Cultural challenges faced by European businessmen doing business in the Middle East

Nowadays, planning to achieve a successful business in the Middle East, especially in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) doesn’t only require the proper educational degree in business or unique personal skills, but it most importantly also necessitate the knowledge and awareness of the cultural challenges which will be faced. Nevertheless, European businesspeople can’t certainly predict how distinct the business culture is in the Middle East and how to adequately manage the cultural shock. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is to obtain the cultural challenges experienced by European businessmen when conducting business in the Middle East, with an explicit focus on the UAE. In light of this, the thesis has covered the combination of theoretical insights and practical situations gathered from thoughtful interviews aiming to identify and manage these challenges. Furthermore, this helped to provide the utmost recommendations and advice to strengthen European businesspeople with the cross-cultural skills and strategies to facilitate a successful future in such a diverse cultural environment.