Culture and demographics' impact on perceptions of human resource policy practice in African Arab countries:: lessons from Libyan oil firms

Using a sample of managers and Chief Executives from large urban oil firms, this correlational survey examines culture and demographics’ impact on HRM policy practices in Libya. Cultural values revealed by earlier studies in the Arab world are used to draw inferences on policy practices for thirty-seven HR design statements. Analysis is based on a sample of 270 employees from eight oil companies. The study reveals three key human resource policy practices namely: Strategic HR Practice, Employee Influence and Performance Orientation toward the Reward System. The results indicate that such practices are not widely practiced in the sampled oil companies. However, there seem to be some form of employee influence in practice due to collectivist orientations of Arabs. Relationships were exhibited when correlating HR policy practice with demographics like company origin, levels of education and nationality of employees. It is also inferred that cultural values play a role in the way managers perceive the existence or none existence of these HR policy practices in their organizations. Multiple regression analysis shows the results of the combined effects and overall relationship of the three human resource policy practices with demographics. When taking all the HRM policy practice variables and demographics many of the relationships suggested by zero-order correlation become non-significant, but only two remain significant at p< .01 or better. Results indicate that only education level and nationality have significant B effects