Globalization has provided organizations with an opportunity to expand their operations beyond their national borders. Subsequently, profit oriented organizations are increasingly venturing into the international market in pursuit of business opportunities and to overcome the competitive challenges in their domestic market (Jindall & Gupta 2016). John Doe, a private limited firm that provides public relations and communication services, has integrated internationalization as one of its strategies. The firm provides PR services globally. Some of the international brands that the firm works with include Equinox, Absolut, Facebook, Redbull, and Addidas (John Doe 2017). Qatar is one of the international markets that the company has ventured into. To optimally serve its international client base, John Doe Limited must integrate culture as one of the key components of its strategic human resource management practices.
Employees’ empowerment plays an integral role in solving the culture issue, and it improves decision making style across cross-cultural borders. According to Meng and Han (2014), employee empowerment involves providing employees the capacity to make decisions on issues related to an organization’s operations. This literature review is related to Measuring the empowerment of white collar ex-pats at “John Doe Company” in Qatar and reviewing how cultural background impacts their decision making style. The focal interest of this literature review is to determine the effects of cultural differences on employee’s decision-making style
The review of literature entailed the search for secondary sources related to empowerment and cultural background impacts on decision making style. The databases searched included Google Scholar, ProQuest, and EBSCOhost databases. Also, relevant books were used. To ensure the quality of the articles used inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied during the search strategy to offer a set of requirements that must be met to promote consistency. The inclusion criteria comprised all articles: (a) published only in the English language; (b) scholarly and peer-reviewed journals; and (c) those in full text. For the exclusion criteria, all the articles not published in English and not in full text were excluded. The keywords used for the search were Empowerment of Foreign Employees in the Middle East, Cultural Influences and Decision Making, How Cultural Background Impacts on Decision Making Style, Cross-cultural Decision Making, and Power Influence in Decision Making.
Cultural Divergence and Employee Empowerment
The work of Hofstede on cultural differences is the most influential and frequently cited scholarly work (Müller & Turner, 2004). Hofstede (2007) has defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the member of one human group from another” (p. 413). It is in this perspective of culture that employees and leaders vary in terms of their decision making styles. For instance, duplication of decision making style in a country that has a different culture could result in business challenges, hence the need for empowerment (Müller, Spang, & Özcan, 2008). Employee empowerment is the approach that entails improving the work practice of employees to promote better management of organizations. Thus, employee empowerment is the process that entails the involvement of employees in decision making process by encouraging them to think (del Val & Lloyd, 2003; Worrall & Gutierrez, 1999). Substantive empowerment entails many factors, including an increase in the effective capacity, abilities, formal authority, responsibilities, and involvement of broadly skilled front-line workers in solving problems, continuous improvement, and decision making (Vidal 2007). In countries like Qatar, training and development programs promote the empowerment of employees, especially those in the public sector (Iles, Almeida & Baruch, 2012).
The role of empowerment in an organization is to ensure that people can make effective decisions without any problems. Thus, when employees are empowered, their decision making styles and modes are modified. Participation and empowerment in organizations can be achieved via arrangements linked with three factors: systems, structure, and culture (Al-Yahya, 2008). First, participation programs used involve flattening organizational structure to augment communication and information sharing, and to create autonomous, empowered units, including self-managed work teams. Secondly, when participative programs are undertaken by organizations, they readjust their systems via the adoption of new procedures and policies that provide support influence sharing and interactions, connecting financial rewards and incentives with employee participation. Thus, when organizations design programs and opportunities with the intent to increase a person’s skills and abilities, then they become empowered (del Val & Lloyd, 2003). Lastly, the culture-related theories accentuate the role played by cultural values and norms with the internal characteristics of the organization to the primary external characteristics (Al-Yahya et al. 2008).
Empowerment could entail culture change among the employees to operate under the host’s national culture in the case of expats in the Middle East. Organizational culture theorists have suggested that culture change is ever important for participatory management when implementing functional change (Al-Yahya, Ndiaye, Lubatkin, & Vengroff, 2008). Organizations that employ empowerment as part of their business management promote democratic-collaborative decision making processes because employees share information (Jones, Latham, & Betta, 2013). Participative principles are incorporated when making decisions, especially by Western-based leaders, compared to those from the Middle East. Jindal and Gupta (2016) found that empowered employees are more satisfied and tend to be more productive.
How Cultural Background Impacts on Decision Making Style
Cultures differ across the globe, and cultural differences have an influence in the decision-making styles adopted. Podrug (2011) conducted empirical research to establish the influence national culture has on decision-making style and established that values and beliefs of people part of the decision making process determined the style. Thus, when there is a misunderstanding of cultural background in terms of values and beliefs, organizations are faced with difficulties and failures. When the values and beliefs of employees are considered effective decision-making style is achieved (Podrug, 2011). Thus, the decision-making style must always be attached to the conforming national culture, values, and norms. For instance, Western Culture must not be replicated in Qatar because it does not conform to the national norms, values, and culture. Similarly, Dabić, Tipurić, and Podrug (2013) established that there were “significant cultural differences in decision making styles and especially in complex decision-making since they are beyond all others the consequence of social and cultural values installed in every individual” (p. 286). Thus, decision making relies on cultural background and the appropriate choice of decision-making style is dependent on the beliefs and values of the persons involved in the process of decision making.
The decision making style in Arab organizations is different from Western organizations. The difference in decision making is influenced by the values and beliefs of the people and organizational culture. Organizational culture is the shared habits, patterns, and prevailing attitudes as well as expected behavior. Culture has an influence on employees in terms of their attitudes, work values, and management practices. Al-Yahya (2008) pointed out that “previous studies of Arab work organizations suggested that a common approach to decision making can be characterized by the duality of both consultation in decision making and directive management” (p. 391). In addition, organizational decision-making entails frequent consultations between leaders and subordinates, at the group level, whereby the manager makes the final decisions. In this context, the issue of power dimension plays a major role. The power dimension measures “the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede 2001, p. 98). In line with this definition, the management of organizations in Arab nations does not transfer or share powers to the employees. In addition, the employees do not seek any power, and this corresponds to their responsibilities (Hammoud, 2011).
Under organizational behavior (OD), the interest is on the extent to which local organizations apply the values and beliefs upheld by the society. Ali (1996) noted that OD emphasizes feelings and emotions, concepts and ideas, and it places considerable significance on the individual’s participation and involvement. In Arab nations, decisions are made based on power dimensions, which is an aspect of culture. For instance, Arab society operates under a traditional way of thinking whereby those in power must not be questioned, which is different from the American way of decision making. In support of this assertion, Hammoud (2011) established that “Arab-Islamic culture has historically produced what we call Consultative Authority Decision Making (CADM) model that places power and prerogatives in the hands of the individual” (p. 142). Whereas, the Western Decision making style is more consultative and democratic. The difference in the Arab- Islamic culture and Western Culture results in variations in decision making between the two regions. Most of the businesses in the Arab society have historically been converted into business organizations whereby the Arab and Islamic beliefs, values, norms, traditions, and norms are replicated.
In line with Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture, the groupings of Middle Eastern organizations as a cluster scores high on (a) collectivism, (b) power distance, and (c) avoidance of responsibility (Al Yahya & Vengroff, 2005; Hofstede, 1980). This is higher compared to U.S., which only scores higher on individualism (91 compared to 38) (Hammoud, 2011). Thus, there is a caste in Middle East nations that hinders upward mobility in terms of decision making because values, norms, and Islamic beliefs have a role to play in decision making style adopted. Thus, the Arab culture is classified as strongly collectivist because when people are born into extended families they remain loyal and harmonious, and this influences the decision making style adopted (Hammoud, 2011). In this context, culture has an influence on behavior, performance, and organizational strategies (Kotter & Heskett, 2011). Similarly, Sabri (2013) established that Jordan shares the same features as Arab culture, and managers are supposed to behave like the protectors and fathers of organizations. In addition, decisions are in most cases concentrated on the hands of people in upper management. Thus, Consultative Authority Decision Making is applicable in Middle East countries like Qatar.
There are vast cultural differences between America and Qatar and other Middle East countries. In this case, Middle Eastern managers who work in the United States organizations function differently when compared to their U.S. counterparts (Bakhtari, 1995). This is because Middle Eastern managers' decision making and management styles are influenced by their culture. American companies have traditionally followed a top-down decision-making approach. However, American organizations have experienced a paradigm shift toward a flexible, flatter structure that delegates authority and promotes empowerment to employees (Anwar & Chaker, 2003). On the other hand, Aboyassin (2008) acknowledged that Arab organizations presently use the top-down decision-making approach, whereby employees have the freedom to contact senior managers, but not to make the final decision. Findings by Aboyassin (2008) indicated that American managers of organizations in the United Arab Emirates permitted more participation by subordinates in comparison to what Arabian managers do. Ali (1996) on the other hand established that Arab expatriates and national managers had a high preference for participative and pseudo-consultative styles when compared to foreign expatriates who are committed to consultative style. Similarly,
Power has an influence on the decision-making style applied. Al-Yahya (2008) found out that in high-power distance cultures, the process of decision making is perceived as a privilege of management, whereas, in low-power distance cultures, people have right to make decisions. Qatar has a high-power distance culture, compared to America; this could explain the difference in decision making styles. High power distance cultures also tend to generate less trust, dependency of subordinates in their superiors, and fear of punishment (Aboyassin, 2008). Ali (1989) found that decision making styles in the Middle East were influenced by Culture whereby Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were more oriented to a pseudo-consultative style. Arab executives do not lean toward delegative styles because they have been raised in a manner in which they are guided by cultural beliefs, values, and norms (Ali, 1989). In support, Yousef (1998) established that cultural diversity on decision making styles was influenced by both national and organizational cultures. As a result, ex-pats in Qatar have to adapt to the national culture, values, beliefs, and norms. Subsequently, the internal environment for organizations in high culture areas has to incorporate a set of beliefs, assumptions, and values that organizational members use and share to guide their functions.
Conclusions
In this literature review, the focus was on the empowerment of white-collar expats at “John Doe Company” in Qatar and the review on the influence of cultural background on their decision making style. The literature review has established that empowerment is necessary for expats in Qatar to improve their skills and ability to work in high-culture regions. Culture is based on norms, values, and shared beliefs as well as assumptions. Also, participative practices are preferred by the managers working with foreign enterprises in the Middle East, compared to Arab executives who are guided by culture.
