2nd Interview: construction business

1st order: I had the pleasure to hold my second interview with a project manager working in the construction business. He himself is half German, half Iraqi raised and worked in both countries.
German Standard vs. British Standard
According to him two standards in the construction business can be distinguished: the German and the British standard. While the German standard combines design and building in the hands of one organization, the British standard splits the contracts for design and building to two organizations. According to him both standards occur in Dubai.
Complexity
Construction projects in Dubai are by far larger in all dimensions than he used to have it in Germany and Ireland, he said. A project of around 200’ million United Arab Dirhams (approx. 40 million Euro) needs a management team of around 20-25 people and 1000-2000 workers on the construction site (building phase). The team is hierarchically organized in terms of operations with the project manager on top; below him two project engineers, which again have site engineers (around 4), who are supervising the foremen. Three levels of management are caused by the size fo the construction site. Then there are specialized roles such as quantity and quality surveyors (two each in respect to the mentioned project size), two accountants, one safety manager, and one safety engineer, plus the technical apartment (two according to the size). The management team is also responsible for the sub-contractors.
Cross-Culturality
The company he is working for has approximately 120 people, responsible for the management. Twenty Germans, because it’s a Germany based company and the rest from very diverse backgrounds an equal mix of Westerners, Indians, Arabs, Pakistani, and Pilipino. He said that of course there are cultural differences, but in terms of work it depends on the personal qualifications and capabilities. There is no difference between background and culture on the one side and duties and job profiles on the other side.
Management
The common ground and basis for communication is English. The company’s correspondence is in English, except for the official correspondence with authorities, which are most of the time bi-lingual. Arabic is seen as the officeal languages still. I’ve been introduced to three strategies, which seem to work quite well in terms of managing cross-culturality:
1) The project/management team needs a good mix of different cultures. Too many people from one nationality or background (e.g. Germans) would lead to difficulties when dealing with the outer world, suppliers, workers, sub-contractors, authorities, etc. The other extreme to have just locals would diminish the competitive advantage vis-à-vis other local competitors.
2) Too many people from one nationality tend to behave as a pride, which leads to a decreasing of awareness and sensitivity concerning other habits and behavioral patterns. Avoid the creation of prides if possible.
3) Clashing cultures: It is always a balancing act to keep your identity in terms of doing the things in the way you are used to (which is your competitive advantage) and the relativism how much you let go of your own culture in the sake of “harmonic and peaceful” collaborative teamwork. I’ve been told that this “battle” is to be fought on every day basis. He told me as of most importance: ‘never say that the things have to be done this way, because the company (with the respective cultural background) has always done it that way.’ Awareness and sensitivity is of most importance, don’t steamroll people.
Germans and Germans
About Germans, he said there are two types: the first one is open minded, interested in other cultures, curious about other people. This type sees working with people from different backgrounds as a challenging endeavor. The second type is there just for work, prefers to eat his local food, and be surrounded by people of his nationality. For this second type working with people from different backgrounds is rather an obstacle.

1st Interview: sweeping through Middle East history

1st order: The first interview took part with the regional general manager of a German transnational corporation, who used to be in Dubai for 20 years now. It was heavily loaded with information: a sweeping look at the Middle East’s economic history of the last forty years.
Gate to the Middle East
According to him Beirut in Lebanon used to be the gate to the Middle East in the 70’s and 80’s. This changed for several reasons and at the beginning of the 90’s Dubai started to take over as gate to the region and hub for economic exchange between the continents Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It was systematically built up by several international and national stakeholders. The secret of its success lies in its infrastructure and logistic capabilities. The pace further increased around the year 2000.
On Dubai-Indian bonds
As I mentioned earlier around 50 percent of Dubai’s population are Indians. I had the impression that Indians are basically providing the economy with human capital for low income jobs. But in the interview I’ve been told that the bonds are much closer and go through all walks of life. In fact to understand the bonds between India and Dubai one has to go back to history of British-India. To shorten it up, on top level Indians are not considered to be foreigners like Westerners or Easterners. There are close ties over generations between upper class Indians and the Royal family of Dubai as well as within the local economical elite in Dubai.
Western Experts and Consultants
While at the beginning of Dubai’s (and UAE) upraising Western experts were consulted for bringing in ideas and concepts this changed over the last years, I’ve been told. In our days the concepts are made by the decision-makers themselves. Western experts are consulted for evaluating the large scaling possibilities and risks of these concepts.
Tradesman intelligence
How do Emiraties deal with cross-culturality? They are very much informed about the idiosyncrasies of the cultures they are dealing and doing business with. Most of them are educated abroad not just in the West but also in the East. Some of their staff members for sure lived in the respective cultures for a time. They possess this tradesman’s intelligence knowing how to deal with the diverging cultural backgrounds, while their opponents most of the time don’t have the same knowledge, which provides them a comparative advantage.
Geo-strategy
To understand the coherences of Dubai’s development one has to take a geopolitical and geostrategical perspective, he told me. Geographically Dubai is centered between Europe and Asia, functioning as a hub between the established economical powers’ EU and Japan, as well as Europe’s connection to aspiring China and India. It is China’s gate for resource exploitations in Africa as well as organizing platform for Japan’s efforts guaranteeing the deliverable of natural resources. And one shouldn’t miss that Moscow is almost placed on the same longitude.

Information the scarce property in Dubai

1st order: Recently I spoke to a project manager in the construction business. I asked him whether the financial crisis has an impact on the construction business and the Dubai economy or not, because I heard, although not officially, that work at some construction sites is on hold.
He explained to me that it is very difficult to get reliable information on that. He is trying to figure that out everyday by using all kinds of resources. The problem is that the press in Dubai is still not reliable. You will find the newspapers writing that the financial crisis has no impact on the Dubai economy, because this is what they’ve been told. However one could see that some construction sites are on hold, this is also the information that is verified off-the-record, he said. He further elaborated that information tends to be like a cloud, you have to figure out by yourself what is rather true and what not.

How Arabic is Dubai?

2nd order: From a cultural perspective I expected Dubai to be much more Arabic. I thought there would have been a much stronger influence in terms of daily cultural practice. In fact Dubai seems to be more an Indian and Pakistani place if you take the people and their habits into account. However as they form the majority of the population this is not as astonishing as one might think. Recent figures showed almost 50% of Dubai's population are Indians.
The same accounts for Muslim traditions. My observation is that you rather rarely see veil or ‘Abbaja’ – a long black robe, which traditional Muslim women wear when they go on the streets. This might be again a consequence out of the fact that just around 17 percent (see Wikipedia) of the citizens are Emirati. However one should not be mislead by this façade, the law is still based on the Shari’a. Just recently a couple of two British executives went for three months to prison for having sexual intercourse at the beach.

Schizophrenic Arabs?

1st order: Recently I talked to a religious Arab, who used to be a university professor. He told me something very interesting. He said: “many Arabs have a split personality”, because on the one side they are very religious, trying to be ‘good’ Muslims paying every day and following the traditions, but on the other side they drink alcohol, feel guilty about that, send their kids to Western universities instead of letting them being educated in traditional Arabic universities. He said that this is some kind of schizophrenic, including himself.

About life, citizenship, and education opportunities

1st order: What did the two engineers I met tell me: First of all that there are many Palestinians all over the Arabic Peninsula, but not just that even all over the world. Mostly they are very good educated, because this is the only way that they can make something out of their life. The unpromising situation in Palestine might be paradoxically the reason for many Palestinians to make good. But I’ve been told they are all somehow feeling homeless being refugees not able to live in their mother country.
Secondly, the education in Arabic countries is just free with full citizenship, which you only get if your father has the respective passport. The two were raised in Saudi Arabia, but couldn’t go to State University there. Just if the were paying for a private university. Therefore they went to Jordan for their studies. In fact the education and the universities in Jordan are quite known in the region and much respected. I've been told, that many people in Jordan have a university degree (even women), because education is considered to be very important. Even people from other countries just go to Jordan for their studies. But most of them, including young Jordan’s leave the country after they finished their studies. Jobs are not well paid and living costs are nonetheless ‘very’ high, I’ve been told. Why the costs are high, they couldn’t answer.
Then they worked in Saudi Arabia for two, respectively five years. They told me that the jobs are well paid, but you have no “life” there. It’s just working, sleeping and working again. No freedom, life quality, etc. That’s why they are now in Dubai. “It’s for the freedom”, they said. Going out after work and having fun.

Broadening the scope of the blog

Two days ago I meet these two from Jordan educated engineers, who are working for a construction consultancy here in Dubai. They are both Palestinians, raised in Saudi Arabia, educated in Jordan, worked first in Saudi Arabia and now in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They explained me a lot about the difference between these countries concerning life, citizenship, education, and opportunities. Although we didn’t speak about project management this conversation made me aware of the fact, that this is especially the background information which important to understand the means of cross-culturality. Therefore I decided to change the form of this blog by not solely posting the documentation of the interviews, but also information I gather and observations I make such as the previously described.

When in Rome...

1st order: Weekend in Arabic countries is on Fridays and Saturdays. Normally nobody is working then. Friday can be compared to Western Sundays, where people go to church respectively mosque for prayer. For Westerners that means they behave as if it is Saturday/Sunday weekend just switching the weekdays. However it might happen that working weeks increase to six days. I recently spoke to a tax consultant working for one of the great Dubai Holdings. He told me that that he’s doing 'English weeks', which means that he’s working also on Saturdays, because his clients in England work as well on Saturdays. Interestingly enough is that the Friday is still off?

Getting a taxi or survival of the fittest

1st order: Waiting for a taxi for two hours seems to be everyday life in Dubai. You are standing at any crossing fighting with 20 competitors for the rarely driving past taxis. Therefore it is not astonishing what I have been told, that meetings are hardly ever on schedule. Public transportation includes solely taxis and buses so far. Buses are rather reserved for the Indian and Pakistani blue-collar workers, also arriving and departing systematically not as scheduled. But anyhow, having a car doesn’t protect you from everyday chronically traffic jams...

Some words on the pre-phase

The study will start after conducting the first interview. However as this study is organized in form of an ethnomethodological observation, I will start with some general impressions from now on. This will help me to warm-up, get a bit a routine in writing and provides you with some first hand Dubai experiences. Feel free to comment also on that…

Cross-culture and housing

1st order: Finding an apartment in Dubai is not an easy venture. Demand surpasses supply, so prices are high. But this was not as astonishing as the notifications I had to read: ‘room for female western executive lady’, ‘for Filipina only in Satwa’, ‘Russian working lady’, ‘north Indian bachelor’, ‘non-smoking, non-cooking, vegetarian Tamil’, just to quote some. Grown-up in the West this slightly left the impression of discrimination.