Management at the Boeing Company - Case Study Example

• Executive summary

There has been a lot of research on the leadership approaches in cross-cultural context, however this essay will research the same by considering the case study of Boeing corporation. This paper provides an overview of the leadership approaches necessary to work across cross-cultures in order to conduct effective business with the international stakeholders. It also highlights the leadership activities undertaken by Boeing Company in this particular regard and also suggests the opportunities existing for improvement. Lastly, the paper focuses on the actions that should be taken to improve the relationship with international stakeholders. Moreover, significant discussions have been made considering the global enterprise strategies of Boeing Company.

Keywords: leadership strategies, cross-cultural management in Boeing company, Boeing Company, Boeing International.

• Introduction

Leadership is the key component of all organisation; however, its functioning and effectiveness becomes critical with the increased involvement in globalisation. To deal with the cross-cultural stakeholders, the leaders must possess adequate skills and knowledge to cope up with the changes, simultaneously the facilitators and the international business educators requires responding the demographic, technological and the globalisation rapidly in order to attain opportunities for improvement.

Boeing Company is a famous aerospace company and well-known manufacturer of commercial airlines, space and defence and security products (Boeing, 2016). The company is organised into two business units and operates in more than 65 countries. The two business units of Boeing corporation are Boeing commercial airplanes and Boeing defence, space and security which is further supported by Boeing international (Neale, 2009).The development of leadership is essential to collaborate efficiently with the international stakeholders. Boeing is developing partnership across the world with the aim to extend its reach and benefit the customers as well as local economies. It has been estimated that around 70% of Boeing Commercial airplane revenue comes from international trading and cross cultural operations (Merritt & Maurino, 2004). Nonetheless, Boeing revenues are increasing at a faster pace due to the international sales of Boeing defence, security and space products.

The spirit and heart of Boeing organisation is found in around 70 countries. Hence, the company’s employees both international and US based form the part of a significantly broad framework of diversity. The employees of Boeing around the world support the international stakeholders such as the suppliers, customers, partners, government and Union.

• Leadership practices of working across cultures

Globalisation has created the need for leaders to become more competent while working in cross-cultures and improve awareness and practices.

The main layers of cross cultures are rooted within the political, social, physical and economic factors. However, the airlines industry tends to fly the planes and adhere to the same regulations and procedures despite the fact that it operates in a different political, economic, physical and social environment of international stakeholders. The main issue of cross cultural interaction in aviation industry will include cultural distance, matching of resources, effective communication and experience at the interface.

The demonstration of cultural distance shows that some countries are culturally similar despite their geographical distance, because of the common language, similar religion, shared history, political systems; however, there are countries that remain cultural distant. For example, larger the cultural distance between two countries, greater will the cultural uncertainty. The leadership practice includes providing training and knowledge to employees enabling them to understand the cross cultural components of geographically distant countries.

Secondly, differences in relation to similarity of resources across diverse cultures. For example, a pilot from a developing country might feel confused by the latest safety advancement developed by the aircraft manufacturer; whereas, the local infrastructure is in no stance to support it. The leadership approach in this regard will consider the enhancement of skills of pilots in order to adapt the change flexibly. The more experience at the interface, lesser will be the challenge.

A pilot flying to the new airport in a distant country tends to experience the interface more acutely than the pilot who travels regularly to that particular airport. Experiences developed at the interface helps to establish familiarity and minimize the rate of uncertainty. Hence, leadership practices focuses on the development of required familiarity while maintaining a heightened awareness about the cultural differences.

According to Neale (2009), the initial effort to leadership practices for working in cross-cultures consider tailoring of training programs in respect to the social norms of various cultures by finding the significant “culture comfort zone”. A number of difficulties have been identified in association of working with diverse cultures. The primary one is considered to be the barrier of language.

For example, Communication between the air-traffic controllers and pilots across the globe is crucial in this regard. The official language is English, but the pilot and controller may speak in different native language which is likely to hamper their effective communication. Problems in communication and coordination have found to be the major contributing factor in aircraft accidents (Boeing, 2016). Hence, the key leadership practice will involve training of employees in effective communication and coordination skills. The aviation industry has responded the issue by developing crew resource management (CRM) training programs where communication forms the key component of all of its resources.

Merritt & Maurino (2004) suggested that with experience and exposure to the situation, the rate of adaptation increases. The adaptation is mostly based on cosmetic behaviour. The leadership practices in such a situation consider dealing with the cross cultural interfaces through the process of adaptation.

• Cross cultural leadership practices

Under the leadership philosophy, Boeing has developed a global vision where it states that people works together as a global enterprise for aerospace leadership. Out of this vision, Boeing has developed a global enterprise strategy which is the key component of Boeing leadership centre. This was launched in the year 1999, with the aim to develop leaders so that they can take advantages of the rapid changes across cross cultures.

The leadership practices at Boeing consider the development of broader and deeper skills among the employees so that they can meet the changing needs of diverse customers and other stakeholders. Boeing leadership practices focuses on developing a globally intelligent team of executives. This is done by facilitating global conversations about the worldwide market and opportunities. The Boeing management believes that diversity is a necessity; whereas, cultural isolation tends to limit the potential (Neale, 2009). Hence, one of their major leadership programs considers the inclusion of diverse ideas which is possible to meet the global solutions. The practice of inclusion enables them to create newer ideas for improvement, implementation of ideas and lastly, measurement of success.

The company has established a diversity council that constitute both the leaders and non-leaders. The council focuses to increase their diversity awareness about international stakeholders and share the knowledge with others (Boeing, 2016). They also encourage professional development of employees, inspire them to participate in training and education, allow them to reach out to others within their communities at Boeing.

The leaders of Boeing make strong effort for revitalizing the “pipeline” with the aim to meet future demands and recognise the relationship of diverse workforce to attain business growth. Mentoring is an effective method to impart cross knowledge to its employees in order to meet the demands of international stakeholders (Merritt & Maurino, 2004).The practice of mentoring enables the leaders to transfer cultural knowledge so that it can closely mirror the demographics of international stakeholders.

For example, Boeing’s operation in China is influenced by the Confucianism teaching that encourage consistent effort of learning and knowledge development that has significant contribution to the value of society as a whole. The cultural leadership of Boeing has recognized this value and utilized the same to intensify their relationship with China. The Boeing leadership practices consider providing training to more than 50,000 aviation professionals which was designed to enhance their skills and collaborative working across diverse groups. Boeing has extended its corporate citizenship and social responsibility in order to support the Guanxi and Confucian values by incorporating Science Technology engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education program that has been designed for the students of elementary schools and college. In addition, Boeing has exceeded in strengthening cultural businesses and leadership by intensifying the learning programs based on the core values of Chinese culture.

• Actions taken to improve relationships with international stakeholders

The first step to improve the relationships with international stakeholders requires their recognition of organisational objectives and interests in order to achieve greatest level of success. The leadership actions consider the establishment of internal team of stakeholder management which focuses to support the issues pertinent to international coordination, which in turn will help them to create a more coordinated approach. Such a development implies the strong presence of internal capability and skills coupled with the leadership support.

• Establishment of trust is the fundamental part of developing meaningful stakeholder engagement process. The issues identified in working across cross-cultures requires addressing the causes that results in lack of trust, that include inequity of relationships, language and barrier of cultures, differential power of groups or individuals in the process of stakeholders management and finally the ways of working.
• Consultation with the communities, in order to make them feel that they are being heard and have a say in issues that concern them (Merritt & Maurino, 2004).
• Setting up ways to inform the stakeholders about the plans and future prospects of communities through email shots, newsletters, websites, etc.
• Leaders ensure monthly, weekly and periodic meetings with the organisational staff and other stakeholders whenever it is possible for them. The meetings are maintained in both personal and informal basis.
• Dealers ensure dealings as well as follow-through which is done by assigning tasks to stakeholder management team on resolution of issues and making reports on progress or difficulties faced during coordination with the international stakeholders.
• Leaders encourage the staff members to socialise with the stakeholders informally by engaging in informal talks, gift hampers and additional benefits for community projects.
• As language barrier is one of the major issues identified while working across cross-cultures; hence, planning and using of appropriate language for the audience becomes essential. Leaders ensure not using any language that is too heavy on business jargons.
• Identify and utilise the shared history with the aim to find commonality among the international stakeholders (Neale, 2009).
• Leaders engage in rigorous management of information and knowledge acquired in the stakeholder engagement process. Hence, to ensure effective monitoring and evaluation, leaders employ their expertise and experience in knowledge management systems and also focus on outputs and outcomes gained in international business operations.
• Lastly, implementation of the lessons learnt during the process of stakeholder engagement and understanding their future engagement are critical aspects in working across cross-cultures.

Leadership approaches in creating meaning stakeholder engagement are considered in brief below:

Critical success factor

Leadership actions

Flexibility

By alignment of business unit relations with corporate responsibility

Allowing time to develop trust

Building of trust

Realistic

Motivation

Demonstration of the clarity of purpose

Embedding the stakeholder thinking

Involvement of stakeholders in the planning process

Engaging in accurate representation

To field the best people

Tone from the superior/ the leadership role by CEO

Preparedness to change

Improvement of organisational behaviour

Engagement key stakeholders which also considers the “difficult” stakeholders

Improvement of non-productive engagement behaviour

Acquiring of organisational and individual skills

Amalgamation of leadership, organisational behaviour and capabilities to enhance the skills.

• Conclusion

On reviewing the report, it is concluded that leadership practices are essential in development of stakeholder strategy mainly in alignment with the business strategy followed by the development of a framework in order to understand the changing stakeholder environment. Working across cross-cultural environment and with the international stakeholders requires the comprehension of geo-political trend, views of stakeholders and their relative influence. Moreover, the leadership practices involve the assessment of scenarios that have significant influence on cross cultural issues in immediate and long-term planning.