The Role of Saudi Organisations in Achieving the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 Regarding women and SDG5, from Female Employees’ Perspectives: Using Institutional logics lens

The focus of this study is to explore the role of Saudi organisations’ calculative and control practices to meet the expectations of the Saudi Vision 2030 and sustainable development goal (SDG5) and their impact on Saudi women’s lives. It seeks to understand the perspective of female employees in different Saudi organisations regarding how the implementation of the Vision and SDG5 has impacted their lives. In doing so, it adds to the literature on management control systems (MCS) by exploring the role of calculative and control practices in the pursuit of SDGs in developing countries. This study adopts institutional logics theory as the theoretical framework to provide an interpretation of the impact of different factors on women’s lives and on the practices of organisations regarding women.
Twenty-eight in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with female employees working in a variety of organisations, to obtain an understanding of how their lives have been impacted both within the workplace and at home as a result of organisations’ calculative and control practices. This approach contributed to the literature by considering women’s perspectives as beneficiaries whose lives have been impacted, rather than interviewing managers or considering their reports. Therefore, by obtaining female employees’ perspectives, this study provided a counter account, and in doing so, it performs a type of social audit.
Thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the obtained data. The data analysis reveals that Saudi organisations have a significant role in achieving the goals of Vision 2030 that are consistent with SDG5 targets through their calculative and control practices. Their role varies based on the level of balancing company logic and efficiency logic. The organisations’ practices, along with the governmental efforts, are proven to open up and reshape the boundaries of the traditional social roles of women as mothers, wives, and daughters inside the household to become capable of being professional women and joining the workforce in greater numbers. As a theoretical contribution, the study provides evidence that a combination of institutional logics can reinforce each other rather than work against each other.