MID TERM EXAM

ABW 503/503D – Management Insights

Duration : 2 hours

Fill in the info please:

NAME

IC/PASSPORT
NUMBER

MATRIC NUMBER

Instructions:

1. Kindly type your answer in this file and later change it to PDF format once you
are ready to submit.
Format: Arial Font 12, 1.5 spacing

2. Rename this file as below:

Your full name_MID TERM EXAM ABW 503/503D, example:

Anees Janee Ali_Mid Term Exam ABW 503 or..
Anees Janee Ali_Mid Term Exam ABW 503D

(DO NOT FORGET TO SAVE IT IN PDF FORMAT)

1
Neom's push for foreign investment is getting trickier after
allegations of Saudi brutality
By Tom Porter
May 13, 2024, 8:04 PM GMT+8
https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-saudi-brutality-claims-obstruct-investment-drive-2024-5

 Saudi Arabia needs foreign businesses to help it realize its Neom

megacity project.
 But it's facing a backlash over its human rights record.
 The BBC reported that Saudi officials were given a license to use lethal
force to clear land.

The images of the planned Saudi desert megacity of Neom depict a futuristic utopia.

It is billed as a paradise for foreign investors as well as the people who will live there.

But underneath the image is a far darker reality, say campaigners, which could
threaten the foreign cash and expertise Saudi Arabia needs to realize its ambitions.

Last week, some of the darkness burst to the fore.

Malcolm Aw, the founder of a UK solar desalination company, told Business

Insider he withdrew from a contract with Neom over concerns about the brutal
treatment feared to have been meted out by Saudi officials to local people.

2
Though his decision took place in 2022, it was given new urgency by a whistleblower
giving more detail on how Saudi officials may have acted.

The BBC, citing ex-Saudi intelligence officer Col Rabih Alenezi, said Saudi forces
had clearance to kill people to clear land to build the city.

The UN human-rights agency last year found that a man was indeed killed after
resisting an order to vacate his home. Three others have been sentenced to death
under broad anti-terror laws.

"I think for investors looking at it, there are still just too many unknown variables,"
Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal analyst at risk consultancy Maplecroft, recently told The
Telegraph, and said foreign investors were not buying into Saudi Arabia's plans.

Added to this are concerns the Saudis could use Chinese face
recognition surveillance tech to monitor Neom and its residents.

The controversy is looming over a visit to Saudi Arabia this week by a UK trade
delegation hoping to forge new ties, and British officials are doing their best to deflect
questions about the BBC report.

Amnesty International said businesses ought to be wary of doing deals in Saudi

Arabia and called for UK officials to push for an independent investigation into the
Neom land clearances.

Until that can happen — which may be never — "business enterprises should
consider not undertaking" Saudi projects, Dana Ahmed, Amnesty
International's Middle East researcher, told Politico.

Concerns over Saudi Arabia's human rights record are nothing new. Back in 2018,
Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman faced international uproar over the murder of
dissident Jamal al-Khashoggi, which US intelligence agencies concluded that he
ordered (the Saudis deny this).

Saudi Arabia has sought to improve its image under the Crown Prince's rule,
granting women more freedoms, opening up the kingdom to international tourists,
and engaging in a so-called "sportswashing" campaign to improve its image through
involvement in international competitions.

But Saudi Arabia's brutal treatment of dissidents remains a sticking point, and
periodically flare up into something that could get in the way of the dealmaking both
the Saudis and their counterparts promote.

"Human rights violations reduce the appetite for foreign investment and association
with the Kingdom," analysts for The Atlantic Council wrote in 2020, and little has
changed since.

Neom did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

3
Question 1

Discuss the issues that American investors (from the United States of America) need to know
about the expectations of Arab Saudi in order to design, develop and manage the mega
project of NEOM in Saudi Arabia?

Answer the question above by referring to the SIX (6) dimensions of Hofstede’s cultural
dimensions.

[ 30 marks ]

PD IND MAS UA LT vs ST INDULGE

Question 2

Discuss FOUR (4) data that are needed by companies such as McD, Starbucks, KFC during
the boycott in order to save their business?
[ 20 marks ]