GROUP 1 extension, will ensure that Emirates attract and retain

The Emirates Group and Employee Diversity the right talent. Employment of high-quality people
who benefit from working and living in Dubai are
The Emirates Group is an international aviation important. This places extra emphasis on work related
holding company that is headquartered in Dubai in the conditions and cultural integration in the community,
United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Emirates Group is as best as expatriate employees from around the world
primarily made up of Dnata (one of the world’s largest can be assimilated into the Dubai environment.
suppliers of air services such as flight catering and
aircraft ground handling, with a global footprint in 37 One of the ugly sides of expatriates in Dubai is the
countries) and Emirates Airline (the largest airline in army of migrant workers. These workers, who are
the Middle East). largely from South East Asia, are paid a minuscule
salary compared with developed-nation expatriates
Emirates flies to more than 125 destinations across six and significantly below what they need to be able to
continents, operating a fleet of more than 180 wide- earn to afford products or services at Dubai’s
bodied aircraft. The airline also has 170 aircraft on fashionable boutiques and glamorous world-leading
order worth AED 213 billion (about $58 billion in U.S. hotels. Technically, human rights in Dubai are
dollars; the dirham, AED, currency used in the UAE protected and equal based on the Constitution of the
has been pegged to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 3.6725 United Arab Emirates. That includes the promise of
since 1997). Sales turnover for The Emirates Group is equitable treatment of all people, regardless of race,
AED 67.4 billion ($18.4 billion in U.S. dollars) and the nationality, or social status. The actual employment
company employs more than 85,000 people who practices, though, have been criticized by a number of
represent more than 160 countries. human rights organizations, albeit more recently the
country has made strides to improve.
The Emirates Group views its employee diversity of
more than 160 nationalities as a unique strength given Questions:
its prominent role as a truly global organization.
Emirates’ opinion is that talent is not nationality a. Is it sustainable to think that
exclusive, and diversity of nationalities, cultures,
Emiratis, which make up only
religious and ethnic backgrounds enrich the
workforce. These come in the form of a constant flow
about 15 percent of the people in
of new ideas, innovations, and Dubai, can be leading the city as
thinking styles that are then implemented and lead to they have been for so long?
business success. The company’s employee diversity
also complements Emirates’ headquarter city of Dubai b. Integrating 160 different
as a cosmopolitan multicultural population, where nationalities into one corporation,
about 85 percent of the 3 million residents are such as The Emirates Group, has
expatriates. challenges and opportunities.
What challenges do you see? What
Dubai is the most populous city in the UAE; it is the
capital of the Emirate of Dubai, one of seven emirates
opportunities come from this
that make up the country. In Dubai, the core ethic diverse workforce?
groups living and working in the city are Indian (53
percent), Emirati (15 percent), Pakistani (13 percent), c. If you lived in a city with such
and Bangladeshi (8 percent). The remaining diversity of people as Dubai,
inhabitants, each with less than 3 percent, include would you assimilate yourself
Filipinos, Sri Lankans, and Americans. with the people who are like you,
On average, the people in Dubai are young (27 years), or would you try to integrate into
and they mainly come from a background of four the overall community of all
cultures: Arabian, Arabic, Emirati, and Islamic. The
official language is Arabic, but English is widely
people?
spoken and has become both the preferred business
language as well as the choice in social settings. Islam d. Compared with 10 years ago,
is the official state religion, although, as with the expatriate employees stay twice as
myriad of people with different backgrounds, there are long in Dubai, about five years,
varied religious beliefs among the population. Dubai before they return to their home
has large expatriate communities of Hindus, country or another foreign
Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others. location. Do you think more
expatriates will stay longer in
With “people” as one of The Emirates Group’s core
values, the company offers a range of generous
Dubai as the city continues to
benefits to assist expatriate employees who are develop into a world-class
recruited globally to live in Dubai. Through detailed location?
research and analysis, the remuneration policy focuses
on developing compensation and benefits policies that
are globally competitive. In fact, the main focus for the
company is to ensure that The Emirates Group remains
competitive within the market it operates. This, by
GROUP 2 his contacts, Mintz persuaded the government to lift
China and Its Guanxi the law for 24 hours.
As Mintz has noted, “We don’t stop when we come
By 2009, DMG had emerged as one of China’s fastest across regulations. There are restrictions everywhere
growing advertising agencies with a client list that you go. You have to know how get around them and
includes Budweiser, Unilever, Sony, Nabisco, Audi, get things done.”*
Volkswagen, China Mobile, and dozens of other
Chinese brands. Dan Mintz, the company’s founder, Today, DMG Entertainment has expanded into being
says that the success of DMG a Chinese-based production and distribution company.
was connected strongly to what the Chinese call While it began as an advertising agency, the company
guanxi. started distributing non-Chinese movies in the Chinese
market in the late 2000s (e.g., Iron Man 3, the sixth-
Guanxi literally means relationships, although in highest-grossing film of all time in China) as well as
business settings it can be better understood as producing Chinese films, the first being Founding of a
connections. Guanxi has its roots in the Confucian Republic in 2009. This is a movie that marked the 60th
philosophy of valuing social hierarchy and reciprocal anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. In these
obligations. Confucian ideology has a 2,000-year-old activities, DMG is also enjoying guanxi in
history in China. Confucianism stresses the the country. Variety reported that DMG benefited
importance of relationships, both within the family and from “strong connections” with Chinese government
between master and servant. Confucian ideology officials and the state-run China Film Group
teaches that people are not created equal. In Confucian Corporation.
thought, loyalty and obligations to one’s superiors (or
to family) are regarded as a sacred duty, but at the
same time, this loyalty has its price. Social superiors
are obligated to reward the loyalty of their social Questions:
inferiors by bestowing “blessings” upon them; thus,
the obligations are reciprocal. Chinese will often
cultivate a guanxiwang, or “relationship network,” for
help. There is a tacit acknowledgment that if you have a. Why do you think it is so important to
the right guanxi, legal rules can be broken, or at least cultivate guanxi and guanxiwang in China?
bent.
b. What does the experience of DMG tell us
Mintz, who is now fluent in Mandarin, cultivated his about the way things work in China? What
guanxiwang by going into business with two young would likely happen to a business that
Chinese who had connections, Bing Wu and Peter obeyed all the rules and regulations, rather
Xiao. Wu, who works on the production side of the
than trying to find a way around them as
business, was a former national gymnastics champion,
which translates into prestige and access to business
Dan Mintz does?
and government officials. Xiao comes from a military
family with major political connections. Together, c. What ethical issues might arise when
these three have been able to open doors that long- drawing on guanxiwang to get things done
established Western advertising agencies could not. in China? What does this suggest about the
They have done it in large part by leveraging the limits of using guanxiwang for a Western
contacts of Wu and Xiao and by backing up their business committed to high ethical
connections with what the Chinese call Shi li, the standards?
ability to do good work.

A case in point was DMG’s campaign for

Volkswagen, which helped the German company
become ubiquitous in China. The ads used traditional
Chinese characters, which had been banned by
Chairman Mao during the cultural
revolution in favor of simplified versions. To get
permission to use the characters in film and print ads—
a first in modern China—the trio had to draw on high-
level government contacts in Beijing. They won over
officials by arguing that the old characters should be
thought of not as “characters”
but as art. Later, they shot TV spots for the ad on
Shanghai’s famous Bund, a congested boulevard that
runs along the waterfront of the old city. Drawing
again on government contacts, they were able to shut
down the Bund to make the shoot. Steven Spielberg
had been able to close down only
a portion of the street when he filmed Empire of the
Sun. DMG has also filmed inside Beijing’s Forbidden
City, even though it is against the law to do so. Using
GROUP 3
Secularism in Turkey Questions:
For years now, Turkey has been lobbying the a. Can you see anything in the values and
European Union to allow it to join the free trade bloc norms of Islam that is hostile to
as a member state. If the EU says yes, it will be the
first Muslim state in the union. But this is unlikely to
business? Explain.
happen any time soon; after all, it has been half a
century in the making! b. What does the experience of the region
around Kayseri teach about the
Many critics in the EU worry that Islam and Western relationship between Islam and
style capitalism do not mix well and that, as a business?
consequence, allowing Turkey into the EU would be a
mistake. However, a close look at what is going on in c. What are the implications of Islamic
Turkey suggests this view may be misplaced. Consider values toward business for the
the area around the city of Kayseri in central Turkey.
Many dismiss this poor, largely agricultural region of
participation of a country such as
Turkey as a non- European backwater, far removed Turkey in the global economy or
from the secular bustle of Istanbul. It is a region where becoming a member of the European
traditional Islamic values hold sway. And yet it is a Union?
region that has produced so many thriving Muslim
enterprises that it is sometimes called the “Anatolian
Tiger.” Businesses based here include large food
manufacturers, textile companies, furniture
manufacturers, and engineering enterprises, many of
which export a substantial percentage of their
production.

Local business leaders attribute the success of

companies in the region to an entrepreneurial spirit
that they say is part of Islam. They point out that the
Prophet Muhammad, who was himself a trader,
preached merchant honor and commanded that 90
percent of a Muslim’s life be devoted to work in order
to put food on the table. Outside observers have gone
further, arguing that what is occurring around Kayseri
is an example of Islamic Calvinism, a fusion of
traditional Islamic values and the work ethic often
associated with Protestantism in general and
Calvinism in
particular.

However, not everyone agrees that Islam is the driving

force behind the region’s success. Saffet Arslan, the
managing director of Ipek, the largest furniture
producer in the region (which exports to more than 30
countries), says another force is at work: globalization!
According to Arslan, over the past three decades, local
Muslims who once eschewed making money in favor
of focusing on religion are now making business a
priority. They see the Western world, and Western
capitalism, as a model, not Islam, and because of
globalization and the opportunities associated with it,
they want to become successful.

If there is a weakness in the Islamic model of business

that is emerging in places such as Kayseri, some say it
can be found in traditional attitudes toward the role of
women in the workplace and the low level of female
employment in the region. According to a report by
the European Stability Initiative, the same group that
holds up the Kayseri region as an example of Islamic
Calvinism, the low participation of women in the local
workforce is the Achilles’ heel of the economy and
may stymie the attempts of the region to catch up with
the countries of the European Union.