Issues In The International Human Resource Management Of Damac Properties: A SWOT Analysis

Company profile

Middle Eastern countries such as United Arab Emirates are going through huge boom in investment in the recent years. Accordingly, infrastructure is rapidly developing in these regions. Real estate is the sector, which is having the most impact of the economic development in United Arab Emirates (Sayigh, 2014). Thus, with having of positive trend of investment in real estate sector, more and more domestic and global organizations are entering in this sector. However, with the increase in the opportunities for this sector, various issues are also being started to generate.

Damac is a prominent player operating in the real estate market from 2002. They forayed in to luxury and leisure properties in the Middle Eastern countries (About DAMAC Properties – Luxury Property Developers in Dubai | UAE, 2017). Afterwards they have diversified their business operations and entered in the market of hospitality. However, with rapid growth in the real estate sector, Damac shows a strong growth in the revenue turnover and operations. However, there are various issues being faced by them in the recent years in the internal management. Thus, this report will discuss about the issues being faced by them in their growing business activities. In addition, a proposal will be created according to the need and requirement of research in overcoming the issues being faced by them.

Damac is one of the leading organizations operating in the field of real estate in the Arabian regions. They are the first real estate organization from the Middle Eastern region to have been listed on the London stock exchange. In the real estate sector, Damac is operating in the luxurious and higher end commercial and residential properties. Currently they are having operation in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon and United Kingdom. Thus, beyond the Arabian regions, they have started their operation in the western countries such as United Kingdom (Budenbender & Golubchikov, 2017). However, with the entry in the global market, they are also facing various issues in managing their human resources. This is due to the fact that global business of them is having diversified human resources which are culturally distinctive from one another (Harvey & Allard, 2015). Thus, cross-cultural issues are being generated in their internal management.

SWOT analysis will be used to determine the opportunities and threat for Damac, which will be useful to identify the issues being faced by them.

Being one of the leading and prominent real estate organizations, Damac is enjoying positive brand equity in the market. Thus, it will be easier for them in attracting new customers and penetrate in the new markets more effectively (Stahl et al., 2012). Moreover, the sector of luxurious and higher end properties is having increasing demand due to rapid economic development and it is one of the key strengths of Damac in operating in this sector. In addition, they have also ventured in the hospitality sector by introducing resorts and clubs in different locations (Manhas & Tukamushaba, 2015). Thus, having presence in different sectors will help them to have diversified presence in the market.

SWOT analysis

Damac is having presence only in the higher end properties, which is restricting their business potential. This is due to the reason that, majority of the real estate properties being sold in the global market is the middle class properties where they do not have any presence (Brown & Liu, 2012). Thus, they are lacking a huge market potential. In addition, Damac is having limited presence in the global market and thus having less brand equity in the global market. They are the new entrant in the global market and thus having less experience in managing the diversified human resources.

The global economy is gradually emerging and in accordance to that, the demand for luxurious and higher end properties is on the rise. Thus, the potential is positive for Damac. Moreover, they are entering in the global market to increase their market share. Thus, the opportunities will be more in case of entering in the global market (Johanson & Mattsson, 2015). With having inducting employees from various regions having differentiated approaches, Damac can effectively tap the opportunities in the global market.

In the last few years, demand for the higher end properties got affected due to economic crisis. Moreover, in the global market, the risk involved in initiation of the internal business can also pose a threat to Damac (Basile, 2012). International human resource management is also a potential threat for them due to the fact that, cross-cultural issues are very common in the international and diversified human resources (Bochner, 2013).

Course	Course learning outcome	Relation
International human resource management	Various approaches in international human resource management.	In the international human resource management, organizations operating in different countries have to initiate mainly three approaches of allocating human resources (Brewster et al., 2016). Ethnocentric approach involves selection of the employees from the home country only. On the other hand, polycentric approach refers to the selection of the employees from the host country. Geocentric approach is the most effective among all by involving the concept of selecting the employees on the basis of requirement and skills from any countries.
Cross cultural relations management	Effects of cultural differences on international business	In the international business, employees belong from diversified social backgrounds. However, diversified workforce have both advantages and disadvantages (Agrawal, 2012). One of the key advantages of it is the generation lf various ideas from the diversified employees in case of any issue. Disadvantages include cross cultural issue such as resistance of the certain section of the employees in accepting their opposite views.
International trade	Impact of trade agreements on international trade and economy.	Agreements such as NAFTA and APEC are being initiated to promote free trade and prevention of trade barriers among the participating countries (Aggarwal & Urata, 2013). These type of cooperative trade agreements promotes increase in trade activities among the countries along with improving the political relationship between the countries.

The key issue being identified from the above discussion is the cross-cultural issues in the international human resource management. It is being determined that the key issue to be faced by Damac is to effectively manage their diversified human resources in their international business. Due to the fact that, diversified workforce comprise of employees from different social backgrounds, thus, it is important that all the groups be given equal representation and are managed effectively.

• The key motive of his research is to identify the key reasons of generation of cross-cultural conflict. To identify the root causes of generation of cross cultural conflict.
• To determine the existing organizational policies of Damac in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing policies in preventing the cross-cultural issues.
• To identify the areas of improvement for the organization.
• To analyze the gathered data and accordingly recommend policies and strategies to overcome the issues.

Methodology involved in this research will be both qualitative and quantitative. This is due to the reason that, use of the qualitative data will help to generate the detailed opinions from the respondents. More deep and viable response can be gathered with the help of the qualitative methodology. On the other hand, quantitative research will help to determine the majority trend and inclination of the respondents. It will help to determine the overall trend regarding the issue. Thus, mixed methodology will be implemented in this research work.

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7
Introduction
Literature review
Findings
Methodology
Analysis
conclusion

The total task will be divided in 7 weeks. First week will be allocated to review and observe the situation before stating the introduction. Accordingly, the introductory statement will be given for the organization as well as the industry. In the second week, literature review will be conducted and it will continue until third week. This is due to the reason that, review of the literature will take time in critically analyzing the opinions of various authors. Findings will also be done itself in the third week due to the reason that, findings will take less time. It will only involve key identified areas from the critical analysis.

Methodology will be stated in the fourth week. Methodology will be designed according to the pattern of the information being required for the research. Analysis is the most important part and it will take the whole week five and six. Various analysis modes such as univariate and bivariate analysis will be implemented to have holistic outcome. The seventh week will be allocate for the conclusion part. In the last week, the whole research will be concluded and it will summarize according to the criterions.

Conclusion

Having discussed the issues being faced by Damac and requirement of the research for further analysis, it can be concluded that, a research work is necessary to identify the root causes of the issues. Moreover, the proposed research will help to critically analyze the particular issues in details and enable the organization to have the access of several recommendations to overcome these issues. Thus, it is expected that, the initiation of the research as being proposed here in this report will help to identify the issues and implement strategies to overcome them.

Reference

About DAMAC Properties – Luxury Property Developers in Dubai | UAE. (2017). Damacproperties.com. Retrieved 9 September 2017, from https://www.damacproperties.com/en/about-damac

Aggarwal, V., & Urata, S. (Eds.). (2013). Bilateral trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific: Origins, evolution, and implications. Routledge.

Agrawal, V. (2012). Managing the diversified team: challenges and strategies for improving performance. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 18(7/8), 384-400.

Basile, A. (2012). Entrepreneurial orientation in smes: risk-taking to entering international markets. Far East Journal of Psychology and Business, 7(2), 1-17.

Bochner, S. (Ed.). (2013). Cultures in contact: Studies in cross-cultural interaction (Vol. 1). Elsevier.

Brewster, C., Houldsworth, E., Sparrow, P., & Vernon, G. (2016). International human resource management. Kogan Page Publishers.

Brown, S. J., & Liu, C. H. (Eds.). (2012). A global perspective on real estate cycles (Vol. 6). Springer Science & Business Media.

Büdenbender, M., & Golubchikov, O. (2017). The geopolitics of real estate: assembling soft power via property markets. International journal of housing policy, 17(1), 75-96.

Harvey, C. P., & Allard, M. (2015). Understanding and managing diversity: Readings, cases, and exercises. Pearson.

Johanson, J., & Mattsson, L. G. (2015). Internationalisation in industrial systems—a network approach. In Knowledge, Networks and Power (pp. 111-132). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Manhas, P. S., & Tukamushaba, E. K. (2015). Understanding service experience and its impact on brand image in hospitality sector. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 45, 77-87.

Sayigh, Y. A. (2014). The Economies of the Arab World (RLE Economy of Middle East): Development Since 1945.

Stahl, F., Heitmann, M., Lehmann, D. R., & Neslin, S. A. (2012). The impact of brand equity on customer acquisition, retention, and profit margin. Journal of Marketing, 76(4), 44-63.