Leading Multicultural Workplace Key To Economic Success

Abu Dhabi University MBA students participate at Tulane Freeman School of Business International Week

Maintaining an effective international workforce and learning about leadership across cultures are important for future leaders and critical to achieving economic and organisational success.

These issues were the main focus of Tulane University Freeman School of Business’ Executive MBA International Week held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, wherein 20 MBA students of Abu Dhabi University (ADU) were invited to participate. From 21-27 January, Tulane brought together its MBA students from New Orleans, Houston, Shanghai, Beijing, Athens and Chile to attend two courses on Managing People Internationally and Leadership & Ethics, both of which focused on management and leadership issues from a global perspective.

“Abu Dhabi University ensures that our students receive an education that meets the highest international standards adopted by renowned international universities and research centres. Tulane’s Freeman School of Business understands the unique education requirements of working professionals,” said Dr. Jacob M. Chacko, Dean of the College of Business Administration, ADU.

“The international week was a great learning environment to discuss topics on international business, leadership, multicultural issues, ethics and corporate social responsibility. It also provided first hand opportunity for our students to experience management challenges across culture as well as interact with other MBA students from around the world,” he added.

Dr. Chacko also believes that such courses are highly essential for future leaders of the country. “With the UAE serving as a regional business hub, majority of our organisations have workforce from different cultural and national backgrounds. It is important that our future leaders are equipped in fostering with multicultural integration in the workplace to ensure economic prosperity of the country,” he said.

The course on Managing People Internationally focused on critical issues necessary for effectively managing people in a multicultural setting including the role culture plays in successful organisations. Skills on global management, problem-solving and conflict management in multicultural settings and leadership of geographically dispersed teams were also explored.

Meanwhile, the course on Leadership and Ethics discussed how to manage organisations across cultures. Other main topics tackled in this course were characteristics of great leaders, functional role of leadership and ethics in business and how organisations can respond to an ethical crisis.

ADU group who participated are: Ayesha Al Zaabi, Aziza Al Shehhi, Eiman Al Marzouqi, Enas Awad, Hamza Elghabra, Hekmat Bani Hashem, Husam Sheikhani, Islam Gamal Eldin, Jamil Al Turk, Khaled Al Samri, Mansour Al Jedayeh, Mara Lagrosa, Muna Al Suwaidi, Noor Zeiad, Rania Al Hamoudi, Refaat Aboukowik, Samer Kabbara, Shamma Al Hammadi, Sheeren Al Romaithi and Sara Al Shaibani.

All students who participated in these courses were assigned to international teams and collaborated on international leadership and management projects. Each student was also awarded a certificate of completion and four credit hours for the courses from Tulane University.
 

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