Employee Motivation in Saudi Arabia: An Investigation into the Higher Education Sector

319 Pages·2018·3.12 MB·English

by  Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah

RODWAN HASHIM MOHAMMED FALLATAH
JAWAD SYED
EMPLOYEE
MOTIVATION IN
SAUDI ARABIA
An Investigation into the
Higher Education Sector
Employee Motivation in Saudi Arabia
Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah
Jawad Syed
Employee Motivation
in Saudi Arabia
An Investigation into the Higher
Education Sector
Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah Jawad Syed
Independent scholar Suleman Dawood School of Business
University of Kent Lahore University of Management Sciences
Canterbury, UK Lahore, Pakistan
ISBN 978-3-319-67740-8 ISBN 978-3-319-67741-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67741-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953776
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I dedicate this book to my late mother, Miamounah Ahmed Abdulrahman
Fallatah, and my late father, Hashim Mohammed Younis Fallatah.
—Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah
I dedicate this book to the people of Saudi Arabia and their commitment to
diversity, social responsibility and peace.
—Jawad Syed
Foreword
I have been asked to provide a foreword for a book that I feel is really
important when one examines the literature of human resource manage-
ment (HRM) and organisation in the global economy. I have had the
privilege and the pleasure to undertake education and consultancy work
in several Middle East states including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon,
Oman, UAE and Saudi Arabia. I have always been struck when work-
ing there that the national skills and education policies initially focused
on Western theories and policies. Indeed, the mantra of ‘West is best’
seemed to dominate the Middle East’s thinking on human resource pol-
icy. This is now greatly changing with an increased attention to local
context and indigenisation.
As a sociologist, I have not felt comfortable with the Americanisation
of HRM and organisation theory scholarship. As a scholar of diversity,
I have not felt comfortable with the inclusion of HRM practices from
Western multinationals, and the exclusion of Middle Eastern and Asian
corporations. The treatise of rampant marketisation has tended to ben-
efit a small number of elite stakeholders, and the vanguard of trickle-
down economics and collective benefits was really believed and there
was little resistance to the Washington Consensus in the 1990s. That is,
vii
viii Foreword
economic growth could be sustained through the privatisation of pub-
lic companies. The idea of antiglobalisation marches was not even con-
ceived when the Washington Consensus was being promoted.
It turns out I was not alone in my thinking. I experienced the discon-
tent that some writers were expressing, first voiced in the 1990s, such
as at the Critical Management Studies conference in 1995. The keynote
speaker was George Ritzer who spoke at length about his 1993 book
The McDonaldization of Society. His ideas had been first published in
the Journal of American Culture in 1983, and it is so startling when
one reads the lucid way Ritzer captured globalisation processes, and
how the organisation of labour and capital is being reimagined today.
Ritzer highlighted how the McDonalds approach to organisation and
management paid little attention to human motivation and built
business operations in a technicist way (I would call their HRM phi-
losophy as scientific management). In my view, Marx’s theory of eco-
nomic organisation is as relevant today as it was in 1920s. However,
the McDonaldization needs to be broadly acknowledged as a colonial
mindset that benefits the Global North and does nothing to capture the
complexity of motivating, organising and leading in the Middle East
and other parts of the world.
Lately, academic Institutions have started to move in accepting trea-
tises that offer postcolonial and Global South insights. This book on
human motivation provides this as a corrective to the dominant Anglo-
American scholarship. The book provides unique insights into the Saudi
labour market and managerial processes, which are vastly different from
American capitalism. This text on human motivation reminds us that
there are economic systems in non-Western societies that are performing
efficiently and are illustrating new visions of HRM in the Middle East,
where there is a genuine concern for developing and rewarding human
talents. I would like to say that this book Arabizes a human motivation
theory and uses a Saudi lens to do this. We need more of these books.
Research on the Middle East as a geographic area of study is still lim-
ited. Indeed, the American Academy of Management (AOM) in 2017
attempted to discern feelings from scholars after the US travel regula-
tions impacted, and are continuing to impact relationships between
the West and the Middle East. Ultimately, the prestigious AOM have
Foreword ix
not really responded to this delicate international relations climate. For
me and many scholars, the AOM is not a truly international academy
as so much research is based on the USA. This book exactly addresses
these points. While scholarship on the Middle East generally includes
Western writings, very few scholars consider Middle Eastern writ-
ings. Given the state of the international political economy, the West
really will need to listen to insights from the Middle East. Middle East
is making significant investments in Africa and Asia, and is a leading
global player.
Overall, the book studies the nature of motivation in a highly reli-
gious, collectivistic and masculine context in a higher education setting.
Thus, it investigates the generalisability of Maslow’s theory by testing
it in a setting fundamentally different from a Western context. This is
significant as it challenges Western-centric theorising. This text is valu-
able for managers and scholars in the Middle East, the primarily Arab
and Gulf states. Middle East states use set texts at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels. I anticipate that there will be demand for this text
by students and scholars alike at both levels.
The strength of the book is the breadth of the study of human moti-
vation, critically evaluating a Western-centric theorisation of motiva-
tion, based on indigenous insights of employees in Saudi Arabia. In the
USA, motivation is addressed in a universal way whereas this book con-
siders religious and gender dimensions of motivation. There is a dearth
of data that examines men and women’s motivation using Maslow’s
writings in the USA. Another key aspect is the context of education
and human motivation for the study. This is a key dimension that is
relevant to the Middle East, as universities are very much partners of
government who are aiming to develop human skills and create work
opportunities. Understanding human motivation in educational set-
tings is central to employment policy. Indeed, most universities in Saudi
Arabia and other parts of the Middle East are managed by the govern-
ment, which is unlike universities in the USA which are primarily pri-
vate focused.
The book is a significant addition to scholarship on HRM as it shows
how women’s motivation and their contribution to society is really val-
ued. Women in the Saudi Arabia are very educated and there are many
x Foreword
empowerment initiatives. For example, there are more women in the
government now than in many Western countries. King Abdullah intro-
duced a quota for women in government. Thus, many policies exist for
women’s advancement and motivation. This book will highlight how
women are advancing in Saudi Arabia as well as the unique issues fac-
ing them. In many Arab and Middle East writings, women’s social and
psychological needs are addressed specifically as women have different
needs than men.
Another key strength is that the book incorporates many Arab writ-
ings as well as Western writings. The book, therefore, considers the flow
of ideas about motivation from East to West and West to East. If we are
to expand knowledge boundaries, we need to consider the writings of
diverse cultures. Much of new business development is outside of the
West, so this text will offer Western scholars with much needed insights
to motivation in Arab and Middle East contexts.
Another important aspect is how we conceptualise the needs hierar-
chy and how they are interpreted. An important difference is how ideas
of self-actualisation are written about. In the West, this is addressed at
the individual level. In the Middle East, however, there is a focus on
collective needs. That is, as the book highlights in an Islamic govern-
ance system, Maslow can be seen to represent individual needs, and the
question is its translation to organisational needs, community needs and
national needs. Perhaps I can explain this. At a public administration
event in 2009, I was asked to speak at a conference in Riyadh, and I
spoke about how public administration could support advancement of
women’s leadership. A famous American writer on business manage-
ment practices spoke directly after me and his speech talked about how
Saudis needed to privatise public services if they were to increase profits.
His approach demonstrated limited understanding of the Saudi public
and private business culture and national policies. It perhaps shows how
many Western scholars and policy-makers find it difficult to grasp the
contextual realities and success stories of the Middle East. Today, there
is still limited understanding of how different economic and organisa-
tional approaches are directly concerned with human motivation and
are addressing the personal needs of Saudi citizens within an Islamic
framework.
Foreword xi
This text will shake up thinking of motivation as it provides a Middle
Eastern critique of Maslow. I hope to see more texts like this as, in a
transnational world where knowledge is moving fast along Internet
highways and circling in a digital galaxy, we need to value and respect
diversity, not seek to homogenise. I do not want to suggest that this
book will provide a pure Arab lens, as there are many Arabisms and
many Islamisms. But the book marks the start of a journey. I hope to
see writings in future that incorporate Arabic writings and indeed
Mandarin writings thus supporting and embracing multiculturalism.
Beverly Dawn Metcalfe
Olayan School of Business
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon