Expatriate managers who learn to speak the local language are able to discuss productivity and other job-related problems with employees, and are well-placed to find lasting solutions. But in addition to language skills, expatriate managers need communication skills and the willingness to use those skills so that good relationships with local employees can be established.

When a canning factory in Cairo experienced continual productivity problems, the entire five-man board blamed the expatriate production manager for the failure. The manager was failing to motivate the local workforce even though he had a good grasp of colloquial Arabic.

The manager hit back by blaming the workforce for the productivity problem. He told the board that local employees lacked initiative. Even when simple problems cropped up which they were capable of fixing, they would wait until they were told what to do by the production manager or a supervisor.
The expatriate complained that none of the Egyptian staff had the ability to do managerial-type work. But a few weeks later a new chief executive was appointed, and one of his first acts was to replace the expatriate with an Egyptian engineer recruited from a food-processing company in Cairo.
Change of approach Formerly, managers spent most of their time in their offices or holding meetings. They talked to each other but neglected to talk to the workers. But the new production manager took a different approach. He started to communicate with production workers directly and constantly.
Encouraged by the new approach, supervisors began to act more like co-workers and started to help workers to move the work through the factory. It was groupworking.
Production workers, supervisors and the new production manager now saw themselves as members of the same team. As a result of this decisive change of approach, productivity quickly improved.
As the example demonstrates, expatriate managers need to take account of cultural realities and, in particular, need to find culturally appropriate ways of meeting the expectations of local employees.
The manager who lost his job later admitted to colleagues at home that he had failed to realize how much employee motivation in Arab countries differs from the Western model. In organizations in the Middle East, great value is attached to faceto-
face communication and relationships and managers are expected to build good relationships with their employees.

1 ‘Expatriate managers need to take account of the cultural realities.’ Which cultural realities did the expatriate manager fail to take account of? How should he have dealt with the cultural realities?
2 Explain how employee motivation in Arab countries differs from the Western model. Give reasons for the difference.