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Introduction
The rapid increase in the number of organisations that have decided to internationalise their operations over the last 20 years has made more salient the need for the international managers whom operate across these borders to be cross-culturally aware, sensitive and adaptive to local cultures. One of the key issues that has been identified by researchers and practitioners alike as contributing to the intercultural effectiveness of international managers is cross-cultural training (CCT). CCT is designed to ensure that they are equipped to personally deal with the psychological stresses of adjustment to a new cultural environment as well as being able to effectively manage their organisation's human resources in subsidiary operations ([16] Forster, 2000; [57] Tung, 1988; [69] Zakaria, 2000). The understanding and knowledge that such international managers require becomes more pertinent in situations where there is a substantive cultural distance between managers' nation of origin and the subsidiary nation to which they have been assigned ([26] Kaye and Taylor, 1997). Two such regions of the world that present numerous challenges and opportunities to international businesses and their managers are China and the Arab World. Key to working effectively within both of these regions is appreciation of the interpersonal networks and connections that pervade all aspects of business and social life. In this article we suggest that intercultural effectiveness of international managers within these transforming economies necessitates being well prepared for working with guanxi in China and wasta in the Arab World. Guanxi has been defined variously as networks, connections, contacts and even nepotism. A standard definition is that it refers to interpersonal connections ([7] Buttery and Wang, 1999) and it is regarded as being all-pervasive in both Chinese business and social activities ([35] Michailova and Worm, 2003). Wasta is Arabic for connections (or pull) and like in China, it is seen as a force in every significant decision in Arab life ([10] Cunningham and Sarayrah, 1993). While such traditional practices have been moderated by industrialisation and internationalisation (and somewhat more so in the case of China), we contend that they remain ubiquitous aspects of these ancient and fascinating societies.
Though in recent years considerable attention has been devoted to analysing China's guanxi , the Arab World's wasta has not been adequately researched nor...