Search results

Addresses issues related to teaching management in the Arab world. Discusses issues of growth, poor quality and lack of vision. Contrasts American and Arab cultural profiles and their management implications. Specifies the illusions that seem to prevail in some quarters in the Arab world regarding management and its culture.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and contents of Islamic management practices and their consequent implications for human resource management (HRM) in Arab countries. In addition, it aims to examine the implications for multinational companies (MNCs) operating in Islamic countries and the impact of globalisation before proceeding to an analysis of managerial problems in Arab countries and the need for understanding Islamic management principles by Arab (national) and international managers.

The paper takes the form of a qualitative approach based on an extensive review of relevant literature and the employment of examples from selected Arab countries.

The study reveals that a gap exists between the theory of Islamic management and the practice of management in Arab countries. Management in Arab countries is informed and heavily influenced by non‐Islamic traditional and national cultural values and norms of different countries and by Western management thinking rather than Islamic principles derived from the Holy Quran (words of God) and the Hadith (words of the Prophet Mohamed).

The paper argues that one of the main reasons for the lack of progress in most Arab and Islamic countries is the mismatch between global integration and local responsiveness because of an excess forward diffusion of Western management and business practices with little understanding and, hence, the implementation of Islamic management principles by both local and international managers in Arab countries. It adopts the view that there is a gap between the knowledge possessed by national and international managers in order to manage locally and what is required from the local workforce to be managed effectively. The main limitation of this study is the lack of empirical research evidence to support the points deducted from this review of literature.

Understanding Islamic management principles could help to develop a more appropriate type of management best practice in Arab and Islamic countries while still benefiting from the transfer of relevant Western management techniques and Western technology. The paper also argues that a reverse diffusion of management knowledge and skills by managers of MNCs is very important for the effective management of human resources in host countries. National cultural contexts and different views of work values have made a major impact on the ability of firms to address HRM issues in different cultural settings.

The paper contributes to the comparatively sparse literature on Islamic management and its applications by identifying key issues for HRM implementation and in developing Western understanding of Islamic management systems.

In the last few decades the Arab states have come to play an important role in the world economy and international politics. We have witnessed an increasing interest in the social, political, and economic aspects of the Arab world. Despite such increasing interest, Arab scholars and business professors have not made significant progress in scholarly contribution and in teaching business management. Seeks to provide an analysis of the situation and suggests research topics in the areas of business and management applicable to development in the Arab world.

A review of relevant literature shows that the effectiveness of management training in Arab countries is generally estimated to be low. It is argued that improving this effectiveness is impeded by negative attitudes towards training among Arab managers. While some of these attitudes are found to have cultural or bureaucratic origins, low training effectiveness may itself generate and sustain such attitudes. Some of the factors explaining this low effectiveness are: lack of rigorous need assessment, deficiencies in programme design and evaluation, excessive reliance on conventional techniques, inadequate training materials and the shortage of qualified trainers. Measures to rectify this situation are also recommended.

This paper aims to explore the position of Arab women in management by examining the existing research on gender and management in the Arab region in order to obtain an overall picture of the advancement of Arab women in their professional lives, point out coherent clusters of research and identify knowledge gaps in existing research.

The study conducts a content analysis of academic articles in order to provide a quantitative as well as qualitative thematic overview of the topics emerged from the literature.

The statistical analysis of researches shows that, the topic of women in management is gaining more importance. The thematic overview of researches shows that authors have concentrated only on few and very broad topics, without much diversity or depth.

The paper provides practitioners some understanding of the position of Arab women in management and factors that influence their professional lives. The paper sets a solid base of previous studies for future researchers studying women in management in the Arab region.

The paper might be considered as the first study to give a systematic overview of the literature on women in management in the Arab region.

This study focuses on knowledge management in relation to its organizational context. It argues that knowledge management is not just computer and information systems; it embodies organizational processes that seek to augment the creative, innovative capacity of human beings. Specifically, the study regards the compatibility between the organizational structure and corporate culture essential for activating a knowledge base culture in modern organizations. The study sets a proposed framework on how to transform Arab bureaucracies into knowledge creating cultures by means of designing the right structure in which information sharing, learning, and knowledge formation should be parts of the organizational norm.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of senior managers in managing intra-and inter-organizational relationships with key customers and the factors that influence such involvement in a novel context in the Arab Middle East region.

An exploratory qualitative research design was used in which 68 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted in Jordan with endogenous and Western firms.

Top/senior managers play a significant role in Arab business relationships and in creating value for the firms. Their involvement in key accounts is imperative at all levels – strategic, operational, and relational – mainly due to cultural and institutional factors that are unique to the Arab context.

The study is limited to operations in one emerging country situated in a novel setting in one particular region of the world, which is the Middle East.

Arab senior managers’ participation is imperative and should continue with their relatively intense involvement with key accounts. For foreign investors operating in that part of the world, it is highly recommended that senior management have a more a hands-on approach when dealing with the Arab key customer and to focus more on the relational aspect of key account management than on the organizational aspect.

This paper adds to the very limited number of studies on senior management involvement in key account management, making a theoretical and practical contribution and adding insight on how to manage the relationship with the Arab key customer.

Assesses the future of management development (MD) in Arab countries in the 1990s. Interprets developments in the political, economic and organizational fields to support an appreciable increase in the need and demand for MD in these countries. Encourages MD firms to adopt a growth strategy to meet this demand. Advises foreign MD firms and consultants, lacking experience in dealing with the Arab market, to confine their initial operations to the sale of MD packages and the supply of technical consultations, possibly shifting to a more aggressive strategy at a later stage. Argues that local public and private firms must concentrate on expanding their services as well as improving them. Includes specific recommendations on how to deal with major problems in MD programmes, design and implementation.

The Arab world is made up of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. These countries are subjected to many social, economic, political and geographical vulnerabilities contributing to increased risks or ineffective emergency and disaster management. This paper examines these vulnerabilities, how they may impact the country's ability to face disasters, and how they can improve disasters' overall management.

The author selected Qatar, Oman to represent the Arab oil-rich countries, while Jordan, Egypt and Morocco to represent non-oil rich countries. The research was conducted in a qualitative, inductive systematic literature review based on a well-established systematic literature review methodology. Selected literature was based on its recency and the countries in question.

The review reveals population gaps that could threaten the social system in the event of a disaster in countries like Qatar and Oman. The majority of the countries lack community engagement and pre-planning for emergency preparedness due to social and cultural barriers. Other nations like Jordan, Egypt and Morocco are prone to long-lasting economic challenges due to lack of resources, mismanagement or corruption. The paper also highlights the need to raise the educational attainment among citizens to understand disaster risk reduction.

This study utilized the research method developed by Williams et al. (2017) to present a comprehensive systematic and comparative review of disaster management in the Arab world. Considering that disaster and emergency management has remained disproportionately unexplored in the Arab world, this paper reviewed several vulnerabilities and how those vulnerabilities may affect disaster and emergency management efforts in the Arab countries.

The strategy of carefully selecting the most important group of business customers for special treatment – for which several terms are in use – has come in for considerable recent attention from both academics and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to examine “strategic account management” at a large telecommunications operator in a developing country (“Arab Telco”).

The paper presents an in‐depth single‐company case study.

The approach to strategic account management employed by Arab Telco shows excellent fit with the recommendations of Western authorities about the implementation of such programs. In particular, there is evidence that the program is being implemented sincerely, with the allocation of additional resources to the strategic account function and the delivery of special treatment to strategic account customers. However, the strategic account program is still relatively immature and the term “key account management” is also in use at Arab Telco; this term refers to many customers who are not of particular strategic significance to the company.

Further research is needed into the impact of culture‐specific factors on the implementation of strategic account management. The transference of Western marketing models to emerging economies offers fruitful scope for additional research.

The paper examines the direct transfer of a well‐known Western management technique – i.e. strategic account management – to a major company in an emerging economy in the Arab world.