SNA Proposal: Link between Locally Employed Staff and Performance

Jing Liu
SNA proposal
Not taking 2nd module

Overview: US embassies and consulates abroad defend American interests abroad by performing three key functions. First, they assist Americans abroad in the event of emergencies or arbitrary exercises of local power. Second, they provide Washington with the most up-to-date analysis and reporting of local issues independent of media and press. Finally, they allow for projection of American policies and values abroad in the form of public diplomacy efforts.

These key functions are achieved through persistent networking with local governments, NGOs, non-profits and businesses and civilians. However, American employees of the Department of State and other related agencies are generally only allowed to stay at a specific post for up to a period of three years before they must relocate. Although only a portion of the American employees rotate out every year, there is 100 percent American employee turnover every three years.

With such high turnover rates, institutional memory is often preserved by locally employed staff (LES), who are indefinitely employed on location. These staff members play a crucial role by bridging the linguistic and cultural gap between the transient American employees and the local population. However, because they are usually citizens of the host country, they cannot receive secret or top secret security clearances that are necessary for higher level jobs. As a result, LES are always subject to American management.

Objective: The high turnover rate and high degree of professional and often personal separation between American staff and LES due to security clearance restrictions have strong implications for organizational performance and teamwork. However, while interacting with many experienced Foreign Service employees over the course of my summer internship in Shanghai, it also seemed apparent that certain posts receive consistently receive high performance marks, while others consistently receive low marks. The Shanghai Consulate, for example, is highly regarded in the last decade and a half. (I came to this conclusion after speaking to relatively new officers at post as well as officers who have been posted to Shanghai in the past.) For this project, I would like to compare Shanghai (high performer) with a medium and low performing post of roughly equal size (to be determined), and determine if/how the LES network contributes to the success or failure of American missions abroad.

Hypothesis: I expect the results to show that LES are critical components of long term operating success of embassies and missions. The high performing post will show significantly denser connections and higher integration of LES staff and Americans. I also expect performance to be correlated with length of LES employment.

Methodology: The nodes will be employees and the survey will be short and simple to encourage participation. Much of the network analysis will take place in excel.
Step 1: Confirm if current employees at post agree with my assessment of post as high, medium, low performer. (My assumption is that positive, neutral, and negative experience corresponds directly to performance measures.) This can examined quickly using excel.
Step 2: Look at ties according to question three. Density and centrality measures such as eigenvector scores will be measured. Direction of ties has no impact.
Step 3: Examine individual ego networks of LES to see if duration at post has an impact on eigenvector score

Survey:
American Employee
1) Please select your post.
a. High performing post
b. Medium performing post
c. High performing post
2) Please describe your experience at post
a. negative
b. neutral
c. positive
3) Please select the LES you work with regularly
(names will appear on survey)

LES
1) Please select your post.
a. High performing post
b. Medium performing post
c. High performing post
2) Please describe your experience at post
a. negative
b. neutral
c. positive
3) Please select American staff you report to
(names will appear on survey)
4) How long have you been at post?
a. 0-3 years
b. 4-6 years
c. 6-9 years
d. 10 years and above


Complications/Outstanding questions:
This study will shed light on the intensity of network connections at each of the reference locations. As with W2W, there may be no definitive answers yet. A denser network may imply greater efficiency or it could indicate a messy organizational structure without a clear chain of command. This study is merely a starting point for looking at organization efficiency in US missions around the world. If my hypothesis is correct, that LES are the crucial link between organizational success and failure of US embassies and consulates, there may be interesting management and organizational implications for how LES should be treated and valued.

Moreover, this study only takes place as a snapshot in time. It does not look at historical performance or historical connections which are extremely important considering the high turnover rate. It is an indicator of current day success. It is as yet unclear if LES maintain their influence and connectivity as American staff rotate out.

It also neglects connections among members of LES staff which may or may not be important. As mentioned earlier, however, this is a starting point.