Organisation, social change and the United Arab Emirates
(2005) Organisation, social change and the United Arab Emirates. In Proceedings Social Change in the 21st Century Conference, QUT Carseldine, Brisbane.
Full text available as: |
Abstract
Since the oil price rises of the 1970’s and 1980’s the rate of economic development of the United Arab Emirates has been significant. While this economic development has brought concomitant social changes, these changes, like the economic ones, have not been shared equally by all U.A.E. society. However, it will be argued that one group is starting to benefit from a combination of the economic growth and government policies. Through this combination, increasing numbers of Emiratii women have been able to forge an expanded set of gender roles which would have once seemed well beyond reach. This paper represents an exploratory study of how a combination of economic factors and government policies, all mediated by embedded features of western style organisations, is beginning to give to Emiratii women the opportunity to significantly expand their gender roles. These changes have been taking place in what has been a very traditional Islamic and conservative rural society where the roles of men and women were very tightly proscribed. As a result of religion and culture, women’s roles were very limited. However, as explored within this paper, these roles are no longer as limited as they once were.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Keywords: | social change;organisations;United Arab Emirates. |
| Subjects: | 370000 Studies in Human Society > 370100 Sociology > 370107 Social Change |
| ID Code: | 3477 |
| Deposited By: | Willans, Bernadette |
| Deposited On: | 07 February 2006 |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2005 Mervyn J. Morris |