Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/10
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Item Restricted Exploring Freedom and Belonging: A Comparative Study of Muslim Women’s Solo and Group Travel(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Alorfi, Bashayer; Osman, HanaThis dissertation explores the evolving travel behaviours and perceptions of Muslim women, focusing on the contrast between solo and group travel experiences. The study investigates how factors such as safety, empowerment, social identity, and family expectations influence travel choices and overall satisfaction. A quantitative research approach was employed, using survey data analysed through SPSS to examine patterns, correlations, and differences between solo and group travellers. Findings reveal that while solo travel offers a sense of independence and personal growth, concerns regarding safety and social judgment remain prevalent. Group travel, on the other hand, provides emotional comfort and social approval but may limit autonomy. The results highlight a nuanced relationship between cultural expectations and individual agency, suggesting that Muslim women are actively redefining travel norms within modern contexts. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Muslim women's empowerment through tourism, offering theoretical insights and practical implications for the travel and hospitality industry.11 0Item Embargo e-HRM in Action: The Relationship Between Employee Behaviours and Perceived Organisational Success – A Comparative Study Between Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom(University of London, SOAS, 2025) Alabood, Abdulaziz; Reinhard, Bachmann; Senija, CausevicThe new normal, with massive technological advancements, has ushered in a situation where managing employee behaviour has become increasingly challenging. Rapid changes in the workplace have made the matters more complex. With the widespread adoption of technology, particularly the strategic implementation of electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM), employee behaviours play a crucial role in determining perceived organisational success (POS). The main contribution of this study is the identification of the relationship between e-HRM implementation and POS through specific behavioural constructs: employee engagement (EE), employee empowerment (EEM), organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), employee performance (EP) and employee agility (EA). This study offers value by providing a theoretical framework for examining these relationships that shape workplace dynamics, drawing on social exchange theory (SET). This quantitative study employs a cross-sectional survey research design to test hypotheses across different organisations and compares findings between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and United Kingdom (UK). Data were collected from 350 employed respondents from Saudi Arabia and 263 from the UK. IBM SPSS Statistics software was used for coding and analysis, and CB-SEM for Structural Equation Modelling to measure and evaluate the relationships between the study variables. The findings showed that e-HRM implementation related to EEM, which in turn linked to EP, led to POS in the KSA context. Meanwhile, in the UK, e-HRM was linked to OCB, which was subsequently connected to EP and ultimately led to POS. Furthermore, EA did not moderate the relationship between EP and POS in either sample. This study contributes to extending and enriching the literature on e-HRM and employee behaviour, demonstrating how integrating an e-HRM system with employee behaviour enhances the organisation’s ability to foster prosperity.36 0Item Restricted Public Instagram Accounts of Saudi Women Public Figures in a Context of Social Change(University of North Dakota, 2024-05) Albogami, Gamra; Kalbfleisch, PamelaThis research analyzed 100 Instagram posts of ten Saudi women's public figures using a qualitative methodology to explore how their cultural and gender roles and norms are portrayed and how these portrayals align with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 objectives. The findings indicate that these public figures integrate traditional cultural and gender norms with contemporary norms in their online presentations. Traditional attire and familial roles are commonly showcased, underscoring the profoundly ingrained importance of cultural values in alignment with the findings in existing literature. However, there was a noticeable shift towards contemporary portrayals of identity, particularly in professional life, reflecting the evolving roles of women in Saudi society. Also, personal and social activities in their posts showed their active engagement in public life, while expressions of solidarity and support for other women reflected a community of empowerment. The analysis demonstrates that these public figures are actively contributing to the fulfillment of the Vision 2030 objectives. Through their online presence, these women contribute to a nation's transformation narrative, embodying the vision's goals of creating a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation. The study enhances the public and professional understanding of gender roles and cultural identity in the context of Saudi Arabia's rapid socio-economic changes. These insights provide perspectives that could be informative for sociocultural research experts, policymakers, media and communication professionals, and academics.26 0Item Restricted Media, Social Activism and the Women’s Driving Ban in Saudi Arabia(2023-06-20) Saud Bin Libdah; Atakav, Eylem; Hand, RichardThis study aims to understand the role of media in activating the social movement against the Saudi women’s driving ban (WDB). Specifically, the current study attempts to explore the role of both print media [newspapers] and social media [Twitter] as platforms to activate and mobilize the social movement for lifting the WDB in Saudi Arabia. The research takes a social constructionist approach to understand the presentation of the WDB social movement through the lens of the local cultural and social norms and values which are embedded within media presentation of the WDB campaign. As a first data collection method from Twitter, this study utilises the hashtag #Women2Drive. The social media crawler and text analysis tool Discover-text are used to gather not only a large number of relevant tweets but also to provide the opportunity to use random sampling to obtain a specific sample for data analysis. The collected data is analysed using discourse analysis, which can be used for written, as well as spoken language in a specific social context. Based on the findings from the discourse analysis, the researcher identified various major themes. One such is Saudi women’s empowerment; and the study discusses in detail how Twitter was used by women activists to gain support so that they could raise awareness, pressurize the government and gain influence to get their driving rights. Discourse analysis was also applied to examine how different news reports published in printed media contributed to the lifting of the WDB in Saudi Arabia. There is a wide range of evidence about how news media and Twitter were used to activate and mobilize the social movement for lifting the WDB. It was also found that women’s rights were granted in order to meet the agenda of the Kingdom, as the government was fully committed to fulfilling their Vision 2030 women’s empowerment goals. Therefore, the government allowed activists to discuss the issue through Twitter as well as other news media such as Arab News. This study has various theoretical and practical contributions which increase its valuein the field. The first theoretical contribution is to consider the activity on Twitter networks in the light of social movement theory to understand how the engagement of international and national influencers played an important role in online activism that increased the success of the WDB social movement in Saudi Arabia. This study provides insights into how Saudi women struggled to get their basic rights such as driving, and how both the traditional media and pressure built on Twitter supported the women’s online activism that helped them to get their driving rights as well as generating opposition to lifting the WDB in a male-dominated culture which is deeply affected by traditional values around honour. The second theoretical contribution is that the use of social movement theory has helped to understand the role of social media in a woman-centric social movement in the KSA. Recommendations for future studies around women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia are made. For example, there is a need to conduct research on the motivations of Saudi women to empower themselves in areas such as work and to understand the factors that motivate or inhibit Saudi women from diverse income backgrounds to get empowerment. The practical contributions of the study include an insight into the roles of different elite and non-elite participants in social movements and the roles these participants might usefully play in progressing policies on the empowerment of underprivileged groups, such as women in Saudi Arabia. Also, the study provides insights into how social media platforms like Twitter generate spill-over effects and drive a social movement, these insights can help policy makers to capitalise on the positive effects of a movement and minimise its negative effects. Thirdly, the study shed light on how the technological features of social media can be used in social networking to effect social change.39 0