To: Professor Sean Thelen
From: Zeinab Saleh
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Subject: Business in Saudi Arabia
Part I. “Cultural Aspects of doing Business in Saudi Arabia”
In doing my research on what potential countries we may do business with, I came across the country of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia being well known and rich for its natural resources of Petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold and copper, I would think that undergoing business in Saudi Arabia can be a highly-beneficial venture for us if we can handle the culture differences.
In order to deepen our relationship with the Saudi market and businesspeople, we need to conform to the Saudi social and business culture, which can differ remarkably from our Western norms. The weekend …show more content…
Before entering into any sort of agreement or contract with a Saudi businessman, he first must feel comfortable to deal with you, and not get any sort of bad vibe from you. This is where trust plays a huge role in business. Saudi businessmen refrain from discussing hard details of business deals immediately in a meeting rather, they first chitchat and inquire about each other 's welfare. It is important to never rush a Saudi businessman into a business agreement or appear impatient. Unlike the western culture where they like to sign the agreement and get to work. In comparison with the western culture, the Saudi culture has a less rigid concept of time and schedule whereas westerners are very precise with timing, 8 o’clock means 8 …show more content…
We start by examining the power distance dimension of Saudi Arabia. In this dimension we see that the Saudi’s are accepting of a hierarchical order, wherein everyone has a place and which needs no further validation. In an organization, hierarchy is seen as portraying essential inequalities, centralism is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a generous autocrat. In examining the individualism dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to fall under the collectivistic society. Collectivist societies is seen as people belonging to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty. Looking at the Masculinity dimension in Hofstede’s model, we see that Saudi scores a high on masculinity, this indicates that the society is motivated by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner/best in field. Looking at the uncertainty avoidance dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to be up there in this dimension, and this is so because Saudi Arabia maintains rigid codes of belief and behavior and do not tolerate untraditional behavior and ideas. In the Long-term orientation dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to fall short under this category. This may be due to the fact that the people of the Saudi society have strong concerns in establishing the absolute truth; they are normative in their thinking. In their
From: Zeinab Saleh
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Subject: Business in Saudi Arabia
Part I. “Cultural Aspects of doing Business in Saudi Arabia”
In doing my research on what potential countries we may do business with, I came across the country of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia being well known and rich for its natural resources of Petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold and copper, I would think that undergoing business in Saudi Arabia can be a highly-beneficial venture for us if we can handle the culture differences.
In order to deepen our relationship with the Saudi market and businesspeople, we need to conform to the Saudi social and business culture, which can differ remarkably from our Western norms. The weekend …show more content…
Before entering into any sort of agreement or contract with a Saudi businessman, he first must feel comfortable to deal with you, and not get any sort of bad vibe from you. This is where trust plays a huge role in business. Saudi businessmen refrain from discussing hard details of business deals immediately in a meeting rather, they first chitchat and inquire about each other 's welfare. It is important to never rush a Saudi businessman into a business agreement or appear impatient. Unlike the western culture where they like to sign the agreement and get to work. In comparison with the western culture, the Saudi culture has a less rigid concept of time and schedule whereas westerners are very precise with timing, 8 o’clock means 8 …show more content…
We start by examining the power distance dimension of Saudi Arabia. In this dimension we see that the Saudi’s are accepting of a hierarchical order, wherein everyone has a place and which needs no further validation. In an organization, hierarchy is seen as portraying essential inequalities, centralism is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a generous autocrat. In examining the individualism dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to fall under the collectivistic society. Collectivist societies is seen as people belonging to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty. Looking at the Masculinity dimension in Hofstede’s model, we see that Saudi scores a high on masculinity, this indicates that the society is motivated by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner/best in field. Looking at the uncertainty avoidance dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to be up there in this dimension, and this is so because Saudi Arabia maintains rigid codes of belief and behavior and do not tolerate untraditional behavior and ideas. In the Long-term orientation dimension, Saudi Arabia seems to fall short under this category. This may be due to the fact that the people of the Saudi society have strong concerns in establishing the absolute truth; they are normative in their thinking. In their