Conformers, fighters and rebels: the unfolding of the careers of women in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

There are few career studies that examine the unfolding of the careers of women managers in the Arab Gulf states. Based on in-depth interviews, this study examines the career paths of women managers in the United Arab Emirates. The current study demonstrates how the careers of women in this country unfold in a multidimensional perspective, within the country's unique macro-cultural and meso-organizational contexts. The findings also reveal how the women managers adopt some aspects of the contemporary careers to fight or rebel against the gender discrimination, inequality and bureaucracy that are inherent within their traditional careers. The study ultimately provides some recommendations with implications for human resources development and the further advancement of women's careers.

Women and training: an empirical investigation in the Arab Middle East

“…Notwithstanding the growing interest in understanding the experiences of Arab women in the workplace Tlaiss 2014aTlaiss , 2014b and studies confirming that women have fewer workplace opportunities than men for professional development (Afiouni, Karam, and El-Hajj 2013;Marmenout and Lirio 2014;Hutchings, Lirio, and Dawn Metcalfe 2012), few empirical studies explore the training-related experiences of women managers in the Arab world in general, and in Lebanon in particular. In the current study, we explore how a learning culture, or lack thereof, might facilitate or hinder access to training and development opportunities, and the training-related experiences of women managers in Lebanon.…”

“…The status of Arab women in the workforce and management has attracted significant attention in the past few decades (see Afiouni, Karam, and El-Hajj 2013;Karam and Afiouni 2014;Marmenout and Lirio 2014;Hutchings, Lirio, and Dawn Metcalfe 2012;Tlaiss 2014aTlaiss , 2014b. To explore this status, we will leverage Scott's (2014) INT and Syed and Özbilgin's (2009) multilevel model, which argues that to understand careers, one needs to reflect on macro-societal and meso-organisational factors and how they impact the micro-individual experiences of careerists.…”

“…While this paucity of HRD research could be attributed to the lack of a universally accepted meaning or definition of HRD (McGoldrick and Stewart 1996;Mankin 2001) or to the variations in HRD terms from one country to another (Dirani 2006), it is clear that the majority of HRD-related research is 'written from the North American and, more specifically, the US-American point of view ' (McLean and McLean 2001, 313). Hence, several scholars have called for more HRD research in developing countries, particularly in the AME region (Achoui 2009;Al-Kazi 2011;Dirani 2012;Tlaiss 2014a).…”

“…Al-Kazi (2011) looked at social change and women in Kuwait; and AlAhmadi (2011) looked at the challenges facing women leaders in Saudi Arabia. Empirically based HRD studies in the AME are few and far between (see, for example, Stalker and Mavin 2011;Dirani 2012;Tlaiss 2014a), with the majority being theoretical in nature or providing literature-based overviews.…”

“…Given the limited attention to furthering our understanding of HRD and women in the AME region, scholars have called for an examination of the interplay between the gender identity of women and HRD within the region's local work environments (Stalker and Mavin 2011;Tlaiss 2014a). Scholars have also called for more studies that contextualise organisational research in macro-societal (Scott 2014) and mesoorganisational institutionally mandated structures in the Arab world (Afiouni, Karam, and El-Hajj 2013;Afiouni and Karam 2014;Marmenout and Lirio 2014).…”