The Significance of Labour Process Theory to the Arab Gulf Countries: Developing A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Consent and Conflict in the Workplace

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on the main concepts of labour process theory to highlight its significance for analysing workers-managers struggles in workplaces of the Arab Gulf countries. The paper builds on the core principles of the labour process theory and engages the dimensions of neo-patriarchy and mobility power to build a conceptual framework for the analysis of workplace relations in the Arab Gulf context. Previous research show that the dialectics of control-consent-resistance and the concept of mobility power, are effective tools for analysing how work is organised in commercial organisations. Nevertheless, this paper argues that acknowledging the nature of ‘neo-patriarchal managerial control’, which is an ‘informal mode of management’, is vital for analysing the nature of power relations between the management and labour in workplaces of the Arab Gulf countries. Moreover, since the majority of the labour force in the Arab Gulf countries are migrants, the concept of mobility power has a critical role in explaining struggles between the management and migrant labour.