How Perceived Inclusion Impacts Minority Employees’ Organizational Satisfaction in the UAE Banking Industry

Abstract

A quantitative exploratory approach was used for the present study to measure the relationship between minority status and job satisfaction of individuals employed by foreign or UAE-owned banks operating in the UAE and the relationship between minority workers’ status and their perception of inclusion in their workgroups. A total of 800 participants were sought for the study. The study indicates that UAE nationals, as an Arab minority in these banking institutions, felt excluded, and this perception affected their satisfaction. The present study reveals a new finding which is that when assessing minority individuals who are employed in UAE-owned banks with minority workers who are employed with foreign-owned banking organizations, those UAE nationals who are employed in UAE-owned banks felt more included and satisfied than their counterparts who are working in foreign-owned banks. Additionally, the study indicates that religious affiliation alone as one dimension of diversity does not increase an employee’s job satisfaction. For example, UAE nationals are among Muslim respondents in the UAE banking sector whose Islamic affiliation among other participants represented the majority (n = 529) of the research’s participants but since they were an ethnic minority, results demonstrate a negative relationship between religious affiliation and job satisfaction for the prevailing religion among the study’s respondents.