IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joiaen/v13y2024i1d10.1186_s13731-024-00372-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An investigation of the role of Wasta social capital in enhancing employee loyalty and innovation in organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Arwa Al-Twal

    (American University of Madaba)

  • Mohammad Alawamleh

    (American University of Madaba)

  • Doaa M. F. Jarrar

    (American University of Madaba)

Abstract

Considering the pressures of fluctuating external environments, organizations are constantly seeking ways to be responsive and able to improve their performance with lower costs. Employer–employee relationships have changed rapidly in recent years, and there is growing interest in considering human resources as a form of capital, and a strategic factor for business excellence. A focal point for HR professionals is employee loyalty, recognized as pivotal in realizing long-term organizational goals. This paper delves into the concept of Wasta social capital and its pivotal role in fostering employee loyalty and innovation within the unique cultural context of the Arab world. It is argued here that Wasta social capital is the fundamental dynamic that stimulates employee loyalty in the workplace. This conceptual paper provides new insights through understanding the significant role Wasta social capital plays in affecting employee loyalty in a collectivist culture, differing from the conventional business-context factors of loyalty. Obtaining a deeper understanding of employee loyalty and how it is developed in Arab-world business contexts can promote innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Arwa Al-Twal & Mohammad Alawamleh & Doaa M. F. Jarrar, 2024. "An investigation of the role of Wasta social capital in enhancing employee loyalty and innovation in organizations," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joiaen:v:13:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1186_s13731-024-00372-w
    DOI: 10.1186/s13731-024-00372-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s13731-024-00372-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s13731-024-00372-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fadi Alsarhan & Marc Valax, 2020. "Conceptualization of wasta and its main consequences on human resource management," International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(1), pages 114-127, August.
    2. Khakhar, Priyan & Rammal, Hussain Gulzar, 2013. "Culture and business networks: International business negotiations with Arab managers," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 578-590.
    3. Maryam Haghighikhah & Mahdieh Khadang & Masoud Arabi, 2016. "Internal Marketing: Employee Satisfaction and Word of Mouth in Guilan¡¯s Saderat Bank," International Journal of Marketing Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(2), pages 147-158, April.
    4. Ali, Sa'ad & Weir, David, 2020. "Wasta: Advancing a Holistic Model to Bridge the Micro-Macro Divide," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 657-685, July.
    5. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2008. "Social capital in the creation of human capital and economic growth: A productive consumption approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 2020-2033, October.
    6. Barnett, Andy & Yandle, Bruce & Naufal, George, 2013. "Regulation, trust, and cronyism in Middle Eastern societies: The simple economics of “wasta”," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 41-46.
    7. Khaled Aladwan & Ramudu Bhanugopan & Alan Fish, 2014. "Managing human resources in Jordanian organizations: challenges and prospects," International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(1), pages 126-138, April.
    8. Sidani, Yusuf M. & Thornberry, Jon, 2013. "Nepotism in the Arab World: An Institutional Theory Perspective," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 69-96, January.
    9. Singh, Sanjay Kumar & Mazzucchelli, Alice & Vessal, Saeedeh Rezaee & Solidoro, Adriano, 2021. "Knowledge-based HRM practices and innovation performance: Role of social capital and knowledge sharing," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    10. Horak, Sven & Afiouni, Fida & Bian, Yanjie & Ledeneva, Alena & Muratbekova-Touron, Maral & Fey, Carl F., 2020. "Informal Networks: Dark Sides, Bright Sides, and Unexplored Dimensions," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 511-542, July.
    11. Olivia Guillon & Cécile Cézanne, 2014. "Employee Loyalty and Organizational Performance: A Critical Survey," Post-Print halshs-01340477, HAL.
    12. Khaled Aladwan & Ramudu Bhanugopan & Alan Fish, 2014. "Managing human resources in Jordanian organizations: challenges and prospects," International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(1), pages 126-138, April.
    13. Juan Elegido, 2013. "Does It Make Sense to Be a Loyal Employee?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 495-511, September.
    14. Robertson, Kirsten M. & Hannah, David R. & Lautsch, Brenda A., 2015. "The secret to protecting trade secrets: How to create positive secrecy climates in organizations," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 669-677.
    15. Jawad Minhas & Stavros Sindakis, 2022. "Implications of Social Cohesion in Entrepreneurial Collaboration: a Systematic Literature Review," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(4), pages 2760-2791, December.
    16. Dan S. Chiaburu & Subrata Chakrabarty & Jiexin Wang & Ning Li, 2015. "Organizational Support and Citizenship Behaviors: A Comparative Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 55(5), pages 707-736, October.
    17. Ron Berger & Ram Herstein & Daniel McCarthy & Sheila Puffer, 2019. "Doing favors in the Arab world," International Journal of Emerging Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(5), pages 916-943, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ibrahim A. Elsaher, 2024. "WASTA in Arab Societies: Optimizing or Worsening Quality of Life? The Role of Religiosity," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, June.
    2. Shaikha Khalfan, 2024. "Wasta in business management: a critical review of recent developments and future trends in the tourism sector," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Berger, Ron & Silbiger, Avi & Herstein, Ram & Barnes, Bradley R., 2015. "Analyzing business-to-business relationships in an Arab context," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 454-464.
    4. Naeem A. Albihany & Abdullah M. Aljarodi, 2024. "The role of personal connections Wasta on early-stage entrepreneurial orientations: empirical evidence from Saudi Arabia," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Dowling, Michael & Vanwalleghem, Dieter, 2018. "Gulf Cooperation Council cross-border M&A: Institutional determinants of target nation selection," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 471-489.
    6. Zhang, Man & Hartley, Janet L. & AL-Husan, Faten Baddar & ALHussan, Fawaz Baddar, 2021. "Informal interorganizational business relationships and customer loyalty: Comparing Guanxi, Yongo, and Wasta," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3).
    7. Kittur, Prathamesh & Agarwal, Shailja, 2024. "Cultural bridges in Business: Critical review and future directions in cross-cultural B2B relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    8. Elbanna, Said & Abdelzaher, Dina M. & Ramadan, Nora, 2020. "Management research in the Arab World: What is now and what is next?," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(2).
    9. Horak, Sven & Klein, Andreas & Ahlstrom, David & Li, Xiaomei, 2024. "Resilience or decline of informal networks? Examining the role of trust context in network societies," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4).
    10. OSHO, Olayinka Kayode PhD, 2023. "Employee Loyalty And Organizational Performance," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 7(1), pages 552-567, January.
    11. Soumyananda Dinda, 2014. "Inclusive growth through creation of human and social capital," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(10), pages 878-895, October.
    12. Jerzy Kaźmierczyk & Gulnara Fatykhovna Romashkina & Joanna Wyrwa, 2020. "The value of training and loyalty. A comparative analysis," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(1), pages 762-779, September.
    13. Ma³gorzata Wosiek, 2017. "Human and social capital facing challenges of economic convergence processes in Poland," Managerial Economics, AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 18(2), pages 247-264.
    14. Mohsin, Asad & Lengler, Jorge & Aguzzoli, Roberta, 2015. "Staff turnover in hotels: Exploring the quadratic and linear relationships," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 35-48.
    15. Bernhard Fietz & Julia Hillmann & Edeltraud Guenther, 2021. "Cultural Effects on Organizational Resilience: Evidence from the NAFTA Region," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 5-46, March.
    16. Nina Pološki Vokić & Tomislav Hernaus, 2015. "The triad of job satisfaction, work engagement and employee loyalty – The interplay among the concepts," EFZG Working Papers Series 1507, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb.
    17. Sabrina Artinger & Nir Vulkan & Yotam Shem-Tov, 2015. "Entrepreneurs’ negotiation behavior," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 737-757, April.
    18. Nadežda Jankelová & Zuzana Skorková & Zuzana Joniaková & Ildikó Némethová, 2021. "A Diverse Organizational Culture and Its Impact on Innovative Work Behavior of Municipal Employees," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-16, March.
    19. Fedorova, Elena & Pongrácz, Eva, 2019. "Cumulative social effect assessment framework to evaluate the accumulation of social sustainability benefits of regional bioenergy value chains," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1073-1088.
    20. Sanz-Blas, Silvia & Buzova, Daniela & Pérez-Ruiz, Pilar, 2021. "Building relational worth in an online social community through virtual structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:joiaen:v:13:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1186_s13731-024-00372-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.