Arab knowledge sharing in a multicultural workforce: a dual case study in the UAE

This article describes a multi-disciplinary study to assess the impact of Arab national culture on knowledge sharing attitudes towards foreign co-worker groups in the UAE. A dual case study, employing quantitative and qualitative empirical data, was adopted. The results show that Arab national culture has a counterproductive effect on knowledge sharing with foreign co-workers, due to heavy cultural emphasis on trust, ‘wasta’, status, power and strong social networks and informal communications, all of which are difficult to achieve with external temporary workers. Arab knowledge sharing attitudes were also found to differ amongst different co-worker groups; a result that conflicts with Hofstede’s original findings on Arab culture’s high collectivism score. The authors argue that an Arab KM model is therefore justified and offered in the form of a roadmap to guide senior management and minimise the ‘wasta’ effect.