Comparing Ethical Attitudes of Expatriates working in UAE

K.S. Sujit

Institute of Management Technology, Dubai

Email: kssujit@gmail.com

Abstract

UAE is a multi cultural country with 80% of the population expatriates coming from different

locations of the world. Different locations of the world represent different cultures and

different ethical attitudes. The objective of this paper is to analyze ethical attitudes of

different expatriates working in the UAE using a structured (ATBEQ) questionnaire. The

study is based on the survey of 111 respondents from different nationalities employed in

various organizations in the UAE. The questionnaire consists of 30 different questions on

different aspects of ethics in business. Indians and Filipinos are the majority in the survey

and these two communities dominate among the expatriates in UAE. We used a simple t-

test to find the differences in their mean. The major finding of this study is that there is not

much difference in the attitude towards business ethics among major expatriate

communities. However, the level of agreement varies among different expatriate communities.

Keywords: cross-cultural studies, business ethics

Introduction:

In our globalized world, the movement of people to a different country for better

opportunities, is a very common phenomenon. For the companies it is strategic to have

multicultural employees for their growth. From a country's perspective, expatriates bring

skills that the country is lacking. It is always seen as a win-win situation for all as it

increases welfare of the country and the world. But at the same time, one must recognize

that culture, value systems and ethics may be different the moment people move to a

different country. Expatriates, those relocated to a new place other than their own country,

often face the challenge of living in and adapting to a culture that is different to their own.

Ching et.al. (2008). Similarly, businesses also face challenges to deal with managers and

employees of different nations, representing different cultural values. Culture directly and/

or indirectly influences every aspect of the business relationship. Hence, it is important for the businesses and individuals to understand culture.

UAE as a country has a rich heritage and distinct culture of its own. Over the years, the

inflow of the expatriate population and the number of multinational companies have

increased significantly. Understanding local culture and interactions with other expatriate

cultures is important for success. The expatriate model has paid rich dividends to the

country by providing a skilled labour force, especially from Asian countries. Expatriates have

gained in terms of better living standards and better income in the UAE.

In a multi cultural business setting, expatriates with different backgrounds, culture and

value systems often perceive business ethics differently. When people do not share the

same backgrounds then there is a possibility of misunderstandings and conflicts in the

organization. The attitude towards business ethics may also vary so greatly in reaching

consensus on ethics across cultures. It may be that a consensus on ethics across cultures is

not even recommended (Donaldson and Dunfee, 1999). In this situation the differences in

culture must be studied and well respected (Randi, 2006). This paper is an attempt in this

direction to study the similarities and dissimilarities in regards to ethical beliefs and

practices in a country where the expatriate population is huge.

Culture and its Implication on Ethical Business:

Business in today's world is truly global and embraces many cultures. Most of the people in

business will agree to the fact that culture plays a vital role in business decision making.

There are many success stories where proper knowledge of culture helped the business to

grow. At the same time, there are many stories where companies failed miserably for

ignoring culture. Edward Tylor (1871) defined culture as "that complex whole which includes

knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a

member of society". [E.B.Tylor, Primitive Culture, London: Murray 1871]. Scholars never

agreed fully to a common definition of culture. But most of scholars agreed to the

importance of culture in business. Hofsted (1997) defined it to be a collective programming

of mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from others. Value system is

the backbone of culture and it basically refers to the abstract ideas about what a group

believes to be right, good or desirable. These values are the result of many things such as

religion, social structure, language, education, political philosophy etc. These aspects can be

reflected in the attitude of employees in their work place. Probably, the most famous study

of how culture relates to values in the workplace was undertaken in the study of Hofstede

(1997). In this study four dimensions had been used to describe culture in the workplace;

these are power distance, collectivist vs individualist, feminity vs masculinity, and

uncertainty avoidance.

Power distance describes ''the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and

organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally''. A low

score indicates individuals feel that people should be treated equally. Collectivism describes

cultures with strong ties between individuals. People are members of cohesive groups that

offer protection and demand loyalty. In collectivist cultures, harmony should be maintained

and confrontations avoided. Individualism describes cultures with loose ties between

individuals. People are expected to look out for him/herself and immediate family only. In

individualistic cultures, people feel free to speak their minds and are often considered

honest for doing so (Hofstede, 1997).

Femininity refers to cultures that have an overlap between the gender roles. In feminine

cultures, men and women are equally expected to be tender, modest, and concerned with

the quality of life. Yet in masculine cultures, the gender roles are clearly defined. Men are

expected to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success whereas women are

expected to be tender, modest, and concerned with quality of life issues. Higher scores are

an indication of a more masculine culture and lower scores are an indication of a feminine culture (Hofstede, 1997).

The cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance is ''the extent to which the members of a

culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations'' (Hofstede, 1997, p. 113).

Based on his study, Table 1 shows the index for selected countries that are important to us.

It is clear from the Table that India and the Arab world is similar in terms of power distance

and feminism whereas the UAE is similar to the Philippines in individualism, whereas India

and Philippines are similar in uncertainty avoidance score. Keeping these results in mind, we analyzed the attitude towards business ethics.

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php Table 1: Index score for selected countries

Methodology

Subjects

Using a convenience sampling technique, questionnaires were returned by 111 employees of

different organizations. Expatriates respondents from Pakistan, Sri lanka, South Africa etc

were not included as the numbers were very small. All the subjects are employed full time

with their respective organizations. The subjects are mostly middle level employees of their organizations.

Measures

A 30-item ATBEQ scale (Neumann and Reichel, 1987 as cited in Preble and Reichel, 1988)

was used to gather employee attitudes towards business ethics. This scale was also used in

various studies such as Randi (2006), Small (1992) and Carol (1999). The ATBEQ is scored

on a five-point scale ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. For details of the questions in the survey see Appendix 1 for each of the 30 items.

Procedures

The survey was done by the MBA students of Institute of Management Technology, Dubai,

as a part of their project in their course on legal and ethical aspects of business. The

students are working professionals and each student was given the task of distributing the

questionnaire to their respective colleagues. They were also given the task to collect it. The

respondents were informed that this survey wass being conducted as a project to study the

attitude towards business ethics and that their participation was voluntary and without

compensation. Completed surveys were collected by the students and analyzed.

Analysis

After collecting the filled in questionnaire, the information provided was carefully entered

and analyzed. The data shows that the majority of the respondents were from India,

Philippines and Arab countries. Arab countries included Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and

Jordan. Hence, we thought of making three groups and analyzing the result. Prior to

analysis, we conducted reliability test by taking all the data. Cornbach's alpha for 30 items was 0.769 which is acceptable according to Nunnally (1978).

Result

As the respondents are grouped under three categories, we compared our results by taking

two at a time. While research has indicated that there may be some commonly shared

ethical values across cultures, there are also many differences across national cultures in

regards to ethical beliefs and practices (Buller et al., 2000). Once the expatriate moves to

other countries, he or she brings all those values along with him/her and it gets reflected in

their ethics. It is also important to note that the host country's value system often imposes

restrictions on the value system of the expatriate individuals. Our hypothesis here is if the

host country's value system is imposing restrictions, then the level of agreement will not

show a significant difference by t- test. By taking two groups at a time we can verify if there

are significant differences in their attitude towards business ethics.

For this study, we have chosen three hypotheses. The first hypothesis proposes that there

are significant differences in the attitude towards business ethics between Indian and

Philippine expatriates. The result of t-test shows that Indian and Philippines expatriates

differ in their attitude towards business ethics in eight questions are presented in Table 2.

For the question number 2,5,12,13,16,19, 26, 28 and 29 both Indian expatriates and

Filipinos indicated different agreement levels. Indian expatriates have shown a higher level

of agreement for 16, 19, 26, 28 and 29 whereas for 2, 5, 12, 13 Filipinos have shown a

higher level of agreement. However, in the remaining twenty two questions they have a

similar attitude towards business ethics. Hence, we are rejecting our hypothesis that Indian

and Filipino expatriates have differences in attitude towards business ethics.

The second hypothesis proposes that there are significant differences in attitude towards

business ethics between Indian and Arab expatriates. The result of t-test is presented in

Table 3 which shows that the attitude is similar, as only for two questions (4, and 20) there

is significant difference. Hence we, reject the second hypothesis as well.

The third hypothesis proposes that there are significant differences in attitude towards

business ethics between Indian and Philippine expatriates. The result of t-test presented in

Table 4 shows that for five questions (13, 17, 20, 21, 29) the results are significantly

different and for the remaining twenty five questions the attitude is similar.

Overall we can say that attitude towards business ethics in UAE among different expatriates are basically the same.

Table 2: Independent groups t-test (India and Philippines)

Table 3: Independent groups t-test (India and Arab)

Table 4: Independent groups t-test (Philippines and Arab)

Conclusion

The UAE with its multi cultural setting dominated by expatriate populations has grown

significantly in the recent past. With privatization policy and ongoing reform, UAE continues

to depend on expatriate populations for skills and development. In such a situation, the role

of understanding expatriate's attitudes towards business ethics is even more important. This

study is a simple step toward this direction. The result of this study suggests that the

attitude towards business ethics is similar among expatriates in the UAE. In most of the

cases there is complete agreement among the various groups. Between Indian and Filipino

expatriates there are significant differences in eight questions, otherwise the remaining

twenty two questions show a similar level of agreement. On the other hand, the agreement

level between Arab expatriates and those from the Philippines is similar, except in five

cases. In the case of Arab and Indian expatriates the attitude towards business is almost

similar except in two questions. This study can be extended to include other important

aspects like duration of stay, gender, qualification etc by grouping variables so that one can

understand the difference in attitude towards business ethics.

Appendix 1

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