Training and cultural context in the Arab Emirates: fighting a losing battle?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the delivery of corporate objectives in customer service in the training of employees in a cultural context at odds with the proposed training outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – A training program created to encourage collaborative and competitive styles in customer interaction, delivered in a major bank in the UAE, was the focus of the case. Findings – A literature review suggests that collaborative and competitive styles (of all the five conflict mode preferences) are positively correlated with business performance. The overwhelming preference for compromising and avoiding styles found amongst trainees in this bank showed that specific cultural context can significantly modify the desired outcomes of Western-style training programs. The conflict mode preferences seen to encourage collaborative and competitive styles were significantly below best-practice averages in this case. Research limitations/implications – Significant differences are discovered between the attitudes of the trainee group and the conflict mode preferences described in an international benchmarking study of excellence and quality in customer service. Practical implications – The practical implications for training effectiveness in the Arab world (one of the largest consumers of corporate training worldwide) are explored, together with a study of how the current approaches to training in the region might be modified to improve training results. Originality/value – This study of 70 UAE bank trainees suggests that in the task of trying to achieve corporate needs to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability, culture poses an important barrier. The paper provides further evidence of the importance of cultural context in management practices, in a little-studied region of the world.