Undergoing an Internship at ATF Bank Kazakhstan - Case Study Example

Internship Portfolio: ATF Bank – Kazakhstan BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Internship portfolio: ATF Bank – Kazakhstan Reflective Account The internship at ATF Bank in Kazakhstan provided significant experience regarding management structuring, human resources, working with diverse customers in the finance industry, and interpersonal communication skills development. ATF operates in a very top-down hierarchy where controls and communications move downward from executive and high-level management to low-level subordinates and mid-tier management. There is very little in terms of autonomous working conditions at the bank, thus there are motivational problems with some of the employee populations and job dissatisfaction. There is a high level of turnover for subordinate positions that is caused by the frustrations that come from a non-horizontal structure with more job autonomy. Academic learning provided insight into the psychological mechanisms that drive employee behaviour and needs related to the work environment. This formal learning helped me to understand why some people in the workplace are more motivated and why others tend to be less productive. Gambrel & Cianci (2003) identify that employees have a need for affiliation and recognition from peers and from supervisors. Once these have been satisfied and there is a more team-based environment, employees can build on their self-confidence, and feel as though they are having a useful impact on their job environment as an element of power and control (Gambrel & Cianci). Personal notations taken throughout the course of the internship at ATF Bank indicated that there was not a unified and harmonious culture of belonging at this organisation with no structured (formal) or informal policies about group working and creating a culture of quality and interpersonal communication development. This was leading to the high intention to leave the job and created rifts between employees and different management groups. Through this experience, I learned that I needed to understand more about the cultural dynamics of foreign employees based on their social and traditional principles. This was an area that I had never given much thought to considering I had never, before ATF Bank, worked in an environment that maintained so many culturally-diverse workers and management. Many of the managers at the organisation were expatriate leaders send from France, the United States, and also Egypt because of their specialized knowledge in human resources and overall global finance. Many people from Kazakhstan had difficulty working with these cultures due to their social and management principles. For example, academic learning provided knowledge on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions framework that gives a very basic breakdown of different cultural values across the world. Blodgett, Bakir & Rose (2008) offers that collectivists have a strong value for group welfare and expect group loyalty as part of a larger family unit. In opposite accord, individualists value self-expression and want to work independently from others (Blodgett, et al.). Because of these differences between the foreign managers and those in the host country, coupled with no organisational structure that allowed for innovation and recognition, developing team-based systems and gaining peer support was next to impossible. A self-assessment profile, the Myer-Briggs inventory, gave me a strong inclination toward extroversion above all other principles on the scoring instrument. Churchill & Bayne (1998) describe extroversion as the ability to work well with others and able to focus with comfort on the external social world; a more interactive person. This fits well with my self-report on personality as I have always been a person that takes a visible leadership position when in social and work groups. This is why the need to negotiate conflict and understand cultural principles for foreign workers was so critical, since these skills are necessary for success in business and in a leadership role and also for a personality with high extroversion tendencies. In order to be effective, communication needs to move 360 degrees throughout the organisation or it is not ready for change (Reis & Pena, 2008). This will require ongoing interaction with senior managers and all other lower-level members of the organisation and, especially in an environment like ATF where conflict and frustration were common, conflict resolution and better interpersonal skills development are critical to gaining support and building teams. Kislik (2009, p.45) offers that most people have an inherent desire to avoid conflict when it arises and are “put off by visible disagreement so they go for a pleasant, surface goodwill” rather than trying to resolve issues of process or disagreed style. Academic lessons about the quality of leadership principles based on harmony, transformational style and team development reinforced why it is necessary for me to develop a broader skills base. Future goals over the next two years include conducting secondary research on primary studies conducted about expatriate management and cultural team functioning in global organisations. The target is to identify with at least 10 reputable studies about human behaviour in work teams and leadership style to gain insight into what types of styles work best with certain employee groups and business structures. By the end of 2012, I hope to attend at least two different management development seminars using role play and interactive techniques to facilitate learning to achieve my best management style and understanding as well as communications skills awareness. Bibliography Blodgett, J.G., Bakir, A. & Rose, G.M. (2008), A test of the validity of Hofstede’s cultural framework, The Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol.25 no.6, p.339. Churchill, S. & Bayne, R. (1998), Psychological type and conceptions of empathy in experienced counsellors, Counselling Psychology Quarterly, vol.11 no.4, pp.379-390. Gambrel, P. & Cianci, R. (2003), Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: does it apply in a collectivist culture?, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, vol.8 no.2, pp.143-152. Kislik, L. (2009), Fostering teamwork in tough times, Multichannel Merchant, vo.26 no.10, p.45. Reis, D. & Pena, L. (2008), Focus on management history: reengineering the motivation to work, Management Decision, vol.39 no.6, pp.666-675. Cultural Analysis Some elements of culture were already described in relation to goals and learning within ATF Bank, however they require more reflection. “Great companies rely heavily on their cultures to support their change management efforts” (Want, 2009, p.10). Cultural change is considered to be a qualitative process that builds on ethical conduct, addresses commitments and cooperation in work teams, promotes innovation, and builds trust and open dialogue. None of this was present at ATF, unfortunately, which also tended to impact the quality of customer relationship management and also customer perceptions about the level of service being provided to them. The company did not inspire leadership or promote knowledge about diverse customer profiles, something missing considering the business worked with people in North America, the Middle East, and Asian nations such as China. “In an age of radical change, culture may be the difference between failure and survival” (Want, p.11). Kazakhstan customers that used the bank for their personal transactions carried the same collectivist principles that are common in this country in terms of group affiliation needs and holding value for tradition. Each time a situation arose between the expatriate leaders and customers from the local area, there was often conflict and disagreement. In Kazakhstan, customers want to be respected and have a strong sense of national pride both socially and culturally. The managers from France and the United States, however, did not have a high level of emotional intelligence which research identifies is necessary to “yield employee positive attitudes, behaviours and outcomes, and develop thoughts toward the job that leads to improved motivation” (Othman, Abdullah & Ahmad, 2009, p.3). These expatriate managers, when dealing with conflict, did not understand the emotional states of others or have the ability to suppress their negative feelings as part of self-reflection and self-control. This usually played out in verbal arguments with customers who were already dissatisfied with some element of banking policy, pricing and fees, or general customer service needs. In a market like the one where ATF operates, buyers have considerable power as they have many other banks to choose from when they feel they are not being respected or valued as customers. According to Michael Porter, an expert in the external market, buyers have a strong presence and control if a product is standardized and cannot be differentiated through marketing tactics (quickmba.com, 2010). This was the truth of product innovation and services at ATF that were absolutely similar to competition and were not unique in terms of the marketing classifications for them. This caused me concern based on academic learning about marketing and the external market in relation to cross-cultural communications. The volume of customers continued to drop off at ATF and there were many formalized complaints lodged against management on the service helpline. However, despite this, the leadership at ATF seemed to believe it was a product of employee failures, not expatriate management in higher authoritarian positions, showing that executives were not conducting appropriate research nor were they aware of the need for creating a group culture that is in-line with local customer norms. Though not my intention to completely disregard some of ATF’s accomplishments, the inability to coordinate a team and develop a diverse organisational culture that understands basic cultural principles of host country customers reminded me of the importance of academic lessons learned throughout the year on this style of communications. Marketing to local customers is easy using cultural principles in advertisement that appeal to their basic social and cultural values. However, ATF advertising was highly Americanized and did not seem to provide much value, therefore customers still maintained buyer control in this market and the level of service provided to them was consistently poor due to poor management understanding of culture in Kazakhstan. I decided, during the internship, to consider the style of management from the U.S. and France, versus the customer profile and culture in Kazakhstan, as a sort of informal primary study observing interaction and learning from management errors. The customers would approach the managers with a cooperative stance which should have launched a more emotionally intelligent and cooperative approach to conflict resolution. However, the foreign managers would simply reinforce banking policy and were not very authentic or group-minded in their responses. Culturally-based emotional intelligence is “understanding one’s authentic self – the true values, beliefs, wants and feelings that comprise the self” (Weis & Hanson, 2008, p.27). Customers could sense that the managers did not have an authentic presentation and could not develop a meaningful relationship with the expatriate leaders based on their verbal expressions or any other cue of a cooperative and respectful tone. The largest lesson learned is that in an environment that operates with diverse cultures from local and foreign countries is to have a positive sense of self and be able to reflect this in diverse communications that occur in person or via other communication channels such as videoconferencing or telephone. Bibliography Othman, A., Abdullah, H. & Ahmad, J. (2009), The influence of work motivation on emotional intelligence and team effectiveness, Vision, vol.13 no4, pp.1-14. Quickmba.com. (2010) [internet] Porters Five Forces: A model for industry analysis. [accessed June 27, 2011 at http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml] Want, J. (2009), Saving the company, Leadership Excellence, vol.26 no.6, pp.10-11. Weis, W.L. & Hanson, L. (2008), The use of training groups in raising self and social awareness and enhancing emotionally intelligent behaviours, Academy of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, vol.13 no.2, pp.26-30. Case Study Many elements of ATF in relation to problems have already been discussed, however one particular aspect of the host country in relation to product innovation should be highlighted as it pertains to marketing strategy. The majority of advertising and communications content, as described, were delivered from North American affiliates and were streamlined internationally. Because the business did not promote much team-working, brainstorming or other ingenuity from host officials, no advertising or communications were crafted locally for local customers who made up most of the revenues for this branch. This was a strategic failure on behalf of the ATF leadership. Because of this, a methodology was constructed using a qualitative questionnaire that was delivered to a small sample of well-known and respected customers at the bank. The sample consisted of nine customers that varied in age, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds. The goal was to determine whether this sample had a set of correlated values in relation to their viewpoints about ATF Bank, its level of customer service, and the types of products that they valued for their lifestyle or business needs. Personal experience with most customers in Kazakhstan and from living in this host country reinforced me with knowledge about their demand for trust with business partners and wanting to be made to feel as if they are part of a family in business (especially finance). The questionnaire contained 10 different questions as a means to gather primary, qualitative data about local customer preferences to attempt a more localized marketing strategy. I personally hypothesized that customers would want more visible customer service and convenience more so than pricing since most banking competition in the region had competitive prices and offered similar services. The data analyzed identified that customers found a high level of demand for more internet-based services to conduct banking at home rather than relying on face-to-face interaction. This was something not currently offered at this particular ATF branch and all business was conducted via telephone or walk-in for service and consultation. 77% of the customers (7 of 9) felt that convenience banking was important for modern Kazakhstan, a country that prided itself in its technological achievements and social networking/mobile communications abilities being developed over the last decade. An additional 77% of the customers ranked the level of customer service at ATF bank below average, indicating a problem with understanding the host culture; something already identified in the cultural analysis as it related to expatriate leadership and their poor cross-cultural skills development. The data uncovered for the case was presented to management in a formal business case as a means to reposition the local branch of ATF Bank from the internationalized company to attempt to gain more customers. The international branches offered online banking services with account pins and passwords and this was proposed to management as a result of the questionnaires. The goal was to get the bank to innovate in service considering it was losing customers to competition in the area and develop a direct mailing system with localized language and principles related to family and convenience. Ultimately, the proposal was rejected as the top-down hierarchy did not value the insight of low-level employees. However, despite the rejection, I feel confident that if the bank had considered the proposal and developed localized marketing as a positioning strategy on quality and convenience, more customers would have been retained. It would not have been too difficult to incorporate online banking services considering the information technology infrastructure to do this was already present for other international branches. The organisation’s approach to market research was not sufficient for low customer retention and growth opportunities and it was still positioned in this market based on pricing which I already understood did not appeal to local culture attitudes and business philosophy. The questionnaires developed were only a small sample, however it did indicate a problem with the level of service and communications with ATF Bank. The business is successful in personal portfolio management and investment, something which produced high revenues for this branch and served business-to-business relationships well. The general consumer in need of personal banking, however, was not being served effectively. If the bank drew more on family-based principles and quality of service, and then lived up to these standards, it would have found more satisfied customers and better word-of-mouth in the long-term. Each time a new change principle was proposed to ATF Bank management, it met with resistance. Acting as a change agent, I was “a victim of the irrational and dysfunctional responses of the change recipients” (Ford, Ford & D’Amelio, 2008, p.362). This reinforced personally that in order to be a quality manager with a transformational style, it is necessary to value the opinions of low-ranking employees and respond effectively to their innovations when proposed especially if they have a strong business case supported by research. I think in any other business, my evidence and knowledge of local host cultures would have been supported and some level of direct marketing would have been allowed even if it differed from international marketing strategy. As a future leader, this case study reminded me that management style is crucial to customer service development, satisfying employee groups, and also gaining market share in local markets. Bibliography Ford, J., Ford, L. & D’Amelio, A. (2008), Resistance to change: the rest of the story, Academy of Management Review, vol.33 no.2, p.362. Read More