Business report

1. Introduction
This report will discuss the importance of punctuality, as managers in Egypt are concerned about the frequency by which staff members are arriving late for work. Recommendations will be brought forth on how to best resolve this issue incorporating Bartol et al decision-making process. Possible Reasons as to why employees tend to arrive late for work will also be discussed. ABroad Range of possibilities will be mentioned: a cultural factor that has not been accounted for, low job satisfaction or simply a lack of discipline implemented by local managers. Literature was collected using various journal articles and cultural values measuring models such as Hofstede Model. The options that will be brought forth are constructing employee contracts, reward and punishmentsystem within the sales car company and as a third option outsource a transport service company to pick up staff every morning.

2. The Issue and Analysis
Managers in Egypt are concerned about the frequency with which staff members are arriving late for work. Employees showing up late for work could have significant financial costs. Staff members who show up late for will have a loss of productivityhaving the same effect on co-workers whose work might depend on the late employees. Additionally periodical schedules could be disrupted. There is essentially a snowball effect when employees show up late for work, it is not a complex issue but it could have disastrous results if not resolved as soon as possible.

2.1 Causes
Another cultural factor to consider is that 99% of the Egyptianpopulation are Muslim (Egyptian Religion, 2011) and the traditional Islam prayer times are at dawn, sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening (Islamic Prayer Times, 2007) which amounts to five times a day. If the staff members are praying at sunrise this could be a viable reason for them arriving late for work. Egyptians employees coming late to work is a problem that might be caused as Muslimstake between 3 to 20 minutes praying during the sunrise (Ripping, 1993).

Within the political arena, former president Hosni Mubarak abandoned power after 20 years in 2011. As the first democratic elections took place this month a number This situation haoutburst a number of riots and manifestation. and Funk yard employees can encounter a number of roads closed due to riots or stopped by thepolice as regular security procedures. This uncomfortable situation can directly affect both employees who drive to work or get on public transport.

2.2 Cultural Context
One very important factor that has to be considered are the intercultural considerations adopted by the Egyptian society. For example Iu, Arin Bayraktarog (2010) writes “Egyptians feel very uneasy about telling you when to arrivefor the occasion. Even if you ask what time you should be there, they will find it extremely difficult to give you a direct answer and get around the question by a latitudinal answer like: 'Any time after seven' or Seven or eight, whenever'. This is because specifying the time down to its minutes will sound as if you are unwelcome and such an implication is totally against their understanding ofhospitality. Even though this bit of information is not about the car sales industry per say it does show that if Egyptians are really brought with this kind of social interaction it could subconsciously influence the way they behave both privately and professionally.


The Hofstede model of cultural dimensions is another way of analyzing different cultural values. The five dimensions of themodel are Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) and Long Term Orientation (LTO). Egypt scored relatively high on the Hofstede power distance index (PDI) (Cultural Dimensions Model, 2011), this means that less powerful members of an organization expect power to be distributed unequally. This can be explained, as the levels of social...