Wasta: A Scourge or a Useful Management and Business Practice?

Internationalisation has greatly altered the international economic positioning of many developing nations in heralding challenges for cross-cultural management in subsidiary operations. One region that presents challenges to international businesses is the Arab World; yet along with this, opportunities have been presented to increase understanding of its cultures and business practices. We highlight how wasta works in practice, converge and diverge, and how it has been affected by modernisation. We suggest that international managers need to understand this aspect of Arab social networking to facilitate the effectiveness of their subsidiary operations in the Arab World and to recognise why these practices continue. In this chapter, the Arab World is defined as the countries of North Africa, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman.