The Key Cross-Cultural Issues Faced by the Airbus Consortium - Case Study Example

The key cross-cultural issues faced by the Airbus consortium and relationship to the GLOBE project’s clusters of business cultures Student Name: Student P number: Module: Module code: Submission deadline: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Review of the study 4 Considerations from the Airbus case 5 Economic patriotism 5 The wiring problems of the A380 6 The organization of the company 6 Intercultural team-building sessions 7 Marketing-speak versus reality 8 Description of the GLOBE project 8 Relation to globe clusters 9 Distinction between the Airbus and the Globe 10 Values 10 Activity diagram 12 12 Critical evaluation of the GLOBE research. 12 Globe research in helping to devise viable solutions to problems that companies may face 13 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction In the current speedy moving transport business world, major companies are trying their best to meet the cross border cultural issues. Different countries and societies withhold different cultural basis that foreign companies have to put into close consideration. This is to aid them, meet customer and government satisfaction that paves way for a better business environment. Cross border cultural issues act as the core determinant for the business success of the companies who undertake their business operations on a global scale. Cross-cultural management thus builds up itself into being a significant mission for enhancing development and business success. Among the companies that have to go by management of their cross-cultural issues is the Airbus consortium. Being one of the major globally operating aircraft company, the key issue for the company’s well-strategized business operations is perfect management of cross-cultural issues (“The airbus way”, 2006). Generally, cross-cultural issues entail being aware of the open and hidden cultural needs for a business environment. This business environment engrosses the partners in the business field, national needs, employee cultures, or even societal business cultures. Airbus Consortium, forms its basis from an organized interconnectedness of small companies coming together to build a single large company. The different companies that build up Airbus are from the giant European countries. As an airplane company with focus of gaining a globally noticeable airplane share, the company faces a great need to comply with the cross-cultural issues within its members and the world at large (Singh 2012, p. 379). This research paper thus aims to analyze cross-cultural issues via an account of the Airbus corporations. It goes ahead to relate and compare the Airbus’ cross-cultural issues with that of the Globe. Finally, a conclusion is drawn to aid recap the key issues addressed in the paper. Review of the study Airbus Consortium, formed in 1970, focuses on manufacturing of airplanes for sale to airline companies, governments, and military bases all over the world. The Consortium is made up of small companies from giant European countries namely: France, Spain, United Kingdom, and Germany. The company enjoys a stable market share in the aircraft business. To ensure that it maintains its reputation in the current speedy and technologically driven business world, Airbus management keenly focuses on the cross-cultural issues. These issues are essential to ascertain customer, employee, and cross border partnering business satisfaction while maintaining normal business operations (Weidner et al. 2006). The company has a large number of employees working in a wide scale of globally placed branches. Employees working for the company, come from different cultural backgrounds. The partnering small companies that form the Airbus Corporation again have some key hidden cultural differences that are significant for the company’s business operations. Thus, with its global operations, Airbus corporations merges its business activities to cater, combine, and withstand the cultural needs from perspective of all the above. Thorough management of the cross-cultural issues behind Airbus is significant to ensuring that the company enjoys a competitive advantage in the market (Gutterman, 2010). A closely matching cultural oriented study that coincides with the Airbus Corporations’ business environment is the Globe Project. The Globe Project, launched in 1990, focuses on cross-cultural leadership issues around the world. It analyzes the interactions impacts of leadership, national and organizational cultural practices. The researchers of the project critically analyze the importance cross-cultural issues on the success of a management and an organization’s business operations. Thus, in the next sections, the paper addresses the comparison and relationship between the project and the Airbus Consortium. It is thus high time that the company reconsiders the management issues that result into poor economy of its business activities particularly in the foreign-based branches of the Airbus Consortium (Browaeys and Price, 2011). Considerations from the Airbus case A number of significant business operations at the Airbus consortium form the basis for considering its cross-cultural issues. The cross-cultural issues to be put under close consideration around knowledge sharing among respective stakeholders in the operability of the organization and the impact of different cross cultural practices to the company’s business success. For a perfect analysis of the factors leading to close analysis of the Airbus Consortium, the following issues about its operations critically analyzed. These issues include, economic patriotism, wiring problems of the A380, intercultural team building sessions, intercultural training, and the company’s marketing speak (Minkov and Blagoev, 2012). Economic patriotism Economic patriotism is a great predicament to the operations of the Airbus Consortium. It entails a body of strategies that focus on domestic control of a certain business area in terms of its economy, labor and the formation of capital to maintain and promote one’s status of market share. Clearly, for the company to do well in its operations, employment and technology has to be at its focal point of consideration. Since the company’s workforce is globally destined, thus economic needs for different countries impose significant questions on the productivity of the company while fulfilling these needs. In addition, the political leaders influence on the economy of the countries that the company conducts its business has been a significant problem to Airbus’ maintenance of a good economic standard. The wiring problems of the A380 Another issue that has been of significant concern to Airbus is on wiring problems that exists in airplane type A380. The plane type A380 is a double-decker type of aircraft of which the management had great hopes of introducing in its global market. It is one of the largest planes around the world with capacity of over seven hundred people. All respective members of the Corporation have been eagerly waiting to experience the advantages the plane would bring to their business world. However, due to wiring problems and its inability to cope with cultural needs around the world such as great noise has led to delay in putting it operational. Several transportation companies had already made orders for the double-decker plane. However, due to the inability of the Corporation to deliver the plane as per the expected or set out period, most of them cancelled their orders. This brought a reasonable of questions on the management of the company. Since the development process was concentrated at the company’s head development region, globally based employees could not get a chance to play their part. This was significant to the inability of the plane to be delivered in time (Hofstede and Minkov, 2010). The organization of the company Issues related to the Airbus Consortium’s organization bring a key consideration of the effect its cross-cultural activities to the success of the company. This issue clarifies itself on notions based particularly in decision-making. The decision making process within the consortium has been laid on consensus among the chief executive offices and artificial intelligence share holders for the organization. This structure has brought predicaments particularly to the chief executive officers’ ability to implement a productive decision. Especially in cases where the artificial intelligence decision maker acts as both a shareholder and a manufacturing subcontractor making him or her focus on the part that is will be favorable on one’s side. This has led to serious pitfalls on the Chief Executive officer’s managerial functions. Managing of the globally based employees and information sharing between the management and the branches placed in other countries has been a predicament in that the leaders do not put into consideration the importance of different cultural practices in those countries to the company’s success. In addition, cross border knowledge transfer has been limited by the company’s inability to define the importance of cultural practices to the knowledge essential to its employees (Mead and Andrews, 2009). Intercultural team-building sessions The corporation has been building up strategic mechanisms for promoting intercultural team-building session. The corporation plays significant roles to ensuring that all its cross-cultural based employees are enlightened on the most significant activities that promote their ability to give their best in the Corporation’s business operations. These sessions include aircraft development programmes. Furthermore, the teams worked together in enlightening one another on issues related risk management skills in the plane development process. Employees from different points of the world work together in these sessions thus aiding the promotion of interrelationship among team members. This further promotes team building in respective fields of plane business operations (Tjosvold2003, p. 88). Appropriacy of intercultural training Training sessions withheld by the consortium have further promoted the ability of the company’s workforce to deliver its best. These sessions include that for painting of the A380 plane by several members of the corporations coming from different countries. They have highly aided the company’s employees in promoting their social dialogue features among one another. This further promotes employee motivation all over the globe thus keeping the company at the forefront in airplane business operations. Marketing-speak versus reality The Airbus consortium has developed a high-level market base for its products. Through its globally based branches, the company has been successful in promoting awareness of the qualities of its products to large sets of societies around the world. Furthermore, through its online advertisements programs on social sites, more people have been made aware of the products of the Corporation. Based on these strategies applied by the Corporation, the company’s enjoys a significant portion of the world’s market share particularly in the field of plane design and development. Although the company’s strategies prove it to have created a wide customer awareness, the reality is that the figures given out on the perspective of awareness are far from the real set of people aware about the project. Most communities particularly in the developing countries are not informed about the company’s products. The strategies have to be widened to the people living in the developing countries. This will promote their eager to learn more about the aircraft field thus building large sets of employees all over the globe (Jackson 2011, p. 207). Description of the GLOBE project The Globe project focuses cross cultural dimensions and clusters necessary for business operational success from a global perspective of an organization. Its emphasis is on the fact that effectiveness of a leader or leadership is based on the organizational and societal cultural beliefs of the people under the leader. The research work done on this project plays a significant role in promoting awareness of the significance of cross-cultural knowledge to the success of a venture. Inter-cultural based leadership practices promote business success in various world markets and uplift employee motivation into giving their best (Earley 2000, p. 203). Relation to globe clusters The clusters described in the globe project define key features vital for ascertaining that an organization has kept in mind the importance of cross-cultural knowledge. They aid defining the elements necessary for leaders, managers, and generally organization to put into close consideration while implementing employee and stakeholder satisfaction all over its globally placed branches. These clusters as defined by the Globe project entail, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, human orientation, assertiveness, gender egalitarianism, future orientation, performance orientation, institutional collectivism and in-group collectivism. The Airbus Consortium’s business operations closely relate to the Globe. The consortium relates to the Globe in the cluster of assertiveness where the organization’s heads behave as follows. They are always self-confident, confrontational, and aggressive particularly in their relations with lower level employees. In addition, future orientation is another key feature of the Globe Project that the Airbus consortium practices thus leading to close relationships with the Globe project. This cluster entails a characteristic where members of the organization focus on future organizational plans such as improvisation of productivity (Velo 2012, p.102). The Consortium’s management, employees and other stakeholders always have in mind the importance of keeping in mind future orientation (Hayward, 2007). Performance orientation is an essential cluster feature of the globe. It entails the encouragement and rewarding team members’ thus promoting improvement of their performance and excellence. The Airbus consortium relates closely in promoting this feature in that it encourages employees from different branches to work as a team in fulfilling a plane development and design process. Upon successful completion of the process, the respective workers get promotions, salary increases, and bonuses that play significant role in promoting their eagerness to give their best in the company’s business operations. Gender Egalitarianism is an essential feature in for promotion of cross-cultural knowledge in an organization. It entails activities aimed to minimize gender inequality in a business sector (Vives 2007, p. 87). The Airbus consortium has been playing an essential role in ensuring that it closely relates to this cluster as clarified by the Globe project. The Airbus consortium motivates employees of both genders work together in the company’s business activities. Although the Airbus Corporation has been doing its best in meeting the global clusters of cross-cultural practices, very few of these clusters are realistically adopted as specified in the Globe project (Hope, 2009). Distinction between the Airbus and the Globe The Airbus Consortium’s business practices have significant characteristics that are different to those described by the Globe Project. These differences specifically encompass issues such as values and day-to-day business practices. Values Values entail the organizational policies that promote the idea of employees and other stakeholders adhere to some specified set working conditions. These specifically entail inter employee and inter employer relationships. The Globe’s key value is uncertainty avoidance where an organization relies on global socio-cultural procedure to promote future events. However, the airbus consortium’s values never considered this as a key feature in promoting cross-cultural awareness. Instead, the consortium only focuses on ensuring that employees worked together in their day-to-day operations but without the focus laid on cultural needs of different employees (Javidan et al. 2005). Practices Among the key practices of the Globe project is the power distance where members in a certain section expect power to be distributed equally. That is, a practice has to be conducted where all employees and stakeholders in an organization are made to enjoy equality in treatment by organization heads. However, from the Airbus’ perspective, this practice was not implemented; instead, employees are made to feel that when one works for the company’s head office, he or she enjoys more powers than one working for a branch. Activity diagram Critical evaluation of the GLOBE research. It is vital to acknowledge that the research work done on the Globe project is highly imperative in promoting cross-cultural practices. These practices are essential in ensuring that an organization does its best in improvising its business transactions all over the world. The research provides well-defined methodologies that are essential for business or organizational success. Generally, a company that adheres to the strategies stated in the Globe project has great chances of being most competitive in a market area. Globe research in helping to devise viable solutions to problems that companies may face The Globe Project is a very productive feature in promoting success of any company focusing on worldwide business operations. Whenever an issue such as employee non-satisfactory on leadership issues of the organization, the Project advices leaders on how to promote employee satisfaction through adoption of clusters such as in-group collectivism, power distance, humane motivation and gender egalitarianism. It also aids in planning future success of the company through adoption of uncertainty avoidance strategy. Conclusion It is vital to note that, although the Airbus Consortium has been trying its best in meeting its global stakeholder satisfaction, cross-cultural issues and knowledge has to be put into close consideration. This will ensure that the company meets the cultural and business knowledge needs for all its employees, customers and other customers all over the world. Consequently, this will lead to the company into becoming a world’s most accepted organization thus improvise the company’s productivity and business operations (Thomas, 2008, p. 79). References Browaeys, J and Price, R. 2011. Understanding cross-cultural management. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson. Earley, C. 2000. Innovations in international and cross-cultural management. Thousand Oaks [u.a.], Sage Publications Gutterman, A, 2010. Globe Project, pp.1-9. Retrieved from http://alangutterman.typepad.com/files/cms---globe-project.pdf Hayward, K 2007. 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