i. Below 25 years
ii. 26-30 years
iii. 31-44 years
iv. 45 years and above
4. How long have you worked in the aviation industry within the United Arab Emirates?
i. Less than 3 years
ii. 3-5 years
iii. Above 5 years
SECTION TWO: CULTURAL SENSITIVITY
4. Rate your level of awareness of the culture of the people that you deal with in your line of duty
i. Completely aware
ii. Somewhat aware
iii. Never aware
5. Rate your level of consideration about other people’s culture when communicating to them?
i. Complete consideration
ii. Average consideration
iii. No consideration at all
6. Please provide some reasons for your response in question 5 above
i. It helps in knowing the language to use
ii. It does not help at all
iii. Other reasons Specify……………………….
7. How sensitive are the employees of the aviation organizations in the UAE towards other cultural groups?
i. Very sensitive
ii. Somewhat sensitive
iii. Not sensitive at all
SECTION THREE: EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
8. What is your native language of communication? …………………………….
9. List the languages that you can comfortably use in communication?
……………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………..
10. List the languages that you have ever come across in your line of communication within the aviation industry.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
11. How competent are you in communicating with people of different cultures in your line of duty?
i. Very competent
ii. Somewhat competent
iii. Not competent at all
12. Please choose as many objectives that describe your organization’s culture.
Friendly
Open
Transparent
13. Please rate the effectiveness of intercultural communication in your organization based on your own personal view.
i. Very effective
ii. Somehow effective
iii. Absolutely ineffective.
14. Please tick for “Yes” or for “No” in the following questions.
i. Does working with culturally diverse group increase commitment of workers?
Yes ………. No …………..
ii. Do you notice increased creativity and innovativeness in the workplace when employees are culturally different?
Yes ………. No …………..
iii. Does having people of different cultural background in your line of duty improve the image of the company?
Yes ………. No …………..
iv. Do you notice lower level of communication between workers while they are working with people of other cultures?
Yes ………. No …………..
15. List three obstacles to effective intercultural communication in your organization.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Procedures
I have talked to four aviation organizations as listed above and sought permission to send the questionnaires one week before the actual practice. I have been granted permission to do so by the top managers of the organizations. I have chosen to send the questionnaires one week earlier to give the respondents enough time to think about the answers. Sending the questionnaires through email is economical, saves time. I will give the respondents one week to respond to the questionnaire. I will, therefore, be sending a reminder to the after sending the questionnaire. At the end of the survey, I will download all the returned questionnaires check for the ones that are completely responded to. Any questionnaire that will not be filled will not be included in the analysis.
Data collection (this part is due today )
This chapter presents the findings from the data that was collected from the field regarding the effectiveness of intercultural communication within the aviation industries in the aviation industry in the United Arab Emirates. It answers the research questions. It starts by describing the demographic aspects of the data followed by answering the research questions. SOFA statistics has been used in the analysis. Comment by Zayed University: Poor analysis Comment by Zayed University: ?????? Comment by Zayed University: it answers the research question and ….. (explain pls) Comment by Zayed University: What if the reader doesn’t know what’s sofa statistics?!
Demographic aspects
|
Comment by Zayed University: Align it to the left |
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|
|
Freq |
|
|
Gender |
Male |
57 |
|
|
Female |
47 |
|
Age |
1.0 |
2 |
|
|
2.0 |
22 |
|
|
3.0 |
55 |
|
|
4.0 |
25 |
|
Education |
2.0 |
2 |
|
|
3.0 |
58 |
|
|
4.0 |
44 |
|
Experience |
1.0 |
1 |
|
|
2.0 |
26 |
|
|
3.0 |
52 |
|
|
4.0 |
25 |
Table 1 Comment by Zayed University: I recommend if you add small description under each table . Comment by Zayed University: First, this is not a master degree way in writing. The paragraphs lacks analysis. Too dry to read and it doesn’t pique the interest of the reader. Second, go through the paper and see what grammar errors you have. Third, is missing some needed background information Fourth, I feel it’s like a summary for too much information that need to be explained Finally, some parts are difficult to understand
Table 1 shows that the respondents were 104 in total with the number of male respondents being higher than the female respondents. Male respondents were 57 while female respondents were 47. Majority of the respondents were within the age bracket of 31-44 years. These respondents were 55 in number. Only two people were below 25 years. Concerning the respondents’ levels of education, none of the respondents had primary school level of education. Majority of the respondents had college level of education. Respondents with college education level were 58. Majority of the respondents had between 3-5 years of education. Only one of the respondents had less than one year experience in the aviation industry within the UAE. Comment by Zayed University: Please add something before that. It’s to straight forward.
Cultural sensitivity aspects
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|
||
|
|
Freq |
|
|
Awareness |
1.0 |
11 |
|
|
2.0 |
45 |
|
|
3.0 |
48 |
|
Reason |
1.0 |
18 |
|
|
2.0 |
17 |
|
|
3.0 |
69 |
|
Sensitive |
1.0 |
46 |
|
|
2.0 |
44 |
|
|
3.0 |
13 |
|
Level001 |
1.0 |
94 |
|
|
2.0 |
10 |
Table 2
Table 2 shows that, among the 104 respondents, majority of them (48) are never aware of the culture of the people that they deal with in their lines of duty. Only 11 of the respondents claim to be completely aware of the cultures of their clients or fellow workmates. This demonstrates that the employees in the aviation industry are mainly insensitive of culture. Majority of the respondents (94) accepted that they completely consider the cultures of the people they deal with in their lines of duty. None of the respondents claimed to have no culture consideration at all. Most of the respondents agreed that the employees in the aviation organizations in the UAE are somewhat sensitive about other cultural groups. Only 13 respondents said that they are not sensitive about other cultural groups.
|
|
||||
|
|
Reason |
|||
|
|
1.0 |
2.0 |
3.0 |
|
|
|
Freq |
Freq |
Freq |
|
|
Level001 |
1.0 |
14 |
17 |
63 |
|
|
2.0 |
4 |
0 |
6 |
Table 3
Table 3 shows that among the 11 respondents who said that they completely consider the culture of the people that they deal with 14 of them said that this helps in identifying the language to use while communicating to the other people. 17 respondents said that this does not help at all while majority (63) gave other reasons.
Effectiveness of intercultural communication
The general research question was, “how effective is intercultural communication in the aviation industry within the organizations in the UAE?” The tables below present a cross tabulation analysis of the effectiveness intercultural communication in the organizations within the UAE.
|
|
|||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Effectiveness |
1.0 |
79 |
76.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
25 |
24.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
104 |
100.0% |
Table 4(a)
|
|
|||||
|
|
Effectiveness |
||||
|
|
1.0 |
2.0 |
|||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Age |
1.0 |
2 |
2.5% |
0 |
0.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
15 |
19.0% |
7 |
28.0% |
|
|
3.0 |
42 |
53.2% |
13 |
52.0% |
|
|
4.0 |
20 |
25.3% |
5 |
20.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
|
Competent |
1.0 |
70 |
88.6% |
20 |
80.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
9 |
11.4% |
5 |
20.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
|
Education |
2.0 |
2 |
2.5% |
0 |
0.0% |
|
|
3.0 |
42 |
53.2% |
16 |
64.0% |
|
|
4.0 |
35 |
44.3% |
9 |
36.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
|
Experience |
1.0 |
1 |
1.3% |
0 |
0.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
21 |
26.6% |
5 |
20.0% |
|
|
3.0 |
36 |
45.6% |
16 |
64.0% |
|
|
4.0 |
21 |
26.6% |
4 |
16.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
|
Gender |
Male |
44 |
55.7% |
13 |
52.0% |
|
|
Female |
35 |
44.3% |
12 |
48.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
|
Native |
1.0 |
25 |
31.6% |
11 |
44.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
54 |
68.4% |
14 |
56.0% |
|
|
TOTAL |
79 |
100.0% |
25 |
100.0% |
Table 4(b)
Effectiveness of intercultural communication in aviation organizations in the UAE is presented in Table 4(a) and Table 4(b) above. Table 4(a) shows that, generally, the respondents rate the effectiveness of their organizations’ intercultural communication as very effective with a count of 79 respondents (76%). Table 4(b) shows that majority of the respondents who agree that their organizations have effective intercultural communication are male (55.7%) within the age bracket of 31-44 years (53.2%), those with college level of education (53.2%), the ones who are competent in communicating with people of different cultures (88.6%), those with 3-5 years of experience in the aviation industry within the UAE (45.6%) and the ones who are non-native speakers (68.4%).
The first research question was about the obstacles of effective intercultural communication in the aviation industry. Table 5 below shows the results.
All the respondents identified language as the barrier or obstacle to effective intercultural communication.
Secondly, the question of how cultural diversity contributes to the organizations’ culture is analyzed in Table 5(a) and Table 5(b) below.
|
|
|||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Cultural_Diverse |
1.0 |
61 |
58.7% |
|
|
2.0 |
43 |
41.3% |
|
|
TOTAL |
104 |
100.0% |
Table 5(a)
Table 5(a) above shows that the respondents agree (58.7%) that cultural diversity contributes to the organizations’ culture.
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Objective |
||||||
|
|
1.0 |
2.0 |
3.0 |
||||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
Freq |
Col % |
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Cultural_Diverse |
1.0 |
38 |
62.3% |
20 |
58.8% |
3 |
33.3% |
|
|
2.0 |
23 |
37.7% |
14 |
41.2% |
6 |
66.7% |
|
|
TOTAL |
61 |
100.0% |
34 |
100.0% |
9 |
100.0% |
Table 5(b)
Table 5(a) above shows that among the respondents who agree that cultural diversity contributes to the organizations’ culture, 62.3% admit that this diversity contributes in the lines of friendliness among employees within an organization.
The third question was, “how sensitive are the employees in the aviation organizations in the UAE towards other cultural groups?” Table 6 below shows the results.
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Sensitive |
||||||
|
|
1.0 |
2.0 |
3.0 |
||||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
Freq |
Col % |
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Age |
1.0 |
2 |
4.3% |
0 |
0.0% |
0 |
0.0% |
|
|
2.0 |
12 |
26.1% |
6 |
13.6% |
3 |
23.1% |
|
|
3.0 |
22 |
47.8% |
27 |
61.4% |
6 |
46.2% |
|
|
4.0 |
10 |
21.7% |
11 |
25.0% |
4 |
30.8% |
|
|
TOTAL |
46 |
100.0% |
44 |
100.0% |
13 |
100.0% |
|
Education |
2.0 |
1 |
2.2% |
0 |
0.0% |
1 |
7.7% |
|
|
3.0 |
21 |
45.7% |
31 |
70.5% |
5 |
38.5% |
|
|
4.0 |
24 |
52.2% |
13 |
29.5% |
7 |
53.8% |
|
|
TOTAL |
46 |
100.0% |
44 |
100.0% |
13 |
100.0% |
|
Gender |
Male |
27 |
58.7% |
27 |
61.4% |
2 |
15.4% |
|
|
Female |
19 |
41.3% |
17 |
38.6% |
11 |
84.6% |
|
|
TOTAL |
46 |
100.0% |
44 |
100.0% |
13 |
100.0% |
|
Native |
1.0 |
12 |
26.1% |
17 |
38.6% |
7 |
53.8% |
|
|
2.0 |
34 |
73.9% |
27 |
61.4% |
6 |
46.2% |
|
|
TOTAL |
46 |
100.0% |
44 |
100.0% |
13 |
100.0% |
Table 6
Table 6 shows that the respondents are very sensitive towards the cultures of other people along the lines of age, gender, education level and native language. Among those who are very sensitive about the cultures of other people are those within the age of 31-44 years (47.8%), those with other education levels like tertiary level (52.2%), male (58.7%) and the non-native language speakers (73.9%).
Lastly, the question of whether working together with people of different cultures improves innovativeness and creativity among employees is analyzed in Table 7 below.
|
|
|||
|
|
Freq |
Col % |
|
|
Creativity |
1.0 |
102 |
98.1% |
|
|
2.0 |
2 |
1.9% |
|
|
TOTAL |
104 |
100.0% |
Table 7
Table 7 above shows that 98.1% of the respondents agreed that working together with people of different cultures improves creativity and innovativeness.
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