Beliefs about work in the Middle East and the convergence versus divergence of values
Section snippets
Work beliefs and values
While our focus is primarily on work beliefs it is also important to discuss values and how they relate to work beliefs. It is also essential to emphasize that a true distinction exists between beliefs and values. According to Buchholz (1977: 570), “beliefs define the world for an individual and constitute an information system to which a person looks for answers.” This differs from values that have been defined as (Rokeach, 1968: 124), “abstract ideals, not tied to any specific object or
Convergence, divergence, and crossvergence
Have international business practices become more similar or more different as we enter 21st Century? A number of polycentric, comparative and geocentric studies have endeavored to address this important question (Adler, 1983b). As early as 1969 Webber argued that a homogenizing effect will occur because of the spreading of industrialization from developed to developing countries. Supporters of this convergence approach contend that managers in industrialized countries will exhibit common
Middle Eastern work values
The managerial values of the people of the Middle East are truly distinctive when compared to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, Arab management thought has been depicted as fragmented and directionless Ali 1990, Ali 1995. Moreover, the rapid shift toward industrialization without the creation of a modernized managerial model has led to a number of problems in the Arab world such as cultural discontinuity which is currently impeding management thought in this region (Ali, 1990). The influence
Beliefs about work
To better understand the state of the convergence versus divergence dilemma in the Middle East we have elected to analyze beliefs about work in more depth. In the study of worker beliefs the concept of belief systems must be employed to differentiate among the many interrelated elements of a worker’s beliefs (Buchholz, 1977). Thus we employ the notion of a belief system as defined by Rokeach (1960: 33): “the belief system is conceived to represent all the beliefs, sets, expectancies, or
Sample and data collection
Individuals from Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Kuwait were selected for participation in the study. The individuals were selected from a wide variety of organizations and every attempt was made to have a broad distribution across the demographic categories of gender, management level, age, and education. In each country individuals were sampled from numerous locations and a representative sample of industries, such as banking, insurance, oil, travel/tourism, and manufacturing, was obtained.
Results
In Table 3 the means, standard deviations, and results from one-way analysis of variance procedures for the overall sample are provided. For the group as a whole, humanistic beliefs were the strongest (mean = 4.34) followed by organizational beliefs (3.99). Although this is consistent with the top two beliefs for Russian managers (Puffer et al., 1998); U.S. managers ranked humanistic beliefs the highest and leisure beliefs second (Buchholz, 1977).
To test Hypothesis 1, that Saudi Arabian work
Discussion
The results of this study appear to identify some interesting patterns both across and within the three sampled countries from the Middle East. While earlier comparative studies in the Middle East have focused on countries with a number of perceived differences (i.e., Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, Ali & Al-Shakhis, 1989) the focus of this study was on three countries that have traditionally been considered quite similar. The specific objectives of this study were (1) to examine the extent to which
Implications
International managers may find the results of this study intriguing for a number of reasons. First, scant information is available on work beliefs in the Middle East and the findings presented here may help in cultural and sensitivity training for potential expatriates. Second, firms that anticipate commerce in this region may want to consider altering their policies to incorporate some of the demographic differences that have been revealed (such as the facilitation of a participative decision
Acknowledgements
The authors would also like to thank the international business faculties of Northeastern University in Boston and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman for guidance and support.
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