Introduction
The theme of abuse of power in the workplace is heavily debated nowadays, as even in these modern times of progress and human prosperity, situations where power is misused are still present. By exploring the case study of knowledge hiding and abuse of power in the Middle East, readers may notice the dark sides of organizations that conceal injustice and mistreatment. This essay aims to reveal the occurrences of power abuse and knowledge hiding and focus on changing organizational culture, adding diversity and inclusion, enhancing the organizational structure, improving organizational ethics, and ensuring strict policies.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The case study aims to enlighten the natural environment in organizations located in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The ratio of foreign employees in Saudi Arabia is significant, as they occupy more than 30% of the jobs in the territory. Although foreign workers were skilled, the government has decided to start a campaign to introduce more locals to the workplace. The campaign of Saudization set the goal of reaching the objectives without considering justice and ethics. The abuse of power rose, and foreign workers enjoyed fewer benefits and conditions compared to their local colleagues. The managers and supervisors clearly aimed to support the locals, abuse their powers, and provide fewer career opportunities and job security to foreign workers (Arain et al., 2018). Even though foreign workers came to Saudi Arabia to share their experiences and wanted to contribute to the country’s development, they faced a clear abuse of power against them.
Organizational Culture
Correct organizational culture is paramount in a workplace as it defines its values and rules. Regarding the case of Saudi Arabia, most companies’ organizational culture involves putting wrong priorities and promoting destructive values such as knowledge hiding and misinformation. Many supervisors tend to hide information from the employees, thus spreading the culture of hiding information, turning the workplace into a zone of danger where workers cannot trust each other and only rely on themselves (Arain et al., 2018). Companies need to inherit modern programs to enforce positive organizational culture changes. The CREW program stands for Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workplace and could be effectively utilized in any organization that needs change. The high flexibility of the program allows it to be smoothly incorporated into the organization and start the changes instantly (Cortina et al., 2017). With the use of modern programs, corporations could restructure their organizational culture to reduce the abuse of power and injustice.
Diversity and Inclusion
As every individual is unique in their way, a workplace should welcome and encourage diversity, as an environment where diversity and inclusion are encouraged is more likely to prosper. The Saudi Arabian organizations had to welcome diversity at the beginning of the oil mass production but later decided to exclude diversity from their management style. Foreign workers must keep their diversity and culture hidden from their local colleagues; otherwise, they may be compromised and lose their job security (Arain et al., 2018). A management style that does not include workplace diversity is ineffective and may cause stress among workers. Top management should discuss the process of welcoming workplace diversity, including increasing women’s jobs and encouraging respect for each other despite beliefs, orientations, and races (Grissom, 2018). Acknowledging diversity in the workplace could boost staff morale and increase their performance by emphasizing that everyone matters.
Organizational Structure
Organizational structure is a vital part of a company, serving as a skeleton and defining the responsibilities, chain of command, and flow of communication. The organizations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a traditional organizational structure where the most power is allocated on the top and flows down as a stream. Moreover, the managerial and supervisory positions are given to locals to control the power within locals, but it creates cases where power is abused (Arain et al., 2018). Managers with tremendous power may be beckoned and corrupted by power. Companies should change their organizational structures from hierarchical to more flexible to avoid cases of power abuse by managers and supervisors (Morrison et al., 2017). The proper organizational structure and fair distribution of power within the company is the key to limiting the power of supervisors and preventing the misuse of power.
Organizational Ethics
Ethics in the workplace consists of various factors, such as coworkers’ relationship with each other, the relationship between supervisor and employee, and the value of workers to the company. Also, ethics in the workplace could be associated with comfort as if the workplace is unethical, it could be hard for people to work there. Companies in Saudi haw shown relatively weak organizational ethics in workplaces, as supervisors tend to hide their knowledge and abuse their power toward employees (Arain et al., 2018). Proper organizational ethics should include essential aspects of life, such as care and justice. Ethics of care could be integrated into the company, and supervisors must clarify that they care about each employee. Moreover, justice should be present in the company, and everyone should be equal (Lindebaum et al., 2016). Organizational ethics that focus on equality and employee recognition could make the work environment more pleasant and comfortable.
Policies and procedures
Despite the company’s ethical environment and proper culture, employees should be legally protected against misuse of power and other forms of injustice by specially designed policies. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the program of including more locals in organizations and concentrating managing power in local hands has turned the positive work environment into a negative. Being a foreign worker under a local manager’s supervision has difficulties in the face of inequality and low job security. Perhaps the most challenging part is the absence of legal protection (Arain et al., 2018). The regulations and policies against injustice in the workplace and abuse of power can make the workplace safer, as workers will be protected by law. In case of abusing power, organizations should imply strict regulations and punishments to increase managers’ awareness (Vian, 2020). When the country’s highest order protects employees’ rights, misuse of power is destined to plummet.
Conclusion
An exemplary organization free of workplace inequality has the proper organizational structure and culture, encourages diversity and values work ethics, and has the regulations to protect its employees. Unfortunately, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia still has organizations with chaos in the workplace, where supervisors often abuse power. Organizations must change their structure and culture into more flexible analogs, integrate ethical values, and welcome diversity to tackle the issue. Last but not least, companies should have adequate policies and regulations that ensure employees’ job security and protect them against the threat of power misuse.
References
Arain, G., Bhatti, Z., Ashraf, N., & Fang, Y. (2018). Top-Down knowledge hiding in Organizations: An empirical study of the Consequences of supervisor knowledge hiding among local and foreign workers in the Middle East. Journal of Business Ethics, 164(3), 611-625.
Cortina, L., Rabelo, V., & Holland, K. (2017). Beyond blaming the victim: Toward a more progressive understanding of workplace mistreatment. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(1), 81-100.
Grissom, A. (2018). The Alert Collector: Workplace diversity and inclusion. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 57(4), 242-247.
Lindebaum, D., Geddes, D., & Gabriel, Y. (2016). Moral emotions and ethics in organizations: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(4), 645-656.
Morrison, T., Adger, W., Brown, K., Lemos, M., Huitema, D., & Hughes, T. (2017). Mitigation and adaptation in polycentric systems: Sources of power in the pursuit of collective goals. Wires Climate Change, 8(5), 1-16.
Vian, T. (2020). Anti-corruption, transparency and accountability in health: Concepts, frameworks, and approaches. Global Health Action, 13(1), 1-24.