Question

Please respond to the below Discussion post:

One misunderstanding could involve the role of women in the workplace. From my understanding of the reading, while women are slowly being granted more rights, there are still several restrictions being placed on women. An American company may want to have its female employees wear a certain uniform, but it goes against Saudi beliefs about clothing. Another misunderstanding could have to do with how business decisions are made. We expect managers or CEO’s to get together to determine a course of action, but it is not the case with Saudi businesses. They will consult family as opposed to others in the field.

I think that what is going to start to aggravate a Christian company is the amount of times a Muslim is required to pray every day. Everything essentially shuts down to allow Saudis’ to pray. A company could be shut down anywhere from two to four hours per day for prayer. Christians (as far as I know) don’t have mandatory prayer and certainly not five times a day. This can cost any company (not just a Christian one) a large amount of money in productivity and profit. Let us not forget that on top of time allotted for prayer, there’s also lunch breaks, smoke breaks, and holiday leave being awarded as well. It is almost as though it isn’t worth working with the Saudis’. I understand they are an economic powerhouse as far as oil and gas but it may not be worth it to an outsider trying to come in.

Answer 1

The first paragraph of the post correctly emphasizes the increasing role of the females in the offices and other major decision-making areas. This is happening as more and more rights and authorities are now being given to the ladies. But still there are some complications when ladies start working in the organization, it can range from the way they are required to dress up, the way they have to participate in daily affairs of the organization, decision-making process and so on. Cultural variation plays a significant role in this regard. The difference in the cultures of the USA and Saudi Arabia can be seen as the typical case of this wherein one society is proclaimed to be an open one while other is still looking for its roots and traditions

Apart from the cultural differences, even the religion can also play a major role. A Christian company may face little discomfort in providing more time to a Muslim lady to pray every day. For offering prayers in the Muslim community, the company has to stop its operations almost 4-5 hours which is quite impossible for a professional organization. This problem is not faced by a Christian company. This kind of religious variation particularly in the Muslim countries can cause the company to have a lot of losses as there are also various types of breaks which are given to the manpower. Thus some of the Christian companies can deny working with Saudis. These differences can prove to detrimental for MNCs or foreign companies to work in Saudi Arabia freely.