Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine appreciative inquiry (AI) as an organizational development approach that aligns with Arab cultural factors to address the issue of employee morale in an Arab‐led organization. Design/methodology/approach – A brief literature review...

Addresses present‐day concerns with training a local workforce in the Middle East using a language other than the trainees’ native tongue. Describes industrial training issues within an electronics company requiring a high degree of English with complex technical terminology. The training...

A programme was undertaken to help a bank in the Gulf to improve its training effectiveness. The commercial bank offered a complete range of banking services, employed 500 people, was only six years old but was in trouble. The training assignment had two parts: the first was to examine the...

The main pitfall in introducing a technology to a new market is the amount of support it receives from its new environment. The transfer of a sales control system (designed in Europe) to six Gulf‐market distributors illustrates the need for a triangular consultancy relationship between...

The small and medium enterprise (SME) sector is receiving increasing recognition and, as part of this, its human resources needs is a comparatively neglected area. This study of 300 companies consisted of a comprehensive investigation of all aspects of human resources. The focus here is on the...

The boundaries of living in the last millennium have disappeared. Time, distance and space have new meanings and make new demands. Structures which gave purpose and stability to the world of work are losing their relevance. We need to build wind turbines, not shelter walls, if we are to harness...

IT training has assumed a pivotal role in the corporate world. Yet official bodies such as the Institute of IT Training claim that much of the investment will be wasted because courses are poorly conceived, over‐reliant on technical input, and fail to take into account the basic drivers which...

Whilst globalisation has led to increasing international mobility, the contemporary expatriate management literature has focused on managers and corporate executives who are sent on an overseas appointment by their employers. By comparison, self‐selecting expatriates remain an...

Argues for the importance of developing social capital in organisations. If training stays focused on the individual (human capital) level it may be missing out on important changes in developing organisational performance. The use of self managed learning (SML) is examined through reference to...

Suggests that the only way to get the right person in the right job at the right time is through understanding the unique make‐up of the employee and using that knowledge to satisfy the operational needs of the organization and the motivational needs of the individual. The failure of...