This research will examine differences between the Arab and French cultures in relation to how these differences might affect behavior in the workplace. An overview of cultural differences germane to workplace dynamics will be discussed as well as the effect of such differences on organizational behavior and on the behavior of individual actors within an organization, chiefly in European work situations.
The importance of cultural difference to workplace dynamics looms large when it is understood that as of the third-millennial period "the conduct of business is increasingly global." Major multinational corporations (MNCs), such as IBM, that are based in one country do not necessarily receive the bulk of income and earnings from their home country but from overseas. Meanwhile, the workforce itself has become internationally mobile, a fact that has been connected to a perception of destabilized working environments.
In Europe workers are less likely than American counterparts to relocate in anticipation of job opportunities, not least because welfare-state structures, including any of a variety of employment sinecures, increase "the opportunity cost of migration." This may reflect the fact that corporate culture dynamics in Europe have a less forceful effect than national cultures. This is consistent with the view that issues of cultural encounter between and among employees of widely diverse social and national backgrounds in any given corporate culture may be more decisive determinants of individual work experiences than corporate dynamics per se. The workplace, therefore, may become the principal locus of cultural encounter.
A sufficient account of organizational behavior in any given culture must itself take into account the ambient societal, political, and economic inputs. Social and cultural context play a significant role in the shape and content that workplace experience assumes. Workplace experience may be predicat...