Charlotte M. Karam

Localizing women's experiences in academia: multilevel factors at play in the Arab Middle East and North Africa

This article explores the localized experiences of women at work in higher education in the under-researched context of the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Our main research questions are: What is the current status of academic women between and across the countries of this region? How can human resources play a developmental role for women at work in academic institutions, as well as for the region in general? We adopt a two-part research method in this study. First, through a critical review of the literature, we develop a regionally relevant macrolevel hypothetical model to localize a gender perspective on women at work. Second, we engage in a focused empirical examination of publicly available university data to document the: (1) representation of women across ranks; and (2) specific content of pertinent human resource policies. On the basis of these data, we propose a more complete multilevel hypothetical model upon which we put forward a critical discussion and directions for future research on gender, human resource management and regional development more broadly.

The HR value proposition model in the Arab Middle East: identifying the contours of an Arab Middle Eastern HR model

The aim of this paper is to investigate the existence or absence of an Arab Middle Eastern (AME) human resource (HR) model. The paper adopts the HR value proposition model (VPM) introduced by Ulrich and Brockbank (2005, The HR Value Proposition, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press) as a conceptual framework and examines the role of HR along the models five dimensions: (1) knowledge of external business realities, (2) serving the needs of internal and external stakeholders, (3) crafting HR practices, (4) building HRs and (5) ensuring HR professionalism. A total of 59 articles tackling human resource management practices in the AME are identified and critically analyzed along the models dimensions. A descriptive survey method is used, whereby a multi-question protocol is administered to senior human resource managers of banks across 13 countries in the region. The descriptive results from the 85 surveyed HR managers suggest that current HR practices in the AME fall along the dimensions of the VPM. Results also show a shared perception concerning the most and least common HR practices in the region and imply that we can start identifying the contours of an ‘AME HR model’.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Job Choice Intentions A Cross-Cultural Analysis

A theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework was employed to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions on the job choice intentions of American, Chinese, and Lebanese college students. Attitudes toward CSR, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control explained moderate levels of the variance in job choice intention in all three countries. Attitudes toward CSR, which entailed individual evaluations of CSR, were positively related to job choice intentions among Lebanese and American respondents, but not Chinese respondents. Subjective norm, the importance accorded the views of significant others, was most strongly related to job choice intentions among Chinese respondents. Perceived behavioral control, the perceived degree of control over one’s actions and outcomes, had the strongest relationship to job choice intentions among American respondents. The authors concluded that respondents in the three countries did not differ in the extent to which they intend to work for socially responsible firms but tended to derive their intentions in different ways. Implications for tailoring CSR and recruitment efforts across countries are derived based on the findings.

Good organizational soldiers: conflict‐related stress predicts citizenship behavior

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine employee behavior in times of conflict. The author seeks to examine the relationship between employee conflict‐related stress and engagement in organizational citizenship behavior and to explore cohesiveness as a potential cross‐level moderator of this relationship.Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected as part of a larger study examining organizational citizenship in the Middle East. During data collection armed conflict broke out in Lebanon. A total of 553 employees working in 62 workgroups participated. Hierarchical liner modeling was used to test the hypotheses.Findings – Contrary to previous research, employees engaged in more OCB when they experienced greater amounts of stress. This relationship is more pronounced in cohesive groups than in non‐cohesive groupsResearch limitations/implications – The results extend the understanding of the stress‐OCB relationship within the context of conflict. Furthermore, these findings bring to lig...

From female leadership advantage to female leadership deficit

Purpose – This paper takes an institutional approach to identify cognitive, normative, and regulatory factors affecting women’s business leadership in an under-studied traditional society. The purpose of this paper is to assess how such forces work to create a case of female leadership deficit (FLD) in Lebanon. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyze interview data to identify themes linking women’s leadership with societal institutional forces. The qualitative analysis provides an understanding at the societal level of analysis which is only partially tempered through organizational structures. Findings – Misalignments among cognitive, normative, and regulative pillars inhibit real change. Organizational structures are not highly salient as the most important factors affecting women’s leadership. Rather, patriarchal structures, explicit favoring of males over females, and assignment of women to nurturing roles within the private sphere of the family are the major limiting factors impeding women...

Structure, agency, and notions of career success

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore notions of career success from a process-oriented perspective. The authors argue that success can be usefully conceptualized as a subjectively malleable and localized construct that is continually (re)interpreted and (re)shaped through the interaction between individual agency and macro-level structures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a qualitative methodology drawing on 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female academics from eight countries in the Arab Middle East. Findings – Findings of this study provide an empirical validation of the suggested Career Success Framework and moves toward an integrative model of objective and subjective career success criteria. More specifically, the findings showed that womens definitions of success are: first, localized in that they capture considerations relating to predominant institutions in the region (i.e. family and gender ideology); second, subjectively malleable in that they capture wo...

Social Axioms and Organizational Behavior

This chapter examines the use of social axioms in predicting work attitudes and behaviors. As organizational research can be conducted as several levels of analysis, this chapter reviews the research conducted in the areas of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), normative commitment, and conflict management and resolution, paying careful attention to the possible levels of analysis within each area. The effect of social axioms on organizational citizenship is examined at the individual level of theory and analysis using social axioms as an individual difference variable, at the group level of theory and analysis, where it is called collective citizenship, or across these levels. Likewise, research related to normative commitment and organizational conflict at the individual level of analysis is presented, along with research at both higher levels of analysis and cross-level analysis. Suggestions for future research at the group level of theory and analysis as well as suggestions for cross-level research are presented and discussed.

A failure before analysis: the soup to nuts of preparing for multicountry analyses

Purpose A large and growing number of researchers set out to cross-culturally examine empirical relationships. The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers, who are new to multicountry investigations, a discussion of the issues that one needs to address in order to be properly prepared to begin the cross-cultural analyses of relationships. Design/methodology/approach Thus, the authors consider two uniquely different but integrally connected challenges to getting ready to conduct the relevant analyses for just such multicountry studies. The first challenge is to collect the data. The second challenge is to prepare (clean) the collected data for analysis. Accordingly, the authors divide this paper into two parts to discuss the steps involved in both for multicountry studies. Findings The authors highlight the fact that in the process of collecting, there are a number of key issues that should be kept in mind including building trust with new team members, leading the team, and determining sufficient contribution of team members for authorship. Subsequently, the authors draw the reader’s attention to the equally important, but often-overlooked, data cleaning process and the steps that constitute it. This is important because failing to take serious the quality of the data can lead to violations of assumptions and mis-estimations of parameters and effects. Originality/value This paper provides a useful guide to assist researchers who are engaged in data collection and cleaning efforts with multiple country data sets. The review of the literature indicated how truly important a guideline of this nature is, given the expanding nature of cross-cultural investigations.

Debunking Myths Surrounding Women’s Careers in the Arab Region

In this chapter, and stemming from our position as academic researchers and as women living and working in the Arab Region, we engage in a critical reflexive exercise that echoes our feminist standpoint. We aim to tackle and debunk some of the assumptions that often underpin research on women’s careers in our region. Such assumptions may find strong support in a Western context, but they do not necessarily hold in a different socio-cultural and political context.

Contextual Factors Shaping TMT/ Board Gender Diversity and Organizational Performance

Although research has indicated that gender diversity at the strategic leadership level of the firm (especially the top management team and board of directors) can positively influence performance,...