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result(s) for
"Katsioloudes, Marios I"
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Entrepreneurial mindset and the role of universities as strategic drivers of entrepreneurship
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the factors that influence the mindset of youth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in choosing entrepreneurship as their future employment. It also suggests the pathway to improve the role of the universities as strategic drivers in inducing an entrepreneurial mindset.
Design/methodology/approach
An exhaustive literature review of extant research followed by an exploratory study was conducted. Furthermore, to understand factors influencing the role of universities, interpretive structural modelling methodology is applied to evolve a hierarchy-based relationship among the strategic factors.
Findings
The results of empirical research suggest that young people in the UAE rank entrepreneurship as their first employment choice. However, most of them have not attended any formal entrepreneurship-related course in school or in college. The study also suggests that individual and environmental factors influence the entrepreneurial mindset of both males and females in the UAE. The structural model developed in the study indicates that to give an impetus to the entrepreneurial mindset, the government must create a supporting environment with UAE universities playing the role of a catalyst.
Practical implications
Professional entrepreneurship instruction is seen as a strategic tool to stimulate financial and societal growth. The results could provide insights for both entrepreneurship educators and policymakers and will boost their commitment to promote the entrepreneurial mindset within UAE society by enhancing and developing traits associated with entrepreneurial success. The results support recognition of the factors that induce educational programmes and economic incentives targeted at the development of sustainable entrepreneurial culture and ventures in the UAE.
Originality/value
The study is an effort to highlight the role of higher education in envisaging and cultivating entrepreneurs in a fast-growing developing country through a survey and a hierarchy-based model.
Journal Article
The factors affecting e-commerce adoption by Jordanian SMEs
Purpose
– This paper aims to explore internal and external organizational factors affecting electronic commerce or e-commerce systems adoption by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Jordan.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors developed a model containing factors that might support e-commerce adoption. The model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis and then used to explore the relationships between factors. The authors used qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interviews, to explore awareness and adoption of e-commerce systems by Jordanian SMEs. SMEs in Jordan were identified from the Annual Handbook Index of 2012, compiled by the Jordanian Chamber of Commerce, and 500 in the industrial and services sectors were randomly selected as the study sample.
Findings
– The effect of the adoption of e-commerce systems by SMEs is affected by both internal and external organizational factors, particularly readiness, strategy, managers’ perceptions and external pressure by trading partners. Readiness and external pressure are most important for achieving maximum benefit from e-commerce adoption.
Research limitations/implications
– The relative importance of factors affecting e-commerce adoption may vary depending on local business conditions. SME managers in Jordan who wish to benefit from e-commerce introduction must therefore invest in activities to improve SME readiness, especially information technology infrastructure.
Originality/value
– This study is the first to explore both internal and external organizational factors important for e-commerce adoption by Jordanian SMEs. It tells SME managers which factors are likely to affect e-commerce adoption.
Journal Article
Participative decision-making and job satisfaction for teachers in the UAE
Purpose
– Knowledge of teachers’ participative decision making (PDM) and job satisfaction (JS) is important, as teachers comprise most of a school’s staff. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of teacher gender, nationality and school type on teachers’ PDM and JS in Abu Dhabi’s schools and to determine whether there any significant differences in PDM and teachers’ JS among teachers of different genders, school types and nationalities.
Design/methodology/approach
– A questionnaire was used to collect data for the study by measuring each responding teacher’s involvement in making school decisions in both the instructional and managerial domains and JS. The questionnaire was distributed among teachers in 28 different schools around the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Findings
– The primary results demonstrated that teachers’ PDM differs by teacher gender, nationality and school type, whereas teacher’s JS differs by teacher gender and nationality, with school type having in general no significant effect on teacher JS.
Originality/value
– This study contributes to literature on the UAE educational field, educational leadership and school management.
Journal Article
Strategic interventions to improve women entrepreneurship in GCC countries
Purpose
In Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, entrepreneurship is not a very popular option among women. The low rate of entrepreneurship as a career choice among females is attributed to factors that are specific to females in GCC region. The purpose of this paper is to understand these variables and their interrelationships that lead to low rate of adoption of entrepreneurship as a career choice among females in GCC region.
Design/methodology/approach
The research followed a two-stage process; first, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify barriers to female entrepreneurship in GCC region. In the second stage, the identified barriers were modeled using fuzzy interpretive structural modeling technique to construct a hierarchical structure and the impact matrix cross-reference multiplication applied to a classification approach to analyze the control power and dependence among these barriers.
Findings
The research shows that there exists a group of barriers having a high driving power and low dependence requiring maximum attention and of strategic importance, while another group consists of those variables that have high dependence and are the resultant actions.
Practical implications
This research will help policy makers to focus on variables that are most important and requires immediate attention for the development and empowerment of female entrepreneurship in the GCC region. The paper suggests future course of action to provide an impetus to efforts aimed at improving female entrepreneurship in the GCC region.
Originality/value
The policy makers in the GCC region have accorded high priority to entrepreneurship to reduce the dependence of population on government jobs. This research is one of the few studies on female entrepreneurship conducted in GCC region to understand the impediments that limit the adoption of entrepreneurship as a career choice by women.
Journal Article
Socio-technical analysis: a normative model for participatory planning
Socio-technical consultation is often limited by a conceptualization that equates ‘social’ with open human systems and ‘technical’ with closed mechanistic ones. Such a conceptualization derives narrowly from the attributes of the components of an enterprise instead of from consideration of all components in toto. As such, intervention is skewed toward the social component, since the closed technical system is perceived as a ‘given’. Conceptualizing organizations in terms of ‘competing constituent objectives and conflicting value paradigms’ provides an alternative problem-solving approach for the socio-technical consultant. Development of organizational policy as a boundary function between ‘workers’ and ‘owners’ provides such an alternative, and must be fully embraced by both in order to be effective. It is here that the socio-technical consultant has the greatest opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.
Journal Article
Austria and the European Union
Critical mutual benefits from Austria joining the EU are identified and discussed. Austria obtains greater economic bargaining power, loses some sovereignty but retains neutrality and voice. EU gains strategic location, an educated and skilled workforce and perhaps a conscience regarding environment and small business protection. The Anschluss this time is a win/win situation for Austria, EU and for Europe.
Journal Article
International joint ventures in Russia: a recipe for success
Purpose - This paper seeks to identify success factors of oil and gas international joint ventures (IJVs) in Russia. The paper focuses on the evaluation of the factors determining the success of IJVs.Design methodology approach - An empirical study of 49 IJVs was completed using a core list of 31 success factors. Statistical and cluster analysis of the relative importance of the success factors was completed.Findings - The results revealed that diverse importance values on the success factors were placed by Russian and foreign partners, suggesting that such an inconsistency could be the cause of high failure rates among IJVs.Research limitations implications - The sample size is restricted to only those companies with contact details published on the internet. No data were available on determination of the population size which may bring into question the generalizability of the results to a full population.Practical implications - This investigation can be useful to managers, both Russian and foreign. It provides them with general indications about the most important aspects and determinants of successful energy agreements, which they can apply and tailor to their specific situations and when seeking to make agreements for IJVs in Russia.Originality value - The value of this research is the grouping of success factors into clusters, thus replicating and at the same time confirming previous research findings.
Journal Article