International Human Resource Management in the Arab Gulf States – An Institutional Perspective

Haak-Saheem, Washika, Festing, Marion and Darwish, Tamer K ORCID: 0000-0003-1815-9338 (2017) International Human Resource Management in the Arab Gulf States – An Institutional Perspective. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27 (18). pp. 2684-2712. doi:10.1080/09585192.2016.1234502

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Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the increasingly dominant role of International Human Resource Management (IHRM) policies and practices of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in the emerging economies of the Arab Gulf States and, more specifically, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).The existing literature on institutions suggest that MNEs are under influence and pressure to adopt HR practices that are viewed as being appropriate for the context and situation. However, distinctive institutions in the Arab Gulf States such as the UAE, and their impacts on MNEs’ people management have been largely overlooked in prior work. Hence, with a particular focus on institutional theory, this work explores the effects of home-country institutional factors on IHRM in foreign subsidiaries. Furthermore, the paper aims to examine how regulative, cognitive and normative institutional dimensions affect the IHRM choices of MNEs. In depth interviews with 26 Human Resource (HR) managers located in the head offices of the participating MNEs were conducted, revealing that IHRM practices in this institutional setting are built upon fragile, dependent and uncertain conditions, and they are not grounded in the sort of deep and stable institutional foundations prevalent in most developed economies. As a result, we propose a more nuanced institutional framework that captures the peculiar aspects of the Arab Gulf States.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Human Resource Management on 11 OCT 2017 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09585192.2016.1234502
Uncontrolled Keywords:	MNEs, IHRM, Emerging markets, Institutions, UAE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business > HF5549 Personnel management. Employment management
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Applied Business & Technology
Depositing User:	Tamer Darwish
Date Deposited:	02 Sep 2016 13:33
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2023 20:37
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/3836

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