The FIFA World Cup as a Business Opportunity for Qatar. Analyzing Cultures with the Dimensions of Hofstede and Trompenaars

List of Contents

Register of Illustrations

1 Task I
1.1 Current situation in Qatar and ethical issues
1.2 Recommendations and Conclusions

2 Task II
2.1 Analysing the different cultures based on Hofstede and Trompenaars` Culture Dimensions
2.1.1 Relevant dimensions of Hofstede`s Cultural Dimensions
2.1.2 Relevant dimensions of Trompenaars` Cultural Dimensions
2.2 Solution

List of Literature

Declaration

Register of Illustrations

Illustration 1 United Arab Emirates

Illustration 2 Neutral vs. Affective

1 Task I

1.1 Current situation in Qatar and ethical issues

Already in December 2010, it was announced that Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The Arab World consists of 22 countries and should have the opportunity to organize the tournament. In the past Qatar already hosted the „Asian Games“ from December 1st to December 15th, 2006.

In November 2013 Amnesty International published the 169 page report ‘The Dark Side of Migration - Spotlight on Qatar`s Construction Sector ahead of the World Cup’.¹

Amnesty International showed up that the World Cup-related construction projects in Qatar are a human rights disaster. The most serious ethical issues are:

- Poor living and working conditions
- Low wages and failure to pay on time or in full
- High fees charged by recruiting agents in the labour sending countries
- False promises to workers about the salary, benefits and nature of the work to be performed
- Few and inaccessible avenues of redress.

There are about 1.2 million migrant workers in Qatar. Those from India make up 22% of the total, with a similar proportion from Pakistan. Around 16% are from Nepal, 13% from Iran, 11% from the Philippines, 8% from Egypt and 8% from Sri Lanka.²

Most of the problems facing migrant workers in Qatar are attributed to a system called ‘kafala’ - a sponsoring system that provides the legal basis for their residency and employment. It is restricting the workers freedom to change jobs or even leaving the country without the permission of their sponsor/employer. The workers are trapped and in fact it is a kind of quasi-slavery. In 90% of all cases, workers` passports are confiscated.³

Workers are being made to work excessive (sometimes extreme) hours and employers failing to protect health and safety adequately. On average migrant workers are working 60 hours a week for a total salary of 42 Euro per week or 55 cent an hour. The wages are slightly higher than in the workers` home countries.

In general, Building workers earn around 4 Euro a day in India and around 5.70 Euro in Nepal.⁴

Another problem is the housing. The workers are being housed in squalid mass crowded accommodations sometimes even without electricity or water. So the workers are forced to eat in the dark - after a hard working day in the 50°C heat of Qatar. By now already more than 1000 workers have died in 2012 and 2013.⁵

The comment of Salil Shetty, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, to this situation: ‘Elite exploits foreign worker unprincipled: It is simply unpardonable that in one of the richest countries of the earth so many foreign workers are exploited unprincipled, one robs them of their wage and reveals them to the fight for the survival.’⁶

Facing the worldwide protests and criticism the Emirate Qatar respond with the promise to set new rules and welfare standards for recruitment, lodging and payment immediately. Even the ‘kafala system’ should be revised and updated.

Also 6 months after the clear improvements announced by the Qatari government for foreign workers, the conditions on immigrant workers are bad. This arises from a new report of Amnesty International in November 2014.⁷

[...]

¹ cf. Amnesty International 2013

² Gibson 2014

³ cf. Knaebel 2014

⁴ cf. Booth, Pattisson 2014

⁵ cf. Manfred 2014

⁶ cf. Axel Springer 2013

⁷ cf. Deutsche Telekom AG 2014