Employee Motivation in Saudi Arabia

Seeks to uncover to what extent Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model is applicable or relevant to a Saudi organisational context Suggests implications for future theory and practice

Offers demographic characteristics and discusses motivational needs based on gender and age differences, marital status, qualification, occupation, religious classification, and place or region

With a Foreword by Beverly Dawn Metcalfe Uncovers the nature of motivation in a highly religious, collectivistic and masculine context in a higher education setting Investigates the generalisability of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory by testing it in Saudi Arabia, a setting fundamentally different from a Western context Discusses motivational needs based on gender, religious practice and other dimensions Suggests implications for future theory and practice Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah is a research scholar, consultant and instructor in the field of international human resource management.

Jawad Syed is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Dean of the Suleman Dawood School of Business at Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Klappentext

'The authors explore how individual motivations in collectivistic societies such as Saudi Arabia may be different from those in individualistic Western societies. They demonstrate how one such theory, the widely accepted Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is bounded by culture, religion, and tradition, and has limited generalizability outside the West.'

Eddy Ng, Professor and F.C. Manning Chair in Economics and Business, Dalhousie University

'This book contributes to motivation scholarship by putting the theory to test in an under-researched cultural context. Such an endeavour is more than welcome and highly topical in a context where people of Islamic faith and/or from the Middle East are all too often caricatured in the media and political arena, with little empirical knowledge available on which to base analysis.'

Alain Klarsfeld, Professor of Human Resource Management, Toulouse Business School, University of Toulouse p>p This book investigates the relevance of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a theory of motivation, whilst taking into account variances in culture and individual experiences and perspectives. Focussing on higher education, the book responds to the call for providing alternative conceptual models, other than those originating from the Anglo-Saxon world. The authors take a contextual approach and use the case of Saudi Arabia to understand motivation in a collectivist, highly religious and conservative society of the Middle East. Providing empirical findings from a study carried out at two Saudi universities differing in their religious outlook, this book reveals a hierarchy of needs that is significantly different from the theory proposed by Maslow. Religion, culture and gender are explored in detail as the authors investigate the relevance of Maslow's theory in a region that is of growing interest to policy-makers and practitioners in North America and Europe, offering a truly insightfulread to an international audience.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Contextualising Motivation.- 2. A Critical Review of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.- 3. Cultural Critique of the Hierarchy of Needs and the Saudi Context.- 4. Questioning the Applicability of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Saudi Arabia.- 5. Motivation Unravelled: Gender, Religion and Other Demographic Patterns.- 6. What Saudi Employees Want: In-Depth Insights.- 7. The Primacy of Social Needs.- 8. Conclusion: The Cross-Cultural Complex.