National women in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries are highly educated
yet their work participation remains low when compared to the rest of the world. This
thesis aims to assess the impact of religion and family in the shaping of national
women’s careers in the GCC workforce, in particular the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
This aim is fulfilled by conducting three interlinked research projects; a systematic
literature review, a qualitative study and finally, a quantitative study.
The first research project comprises a systematic review of the literature that identifies
the barriers and enablers to the participation and advancement of female national
managers in the GCC workforce. The synthesis of articles reveals findings at the
societal, organizational, family and individual levels. At the societal level, barriers and
enablers are identified as those influenced by socio-cultural and religious norms and
practices. These norms and practices influence how organizations (public and private)
engage with their employees, and families engage with their individual members.
In the second research project, I choose to narrow the scope of my research from six
GCC countries to one country, the UAE. I explore the influence of family on the
experiences of ten senior female UAE national managers at key work decision stages; I
employ semi-structured interviews and, based on their experiences, the findings reveal
that the family has influence at both the role entry and role participation stages. No data
were available for the role exit stage. Furthermore, the experiences are different for
women from extended versus nuclear families.
In the third research project I choose to focus on the factors that support and impact on
the experiences of UAE national women during their career life cycle. The findings
indicate that overall there are no differences between the experiences of women from
nuclear families versus extended; however, there are differences between the model and
the UAE sample, both at the overall level and individual age stages.
My second research project; a qualitative study provides three contributions to
knowledge. Firstly, I extend the understanding of work related decisions, taking into
account family influences. However, in the UAE, based on my research, the outcome
will primarily be in favour of family due to the influence of socio-cultural and religious
norms and practices. I propose that the conceptual framework be extended by adding the
component of religion to it when considering the context of the UAE. Secondly, I
propose a modification to the framework enabling it to be used in the UAE context.
Thirdly, no previous empirical research has been conducted using this framework, with
the result that the data from my research contribute empirically. With respect to
contribution to practice, this qualitative study identifies the need for enhanced
recruitment strategies for women and more gender friendly policies and practices to
ensure the effectiveness of Emiratization within both the public and private sectors.
The evidence from my third research project; a quantitative study contributes
theoretically as my research demonstrates that the O’Neil and Bilimoria (2005) three
phase women’s career development model does not fit in the UAE context. The
research also contributes from a practical perspective as it identifies the need to improve
the development of networking, communication and leadership skills for women and
the implementation of comprehensive flexible working practices for women.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/9655 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Hussain, Nazia |
| Contributors | Vinnicombe, Susan, Anderson, Deirdre A. |
| Publisher | Cranfield University |
| Source Sets | CRANFIELD1 |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or dissertation, Doctoral, DBA |
| Rights | © Cranfield University, 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright holder. |
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