Abstract
Despite the prevalence of expatriates in Arab countries workforces, research examining their employment experiences in relation to their local counterparts remains limited. Investigating this topic within international HRM literature remains important because of distinct workplace inequalities related to the colonial legacies associated with non-Western expatriates from formerly colonised Arab and Asian countries. In this paper, we aim to address and contribute to this area by investigating how Orientalism and self-Orientalism functions in organisational practices and across interactions among skilled non-Western expatriates and local Saudi nationals working in private Saudi organisations. We thematically analysed data from 35 interviews (15 non-Western expatriates, 15 Saudi employees and five Saudi HR professionals). Our analysis revealed that self-Orientalism was embedded subjectively into constructions of cultural identities as superior and inferior, and as a strategic response for navigating discriminatory environments. In addition, Orientalism was embedded more structurally into discriminatory organisational practices, such as hiring and pay. We discuss our research in terms of the need to better account for the multidimensional nature of (self-)Orientalism in employee experiences and HRM practices in international postcolonial settings.