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This study aims to examine the relationship of the Islamic work ethic (IWE) and individualism among a large sample of supervisors working in Egypt, replicating earlier work by Ali (2005, 1987).

Data were collected from 484 male and female supervisors working in manufacturing organizations using anonymously completed questionnaires, 48 per cent response rate.

Measures of IWE and individualism were highly reliable and significantly and positively correlated (0.39, p < 0.001), replicating Ali’s work. Males and females scored similarly on both measures. Younger mangers were more individualistic, again supporting Ali’s findings. The Egyptian sample also scored very high on both measures, as do samples from other countries. Factor analysis of the IWE suggested two interpretable factors and the possibility of creating a shorter version of the IWE.

An interesting question becomes why are levels of economic performance in these countries relatively low despite very high levels of commitment to the IWE? This raised the issue of potential social desirability in the measure of IWE. Future research must include indicators of both individual and work unit performance to examine this further.

Suggestions are offered on ways that organizations can develop reliable and valid measures of the IWE and examine their relationships with actual job and work group performance.

Supports continuing research on the usefulness of the IWE concept and measures in management research.

This paper aims to examine the relationship of perceived supervisor empowerment behaviors and feelings of personal empowerment with important work and well-being outcomes in a sample of Egyptian women managers and professionals.

Data were collected from 155 managerial and professional women using anonymously completed questionnaires. Respondents were relatively young; had university educations; had the short job and organizational tenures; held various levels of management jobs; and worked in a range of functions. All measures used here had been used and validated previously by other researchers.

Work outcomes included job satisfaction, career satisfaction, work engagement, work-family and family-work conflict, emotional exhaustion/burnout, life satisfaction and intent to quit. Both perceived levels of supervisory/leader empowerment behaviors and self-reported feelings of empowerment had significant relationships with the majority of work and well-being outcomes.

Data were collected using self-report questionnaires with the small risk of response set and common method biases. Second, all data were collected at one point in time making it challenging to address issues of causality. Third, all respondents came from the two largest cities in Egypt, Cairo and Alexandria; thus, the extent to which our findings would generalize to managerial and professional women and men is indeterminate. Fourth, it was not possible to determine the representativeness of our sample as well.

Practical implications of these findings along with future research directions are offered. Practical applications include training supervisors on empowerment behaviors, and training all employees on the benefits of personal empowerment and efficacy and ways to increase them.

A number of ways to increase levels of empowerment of both front-line employees and managers have been identified. These include increasing employee participation in decision-making, delegating authority and control to these employees, creating more challenging work roles through job redesign, leaders sharing more information and leaders providing more coaching and mentoring to their staff. At the micro level, increasing levels of employee self-efficacy through training and more effective use of their work experiences will increase personal empowerment and improve work outcomes.

Relatively little research has been undertaken on women in management and human resource management in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between job satisfaction, interpersonal trust, intrinsic motivation and job‐related tension in this non‐Western context. And to establish whether there is evidence of similarity in the nature of the relationships between these variables and those found in Western contexts.

Data collected from different employees who are working in deterrent organizations in Egypt (N=140). Reliability test is computed for the measures used in the research. Descriptive statistics, inter‐correlations and regression analysis are computed for the variables used in this research to test the research hypothesis.

The findings indicate that employees are satisfied, intrinsically motivated, trust their peers and managers and suffer from relatively low levels of job tension. The significant predictors of job satisfaction are intrinsic motivation, confidence in the competence of management and the lack of work‐related tension.

Some tentative conclusions regarding the policies and practices that should be pursued in order to maintain or enhance levels of job satisfaction among employees in the Egyptian context.

There are no reported studies examining the relationship between these variables in Egypt. The findings of this research would help deriving conclusions concerning employees' likely perceptions and responses; which is not available up‐to‐date.

The paper's aims are to ascertain whether there is evidence of Egyptian organisations using recruitment and selection practices which are context specific and whether different practices are used for different job types; whether responsibility for recruitment and selection is shared between HRM specialists and line management; and whether there is evidence of increasing devolution of this responsibility to line managers.

Data were collected between May and July 2007 and produced 108 usable questionnaires. The questionnaire was adapted from the Price Waterhouse Cranfield project on HRM in Europe.

There is some evidential support for the influence of the Egyptian national context upon the practices used, with different practices, including the number of techniques being used for the recruitment and selection of different job types. There is evidence of substantial sharing of this responsibility with line management through consultation and of an increased devolution of responsibility to line management.

Investigating recruitment and selection practices with the influence of ownership and by organisational size is needed to pursue whether there are significant associations between these variables.

Organisations moving into Egypt would not appear to be confronted with substantial resistance to the adoption of new methods and techniques for recruiting and selecting staff or the adoption of different methods for different job types, neither with resistance if they wish to involve line management in the decision‐making process.

The influence of the Egyptian national context upon the recruitment and selection practices used is an important issue for organisations to know the best recruitment and selection methods.

The aim of this paper is to explore the supervision facets from the employees' perception in Egypt. Another aim is to explore the relationships between the supervisors' facets and their satisfaction level.

To achieve the aims of this research, the researchers collected data from different employees in deterrent organizations in Egypt (n=272). Validity and reliability tests were computed for the measures used in the research. Descriptive statistics, inter‐correlations were computed for the variables used in this research to test the research hypothesis.

The similarities with the non‐western contest were found in some facets of supervisors, while others are not. Significant relationships were found between supervisors' facets and employees' satisfaction from their supervisors.

Some practical conclusions which would lead to effective and successful organizations in the Egyptian context are: creating a positive environment by focusing on the social relationships between employees and their supervisors and developing a clear job description to help employees understand what they have to do, along with allowing some real participation by the employees in making decisions.

Investigating such concepts will provide the basic information needed to develop a clear understanding for supervisory‐employees relationships in a non‐Western context, which is not available currently.

This paper aims to investigate gender similarities and differences among managers and professionals working in a variety of organizations and industries in Egypt. It seeks to replicate and extend previous work by employing a different sample working in a large Muslim country.

Data were collected from 242 respondents, 146 males and 96 females, using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 48 percent response rate. Measures included personal demographic and work situation characteristics, stable individual difference personality factors, job behaviors, work outcomes, after‐work recovery experiences, indicators of quality of life (e.g. work‐family conflict and life satisfaction) and psychological well being.

There were considerable differences in personal demographic and work situation characteristics, consistent with previous findings. Females were younger, less likely to be married, worked at lower organizational levels, were less likely to supervise others, worked in smaller organizations, and earned less income. Males and females were generally similar on stable individual difference personality factors and job behaviors. Females, however, were less satisfied with their careers, less work engaged, and reported higher levels of both exhaustion and psychosomatic symptoms; findings different from those observed in other countries female managers did make greater use of the four recovery experiences examined.

Consistent with previous research, considerable demographic and work situation differences were observed. But different from previous research, female and male managers in Egypt reported some similar and some different work and well‐being outcomes. The observed differences indicated that women managers are somewhat disadvantaged on both work and well being.

These results suggest that Egyptian organizations need to devote more resources to supporting the career development of managerial and professional women. In addition, Egyptian society needs to challenge the existing stereotypes of women's roles. Entrepreneurship appears to be a realistic prospect for some women managers and professionals dissatisfied with their current careers.

This study provides insights on similarities and differences on personal demographic characteristics and outcome measures among female and male managers in Egypt.

The work‐family interface has received considerable attention during the past two decades but inconsistent findings have been reported. Reasons for this include the use of different work‐family conflict (WFC) measures, samples, outcomes, and countries and cultures. Carlson et al. developed and provided an initial validation of a new comprehensive measure of bi‐directional WFC having three forms: time‐, strain‐, and behavior‐based conflict. The purpose of this paper is to replicate and extended their work employing a large sample of managers working in various organizations and industries in Egypt, a large Muslim country, and including additional correlates.

Data were collected from 242 respondents, 146 males and 96 females, using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 48 percent response rate. Measures included three forms of WFC, personal demographic and work situation characteristics, stable individual difference personality factors, job behaviors, work outcomes, after‐work recovery experiences, indicators of quality of life (e.g. WFC, life satisfaction) and psychological well‐being.

The three measures of WFC were acceptably reliable and inter‐correlated to the same extent as reported by Carlson and her colleagues in their US study. The mean values in the Egyptian sample were higher than those in the US study indicating more WFC, and the gender differences reported by Carlson et al. were not found in the Egyptian sample. Both stable personality characteristics (e.g. need for achievement) and job demands (e.g. perceptions of work intensity) were positively associated with WFC. Use of recovery experiences after work had limited and mixed effects on levels of WFC. WFC generally had negative relationships with work outcomes and indicators of psychological well‐being.

The presence of country differences suggests the need for more cross‐cultural research involving participants in the same occupations.

Results suggest that both individual characteristics and job demands are associated with levels of WFC. Efforts to reduce levels of WFC need to address both.

The paper adds to the understanding of work experiences of managers in Egypt and replicates and extends earlier work.

The aim is to explore in the Egyptian context the incidence and pervasiveness of teamworking, the types of teams in use, and to gather information on some of the factors perceived by researchers in the West to be influential in determining team effectiveness.

This paper reports and discusses a preliminary inquiry in a sample of 20 manufacturing and service organisations in Egypt. The research was conducted by way of face‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews with between three and five managers in each of the organisations. Comparisons are drawn with much of the western literature and further research needs are identified.

This initial survey has provided evidence of the utilisation of teamworking in a sample of employing organisations in Egypt, which in several respects appears to reflect trends and developments in the more developed economies of the West.

In this survey only some of the factors identified as influencing team effectiveness were investigated and further research is required to examine in more detail the relevance of the various models of team effectiveness devised by researchers in the western context.

The research was exploratory and is the precursor to a wider and deeper study concerning team effectiveness in the Egyptian context.

The study reported is initial and exploratory in nature and, as far as the authors are aware, the first study of teamworking in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of measures of work intensity and work hours on potential antecedents and work and well‐being consequences.

Data are collected from 242 male and female managers and professionals working in a variety of organizations in Egypt using anonymously completed questionnaires, with a 48 percent response rate.

Work intensity is significantly correlated with work hours, but weakly. Work hours and work intensity share only one common personal demographic and work situation predictor (level of education) but it has opposite relationships with the work hours and work intensity measures. Work hours and work intensity also share one common stable personality predictor, non‐required work, and a workaholic job behavior. This measure however likely reflectes the requirements of managerial jobs more than the addictive and negative aspects of workaholism. Work intensity is more strongly and consistently related to both work and well‐being outcomes. Interestingly, work intensity is positively related to work outcomes and negatively related to indicators of psychological well‐being.

The sample is likely non‐representative of Egyptian managers and data are collected at one point in time making it difficult to determine causality.

The results suggest that work intensity may be more important than work hours as factors in employee work experiences.

The paper fills a gap in understanding of human resource management practices and experiences in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to examine potential antecedents and consequences of work engagement in a sample of male and female managers and professionals employed in various organizations and industries in Egypt.

Data were collected from 242 respondents, a 48 percent response rate, using anonymously completed questionnaires. Engagement was assessed by three scales developed by Schaufeli et al.; vigor, dedication, and absorption. Antecedents included personal demographic and work situation characteristics as well as measures of need for achievement and workaholic behaviors; consequences included measures of work satisfaction and psychological well‐being.

The following results are observed. First, both need for achievement and one workaholic job behavior are found to predict all three engagement measures. Second, engagement, particularly dedication, predict various work outcomes (e.g. job satisfaction, intent to quit). Third, engagement, again, particularly dedication, predicted various psychological well‐being outcomes but less strongly than these predicted work outcomes.

Questions of causality cannot be addressed since data were collected at only one‐point in time. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine the effects of work life experiences on engagement.

Organizations can increase levels of work engagement by creating supportive work experiences (e.g. control, rewards, and recognition) consistent with effective human resource management (HRM) practices. But caution must be exercised before employing North American practices in the Egyptian context.

This paper contributes to the understanding of work engagement among managers and professionals and HRM more broadly in a large Muslim country.