Fida Afiouni

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’.

Women's careers in the Arab Middle East

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how women academics from the Arab Middle East enact their careers with reference to double-bounded contexts: academia as an institution encoding organizational career scripts and gender as another institution encoding specific gender roles. It is hoped that this cross-cultural perspective would broaden the understanding of careers beyond the economically advanced industrialized countries and better inform the current debate on the boundaryless career model. Design/methodology/approach – The study is qualitative and exploratory in nature. It draws on one-to-one interviews with 23 female academics in early, mid and late careers, working in research universities in the Arab Middle East region. Findings – The choice of academia as a profession is mainly driven by the subjective perception of an academic career as a calling, the lack of attractiveness of other career options in the region, and the appeal of the flexibility of academic work. Furthermore, the fin...

Human capital management: a new name for HRM?

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of human capital management (HCM) and to make a case that it is much more than a new name for human resource management (HRM). The paper reviews the theoretical and empirical human capital (HC) literature, as well as the literatures regarding strategic human resource management (SHRM), and knowledge management (KM) to develop a framework pertaining to the management of HC. The framework developed will assist researchers and practitioners in the identification and exploration of variables linked to the effective management of HC within organisations. It is concluded that managers of organisations need to understand the complexity of managing HC and must combine their HRM strategy with their KM strategy to leverage their human capital. By integrating several fields of the literature that relate to HC management, the paper suggests propositions that deserve future research consideration.

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...

Leveraging human capital and value creation by combining HRM and KM initiatives

Knowledge Management (KM) is typically defined as the holistic combination of measures for managing people, processes and technology. However, most of the KM literature focuses on the technology part, and the explicit integration of Human Resource Management (HRM) into KM initiatives is seldom examined. Thus, shedding light on how HRM practices combined with KM initiatives leverage the firms human capital and create value is our major aim. Drawing on the Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV), and combining the advances of the KM and HRM literature, this paper proposes a model for leveraging human capital and value creation by combining HRM and KM initiatives.

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,...

Women and the legitimization of (not) engaging in paid work: logics from Lebanon

Purpose To explore how public (i.e. culture, state, paid work) and private (i.e., household) patriarchal structures work to shape a woman’s own legitimacy judgments concerning not engaging in paid work. We trace the intersection and interaction of legitimacy logics at both the collective (i.e., validity) and individual (i.e., propriety) levels, thereby gaining a better contextual understanding of each woman’s perception of career opportunities and limitations. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative methodology drawing from 35 semi-structured interviews with Lebanese women. A multilevel analytic framework combining the institutional structures of private and public patriarchy with the micro-processes of institutional logics is used. Findings Legitimization of (not) engaging in paid work is often tied to patriarchal logics that favor private sphere responsibilities for women, particularly related to the relational and instrumental logics of childrearing and husband-oriented responsibilities. Women’s legiti...

The HR Function in the Arab Middle East: How to Facilitate Global Integration in Turbulent Times?

The Arab Middle East is a group of emerging economies including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine (Gaza Strip and West Bank), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, and Yemen...