아랍 지역의 기업 조직과 비즈니스 문화 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the corporate structures and business culture in the Arab countries. This paper consists of four parts. In the introduction, this paper examines the importance of culture in the international business such as culture shock, the relation of culture and business, cultural barriers in the business at Arab countries. This paper deals with three main subjects like following: First, this paper introduces the characteristics of Muslim commerce during the Medieval Age. First of all, Muslim merchants had a wide range of international trade networks connecting between the Mediterranean sea and the Indian Ocean. And Muslim governments maintained an open policy toward different ethnic groups, by dint of which Christians and Jews could play an important role in the commerce. And another important characteristic of Muslim commerce was that they regarded business and trade as results of acts of human beings, that shoud be regulated by Shari'a(Islamic law). Second, this paper analyzes today's Arab business culture. This paper tries to explain main features of today's Arab business culture based on Hofstede's model. Hofstede is a Dutch scholar who surveyed 40 countries to compare their cultural differences in four dimensions such as: 1. Power Distance, 2. Individualism vs Collectivism, 3. Uncertainty Avoidance, 4. Masculinity vs Feminity. According to Hofstede, Arab countries have high power distance, low individualism, high uncertainty avoidance, and strong masculine culture. Third, this paper introduces the general characteristics of today's Arab corporations. The general characteristics of today's Arab corporations are summarized as follows: 1. Governments play leading roles in economy and business, 2. Wasta(agent)'s role is important in transaction between corporations, 3. Labor market is open to foreign human resources, 4. Capital market absorbs increasing foreign investment, 5. Shari'a 's influence is still strong in business areas, particularly in Islamic financing sector.