Culture plays an integral role in shaping Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and policies within any organisation. This role is manifested through determining the norms and accepted behaviours in any given society. However, the extent of this societal cultural influence has been deemed to be greatly unexplored among researchers. Societal culture has been defined by Prasad and Babbar (2000) as the compilation of values and ideologies that are shared among an assembly of individuals in a certain country or region. Researchers have been concerned by the relationship between societal culture and HRM practices in developing countries; HRM practices are defined by Armstrong (2006) as all aspects associated with the management of people within the organisation. Therefore, this research represents an investigation of the link between Saudi Arabian societal culture and existing HRM practices within the public and private sectors. Taking into consideration elements affecting Saudi societal culture, such as changing economy and globalisation, these elements impact organisations in Saudi Arabia on two levels. First, the local level, where public organisations are gradually transforming into private organisations with a focus on profitability. Second, the global level, represented through multinational organisations adapting to societal culture elements in order to achieve success. As a result of both levels, HRM practices are changing in order to be effective. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore this particular development and discover how Saudi societal culture impacts five specific HRM practices – highlighted following a comprehensive review of literature – and the role they play in shaping those practices. These practices are: job desirability, recruitment sources, performance appraisal, compensation and rewards, and training programmes. For the purposes of this research, a case study has been conducted in order to provide an in-depth examination. This benefits from a unique opportunity to investigate an ongoing privatisation process within a leading organisation in the Middle East. Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAA) represents an ideal candidate for this study, as the technical services section of the company, SAEI, is going through a privatisation process; this started in 2009 with expected completion in 2015. As the research data collection took place over seven weeks in 2013, this timeline allowed the examination of the transition from public to private sector within one organisation with the same workplace environment. Furthermore, having both sectors within the same organisation creates the possibility of making comparisons between them, as it would have been impossible to find two organisations from each sector possessing the same organisational structure, financial level and operational levels. Moreover, this study involved adopting a mixed-methods approach to incorporate qualitative and quantitative methods. This approach included semi-structured type interviews with eight senior HR managers as well as non-HR managers, and disseminating questionnaires among 200 engineers within the SAEI department. The findings and results of this case study have shown the extent to which each HRM practice interacts with Saudi societal culture. There have been HRM themes greatly influenced by the societal element, while other themes remained neutral and did not reflect any cultural influence. Furthermore, the findings produced mixed results when compared to those in the existing literature. As for the HRM practices affected by societal culture, three were affected based on the collected data: compensation and rewards, job desirability, and training programmes. These practices show clear indication they were influenced by Saudi Arabian societal culture. As for the HRM practices that remained neutral – performance appraisal and recruitment sources – they remained independent of any societal influence. However, after concluding the study and its discussion, this research provides several contributions to the field of HRM practices in Saudi Arabia on two main levels. On the theoretical level, the outcomes confirm a link between Saudi Arabian societal culture and compensation and rewards, training programmes, and job desirability practices. On the other hand, recruitment sources and performance appraisal practices are not greatly influenced. A further contribution is the up-to-date investigation of the impact that Saudi Arabian societal culture has on HRM practices, which helps to address well-known and documented gaps in the literature. As for practical contributions, one contribution is providing a first-hand review of the ongoing transition using primary and secondary research methods for SAA. This is 00considered beneficial for practitioners and multi-national corporations, as this study provides an action guide and insight into preferred HRM practices in Saudi Arabia. Further practical contribution is associated with the developed framework utilised in this research, where this particular framework can be used in the future to accommodate similar privatisation processes or make comparisons with international organisations.

Many features of the making of major managerial decisions have been covered by research - complexity, politicality, innovations, and so forth. Yet one - to which all others may be subject - remains almost untouched by research. It is the effects of societal culture on the way managers from different nations make, and implement, such decisions. This study compares the effects of a New World Latin dominated culture with those of an Old World Anglo-Saxon dominated culture, namely in Brazil and England respectively. It arises from the proposition that decision making, as well as other managerial practices, must be shaped by the cultures of the societies of which senior executives are part, in ways of which they themselves may be unaware. Methodologically, in response to the criticisms of earlier research which often attributed managerial and organizational differences to culture without direct evidence for that, this study began by composing portrayals of both cultures. The purpose of the portraits was to enable predictions of culturally affected elements in decision making, prior to empirical investigation. Data was collected by interview on twenty Brazilian and twenty English decisions in sixteen Brazilian and seventeen English organizations, ranging through a variety of manufacturing and service industries as well as universities. The examination of the results confirmed most of the predicted cultural characteristics. Differences although small on each variable were remarkably consistent across all variables. Brazilian strategic decision making was found to be dominated by a clique around the chief executive, who make fast decisions in a process strongly based on the social relationships between the participants. This style of decision making leads, in Brazil, to very informal processes, with little or no delays and, relatively speaking, less search for information. English decisions were found to be more consultative with more interests being involved in different stages of the process. Decisions in this country were characterized by caution and conservatism with some tendency to postpone decisions. Methodologically, the value of the prior conceptualization and description of societal culture is demonstrated since this gives meaning to the extensive differences found in all aspects of decision making. Theoretically, an attempt is made to elucidate the interconnectedness of societal culture and managerial behaviour.

Many features of the making of major managerial decisions have been covered by research - complexity, politicality, innovations, and so forth. Yet one - to which all others may be subject - remains almost untouched by research. It is the effects of societal culture on the way managers from different nations make, and implement, such decisions. This study compares the effects of a New World Latin dominated culture with those of an Old World Anglo-Saxon dominated culture, namely in Brazil and England respectively. It arises from the proposition that decision making, as well as other managerial practices, must be shaped by the cultures of the societies of which senior executives are part, in ways of which they themselves may be unaware. Methodologically, in response to the criticisms of earlier research which often attributed managerial and organizational differences to culture without direct evidence for that, this study began by composing portrayals of both cultures. The purpose of the portraits was to enable predictions of culturally affected elements in decision making, prior to empirical investigation. Data was collected by interview on twenty Brazilian and twenty English decisions in sixteen Brazilian and seventeen English organizations, ranging through a variety of manufacturing and service industries as well as universities. The examination of the results confirmed most of the predicted cultural characteristics. Differences although small on each variable were remarkably consistent across all variables. Brazilian strategic decision making was found to be dominated by a clique around the chief executive, who make fast decisions in a process strongly based on the social relationships between the participants. This style of decision making leads, in Brazil, to very informal processes, with little or no delays and, relatively speaking, less search for information. English decisions were found to be more consultative with more interests being involved in different stages of the process. Decisions in this country were characterized by caution and conservatism with some tendency to postpone decisions. Methodologically, the value of the prior conceptualization and description of societal culture is demonstrated since this gives meaning to the extensive differences found in all aspects of decision making. Theoretically, an attempt is made to elucidate the interconnectedness of societal culture and managerial behaviour.

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La recherche empirique examine les effets différentiels de deux évaluations de statut, c'est-à-dire le prestige externe perçu (comparaison inter-groupes) et le respect interne perçu (comparaison intra-groupes) sur l'identification organisationnelle (IO). Les différences sont expliquées par la culture sociétale et la durée de l'ancienneté des employés dans l'organisation. Notre recherche explore et teste l'importance de l'IO dans le développement des aptitudes des employés au changement étant donné que l'aptitude au changement est une attitude coopérative discrétionnaire. Ensuite, nous examinons le rôle modérateur des croyances des employés relatives au changement sur cette relation. Ainsi l'effet de l'IO sur le comportement extra-rôle des employés et le bien-être psychologique des employés est également exploré. Au total nous avons reçu 360 questionnaires remplis à partir des organisations publiques en Recherche & Développement et les organisations privées du secteur bancaire et de télécommunications. Les résultats des analyses ont confirmé toutes les relations testées à l'exception de l'effet modérateur des croyances relatives au changement sur la relation entre l'IO et l'aptitude au changement. Les résultats montrent que les individus socialisés dans le contexte collectiviste accordent plus d'importance au soi publique par rapport au soi privé. Ensuite nous avons trouvé que l'effet des évaluations de statut sur le développement de l'IO augmente pendant les dix premières années du service dans l'organisation, et cet effet positif diminue après dix ans d'ancienneté. / This empirical research investigates the differential effects of two status evaluations i.e., perceived external prestige (inter-group comparison) and perceived internal respect (intra-group comparison) on organizational identification (OID). The differences are argued on the basis of societal culture and the length of tenure of employees in the organization. The importance of OID in the development of employee's readiness for change is explored and tested considering readiness for change as a discretionary cooperative attitude. Further, the moderating role of employees' change beliefs is also explored on this relationship. Whereas effect of OID on extra-role behavior of employees and the positive effect of OID on employee's psychological well-being is also explored. A total of 360 filled questionnaires were received from public sector research & development organizations, and private sector banking & telecom organizations. The results of the analyses supported all the hypothesized relationships except the moderating effect of change beliefs on the relationship between OID and readiness for change. The results exhibited that individualized socialized in collectivist context put greater emphasis on public-self as compared to private-self. It was further uncovered that the effect of status evaluations on development of OID is increasing till first ten years of service with the organization, while this positive effect is weakened after 10 years of service. This is the first study which has tried to explore the potential effects of organizational tenure and societal culture on identification process.