ARPHA Conference Abstracts :
Conference Abstract
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Corresponding author: JOPHY DEVASIA (jacobmathias@gmail.com)
Received: 14 Jun 2024 | Published: 04 Jul 2024
© 2024 JOPHY DEVASIA
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
DEVASIA J (2024) Influence of Majority Expatriate National Cultures on the Organizational Culture in the UAE Healthcare Sector. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 7: e129721. https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.7.e129721
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Organizational culture is understood to emanate from the management philosophy & leadership vision, along with workforce national culture, individual member’s background, beliefs, aspirations, perceptions & external interactions (
The research objectives are to review if majority expat national groups deviate from established country specific identifiers, the assessment of majority group behaviour on organizational cultural markers, review of the moderating effect of expat tenure & professional identity on the national cultural values, and to review whether large organizations in the UAE succeed in maintaining a unique organizational cultural identity across facilities, irrespective of employing varied expatriate majorities. Hofstede's Culture Onion Model (
The target population of around 2400 employees are considered from two tertiary care hospitals in Abu Dhabi, with different majority expat nationality mix. Sample size of 331 at 95% confidence is assumed using the Krejcie & Morgan table (
Significant differences among the majority nationalities were observed on multiple national and organizational cultural variables as well as behaviour of varying tenure groups. Majority groups seem to stay true to their nationality behavior irrespective of professional association. The cultural identity at different business units of the organization is observed to align to the majority expatriate nationality mix. Due to low to moderate correlation in hypothesis test results, the researcher has furthered the review of the data by quantifying the national & organizational cultural dimension scores to arrive at inferences. The follow-up study generated results closely aligning with the main study giving a peek into the multinational workforce behavior in a small-scale business.
Hofstede’s culture onion model places organizational culture as a set of cultural dimensions which are evolved from the national cultural values, influenced by other factors unique to the organization. Prior studies have reviewed the organizational behavioural identity assuming a uniform core of same nationality workforce. This study was undertaken as a deviation analysis, reviewing how the organizational cultural dimensions would behave on Hofstede’s model, when the original construct is altered with multiple nationality groups at the core. The findings substantiate the criticality of acknowledging nationality based cultural variations present within a majority expat workforce. It reiterates the importance of a concerted management effort to define & develop a unique cultural identity for the organization, as well as the significance of cultural assimilation of expatriates. The results highlight how the organizational culture can be fragmented with the presence of multiple majority nationalities. The study generated valuable insights on the current organizational cultural identity. Increased talent mobility is resulting in workforces around the world soaring in mixed nationality staffing. While existing literature seem to lack in depth review of the cultural imbalances brought about by such workforce changes, the current study offers a unique perspective of how the nationality specific cultural traits are influencing the workforce group behaviour in organizational setting.
National Culture, Organizational Culture, Expatriate Employment, Middle East Workforce, Healthcare
Jophy Devasia, a DBA scholar with Ascencia Business School and a human resources practitioner with over 18 years of experience managing multi-cultural workforce across industries in India and the MENA region.
The Art and Science of Managing Performance” symposium, held on February 29th 2024, co-organized by Ascencia Center for Applied Business & Management Research (CABMR - France) and Gisma University for Applied Sciences (Germany), in collaboration with the Association for University Business & Economic Research (AUBER, United States).
Ascencia Business School, Collège de Paris, International Campus, Paris - La Défense.
The research has followed the code of ethics prescribed by Ascencia Business School, College de Paris.