Strategy, Policy and Practice in the Nationalisation of Human Capital: ‘Project Emiratisation’

Nationalisation of the human resource is the desired and articulated policy of all rulers of countries that form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In reality, however, the policy has been dogged with difficulties in implementation from its inception as it faces seemingly insurmountable hurdles, such as a demographic imbalance caused by a high proportion of expatriates working in the region, the challenges of public and private sector employment, the role of national women in society, the reliance on expatriate employment, high rates of unemployment among poorly trained nationals, and cumulatively the need for sustainable development as well as the effective governance of human capital. Within this context, governments, including the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have decided to tackle the challenges faced by Emiratisation as a nationalisation endeavour. This paper examines ‘Emiratisation’, with a view to evaluating the success of the policy as well as its shortcomings to this point in time. Furthermore, the paper draws light on principles which may direct the strategy for human resource management (HRM) in this context. The outcomes of the research are of potential value, in particular to human resource departments (HRD) in the GCC seeking to nationalise a proportion of their workforce.