3.5.1 Islam, Religious Faith and Fatalism
Egypt, like China, is one of the oldest and most influential countries in the world. It has at least 5,000 years of recorded history. Currently Egypt is a Muslim country, more than 90%
of the Egyptian people are Sunni Muslims, and hence Islam is a critical component in the Egyptian life. Islam's tenets guide the daily conducts of the Egyptians and affect decisions made on personal, political, economic, legal and business level. Fatalism is a concept that is closely linked to Islam, and this approach is often significant in the decision-making process of many Egyptians (Goldschmidt, 2008). Leat and El-Kot (2007) suggested that the influence of Islam may be significant in explaining dominant values and attitudes. In addition, Egyptian culture is similar to what one would expect in the other Arab cultures in the Middle East due to the common denominator in geography, language, religion, values, historical background and some psychological aspects.
One of the main traits for Egypt is its religious faith. Hence, no understanding of Egyptian identity or culture is possible without first grasping its spiritual heritage of Islam. Egyptians do not perceive a separation between the Islam and the rest of their lives. One of the ways that has been affected by Islam not only in Egyptian culture but in Arab culture is the perpetuation of a hierarchical society through teaching the submission and obedience to a higher being.
Arabs have a concept of fatalism and a belief that they are at the mercy of their environment rather than in control of it. This entrenches the assumption that success is not always the result of good planning or hard work, but rather it is the result of fate. This fatalistic view of life comes from the cultural influence of Islam. In addition, Arab and Egyptian Muslims believe that the destiny and events of their life are in the hands of God. The phrase “Inshallah or if God wills” which indicates the believe that one cannot influence the future.
Collective society is an important aspect of the nature Islamic religion. The word Islam means “submission to God” and “the one who submits” is a Muslim. One of the main beliefs of Islam involves sacrificing one’s individual interests or needs for the greater good.
Therefore, we consider Egypt as group-oriented culture with much of the focus falling on religion and family. Honor is another aspect for Arabs, which means that they try to avoid being shamed and “saving face” in public. Hence, an honor's person could be damaged not living up to one’s responsibilities. Thus, a lot of cultures and actions of the Egyptians and Arab people are integrally connected to their identity as Muslims (Riel, 2015).
3.5.2 Short-term Orientation
Egypt is a short-term oriented society, it has strong concerns in establishing the absolute truth and they are normative in their thinking. They also emphasize on great respect for traditions and focus on the present live and achieving quick results as well as exhibit a relatively small propensity to save for the future (Hofstede, 2001). Moreover, Egyptian and Arabic belong to the polychronic culture, which means that it is natural to do multiple things at the same time. Hence, they tend to have less urgency about immediate achievement and less regimented time orientation. In addition, Egyptian see life in a longer spans of time than others and they are more interested in preserving the past than in changing the future (Riel, 2015). All this reflects the high level of uncertainty avoidance of Egyptians people.
3.5.3 Respect for Law and Regulations
In cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, such as Egypt, tends to trend more toward respecting and adherence to the laws and written rules in order to reduce uncertainty.
Egyptians tend to be more emotional and to prefer implementing rules and regulations.
Egyptians also more often feel constrained by existing rules and regulations not moral norms. This means Egyptians have a high preference for avoiding uncertainty by adhering to strict regulations and are not particular toward innovation and new ideas (Hegazi, 2015).
3.5.4 The Weakness in Business
The business structure in Egypt has a strong focus on business hierarchy culture. Rank and social status are of great importance in the structure of Egyptian companies. The highest senior person usually makes the final decisions in all matters. However, corruption, bribery and nepotism are very common in the public and private sectors in Egypt. Egyptian business people employ a “Polychronic” work style during the negotiating and haggling, and they often take a holistic approach and may jump back and forth between topics rather than addressing them in sequential order in an environment dominated by the buyer. Therefore, negotiations take slow and protracted pace with using some deceptive techniques and
asymmetric information in order to obtain concessions (Katz, 2006). Table 3.1 below, summarizes the main differences between the Egyptian and Chinese cultures.
Table 3.1: Comparison between Egyptian and Chinese Culture
Aspect China Egypt
Cultural Essence Yin Yang Islam
Power Distance Higher acceptance for inequalities. Lower acceptance for inequalities.
Collectivism Family, Kinship, Guanxi, Confucian. Family value.
Masculinity Success oriented; Value work and results.
Work and live; Well-being.
Indulgence Restrained society; Emphasis on moral norms. culture. Hofstede’s study of culture dimensions was used as the tool in order to analyze their distinctions. Through the six cultural dimensions, we can find that the biggest difference existing in the respects of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. China represents the characteristics of low level of uncertainty avoidance and long-term oriented culture. The origin of basic Chinese culture went back to the ancient philosophy with Yin Yang and Confucianism. Meanwhile, the Egyptian national culture demonstrates relatively high power distance, strong uncertainty avoidance, moderately collectivism and short-term orientation.
This was supported by the influence of the Islamic religion and its principles.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Chapter Four
Research Model and Hypotheses Development 4.1 Introduction
This chapter elaborates on the research model and the developed hypotheses. The emphasis of this study is on the buyer-seller relationship between China and Egypt, Theoretical background of our model and hypotheses has been reviewed with regard to transaction cost analysis, relational contracting theory and resource dependence theory in Chapter 2. Based on culture dimensional theory, China and Egypt have been discussed by the culture difference in Chapter 3.