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

Abstract

Few studies have explored the professional training experiences of Arab women within the contexts of learning organisational cultures and relevant human resource development (HRD) practices. Capitalising on in-depth, face-to-face interviews, this study explores the experiences of women managers in Lebanon with professional training and organisational learning. The findings demonstrate the paucity of professional training and learning opportunities for women and illustrate how organisational discrimination and gender-biased cultures and tension influence women's learning. To overcome these barriers and alleviate organisational tension, the Lebanese women managers capitalise on their agency and individual capacities to improve their training experiences and increase their access to learning opportunities. By virtue of individual agency and through their agentic process, the careerists shape their training and overall learning by being adaptive and developing structures of action that enable them to advance their learning. The results have important implications for HR managers and HRD scholars. They also extend our understanding of the importance, or lack thereof, of the learning culture within an organisation.

An Overview of the Current State of Women’s Leadership in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia and a Proposal for Future Research Directions

“…This includes, for example: Jordan and Oman (Metcalfe 2006) Bahrain (Metcalfe 2006(Metcalfe , 2007; Lebanon (Sidani et al 2015;Tlaiss 2014;Tlaiss and Dirani 2015); Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE (Abalkhail and Allan 2016) as well as comparative studies within Middle East states (Metcalfe 2008). This body of work highlights a wide range of factors that are fundamental to understanding the underrepresentation of women in leadership (and the workplace) in the region.…”

Ranking the enablers promoting female empowerment in the UAE health care sector

“…Organizational HR factors refer to human resource policies and strategies to promote the female employees at work such as recruitment and development, gender diversity and flexibility. Past studies have highlighted the role of organizational HR policies as a facilitator to female empowerment (Al-Asfour et al , 2017; Bayeh, 2016; Jabeen et al , 2018a, 2018b; Metcalfe, 2011; Tlaiss and Dirani, 2015).…”

“…Training and development are considered a critical factor in facilitating a woman's success, promotion, and growth within an organization and its culture (Tlaiss and Dirani, 2015; Metcalfe, 2011). Training and development in some circumstances can give professional female better chances to manoeuvre around stressful work environments.…”

Perspectives on Women’s Higher Education Leadership from around the World

“…A small but growing strand of studies concerned with women's careers and, more specifically, women in leadership and management has emerged from the Middle East in the past decade. This includes, for example: Jordan and Oman (Metcalfe 2006) Bahrain (Metcalfe 2006(Metcalfe , 2007; Lebanon (Sidani et al 2015;Tlaiss 2014;Tlaiss and Dirani 2015); Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE (Abalkhail and Allan 2016) as well as comparative studies within Middle East states (Metcalfe 2008). This body of work highlights a wide range of factors that are fundamental to understanding the underrepresentation of women in leadership (and the workplace) in the region.…”