Strategic management of human resources for health in the oil-rich middle east

Abstract

The oil-rich middle east countries are fast developing its social infrastructure, drawing upon non-national imported human resources. This policy has led to certain un-intended outcomes and vitiated normal human resources development: cultural dissonance, limited transfer of expertise, passive managerial styles, low staff morale, etc. The nations have responded by adopting strategies of indigenisation of manpower, restriction of managerial positions to national staff only, full employment policy for qualified nationals. As many of these policies have yielded both positive and negative results, scope still exists for broadening the strategic management of human resources; some of these options are elucidated in this paper.