DOCSLIB.ORG

University of Huddersfield Repository

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
University of Huddersfield Repository University of Huddersfield Repository Al-Nahdi, Yahya Rabia Nasser Barriers to Omanisation: Analysis and Policy Recommendations Original Citation Al-Nahdi, Yahya Rabia Nasser (2016) Barriers to Omanisation: Analysis and Policy Recommendations. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/30274/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ Barriers to Omanisation: Analysis and Policy Recommendations Yahya Rabia Nasser Al-Nahdi A Thesis Submitted to the University of Huddersfield in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Business School, University of Huddersfield August, 2016 0 Copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 1 Abstract Rapid economic development in Oman and other Gulf States has attracted foreign workers who now constitute 87% of the workforce in the Omani private sector. Unemployment rates among Omanis are now a serious socioeconomic problem that impacts the stability of Omani society and which has compelled the government to introduce a policy of job-localisation. However, recent statistics revealed that only about 14.6% of jobs have been omanised (Ministry of Manpower, 2014) indicating limited policy success. This study examines the challenges to the implementation and success of Omanisation in the private sector by exploring the views of officials and managers and, importantly, the often neglected views of employees. It employs a theoretical framework based on three aspects of capital theory: human capital elements, that is, education, T&D, skills, and experience; social capital factors, such as gender inequality, Wasta/nepotism and trust; and organisational capital variables, such as organisational culture, English fluency and HRM policies. A total of 496 questionnaires were completed by employees in three sectors; banking, tourism and auto retailing. Statistical analysis showed that the greatest differences emerged in the areas of gender inequality, training and development and working conditions. Overall, women employees, unmarried employees, lower-income employees, junior employees with little in-company training, and employees with lower educational levels perceived the highest barriers. More specifically, the level of in-company training was the most influential factor showing differences in twelve out of the fourteen human, social and organisational factors included in this study as barriers to the policy. The findings replicate previous research on job-localisation in the Gulf States regarding the impact of the private sector’s stereotypical perceptions of local workers concerning lack of trust in Omanis and views that they are less productive. However, this study contradicts most previous studies as it found no evidence that the educational system or English language skills were barriers to the employment of locals. This reflects the effectiveness of recent government measures to improve the quality of education. In addition, this study found no significant impact from wasta and nepotism, unlike previous studies. This is attributed to the satisfaction of nationals with the measures taken by the government in response to the 2011 uprising. The primary contribution of the study, however, comes from interviews with officials and managers who deal directly with Omanisation. Interviews revealed factors that perpetuate the domination of expatriates in managerial roles and unveiled some sensitive issues that people usually avoid disclosing for fear of upsetting policy makers. These include inter-faith conflict, social distance barriers, organisational silence barriers and institutional structure barriers. Participants also reported suppression of Omani employees’ rights to promotion and career-development. Barriers to Omanisation were found to be higher in the automotive sector indicating that policy implementation is sector-dependent. Policy makers are therefore advised to take this into consideration when designing Omanisation programmes to catalyse Omanisation in some sectors. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ............................................................................................ 3 List of Tables .................................................................................................10 List of Figures ................................................................................................12 Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................13 Dedication ....................................................................................................14 List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................15 Conference Papers from This Research .............................................................16 Workshop Papers from This Research ...............................................................16 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................17 1.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................17 1.2 BACKGROUND .........................................................................................18 1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT ..............................................................................23 1.4 DRIVERS OF SUCCESSFUL JOB LOCALISATION ............................................25 1.5 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ............................................................................27 1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................................................27 1.7 STUDY SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPORTANCE ....................................................28 1.8 STUDY IMPLICATIONS ..............................................................................29 1.9 STUDY STREGNTHS ..................................................................................29 1.10 BAKGROUND AND RATIONALE TO THE SECTORS SELECTED ........................30 1.10.1 Banking ...........................................................................................30 1.10.2 Automotive ......................................................................................31 1.10.3 Tourism ...........................................................................................31 1.11 OMANI CONTEXT ....................................................................................32 1.12 THESIS STRUCTURE ...............................................................................34 CHAPTER 2: JOB LOCALISATION POLICY IN GULF STATES .....................................37 2.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................37 3 2.2 JOB LOCALISATION CONCEPT ....................................................................37 2.3 HUMAN RESOURCE CHALLENGES IN GULF STATES .......................................39 2.4 MIGRATION TO GULF STATES ....................................................................40 2.5 JOB NATIONALISATION IN GULF STATES ....................................................41 2.5.1 Saudisation ........................................................................................43 2.5.2 Emiratisation ......................................................................................44 2.5.3 Bahrainisation ....................................................................................45 2.5.4 Kuwaitisation .....................................................................................45
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Economic and Social Council Distr.: General 18 December 2013
    United Nations E/CN.3/2014/10 Economic and Social Council Distr.: General 18 December 2013 Original: English Statistical Commission Forty-fifth session 4-7 March 2014 Item 3 (i) of the provisional agenda* Items for discussion and decision: disability statistics Report of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics Note by the Secretary-General In accordance with Economic and Social Council decision 2013/235, the Secretary-General has the honour to transmit the report by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, which was prepared with inputs from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), on current and planned activities to improve the quality, availability and comparability of disability statistics. The present report describes the work of the Washington Group on developing and testing questions on disability for use in censuses and surveys, joint work by the Washington Group and UNICEF on developing and testing question sets that focus on child functioning and disability and on barriers to full participation in education for use in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and other surveys focused on children, and the development of a model disability survey led by WHO. The Statistical Commission is requested to express its views on the current and planned work on those projects and to identify other key areas that should be addressed. The Washington Group also seeks the Commission’s approval of its workplan for 2014. * E/CN.3/2014/1. 13-62622 (E) 060114 *1362622* E/CN.3/2014/10 Report of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics I. Introduction 1.
    [Show full text]
  • RELATIONSHIP THERAPY RELATIONSHIP THERAPY Making Arab Police Reform Work
    CHAILLOT PAPER / PAPER CHAILLOT 160 RELATIONSHIP THERAPY RELATIONSHIP THERAPY RELATIONSHIP Making Arab police reform work | MAKING ARAB POLICE REFORM WORK REFORM POLICE ARAB MAKING By Florence Gaub and Alex Walsh CHAILLOT PAPER / 160 November 2020 RELATIONSHIP THERAPY Making Arab police reform work By Florence Gaub and Alex Walsh CHAILLOT PAPER / 160 November 2020 European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) 100, avenue de Suffren 75015 Paris http://www.iss.europa.eu Director: Gustav Lindstrom © EU Institute for Security Studies, 2020. Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated. The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union. print ISBN 978-92-9198-970-6 online ISBN 978-92-9198-969-0 CATALOGUE NUMBER QN-AA-20-004-EN-C CATALOGUE NUMBER QN-AA-20-004-EN-N ISSN 1017-7566 ISSN 1683-4917 DOI 10.2815/645771 DOI 10.2815/791794 Published by the EU Institute for Security Studies and printed in Belgium by Bietlot. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020. Cover image credit: Hussein Malla/AP/SIPA The authors Florence Gaub is the Deputy Director of the EUISS. She specialises in strategic foresight, as well as security and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. Alex Walsh has worked on police reform and stabilisation programming in Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Syria. He currently works with the International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAF) in Geneva. Acknowledgements This publication was informed by two events co-organised with the Konrad-Adenauer- Stiftung, the first in Tunis in December 2018, and the second in Amman in March 2019 The EUISS Chaillot Paper series The Chaillot Paper series, launched in 1991, takes its name from the Chaillot hill in the Trocadéro area of Paris, where the Institute’s first premises were located in the building oc- cupied by the Western European Union (WEU).
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of Syria's Urban Poor
    THE RISE OF SYRIA’S POOR The Rise of Syria’s Urban Poor: Why the War for Syria’s Future Will Be Fought Over the Country’s New Urban Villages BY DAVID KILCULLEN AND NATE ROSENBLATT The divisions between town and country or between the main cities and the country towns are very old social and cultural divisions and, historically, their interests have tended to be intrinsi- cally at variance. For long the peasants lived at the mercy of the cities. –Hanna Batatu Syria’s Peasantry, the Descendants of its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics yria’s urban poor fight the Assad regime for the soul of Syria’s cities. Syrian government troops have abandoned large swaths of countryside to a fractured opposition, focusing Sresources on key loyalist leverage points: keeping connected the big four cities Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, and Hama, and maintaining a path to the coast. This intensely urban conflict is a byproduct of over ten years of rural village migrations into the outskirts of Syria’s ancient Men march during the funeral of Mohamed Ammar, who was killed by the Syrian Army in Al Qusayr, February 28, 2012 cities. Fueled by economic necessity and a persistent drought, these villagers created vast, insulated neighborhoods of urban poor. Three things characterize these communities: they are predomi- nantly controlled by the opposition, they have been among the hardest hit during the conflict, and their guns and recent political activism mean they will be a key power broker in the post- conflict order. Syria’s ancient cities long reigned over the surrounding villages.
    [Show full text]
  • Report Iraq: Travel Documents and Other Identity Documents
    l Report Iraq: Travel documents and other identity documents Report Iraq: Travel documents and other identity documents LANDINFO –16DECEMBER 2015 1 About Landinfo’s reports The Norwegian Country of Origin Information Centre, Landinfo, is an independent body within the Norwegian Immigration Authorities. Landinfo provides country of origin information to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (Utlendingsdirektoratet – UDI), the Immigration Appeals Board (Utlendingsnemnda – UNE) and the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Reports produced by Landinfo are based on information from carefully selected sources. The information is researched and evaluated in accordance with common methodology for processing COI and Landinfo’s internal guidelines on source and information analysis. To ensure balanced reports, efforts are made to obtain information from a wide range of sources. Many of our reports draw on findings and interviews conducted on fact-finding missions. All sources used are referenced. Sources hesitant to provide information to be cited in a public report have retained anonymity. The reports do not provide exhaustive overviews of topics or themes, but cover aspects relevant for the processing of asylum and residency cases. Country of origin information presented in Landinfo’s reports does not contain policy recommendations nor does it reflect official Norwegian views. © Landinfo 2016 The material in this report is covered by copyright law. Any reproduction or publication of this report or any extract thereof other than as permitted by current Norwegian copyright law requires the explicit written consent of Landinfo. For information on all of the reports published by Landinfo, please contact: Landinfo Country of Origin Information Centre Storgata 33A P.O.
    [Show full text]
  • Natural Resources Volatility and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Resource-Rich Region
    Journal of Risk and Financial Management Article Natural Resources Volatility and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Resource-Rich Region Arshad Hayat 1,* and Muhammad Tahir 2 1 Department of International Business, Metropolitan University Prague, 100 31 Prague, Czech Republic 2 Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Abbottabad 22060, Pakistan; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: This research paper investigates the impact of natural resources volatility on economic growth. The paper focused on three resource-rich economies, namely, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Using data from 1970 to 2016 and employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach, we found that both natural resources and their volatility matter from the perspective of growth. The study found strong evidence in favor of a positive and statistically significant relationship between natural resources and economic growth for the economies of UAE and Saudi Arabia. Similarly, for the economy of Oman, a positive but insignificant relationship is observed between natural resources and economic growth. However, we found that the volatility of natural resources has a statistically significant negative impact on the economic growth of all three economies. This study contradicts the traditional concept of the resources curse and provides evidence of the resources curse in the form of a negative impact of volatility on economic growth. Keywords: natural resources; volatility; economic growth; ARDL modeling; GCC Citation: Hayat, Arshad, and Muhammad Tahir. 2021. Natural Resources Volatility and Economic 1. Introduction Growth: Evidence from the Resource- Looking at the UN human development report (2015), we can see that major oil and Rich Region.
    [Show full text]
  • SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT of the FISHERIES SECTOR in OMAN a VISION for SHARED PROSPERITY World Bank Advisory Assignment
    Sustainable Management of Public Disclosure Authorized the Fisheries Sector in Oman A Vision for Shared Prosperity World Bank Advisory Assignment Public Disclosure Authorized December 2015 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized World Bank Group Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Wealth Washington D.C. Sultanate of Oman SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF THE FISHERIES SECTOR IN OMAN A VISION FOR SHARED PROSPERITY World Bank Advisory Assignment December 2015 World Bank Group Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Wealth Washington D.C. Sultanate of Oman Contents Acknowledgements . v Foreword . vii CHAPTER 1. Introduction . 1 CHAPTER 2. A Brief History of the Significance of Fisheries in Oman . 7 CHAPTER 3. Policy Support for an Ecologically Sustainable and Profitable Sector . 11 CHAPTER 4. Sustainable Management of Fisheries, Starting with Stakeholder Engagement . 15 CHAPTER 5. Vision 2040: A World-Class Profitable Fisheries Sector . 21 CHAPTER 6. The Next Generation: Employment, Training and Development to Manage and Utilize Fisheries . 27 CHAPTER 7. Charting the Waters: Looking Forward a Quarter Century . 31 iii Boxes Box 1: Five Big Steps towards Realizing Vision 2040 . 6 Box 2: Fifty Years of Fisheries Development Policy . 13 Box 3: Diving for Abalone . 23 Box 4: Replenishing the Fish . 25 Figures Figure 1: Vision 2040 Diagram . 3 Figure 2: Current Status of Key Fish Stocks in Oman . 12 Figure 3: New Fisheries Management Cycle . 29 Tables Table 1: Classification of Key Stakeholders in the Fisheries Sector . 16 Table 2: SWOT Analysis from Stakeholder Engagement (October 2014) . 18 iv Sustainable Management of the Fisheries Sector in Oman – A Vision for Shared Prosperity Acknowledgements he authors wish to thank H .
    [Show full text]
  • Regulation, Trust, and Cronyism in Middle Eastern Societies: the Simple Economics of 'Wasta'
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Barnett, Andy; Yandle, Bruce; Naufal, George S. Working Paper Regulation, trust, and cronyism in Middle Eastern societies: The simple economics of 'wasta' IZA Discussion Papers, No. 7201 Provided in Cooperation with: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics Suggested Citation: Barnett, Andy; Yandle, Bruce; Naufal, George S. (2013) : Regulation, trust, and cronyism in Middle Eastern societies: The simple economics of 'wasta', IZA Discussion Papers, No. 7201, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/71609 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen
    [Show full text]
  • Durham E-Theses
    Durham E-Theses ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION OBSTACLES IN RESOURCE-DEPENDENT STATES THROUGH THE LENS OF RESOURCE CURSE THEORY: OMAN AS A CASE STUDY ALHINAI, ALKHATAB How to cite: ALHINAI, ALKHATAB (2017) ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION OBSTACLES IN RESOURCE-DEPENDENT STATES THROUGH THE LENS OF RESOURCE CURSE THEORY: OMAN AS A CASE STUDY , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12446/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION OBSTACLES IN RESOURCE-DEPENDENT STATES THROUGH THE LENS OF RESOURCE CURSE THEORY: OMAN AS A CASE STUDY A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in political economy by: Alkhatab Abdullah Alhinai Durham University School of Government and International Affairs ABSTRACT Rationally, it would be expected that the discovery of substantial and lucrative natural resources would provide a pre-industrial state with the opportunity to achieve industrial take-off.
    [Show full text]
  • Natural Resources Volatility and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Resource-Rich Region
    Munich Personal RePEc Archive Natural resources volatility and economic growth: evidence from the resource-rich region Hayat, Arshad and Tahir, Muhammad Charles University Prague, Czech Republic, Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic, Comsats Institute of management sciences Islamabad 2019 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/92293/ MPRA Paper No. 92293, posted 25 Feb 2019 12:01 UTC Natural resources volatility and economic growth: evidence from the resource-rich region Arshad Hayat1 and Muhammad Tahir2 Abstract This research paper investigates the impact of natural resources’ volatility on economic growth. The paper focused on three resources rich economies namely; UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Using data from 1970 to 2016 and employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001), we found that both natural resources and their volatility matters from the growth perspective. The study found strong evidence in favor of a positive and statistically significant relationship between the natural resource and economic growth for the economy of UAE and Saudi Arabia. Similarly, for the economy of Oman, a positive but insignificant relationship is observed between natural resources and economic growth. However, we found that the volatility of natural resources has a statistically significant negative impact on the economic growth of all three economies. This study contradicts the traditional concept of resources curse and provides evidence of resources curse in the form of a negative impact of volatility on economic growth. Keywords: Natural Resources, Volatility, Economic Growth, ARDL Modeling, GCC 1 Arshad Hayat is a PhD Candidate at Institute of Economic Studies, FSV Charles University Prague and Lecturer in International Business at MUP Prague, Email: [email protected] 2 Muhammad Tahir is Assistant Professor at Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan, Email: [email protected] 1 1.
    [Show full text]
  • International Protection Considerations with Regard to People Fleeing the Republic of Iraq
    International Protection Considerations with Regard to People Fleeing the Republic of Iraq HCR/PC/ May 2019 HCR/PC/IRQ/2019/05 _Rev.2. INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION CONSIDERATIONS WITH REGARD TO PEOPLE FLEEING THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ Table of Contents I. Executive Summary .......................................................................................... 6 1) Refugee Protection under the 1951 Convention Criteria and Main Categories of Claim .... 6 2) Broader UNHCR Mandate Criteria, Regional Instruments and Complementary Forms of Protection ............................................................................................................................. 7 3) Internal Flight or Relocation Alternative (IFA/IRA) .............................................................. 7 4) Exclusion Considerations .................................................................................................... 8 5) Position on Forced Returns ................................................................................................. 9 II. Main Developments in Iraq since 2017 ............................................................. 9 A. Political Developments ........................................................................................................... 9 1) May 2018 Parliamentary Elections ...................................................................................... 9 2) September 2018 Kurdistan Parliamentary Elections ......................................................... 10 3) October 2017 Independence
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Tarik Ahmed Elseewi 2010 the Dissertation Committee for Tarik Ahmed Elseewi Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation
    Copyright by Tarik Ahmed Elseewi 2010 The Dissertation Committee for Tarik Ahmed Elseewi Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Egypt is Mother of the World: Transnational Television and National Identity Committee: Shanti Kumar, Supervisor Michael Kackman Marwan Kraidy Joseph Straubhaar Karin Wilkins Egypt is Mother of the World: Transnational Television and National Identity by Tarik Ahmed Elseewi, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August, 2010 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Sue and Ahmed (or simply mom/ma and dad/baba) whose emotional (and financial) support went above and beyond the call of duty and who believed in me so much for so long I actually started believing in myself. Acknowledgements Thanks go to my professors at the University of Texas at Austin who have generously given of their time to help guide an unguidable me. Particular thanks to Shanti Kumar, Karin Wilkins, Michael Kackman and Joe Straubhaar for taking a special interest in my projects and encouraging my academic growth. Thanks to my colleagues at the Radio, Television and Film department including and especially Ali Sengul, Lisa Schmidt and Kristen Warner for our shared suffering. Thanks are due to helpers in Cairo, both friends and family including Muhammed Yahia and Paul Schemm for all the help with logistics of who to talk to, where to stay, eat and drink and have fun in that fair city.
    [Show full text]
  • Wasta: Advancing a Holistic Model to Bridge the Micro-Macro Divide
    Wasta: Advancing a holistic model to bridge the micro-macro divide Item Type Article Authors Ali, Sa'ad; Weir, David Citation Ali, S. and Weir, D. (2020). 'Wasta: Advancing a holistic model to bridge the micro-macro divide'. Management and Organization Review, pp. 1-29. DOI 10.1017/mor.2020.27 Publisher Cambridge University Press Journal Management and Organization Review Download date 28/09/2021 19:27:59 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10545/624936 Wasta: Advancing a holistic model to bridge the micro-macro divide Sa’ad Ali and David Weir Abstract This paper offers a synthesis of understandings of Wasta, seen as a form of social network prevalent in the Arab Middle East. Whilst there has been increasing interest in this practice, research remains fragmented and has been criticised for its limited theoretical rigor. To address this issue, a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal articles exploring Wasta published between 1993 and 2019 was conducted. The authors analysed the identified papers according to the theoretical lens from which Wasta was viewed, creating a bridge between a theoretical focus on the macro aspect of Wasta and an alternative focus on its micro aspects, leading to the development of a holistic model of Wasta. The model also helps us to understand the complexity of Wasta, both as the network itself and as the social ties that exist among its members, and sheds light on the complex nature of the role and interactions of the Waseet. The findings respond to calls for more holistic and inclusive research to inform social networks research and bridge the micro–macro divide.
    [Show full text]