A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Aggressiveness in the Workplace: A Comparison Between Jews and Arabs in Israel

The study aimed to investigate whether employees' ethnic culture affects their organizational aggression toward their managers. The authors compared aggression toward managers in two samples of Israeli employees—Jews who are low collectivists and Arabs who are high collectivists. The study's sample was composed of 160 employees in 19 community centers—80 Israeli Jews and 80 Israeli Arabs. Results indicate that ethnic group is the major predictor of employees' aggressive behavior, whereas gender predicts aggression within each ethnic group. Furthermore, a significant distinction in the use of direct and indirect aggression was found between the two ethnic groups. Theories of power distance, cultural communication patterns, and comparative analysis of emotion expressions offer possible explanations for these results.