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Assesses the main factors affecting employment in the Arab Gulf region. In particular: What are the main determinants of employment in the region? How do these determinants vary between national and foreign workforces? Have these determinants changed over time? The results, particularly for the 1980‐85 period, suggest that labour market mismatches may be increasing in the Arab World. This is essentially the problem of too many PhDs and too few mechanics. The symptom of this would be relatively high levels of disguised unemployment among the highly educated, coupled with a shortage of artisans. The damage arising from these skill mismatches lies in the way the various economic sectors are likely to expand while faced by labour constraints. These findings suggest that reforms of both the educational system and the hiring practices of Government agencies will be critical to restoring increases in productivity and ultimately expanded rates of non‐oil income.

The paper seeks to pinpoint new directions of the evolution of knowledge in the Arab region, and to outline the role of knowledge management principles in constructing the knowledge society.

The article addresses initiatives towards narrowing the knowledge gap and building an egalitarian knowledge society in the Arab region. It reviews, interprets and relates the relevant literature and sheds the light on the Arab region's future plans.

The article outlines some of the regionally relevant elements needed for building the knowledge society. It also suggests some means of tapping the diversified workforce's tacit knowledge, reversing the “brain drain,” and building potential leadership models.

This article represents an overview and interpretation of the role of knowledge management as it relates to the effectiveness of concepts such as “knowmadism” and the practicality of “megatribe knowledge.” The article provides rendition and a roadmap for decision makers, knowledge workers, and future researchers in the domain of the “knowledge society” within the Arab region.

This chapter focuses on the definition of the Arab World. This is followed by a treatise on the meaning and purpose of comparative education. Next, the origin and development of comparative education in the Arab World is discussed. Trends and progress of comparative education in the region receive significant attention and discussion. Finally, the research methodologies and research interests of comparative educationists are examined.

Addresses the question of whether military expenditures in the Arab world have been at the expense of human capital development. Mainly finds that countries in the Arab world have experienced increases in human capital development associated with increased rates of military participation (armed forces per capita). This phenomenon is in sharp contrast with that found in non‐Arab countries. Also this phenomenon appears to be relatively recent, increasing in strength during the period after 1980. In part Arab governments have chosen to subsidize the education of increased numbers of civilians during periods of steppedup military expenditures with the understanding that upon completion of training those individuals will serve some time in the military.

This paper aims to report the results of a study which extends the research of Elbanna by testing the relationship between strategic planning practice and participation on the one hand and the effectiveness of strategic planning on the other.

The paper extends the work of Elbanna by conducting the study in a new setting, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a broader sample: private and public organizations. The study tries to control for the possible impact of the methodology on research results by adopting the same methods and measures as the initial study had adopted.

The conclusions of the combined studies show that, in Arab countries, strategic planning practice enhances strategic planning effectiveness; unexpectedly, and contrary to previous research in developed economies, management participation does not contribute here to the effectiveness of strategic planning.

Although previous research provides valuable knowledge concerning strategic planning, there has been a paucity of research that empirically measures the effectiveness of strategic planning. Moreover, the scarcity of replications and extensions in the strategic management literature encourages this study to try to fill this gap. The research also shows the importance of extensions in building strategic management theory.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings of an ethnographic study of homes in the Arab Gulf country of Qatar. The authors' analysis and contribution focuses on resolving the tension between privacy and hospitality in Qatari homes in the context of identity threats posed by an influx of Western modernity and its implications to marketers.

The study involves observation and in‐depth interviews with 24 middle‐class male and female home‐owning Qataris living in Doha. The analysis followed the logic of hermeneutic research.

It was found that values of privacy and hospitality are notably emphasized in Qatari homes. The authors discuss how these values coexist despite their glaring contradiction and also show that in this context privacy is used to reveal consumption and display status rather than to hide it away from the public arena.

With Qatar's collectivist orientation and strong gendered protectionism, marketing and advertising in the Gulf needs to be sensitive to these cultural practices.

By developing an understanding of the privacy/hospitality dialectic in Qatar, the paper provides insights into how these values are incorporated or resisted in the design and use of family homes in a modern era of increasing globalism and suggests implications for marketers.