Social Capital in Jordan: Wasta in Employment Selection

Social capital has emerged as a concept of great interest and potential to help understand and explain how social structures and networks impact political, social and business practices at the collective and individual levels. The basic premise is: investment in social relations will yield expected returns. Extant research has largely focused on the West; our knowledge of how social capital plays out in the Middle East is limited. We marry social capital with ‘wasta’, the strong family and tribal based connections secured in networks in the Arab world, and investigate HR managers’ perceptions of wasta in employment selection in Jordan. Often use of wasta in employment selection is related to favouritism and nepotism and the many negative outcomes of not adhering to merit-based selection. Through in-depth interview data we reveal a more nuanced and multifaceted view of wasta in employment selection. When examined through the social capital lens six distinct themes emerge: (i) wasta as an enabler to get jobs, (ii) wasta as social ties/ solidarity, (iii) wasta as a method to transfer/ attain information, (iv) wasta as a guide in decision-making, (v) wasta as an exchange, and (vi) wasta as pressure. Our findings confirm that at times wasta grants individuals unfair access to employment that is beyond their qualifications, skills, knowledge and/ or abilities. However, organisational context is relevant. In banking, not all roles are open to wasta. Where the possible negative impact on the organisation poses too great a risk HR managers feel able to resist even strong wasta. Context also emerges as being of key importance with regards to the background and business model of an organisation. Family businesses tend to operate wasta more frequently and extensively using tribal connections, religious networks and geographical area based networks as a key source in hiring. Despite globalisation and international nature of banking, wasta and tribalism feature strongly in daily business conduct in Jordan. Our paper illuminates the positive effects of wasta, e.g.as a method to transfer information, together with discussion on the dangers of ‘cloning’, a (lack of diversity), and the dangers of an incompetent workforce

The Effect of Wasta on Business Conduct and HRM in Jordan

Despite rapid globalisation, boom in multinational business and increasing interest in international human resource management (IHRM) generally, research on developing countries in the Middle-East is limited. A three year PhD research project seeks to begin to fill this gap by studying the effect of Jordanian culture on the transfer of western recruitment and selection (R&S) frameworks into Jordan. This paper opens up an investigation into a cultural concept at the heart of management and human resource management (HRM) in Jordan: ‘wasta’. Wasta is a concept that springs from tribalism; favouritism based on family and tribal relations. For multinational organisations this presents a challenge in balancing the western idea of fairness, equal opportunities and diversity and the local system based on favouritism. We argue that the perceived benefits of wasta cannot match the moral case for a merit based model

Using Social Capital to Secure Employment – Wasta in the Jordanian Banking Sector

This paper set out to address the gap in our knowledge on how social capital impacts the employee selection process in banks operating in Jordan. Bonding and bridging social capital are used to explore the prevalent practice of ‘wasta’ in Jordan. the preliminary analysis of 17 in-depth interviews highlights two uses of wasta in employee selection. Namely, the use of wasta as a guide for employers in the decision to hire and the use of wasta as a pressure mechanism by candidates to attain employment in specific organisations. Previous research often associates wasta with the negative outcomes of not adhering to merit-based selection such as reduced workforce diversity, lack of employee engagement, and the lost opportunity cost from hiring unqualified candidates based their social connections. However, the interviewees signpost some positive uses of wasta such as its ability to confirm information about the candidate and his/ her fit with organisation’s culture prior to employment

Survivability of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in satar and otak-otak, Malaysian fish-based street food

Street food is popular in Asia due to its availability, low price and good taste. The safety of street food has been always questionable due to its poor handling which probably leads to microbial contamination. The objective of this study was to determine the surviving quantities of V. parahaemolyticus under various conditions in street-vended food, namely satar and otak-otak after anticipated cross-contamination to support policy and regulatory documents. The satar and otak-otak were prepared from minced and unminced fish flesh, respectively, together with other ingredients. Each satar and otak-otak were prepared with 0, 0.5, 1.5 and 3% of sodium chloride (NaCl), respectively. V. parahaemolyticus inoculum at approximately 8.66 log CFU/ml were inoculated into the samples and incubated for up to 6 h. Samples were taken at 0, 1, 3 and 6 h for enumeration of V. parahaemolyticus using spread plate method on Thiosulphate Citrate Bile Salts Sucrose (TCBS) agar. For control samples, V. parahaemolyticus was not immediately inactivated in distilled water even though significant better survivability was observed in Phosphate Buffer Saline (PBS). The numbers of V. parahaemolyticus was found to decrease by varying amounts based on the salt content and duration of holding. However, significant amounts survived to indicate potential risk

Peningkatan SDM melalui Pemberdayaan Kepedulian Sosial, Lingkungan Serta Ekonomi Masyarakat Kelurahan Gunung Samarinda Kota Balikpapan

Community service is one of the three pillars of higher education conducted by universities with the aim of contributing/helping to improve various community needs and solving various problems faced by the community so that the welfare of the community becomes increased. Although the implementation in the field is only 1 (one) month, the activity provides many benefits to the residents of Gunung Samarinda Village and University of Balikpapan's third wave KKN students. Among other things, the service that has been carried out provides education to the public regarding environmental hygiene, concern for the environment, utilization of waste that can generate economic value and concern for the community to live a healthy life

Shape Classification of Harumanis Mango using Discriminant Analysis (DA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM)

The perceived quality of fruits, such as mangoes, is greatly dependent on many parameters such as ripeness, shape, size, and is influenced by other factors such as harvesting time. Unfortunately, a manual fruit grading has several drawbacks such as subjectivity, tediousness and inconsistency. By automating the procedure, as well as developing new classification technique, it may solve these problems. This paper presents the novel work on the using visible Imaging as a Tool in Quality Monitoring of Harumanis Mangoes. A Fourier-Descriptor method was developed from CCD camera images to grade mango by its shape. Discriminant analysis (DA) and Support vector machine (SVM) were applied for classification process and able to correctly classify 98.3% for DA and 100% for SVM

The global oscillation network group site survey. II. Results

The Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) Project will place a network of instruments around the world to observe solar oscillations as continuously as possible for three years. The Project has now chosen the six network sites based on analysis of survey data from fifteen sites around the world. The chosen sites are: Big Bear Solar Observatory, California; Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, Hawaii; Learmonth Solar Observatory, Australia; Udaipur Solar Observatory, India; Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife; and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Chile. Total solar intensity at each site yields information on local cloud cover, extinction coefficient, and transparency fluctuations. In addition, the performance of 192 reasonable components analysis. An accompanying paper describes the analysis methods in detail; here we present the results of both the network and individual site analyses. The selected network has a duty cycle of 93.3%, in good agreement with numerical simulations. The power spectrum of the network observing window shows a first diurnal sidelobe height of 3 × 10⁻⁴ with respect to the central component, an improvement of a factor of 1300 over a single site. The background level of the network spectrum is lower by a factor of 50 compared to a single-site spectrum

Surface-Mounted Tilt Sensor Using Fiber Bragg Grating Technology for Engineered Slope Monitoring With Temperature Compensation

A surface-mounted tilt sensor was designed and fabricated to measure the inclination angle of engineered structures or slopes in two directions. The device utilizes two strain-sensitive fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) for tilt angle measurement bidirectionally and one strain-free FBG to provide temperature compensation. In this work, a tilt sensor prototype was fabricated using a 3-D printer, with a robust enclosure and a miniature actuator with dimensions of 115×65×30 mm and 45×20× 3 mm, respectively. The device was first calibrated in the laboratory for tilt and temperature parameters. For tilt calibration, the device yields a sensitivity value of 0.0135 and 0.0123 nm/° for + x- and– x -directions. On the other hand, the device delivers a sensitivity value of 0.0105 nm/°C as the response to temperature changes. The tilt sensor was also tested for suitability in a real-field deployment where it was installed on a retaining wall and was left for four weeks. The field test data indicate no vertical displacement of the wall since the device exhibits zero inclination changes during the test period. This compact, robust, and easy-to-install tilt sensor has excellent potential for various geotechnical applications, mainly in landslide detections, ground movement, and engineered slope monitoring