• God in times of adversity: A mixed-methods study investigating the relationship between religious coping and identification on the trauma appraisals and world assumptions of Muslim refugees/asylum seekers

      Hinton, Danny; Munsoor, Hannah S. (University of Wolverhampton, 2019-03-31)
      Background: The Cognitive Model of PTSD highlights the importance of pre-trauma beliefs on trauma appraisals and coping mechanisms. Worldview-based models propose that traumas shatter fundamental world assumptions, resulting in a search for meaning. Religion provides one way of offering meaning for individuals during times of distress. This research aimed to link Religious Coping Theory with cognitive and worldview-based trauma models to investigate the role of religious coping and identification on world assumptions and trauma appraisals within a community sample of Muslim refugees/asylum seekers. Method: A sequential mixed-methods design was used. Quantitative questionnaires were initially administered to eighty four participants, followed by qualitative interviews with six participants. Results: Quantitative findings indicate that religious coping and identification did not explain substantial variance in trauma symptoms, appraisals and world assumptions. Exploratory analyses revealed significant correlations between questionnaire language and trauma symptoms as well as immigration status, trauma appraisals and world assumptions. Qualitative findings, in contrast, illustrate the significant influence of Islam on the trauma appraisals, world assumptions and coping mechanisms of participants. Islam seemed to be used to evaluate and deal with trauma experience within premigration, migration and postmigration phases of the refugee/asylum seeker journey. Conclusion: These findings illustrate the need for greater research on cultural explanatory models of trauma for this population. This study provides specific insight into how participants utilise Islam in appraising and coping with their trauma experiences through the various phases of their journey. Findings are discussed in light of limitations, research and clinical implications.
    • Lack of business responsibility: an Islamic perspective

      Parvez, Zahid (Inderscience, 2007)
      This paper applies an Islamic perspective to understand the lack of business responsibility witnessed in recent times. A link is developed between the dominant materialistic-secular worldview and lack of business responsibility. The paper argues that a materialistic-secular worldview tends to disconnect economics from ethics, gives privilege to economic values over spiritual values, and confers primacy to legal/bureaucratic mechanisms over ethical and spiritual mechanisms for ensuring compliance to business responsibilities. It suggests that these orientations could account for the weak sense of business responsibility and unethical behaviours reported in earlier works. To remedy this, the paper proposes the broadening of problem-solving methodologies so that both material and ethical/spiritual dimensions of business responsibility are given due consideration. In addition, the paper offers four suggestions, derived from religious traditions, for nurturing the spirit and letter of business responsibility.
    • RELIGION, CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF ISLAM AND SAUDI CULTURE ON HRM PRACTICES OF INDIGENOUS AND FOREIGN OWNED AND MANAGED CORPORATIONS IN SAUDI ARABIA

      ALFALIH, ABDULLAH (2016-06)
      This dissertation provides a journey into the world of beliefs and values of Saudi Arabia’s organisations, people and society at large, and how these influence and shape HRM practices and the employment relationship in the country. Designed as a single country case study, the dissertation uses a multi-case research design where two large companies operating in Saudi Arabia (an indigenous and a foreign multinational corporation) are explored and compared through methodological triangulation in data collection methods (interviews, surveys and focus group). The main findings identify that institutional pressures (regulatory and normative) are strong catalysts facilitating the impact of Islamic teachings on the workplace in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The regulative forces represent the organisations’ rules, regulatory constraints (forced by regulatory bodies) and penalties for violations. They are a result of the KSA’s legal system and its political culture. The normative forces identify values and social behavioural norms which define how things should be done within the organisation. They are a result of the wider Saudi culture. Apart from its contribution to knowledge of the HRM practices of Saudi Arabia at micro- and meta- level, the dissertation also provides an analysis at two additional levels. it contributes firstly to the growing knowledge on the influence of Islamic beliefs in the workplace, and secondly, to the enlargement of theory on the subject of religion and its impact in the workplace. Moreover, the dissertation makes a contribution to the literature on HRM practices and approaches in Saudi Arabia. This extends to other countries of the Arab Gulf, holding strong potential to become a source of knowledge and reference for foreign organisations which operate and wish to operate in that region.