Editorial

Citation

Gallagher, K. and Pounder, J. (2011), "Editorial", Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, Vol. 4 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebs.2011.34904caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, Volume 4, Issue 3

This issue of Education Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues opens with an investigation into the relationship between achievement motivation and entrepreneurial potential amongst hundreds of business students in the United Arab Emirates. While private entrepreneurial activity offers an attractive avenue of income particularly for national citizens, and as an alternative to salaried employment in the public or private sectors, authors James C. Ryan, Syed A. Tipu and Rachid M. Zeffane find that there are significant differences in entrepreneurial potential amongst nationalities and genders, findings which raise questions about the likely future entrepreneurial activity of Emirati nationals.

Moving on from the “new” Middle East, as represented by the UAE, to a study located in Egypt in the “old” Middle East, Liesl Riddle and Meghana Ayyagari’s exploratory study of the business ethics of “Contemporary Cleopatras” examines differences in attitudes towards ethics amongst male and female managers in Egypt. This paper provides novel insights into gendered business ethics in the Arab world, challenging some assumptions in the existing literature. Countering previous depictions of collectivist values in the MENA region, for example, this paper reports that individualistic values tend to predominate amongst the female managers surveyed.

The third paper takes us back again geographically to the Arabian Gulf and to one of the world’s most rapidly expanding economies, Qatar, where Justin Williams, Ramudu Bhanugopan and Alan Fish address issues surrounding the localisation and globalisation of human resources. With one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, Qatar attracts millions of expatiate workers; but unlike the challenging employment situation for young nationals in some GCC countries, employment figures for young Qatari nationals are increasing. Nevertheless, there are seemingly inevitable tensions between public and private sector employment, and between the expatriate and indigenous labour forces, and these factors are explored in the context of an emerging economy which has received little such specific attention to date.

Moving westwards again, Khalid Arar and Mohanned Mustafa review the literature on the structural barriers that limit participation by the Palestinian Arab minority population in higher education in Israel. While some of these barriers may appear to be common to disadvantaged and minority groups everywhere, some restrictions on access to tertiary education are seen to be context-specific. It is always poignant when the aspirations of young minds and hearts are thwarted, and when intellectual as well as socio-economic aspirations remain unfulfilled. The final paper in this issue is located back in the multicultural melting pot of the UAE, wherein Belal Barhem, Hassan Younies and Pamela C. Smith note that “a manager may work with more than 230 nationalities.” The beliefs held by managers about the qualities needed for successful management in this multinational environment are elicited and analysed in this paper, resulting in a set of attributes deemed necessary for successful deployment as a global manager in the future.

Kay Gallagher, James Pounder