Research Proposal MBA 504

Access Restriction on immigrant Bangladeshi Workers by ARAMCO

Nabil Khan Sujoy 1125071, Manzoor Hossain Kashfin 1125001, Nivelle Kabir 1125006

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION PROBLEM STATEMENT RESEARCH OBJECTIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURE REVIEW PERCEPTION TOWARDS BANGLADESHI WORKFORCE SAUDI WORKFORCE NATIONALIZATION POLICIES: RESEARCH QUESTIONS CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK HYPOTHESIS: METHODOLOGY RESEARCH DESIGN RESEARCH APPROACH SAMPLING METHOD DATA COLLECTION DATA ANALYSIS REFERENCES 4 4 5 5 5 5 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 11

Letter of Transmittal:
Dr. NadimJahngir, Director, School of Business Independent University Bangladesh

Dear Sir: This research proposal is in response to the course requirement for MBA 504: Business Research. This research proposal helped us to consider learning all the work that goes into conducting a research. We wanted to take a moment and thank you for all your support, which allowed for timely completion of this project. We certainly feel that in the future when we attempt further studies we are adequately prepared to conduct the first state of a research.

Regards,
Nabil Khan Sujoy 1125071 ManzoorHossainKashfin 1125001 NivelleKabir 1125006

Introduction
Saudi ARAMCO is the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia. It is the world's most valuable company, estimated at 781 billion US$ in 2006, while more recent estimates of 2010 put its value in the range 2.2 trillion USD to 7 trillion USD.It is also the oil corporation with the largest proven crude oil reserves and production. Its yearly production is 3.4 billion barrels and it managed over 100 oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia totaling at least 264 billion barrels of oil reserves and 253 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves. Saudi ARAMCO is heavily dependant on migrant workers for its massive construction projects and some back office operations. Its current employee population stands at 3000 out of which 40% comprises of migrant workers and again of that migrant population Bangladeshi workers account for about 60%. Bangladeshi workers mostly are being recruited for a large scale construction projects involving meticulous amount of investments both in labor and in monetary terms. The amount of remittance that they generate per year is substantive for the national GDP of Bangladesh.

Problem Statement
In midst of such positive employment in favor of Bangladeshi Workers, the top management of ARAMCO has issued a new ordinance completely restricting new Bangladeshi workers to enter into the oil company. The research that followed thereafter revealed that the motif of searching low cost labor forces from North African countries have prompted ARAMCO to totally restrict the immigration of Bangladeshi workforces However little or no research has been conducted in terms of relating a relationship between the Saudi ARAMCOs perception towards the Bangladeshi Migrant Workers, Nationalization policies and Access restriction of Bangladeshi Workers in context of ARAMCO.

Research Objective
This study reveals the influencing factors restricting immigration of Bangladeshi workforce and finding employment with ARAMCO. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship the perception of ARAMACO towards Bangladeshi Migrant Workers and Total Access Restriction on Bangladeshi Workers and to study the relationship between Saudi Workforce Nationalization Policies and Total Access Restriction on Bangladeshi Workers.

Significance of the Research

The ability to work on foreign soil has a significant effect on the GDP of Bangladesh. Immigrant Bangladeshi skilled and non-skilled workers generate a significant amount of funds which speaks to the recent development of Bangladesh as a nation. Majority of income that comes to aid Bangladeshs GDP is from Saudi Arabia, where ARAMCO is one of the biggest importers of Skilled and Non Skilled Bangladeshi labor. A change in this market can cause a serious drop in the level of income that affects Bangladeshs growth as a nation. The research signifies on the factors responsible for such a change and strives to find any direct correlation among the factors.

Literature Review
Perception towards Bangladeshi Workforce
Saudi ARAMCO is a company, which is in continuous flux since its inception in terms of its operational, transactional and workers policies. Under the newly constituted NBD (New Business Development) policy which the Saudi ARAMCO describes as a comprehensive policy aimed at streamlining operational activities and probing newer business opportunities, the Saudi ARAMCO has highlighted on their new found perception towards further recruitment of Bangladeshi Workers. In furtherance of the Saudi governments recent non-lenient attitude towards the Bangladeshi Migrant workers, it appears that the companys worker policy remains no less hostile in terms of either further limiting contracts with the already existent Bangladeshi works or issuance of new

6 worker visas for new Bangladeshi workers. The reasons that the company has resorted toback up the stance included the following reasons: - The appalling unemployment status among the fresh Saudi graduates have prompted ARAMCO the leading job provider to come up with a concrete decisions to forge a local headhunt instead of opening up the opportunity to international jobseekers which was previously occupied by Asian migrant workers predominately by Bangladeshi Workforce. - As a part of cost reduction program, the company seeks to invest in new migrant corridors, which yields maximum worker output at competitive cost schemes. More specifically, in a recent roundtable conference of topnotch Saudi ARAMCO officials, it was revealed that the company is more prone to recruit workers from North African countries because workers of the said region have more adaptability towards the newly proposed wage structure in the midst of regional economical and political unrest. - The growing number of Bangladeshi workers in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a potential to pose several cultural and socio economical differences which the government observes as intruding and inimical. However observances of such nature are also advocated by a number of more general studies of the socialization and acculturation processes affecting expatriates and locals in the workplace as viewed by Lee &Larwood(1983), Mendenhall &Oddou(1985) and Saad&Fadeel(1983). In response to this attitude, ARAMCO, a national flagship of the country contemplates that it is imperative to secede the number on Bangladeshi workers from its labor workforce or even to some extent substitute the current workers with local workers. - The so called intriguing xenophobic dimension of Saudi environment is a factor which has encroached its way into Saudi flagship companies has three aspects. First, it is evident in the preference of temporary contract labor that excludes possibilities of citizenship. Second, preferential treatment is usually given to nationals, although particular kinds of menial work have now been allocatedto

7 foreigners. Third, the attitude of disdain toward those who are visibly different (particularly Asians) is observed in public places such as supermarkets, airports and government offices.Jureidini (2003)

Saudi Workforce Nationalization Policies:

Workforce nationalization refers to a policy, which dictates the restriction upon the level and the term of the employment to foreign citizens in favor of local citizens. The prime objective is to restrain the revenue to outflow from the host countries to immigrant countries while leveraging the local workforce which can be supported against the backdrop of Saudi Workforce thru enough citations The Dominance of foreigners has even been more pronounced in the workforce than the total population.Kapiszewski (2006).Saudi workforce nationalization policy is nothing but a replication of such a policy.It is viewed by most Saudi scholars, as a full fledged policy reflecting on the aspirations of Saudi youth in particular while it also has a fair share of critics as well. Saudi workforce nationalization policy had been discussed for almost three decades, but was not formalized until the Sixth Development Plan (1995-1999), which called for economic diversification, the creation of 34,000 new jobs and assimilation of 659,000 Saudi individuals into the workforce, and replacement of 319,000 expatriates as reported by Ministry of Planning (1995). Efforts of such policy are not a new phenomenon and have been described as job localization or job domestication in contemporary management and marketing literature as explained by Daher and Al-Salem(1985), AlNajjar(1983), Owen(1986), Cateora and Graham(2007). Under this policy a new approach was adopted entitled Only for Saudis which was designed to improvise Saudi youth workforce into the entry level jobs compared to its predecessor which advocated for managerial level jobs. In rise of fierce global competitions and to find ways to tackle it, there is no such better scheme which can guarantee the local participators for locally grown industries other than the workforce i.e. nationalization policy. In addition to that, the policy strives to impose restriction upon the local flagship companies to cease further recruitment of migrant workers even in some instance completely to stick to the local workforce in terms of recruitment. Even though there are some ordinances under the

8 policy which seem to pragmatic to be fully incorporated given on the grounds that the level of complexity that the jobs pose are hardly commensurable with the local expertise both in terms of quality and quality, but still has made an infallible presence in restricting the total workforce.

Research Questions
The following research questions emanate from the problems. Q 1: Is there any significant relationship between Saudi ARAMCOs perception and Total Access restriction of Bangladeshi Workers in context of ARAMCO? Q2: Is there any significant relationship between Saudi Workforce Nationalization Policies and Total Access restriction of Bangladeshi Workers in context of ARAMCO?

Conceptual Framework

Saudi ARAMCOs Perception towards Bangladeshi Workers

Total Access restriction on Bangladeshi Workers

Saudi Workforce Nationalization policies

Hypothesis:
H 1:

9 There is a significant relationship between Saudi ARAMCOs perception and Total Access Restriction of Bangladeshi Workers in context of ARAMCO. H2: There is a significant relationship between Saudi Workforce Nationalization Policies and Total Access Restriction of Bangladeshi Workers in context of ARAMCO.

Methodology
Research design
In the above section the relevant research questions and the hypotheses to be tested were briefly outlined. The laid out conceptual framework depicted the Co-relational relationship between the independent variables - Saudi ARAMCOsPerception towards Bangladeshi Workers, Saudi Workforce Nationalization policies and the dependent variable Total Access restriction on Bangladeshi Workers. To investigate the research questions, a qualitative study will be conducted where information will be gathered through a survey via one to one interview.

Research Approach
Information to ponder the research questions will be gathered through one to one interviews by respondents working for ARAMCO approached by the researcher. All participants will be asked to volunteer and will be given an option to choose not to participate without providing any reason. Participants will be briefed about the context of the research focus by the researchers personally. Respondents will be provided with flexibility, in terms of responding to the interviewer question. Questionnaire of this study will be closed ended questions in a printedform. According to Malhotra (2004), questionnaire is a structured technique fordata collection that consist of a series of questions that respondent will answer, it can bewritten or verbal The questionnaire survey is the most effective method for this study to collect the data for the following reasons: 1) The researcher will conduct survey on 150 respondents from the ARAMCO management. It was not possible to conduct personal interview because of time

10 limitation. Therefore, questionnaire survey will be the most appropriate one for this study. 2) Respondents will be easily instructed. 3) Filling up questionnaire will take less time. Therefore, the respondents will not be unenthusiastic in providing accurate data.

Sampling Method
For the purpose of this study a non- probability sampling method will be used to draw the samples. The sample will be chosen randomly via Convenient Sampling, since there will be not enough access to a sampling frame of ARAMCO. Reasonable respondents will be requested to participate in the survey. That ensured a greater degree of control over the data collection environment as the interviewer will ensure whether all questions have been answered.

Data Collection
Data will be collected from 150 respondents from management offices, oil-rig station workers. The median age of respondents will be 50. Of the respondents, most of them will be directly involved with core management services.

Data analysis
The proposed study will be a correlation study. Correlation study will be used to determine the nature of relationship that exists among the variables. After collecting the data, the direction of influence will be considered in proposition or interpreting. The direction maybe obvious from the nature of the variables. Research Design provides the identification of the direction of influence. Our ability to identify the direction of influence depends on the research design. For the research, SPSS (Version 12) will be used as the statistical data analysis tool as it offers greater flexibility in data analysis and visualization. Moreover as it has advanced options for path analysis, using this tool may allow the researchers to conduct further study in future in this subject.

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References
Al-Najjar, B. (1983).Working and living conditions of foreign workers.In N. Farjani (Ed.), Foreign Labor in Arab Gulf Countries, CAUS, Beirut. Cateora, P. R. & Graham, J. L. (2007). International marketing, 13th Edition, McGraw Hill International, Boston.

12 Daher, A.G.,& Al-Salem, F. (1985). Manpower in Gulf Arab Countries: A Field Study of the General Situation, Al-Salasi, Kuwait. Jureidini, R (2003). Migrant Workers and Xenophobia in the Middle East. Identities, Conflict and CohesionProgramme, 2 Kapiszewski, A (2006). ARAB VERSUS ASIAN MIGRANT WORKERS IN THE GCC COUNTRIES. Population Division Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations Secretariat Lee, Y., &Larwood, L. (1983). The socialization of expatriate managers in multinational firms. Academy of Management Journal, 26(4), 657-665 Malhotra, N.K. (2004).Basic Marketing Research: Application to Contemporary Issues with SPSS -International Edition, Prentice Hall Mendenhall, M., &Oddou, G. (1985).The dimensions of expatriate acculturation: A review.The Academy of Management Review; 10(1), 39-47. Ministry of Planning. (2000). K.S.A. 7th Development Plan 1421 1425 A.H. 20002004 Owen, R. (1986). Migrant workers in the Gulf. Middle East Review, Spring Saad, A.D.,&Fadeel, M.A. (1983). Movement of Arab labor: problems, impact and policies. Center for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut. 24-7.