Abstract
The socio-cultural influences on young employees: Evidence from Morocco
Abstract
The most significant recent development in social cultural environment is the change, challenges of those of young employees’ attitude and behaviour towards their leaders in the workplace. Traditionally, the Moroccan society had subscribed to the beliefs, societal values such as obedience, respects to the elderly or their leaders. Consequently, that has been a surge of interest in finding out why this change is taking place in the society and impacting on the young employees in workplace. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the specific research questions: Do young people hold really a negative attitude towards their leaders and what socio-cultural factors influence their behaviour? Thus, this study adopts a phenomenological approach and a cyclical research process. An early informal conversation with potential participants, gave the researchers an indication that the Moroccan society is rich, complex, and present a lot of challenges to young generation. Data were collected using semi-structured interview with 25 young employees across the industries. A sampling process of selection and recruitment of participants is adopted and followed by a thematical analysis.
The study shows that the socio-cultural environment of Morocco has direct impacts on the attitudes of young employees. It has also some managerial implications, i.e., provide a guide to better understand the needs, expectations, and ambitions of young employees. Regarding the social implication, young employees aspire to have a work-life balance leading to participation in community activities, and volunteering for a healthy society.
Keywords: Young employee, socio-cultural environment, leadership, Morocco.