ABSTRACT:We examine the practice of nepotism in the Arab World and analyze how a rational-legal model of bureaucracy was never able to take hold. We draw upon ideas from institutional theory and related notions of legitimacy to provide an explanation of nepotism’s extraordinary persistence. Then we use arguments to speculate how the appearance of institutional entrepreneurs who are advocates for a new hybrid form of nepotism might begin to colonize a social space created by larger political and economic changes that (...) are sweeping the Arab World. Those entrepreneurs must persuade other members of an extended family that the current practice of nepotism is typically destructive of a firm’s competitive performance. In addition, they will argue that nepotism as currently practiced violates teachings of Islam. This second argument is likely to be particularly effective with an audience that sees Islam as a source of universal notions of justice and fairness. (shrink)

This study proposes and tests a model that integrates culture, attitudes, subjective norms, and attributions into a theoretical framework that explains tolerance toward nepotism in a Latin American country. The participants were 202 Ecuadorian middle and upper managers. The results suggested that attitudes, subjective norms, and attributions significantly predict managerial intention to discipline those employees who favored a family member when hiring. Furthermore, subjective norms and internal attributions mediated the relationship between culture and intentions to discipline employees who engaged in (...) nepotistic acts. Our findings highlight the need to implement culture-congruent HR practices to effect mission-driven changes in talent management practices. (shrink)

Our paper contributes to emerging management research on the effects of societal inequality. It aims to study the relationship between societal-level inequality and perceived unequal HR practices within organizations based on relationships which we term “relation-based inequality” (RBI). We further examine the moderating effect of country corruption on the RBI-employee commitment link. Thus, whereas previous research has looked at single countries, there is still much to know about societal effects of inequality and corruption on employee perceptions and attitudes at work (...) across countries. By surveying 691employees from five countries and using country-level indicators we take a first step in this direction, and establish that inequality (income, health and education) is linked to higher levels of relation-based HR practices. We also show that the effect of RBI is different for continuance, affective and normative commitment, and contingent on country corruption levels. (shrink)