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Abstract

What are the cross-cultural experiences of Saudi sojourners studying in the United States that lead to intrapersonal identity conflict? Sojourner identity conflict is a foundational issue in culture shock and can promote or limit positive relationships between Saudi and American students. It is important to study Saudi sojourners’ cultural backgrounds and the factors that inhibit or promote assimilation into their host culture to ensure the success of cultural exchange through providing data needed to learn how to best ameliorate the dissonance caused by identity conflict. By employing a phenomenological approach, this research provides findings relating to acculturation strategies of sojourners to analyze these processes and their impact on intrapersonal identity conflict. Key themes are discussed in the areas of: perceptions of the United States, study experiences, living experiences, successful versus unsuccessful coping strategies, extent of social support networks, perceptions of the United States and its people, and perceptions of those of the opposing sex.

Author Bio

Dr. Asfahani is an Assistant Professor and the General Director of Human Resources at the University of Business and Technology, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (UBT). Dr. Asfahani has extensive academic and professional experience in the areas of organizational dynamics, institutional conflict resolution systems, human resource principles, internal relations, environmental resource and ecosystem management, negotiation, and training, gained in highly competitive environments. Successfully designed conflict solutions systems and provided analysis and recommendations to entities that have been utilized in both Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America. In addition, Dr. Asfahani is freelance Strategic HR & Business Consultant, who obtained many experiences in different projects and developed his own versions of HR and business Models.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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