The Gap between Local Academic Research and HR Practice in Saudi Arabia

If you ask an HR consultant providing advisory services to a Saudi company about local academic references they use in their work, the answer is very likely to be NONE.  While a large number of academic research related to HR is published every year by Saudi universities (a requirement for academic advancement), there is no evidence that such research is utilized in practice.

Typically, HR academic research finds its way to practice either by (a) direct relationship between universities and companies, or more commonly through (b) consulting firms by reviewing the research, summarizing it is practical language, and using it in their consulting models. As of the direct relationship, this is rare in the Saudi context, as most such relationships are in technical and scientific fields.

For consulting firms (mostly International for larger companies), they usually use academic knowledge produced elsewhere to formulate their models and solutions to Saudi clients.  While such knowledge is generally applicable to the local environment amid increasingly globalized practices, much of the particularities of the local culture is lost. For example, while Saudi culture is typically classified as group-oriented rather than individual-oriented (as for example in the work of Hofstede), most of the proposed HR solutions as geared towards the individual.  Performance management ends with individual employee appraisal that is ranked along a certain distribution and calibrated accordingly.  While the general cultural sentiment values the group, excessive focus on individual performance leads to competition among employees for the higher ratings, rather than collaboration to support group performance.  

It is disheartening to see the efforts of many researchers end up in library shelves with no practical utilization. I think there is a need to bridge the knowledge production gap between academic research and practice.  And consultants are best positioned to be the “knowledge brokers”.