Our focus in this book is communication within the workplaces of the countries that form the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, with particular reference to managers. Originally, and still popularly, termed the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), its members include all the Arab states of the Persian Gulf with the exception of Iraq. The GCC was established in Abu Dhabi in 1981, and it consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. It was set up to foster political, economic, military, scientific, cultural, legislative, and monetary links between its members. The member countries rank among those with the highest gross domestic products (GDPs) in the world and represent some of the world’s fastest growing economies, all of which have benefitted from the exploitation of rich oil resources. In cultural terms, the region displays considerable shared identity with all the states being Arabic speaking and Muslim.
As of 2014, 28 of the 30 largest companies in the Arab world in terms of market capitalization were based in GCC countries.1 Individual Gulf business people hold the largest overseas investments of all Arabs, and they are highly active investors throughout the Middle East region.2 With a focus on diversifying business concerns beyond the oil industry and the creation of jobs in numerous commercial sectors within a successful knowledge economy, an enormous range of public and private sector companies have been established, many of which have foreign management. Not only is business expanding; so too is the region’s population, which now registers the highest rate of growth in the world.3 This increased from 10 million in 1975 to over 50 million in 2010, and about 30 to 70 percent of the population of each member state is made up of expatriates4 who migrated to the GCC to work on the development of infrastructure following the oil boom.5 While there is widespread concern over this demographic imbalance,6 the GCC countries continue to have the highest rates of migrant workers in the world and the highest rates of remittances to foreign workers’ home countries.7 The massive number of workers hailing from more than 200 different countries, the drive toward economic diversification, and the effort to incorporate more local workers into the private sectors mean that managers are challenged by a workplace that is likely to be far more complex than those they have previously encountered. So while managers across the globe typically have to wear many hats, in the Gulf they may find that they need to wear many more than they are used to.
The book begins with a chapter detailing the unique makeup of the modern-day labor force in the Gulf. It explains the historical context, most notably the discovery of oil and the subsequent importing of overseas labor. It goes on to outline the various localization policies that exist across the region and the effect of these on the workforce. These government-backed initiatives aim to redress the imbalance between the small number of Gulf citizens who are part of the workforce and the enormous numbers of expatriate employees, particularly in the private sector. The initiatives also actively encourage local women into the workforce and recognize their contribution to future social and economic development. An awareness of the composition of the workforce is crucial to understanding workplace communication.
Chapter 2 identifies the cultural trends that are prevalent in the Gulf region and looks at both local cultures and the cultures of those nations that make up the bulk of the expatriate labor force. In our discussion, we refer to the well-known work by the social psychologist Geert Hofstede8 and show how national culture determines how people view different aspects of both social and corporate life, such as their attitudes to hierarchy, groups, rules, time, and ambition.
Having outlined the composition of the workforce and the cultural variables that are likely to influence how individual workers behave, Chapter 3 discusses in detail how these variables influence work-based communication. Much of this chapter is focused on the work of the anthropologist Edward Hall9 and his construct of high and low context cultures. In brief, his model broadly describes the culture and communication that are prevalent in the Eastern world, defined as high context, and the culture and communication that are customary in the Western world, termed low context. Our discussion on important differences between the high context cultures of the Gulf workforce and the low context cultures of many Western countries includes relationship building, the concepts of honor and face, nonverbal communication, directness versus indirectness, ambiguity, and speaking versus writing.
Chapter 4 presents an examination of intercultural communication with a focus on how managers can communicate successfully with multicultural workforces to achieve work goals. In this chapter, we consider the role played by English as a business lingua franca in the region and its relationship with Arabic. We describe how speakers can promote successful communication by accommodating each other if they are both speaking a language that is not their first language. We also discuss how effective communicators manage work-based discussions by creating rapport with the people with whom they are interacting.
In Chapter 5, we look at the communication styles that Gulf people tend to prefer. These styles may appear to Westerners as circular and repetitive rather than linear, which is the pattern usually favored in Western contexts. We discuss how negotiations in the Gulf region are typically characterized by compromise and a willingness to hold lengthy discussions in order to preserve existing business relationships, rather than risking confrontation by quickly moving toward a conclusion.
Chapter 6 presents an overview of management styles in the Gulf and addresses the need to manage diversity within the workforce. Here we also discuss the changing nature of leadership and leadership communication styles and the emergence of women leaders in the region. Chapter 7 offers a collection of cases that focus on particular aspects of workforce communication and management in the Gulf. These include the integration of locals within the expatriate-dominated private sectors of the region, business etiquette, the use of business English, diversity climate, negotiation styles, and management styles and practices.