Management Development Knowledge Base in the Gulf, Transferability, and Adaptability
Management development programmes and management in transition is taking its shape in the Gulf Region. The purpose of this paper is to address the key assumptions and knowledge base on which Gulf management development programs were built with special reference to images of managerial professionalism and its major issues bearing on the transferability of managerial know-how. Interviews conducted with managers in Bahrain and Oman revealed using some Western Theories may prove not to be successful when fully integrated with the national culture, and therefore there is a need to adapt. Change and transformation is taking place within the GCC, this necessitates careful selection of strategies and ways to implement management development and transferability. Some organizations have been successful in adaptability and transferability of knowledge, others are undergoing the process at the moment and it will be some time when the effect takes place.