Search results

The Islamic Capital Market (ICM) has witnessed tremendous growth over the years. One of the most interesting growth curves in the ICM instruments is that Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts (I-REITs). The purpose in this paper is to highlight the concept of I-REIT and to presents a comparative analysis for Emirates I-REIT and Al-Salam I-REIT of UAE and Malaysia to find out the implications of the major differences between the two countries I-REITs.

This paper uses the data in the two I-REITs' financial reports from the years 2015 to 2019. A descriptive (Observational design) data analysis approach is used in comparing both I-REITs by focusing on five different variables that include: portfolio, governance, financial performance, Shariah compliance and risk management.

The findings offer evidence of key differences between the two countries regarding the I-REITs. The differences found in the implication for all variables that the paper presented, especially the size of the portfolio for each I-REIT along with the Shariah compliance and risk management, Al Salam “Malaysia” used more standard approach than UAE in which the SSB is responsible for setting the guidelines for Emirates REIT. Also, the risk management technique used by the two REITs differs from one another.

This research paper provides an insight for the capital market sectors as an initiative to improve and develop the ICM to play its important role in the economy.

This research paper is an initiative to compare and evaluate the implications of major differences between the I-REITs of the two countries only in the light of recent development in the ICM.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategies and competitive advantages of Emirate Airlines that have led to exceptional performance while the overall airline industry globally has faced multibillion‐dollar losses in 2009.

The authors' professional experience, extensive literature review, and personal communications with selected personnel of Emirate Airlines on the subject provided the foundation for this research.

As the global business environment becomes increasingly competitive, the airline industry has also had to respond to the current business scenario, while facing devastating falling demands, shattered consumer confidence, and collapsing yields. However, in 2009, Emirate Airlines reported phenomenal growth and astounding profits while their rivals faced agonizing losses. This paper explores and examines the competitive advantage of Emirate Airlines. The major finding is that the formulation and implementation of appropriate strategies has led to the exceptional performance, profitability, and success of Emirate Airlines.

The competitive strategies – such as operational strategies, generic strategies, intensive strategies, and diversification strategies – can be helpful for firms to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. Also, the ability to leverage, innovate, and pioneer new ideas, as well as a visionary management team, are essential for exceptional performance of an organization.

The paper provides a model for strategically managing the performance of an aspiring firm, even though the entire industry is facing distressing circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the principal reasons why Emirate women are under‐represented in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) information technology (IT) sector; and the barriers and challenges that national women have encountered while working in this sector of the national economy.

The paper draws on data from 20 structured in‐depth interviews conducted with Emirate women who had worked for a minimum of five years in IT.

Although national women have made remarkable inroads into almost all professions and occupations in recent years, they are still noticeably under‐represented in IT, particularly in the private sector. In addition, very few are in senior‐level positions and there are, at the time of writing, no Emirate women technology‐entrepreneurs. The results show that cultural and familial factors still inhibit many young Emirate women from choosing careers in this profession, and negative gendered attitudinal assumptions about women are still prevalent within the local IT sector.

The sample size was small, so we were unable to test specific research hypotheses, or compare our results with quantitative cohort surveys conducted in other countries. Nevertheless, the findings warrant additional research, as increasing numbers of Emirate women graduate from local universities with IT/MIS degrees, and further research on this topic is described.

Five practical strategies are identified to encourage more young Emirate women to embrace IT careers in the future.

This is the first research on this issue conducted in the UAE/GCC region.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluate the competitive strategy of Emirate Airlines.

The paper outlines Emirates' history and discusses the factors that have contributed to its remarkable record of profitable growth.

How many state‐owned enterprises do you know that grow their business every year and consistently make a profit? Or, for that matter, that win awards for their customer service? One example of this unusual species is Emirate Airlines – known as “Emirates”. In an industry suffering from high and rising fuel costs, economic recession and fierce price competition, this is indeed an achievement. How do they do it? Some have accused Emirates of unfair competition; the airline naturally denies this, arguing that its success results from superior competitive strategy. What, then, are the factors that contribute to the remarkable performance of Emirate Airlines?

The paper draws attention to the airline's focus on high‐quality product differentiation, other factors affecting its competitive success and the reactions of rival airlines.

The paper highlights the multicultural nature of Emirates' workforce and its reliance on expatriates to run the business.

The paper provides an insight into the structural and competitive considerations that have allowed Emirates to become one of the world's largest and most successful airlines.

The purpose of this study is to examine faculty perceptions of the aim/structure of the United Arab Emirate's Qualifications Framework (QF Emirates) and its impact on academic practices in order to support policymakers on how to better implement the framework.

The study applied a mixed-methods approach to obtain quantitative and qualitative feedback from faculty members from two of the largest higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), namely the UAE University (UAEU) and the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT). A questionnaire was used to capture broad insight from a sample of 788 faculty members from both institutions. In addition, semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 faculty members to offer more in-depth analysis of how to improve QF Emirates strategies in light of the current challenges and future aspirations.

The study revealed that faculty members have an overall “average” to “high” perceptions of the general aim/structure of the QF Emirates and its impact on teaching, learning and assessment. Moreover, the study revealed that faculty from the HCT have a significantly higher perception of the QF Emirates implementation compared to faculty from the UAEU. The study concluded with proposing a number of solutions to support in improving the QF Emirates implementation, including raising awareness across stakeholders, identifying and communicating faculty roles in the process, and developing polices, guidelines and systems to support consistent integration of QF Emirates into academic practices.

The outcomes of this study would add to the existing body of knowledge pertaining to the role of stakeholders (e.g. faculty members) in the implementation of the national qualifications framework. It addition, it can drive future professional development activities and add to the discourse around the conceptual framework of NQFs. Outcomes of the study could also provide additional information on the use of the QF Emirates as a supporting instrument. Last but not least, this work could provide insight to policymakers in regard to institutional support that would promote effective adoption of the QF Emirates.

United Arab Emirates’ (UAEs) commitment to sustainable development is well reflected in its Vision-2021, 2030 and the Green Economy Strategy for Sustainable Development, followed by several initiatives at federal and local level. However, out of seven Emirates, the governments of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are adopting and rigorously implementing green initiatives for conserving energy, minimizing resources wastage and becoming zero-carbon ecology, leaving behind the other five emirates. To promote the implementation of government’s sustainability agenda holistically (including all the emirates), it is important to adopt a systems thinking to diagnose the complex social arrangements and their interactive relations with the larger systems and the environment at each and all recursive levels.

This viewpoint proposes that Viable System Model (VSM) framework can support sustainable planning and configuration evaluation holistically, by diagnosing the region (system-in-focus) together with the present and future environment, at multiple recursive levels of city, emirates and country-wide. To demonstrate the relative strength of the VSM structural framework and its principles to replicate/implement the green initiatives country-wide, the study provides supporting evidence and multiple examples of its application in other parts of the world for managing sustainability-related issues from smallest (town/city) to largest (national) levels in the United Arab Emirates.

The VSM framework has been adopted by several scholars for fruitful utilization of its structural, connectivity, recursivity and complexity principles in the context of sustainability at the organizational, territory and national levels. The discussion has been made on the suitability of VSM framework for implementing sustainable development initiatives county-wide by viewing it in totality and at multiple levels of administration and governance.

It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

No prior work exists in Arab region where VSM has been proposed for the holistic management of sustainable initiatives. It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

This chapter examines the competitiveness of the tourism cluster in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by applying Porter's competitiveness of nation diamond model, with its four dimensions: factor conditions, demand conditions, the related and supporting industries, and, lastly, the firm's strategy and rivalry. Specifically, we provide a thorough analysis of the UAE's strategic plans, initiatives, and tactics to cultivate competitiveness in tourism across the nation. This includes the draft of a vision for the nation, decisions to build and reinforce their infrastructure, determination to develop and nurture skilled workforce, ability to respond innovatively to their customers' evolving demands, selection of the appropriate base for competition, and, finally, continuous melioration of related industries. Examining secondary data and by reviewing governmental reports, we find that UAE did not cultivate a national advantage by owning random natural resources, but rather by having a strategic intent to converge all their efforts and to deliberately build a coherent cluster in the tourism sector. The chapter also provides some limitations and recommendations for future research.

Teaching notes are available upon request.

The purpose of this paper is to enable tourism management and strategic management students to evaluate and analyze tourism activities in the United Arab Emirates by TCA. Students will gain a comprehensive understanding of developing tourism in rural areas in the United Arab Emirates and to build up proper strategies. They will be able to perform the organization’s competitive standing using Porter’s Five competitive forces and analyze its business strategies as well. They will be able to analyze the current status of the organization using SWOT analysis and to design alternative strategies for the company using TOWS analysis.

The Department of Tourism and Culture – Abu Dhabi, also known as the TCA, is a governmental tourism authority in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi established 14 years ago as part of an economy-diversifying strategy for the non-oil era. The TCA is responsible of creating tourism activities to generate new tourists in Abu Dhabi, which will increase the revenue of the authority and as well increase the gross domestic product of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) economy. Tourism activities have been focused on Abu Dhabi City as is it considered the capital city of the UAE. However, other cities are also part of this strategy, e.g. Al Ain City, which is located in the eastern region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and Al Dhafra City, which is located in the western region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, both of which lack the required infrastructure, population, and tourism activity, due in part at least to the fact that the TCA’s strategy plans have been focused on Abu Dhabi City. Sultan Al Mutawa Al Dhaheri (Al Dhaheri), the TCA’s Executive Director of Tourism, has been responsible for developing tourism in Al Ain City and Al Dhafra, but due to the current situation of the two cities regarding the low revenue growth (and the consequent lack of investors willing to invest) and no critical mass (i.e. a sufficient number of hotel rooms available), Al Dhaheri is facing a dilemma regarding achieving TCA strategy in Al Ain City and Al Dhafra City.

This case study will be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate level students majoring in Tourism and Hospitality Management, Business Administration and Strategic Management.

CSS 12: Tourism and Hospitality.

With the global financial crisis, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) experienced its own unraveling of macro-financial imbalances and thus presents an interesting case to analyze the underlying fragilities in federal governments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of fiscal policy in the UAE at consolidated and subnational levels in the run-up and after the crisis, and provide pertinent insights about the importance of policy coordination in other federal fiscal systems – and monetary unions, as brought to light by the recent developments in Europe.

In measuring the cyclicality of fiscal balances at the consolidated and emirate level in the UAE, this paper uses the non-hydrocarbon primary budget balance, excluding interest spending and hydrocarbon revenues, investment income of the sovereign wealth fund, scaled by non-hydrocarbon GDP. The cyclically adjusted primary balance is estimated by deducting cyclical components from the actual balance. It is important to correct for cyclical changes because the budget balance tends to vary endogenously according the state of the economy – deteriorating during a bust and improving in a boom. Furthermore, since hydrocarbon revenues are dependent on the erratic behavior of hydrocarbon prices, the cyclically adjusted non-hydrocarbon primary balance is computed, using the elasticity of non-hydrocarbon revenues and primary expenditures relative to non-hydrocarbon GDP, to assess whether fiscal policy exacerbates economic fluctuations in the UAE at the aggregate and emirate levels.

The empirical findings show that procyclical fiscal policies prior to the crisis reinforced the financial sector cycle, exacerbated the economic upswing, and thereby contributed to the build-up of macro-financial vulnerabilities. The paper also sets out policy lessons to develop a rule-based fiscal framework that would help strengthen fiscal policy coordination between the various layers of government and ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and a more equitable intergenerational distribution of wealth.

The lack of fiscal policy coordination among subnational governments complicates macro-economic management at the federal level. Since the UAE has a pegged exchange rate regime and consequently a limited scope to use monetary policy, the burden of macro-economic stabilization falls on fiscal policy. Accordingly, this paper shows that procyclical fiscal policies prior to the crisis reinforced the “financial accelerator” effect, exacerbated the economic cycle, and thereby contributed to the build-up of economic and financial vulnerabilities in the UAE.

Strategic marketing, Business strategy, Product diversification strategy and/or Market entry strategy.

This case is useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students who are pursuing majors in marketing, business management and/or strategic management.

The Emirates Dates Factory commenced operations in 1989 in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), as a 100 per cent equity held by Mr Abdullah Al Shamsi. Over time, it has become one of the best and renowned factory for date production and processing. Emirates Dates derives its strength from its own plantations in Ras Al Khaimah and Al Ain, as well as from a wide variety of date products that it develops, including date syrup, dates in different packing and stuffed dates. The company seeks to be the leader of dates production and processing in terms of sales. However, the management is facing issues pertaining to determining the area of growth that it should pursue. This case study illustrates the growth options that Emirates Dates could pursue along with its opportunities and challenges that the firm faces.

This case study expose student to Ansoff growth matrix in general and the application of the market penetration strategy in specific. Accordingly, the case illustrates how one could develop other growth strategies to improve its revenues through product diversification and/or market development.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.