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The purpose of this paper is to conduct a meta-analysis of existing research on gender discrimination/gender gap and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UAE, specifically, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in general because of very limited number of articles published on the subject. It will give future researchers insights into the topics, methodologies and findings of such research from 1999–2019.

This study conducts a meta-analysis of 72 articles using the Wildcard operator search method and the Boolean operator to perform an integrative literature search related to gender discrimination studies done in relationship to or specific to the UAE.

In total, 88 papers related to the UAE and gender gap and women were identified. The articles were narrowed down to the ones published in high-ranked or Scopus journals (72). The findings suggest a decreasing trend in gender discrimination, but the issue still persists, requiring efforts from policy-makers, society and government to ensure gender parity is achieved. Academic research on women in STEM/SET workplace, specific to the UAE and the region, continue to slowly advance, with very few articles published in the same.

The study provides insights into gender gap research done in the past ten years specific to the UAE national women and gender gap in general and their career choices and prospects in the STEM/SET domain.

There is a need to focus research on Emirati women in STEM careers to develop more insights into gender gap perceptions of Emirati women and identify challenges and methods to close the gender gap in STEM careers.

This paper brings a holistic perspective to the meta-analysis of research on the gender gap and women in the UAE’s STEM domain.

The purpose of this paper is to propose the microeconomics concept of elasticity to estimate the SERVQUAL gap elasticity to derive important insights for service providers to develop the right strategies to bridge the overall gap in service.

The dimensions of SERVQUAL adopted from Parasuraman et al. (1988) and Kumar et al. (2009) are first verified for their unidimensionality using structural equation modeling and reliability in the context of United Arab Emirates banking industry. Furthermore, the technique of dominance analysis is used to derive the relative importance of dimensions for different groups of banks. Finally, the stepwise log-linear regression models are used to estimate the gap elasticity to measure the responsiveness of the overall SERVQUAL gap to a change in customers’ perception on different dimension.

The results reveal that the dimension which is prioritized as the most important dimension need not to be the one to be targeted under the resource constraint to react faster to the changes of customers’ banking behavior.

This is probably the first attempt to examine the service quality through gap elasticity. This method is especially useful when the traditional approach to measure relative importance of critical factors fails to clearly discriminate between two or more dimensions, which, in turn, may lead to failure in decision making to choose the right strategies to bridge the overall gap in the service.

The corporate ethical behavior is a subject that instigates the reflection and practice of researchers and managers in general. Companies dedicate efforts to offer something valuable to society, making profits and usually doing it in compliance with the current legal system. Specifically in marketing activities, there is a higher potential for conflict between the business conduct and the expectations of society. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ethical gap of the marketing activities of companies in the Brazilian and French markets.

As a conceptual framework, the authors adopted the main theories on marketing activities, ethical behavior in marketing and business conduct. The field research was divided into three stages: qualitative research with experts, quantitative research with business managers and validation of results with experts. The analysis of results of the quantitative research with business managers was supported by multivariate analysis techniques, namely, descriptive analysis, cluster analysis and regression analysis.

In the analysis of results of this study, the authors present the main marketing behaviors in the perception of business ethics in the Brazilian and French markets. In addition, as the main result of the research studies, the authors propose a model for the analysis of ethical gaps in marketing.

The paper proposes a model of analysis of ethical gaps in marketing that relates the omissive and comissive behaviors according to the pressure that society imposes on markets.

The paper presents the main marketing behaviors in the perception of business ethics in the Brazilian and French markets. Thus, understanding what are the main marketing behaviors associated with the perception of business ethics allows the organization to leverage its marketing behaviors that are more positive and further develop less positive marketing behaviors.

As the main contribution, this paper proposes a model of analysis of ethical gaps in marketing that relates the omissive and comissive behaviors according to the pressure that society imposes on markets. The model allows the identification of the negative marketing behaviors in the four quadrants designated as opportunism, negligence, recklessness and incompetence. By mapping the problems, it is possible to minimize or eliminate the differences between the marketing behaviors of the company and the expectations of society.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to manage the strategy to counter disruptive innovation by identifying stronger attributes and key strategic areas for improvements in an engineering services context with less freedom to orchestrate product innovation. The authors also validate the combined use of multi-grade fuzzy, Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) and gap analysis in developing the strategy to mitigate turbulence.

The paper presents a framework using a combination of Dynamic Capabilities and Organizational Agility to develop the strategy. The study uses data gathered from a 60-member engineering project team working on an Aircraft Engine Controller design to identify 50 attributes and the related importance and performance ratings. The research study is designed using a three-tier approach. First, multi-grade fuzzy is utilized to measure the overall firm response agility index. In the second step, the IPA is used to analyze the strength and weaknesses of the firm and to identify the attributes where the firm needs to focus. In the past step, gap analysis is used to prioritize the identified attributes. The findings are validated by panel discussions with a different group of experts from the project team and action points were arrived at.

This research work finds that the firms’ response agility index of 6.97 is comparable to that of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) from previous literature, but still needs a better agility score to effectively counter turbulence from disruptive innovations. It also identifies seven key areas for improvement and their relative priority to effectively improve the response agility by utilizing the least number of resources, the reasons for the gap and the mitigation strategy to close the gap. The findings highlight a few key differences between an engineering services firm in comparison to OEMs and Software Services firms.

The findings help the practitioners with a comparative agility score of an engineering services firm, and an effective way of measuring agility, identify key focus areas and prioritize the actions using a simple set of data that could be collected regularly to keep track of the improvements. The provided strategic framework to improve the agility score can be used for continuous improvement.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by developing a framework for outsourcing services companies to cope with the turbulence by using dynamic capabilities and organizational agility. It also adds to the literature by extending the validity of IPA and gap analysis in making strategic decisions in an industrial set-up.

This study aims to assess the competency gap among construction industry professionals concerning the competencies required for identifying construction activities that produce recyclable materials. Accordingly, the study objectives are threefold: to identify key competencies, analyze the disparity between the level of importance and level of competence for each competency, and quantify the criticality of the competency gaps.

A systematic literature review was conducted to identify and categorize 20 competencies into knowledge, skills, and abilities. The competencies formed the basis for a questionnaire survey distributed to construction industry professionals. 120 valid responses were collected and analyzed using mean and normalized values, Wilcoxon signed-ranks test, and competency gap analysis.

The findings highlight eight key competencies: ability to prepare sustainable designs, skills in trading construction waste materials, skills in lean construction techniques, skills in designing out waste in construction activities, knowledge of diagnosing construction waste generation, knowledge of construction-related waste design, knowledge of the practice of sustainable facilities management, and knowledge on the sustainable characteristics of construction activities. Despite their importance, critical competency gaps exist among these key competencies and must be addressed.

This study equips decision-makers with insights to manage natural resources efficiently, offers practitioners a list of key competencies for sustainable project management, and provides researchers with a solid foundation for further investigations to advance sustainability in construction.

This study seeks to propose a conceptual approach to assess the perceived service quality properly using Fuzzy logic. First, it aims to verify whether it is a better solution than the Likert scale. Second, it seeks to evaluate patients' feedback towards hospital service quality using Fuzzy linguistic analysis.

The SERVQUAL questionnaire was developed according to the characteristics of each hospital's out‐patient service. Three regional hospitals in Hsin‐Chu, Taiwan were evaluated. After being completed and collected, first, the effectiveness of the Fuzzy linguistic scale and the Likert scale was compared. Second, gap values of each element were evaluated to find the core service quality attributes for continuous improvement. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to segment markets using certain service quality attributes and different demographic variables.

The result indicated that the Fuzzy linguistic scale is higher than the Likert scale in terms of reliability in the measurement. Moreover, through gap analysis and ANOVA, a better focus was achieved on the 8th, 10th, 14th, 21st and 3rd service quality attributes from the SERVQUAL measurement on which management should concentrate and which they should endeavor to work out. The 1st, 2nd, 14th and 16th items from the SERVQUAL measurement can be market segment factors, respectively.

The study successfully introduced Fuzzy linguistic analysis into the Gap theory and SERVQUAL measurements, and provided more internal consistency and stability than the Likert scale. After discussing the findings of the gap analysis and ANOVA, the organization could find the critical service quality attributes and create a value for improving or enhancing them.

Providing care that is patient-centered is an important objective in the modern healthcare industry. Despite this objective, hospital inpatient case managers and the services they provide are evaluated routinely without including patients' perspectives. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by using patient expectations and perceptions to assess the overall quality of and patient satisfaction with hospital case management services.

This paper investigates five dimensions of case management services – reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles – and how they affect overall quality and patient satisfaction. Study surveys are based on the SERVQUAL instrument. Survey data from a cross-sectional sample of 67 inpatients are analyzed using principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, GAP analysis and a predictive model.

The preliminary part of the study identifies “tangibles” and “nontangibles” – reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy – as the main components. Among these two components, only nontangibles have a positive and significant effect on both quality and patient satisfaction according to patient perspectives. GAP analysis indicates that gaps between patient expectations and perceptions of reliability and assurance are significant. Finally, the proposed predictive model reveals that gaps in assurance have a significant impact on both overall quality and satisfaction, while gaps in empathy have a significant impact on satisfaction, but not overall quality.

Studies on service quality at the case manager level are limited. This study is the first in this domain to evaluate quality and satisfaction from the patient perspective.

The interface between logistics service providers (LSPs) and shippers is an area that has received little attention in previous research and even less has been done when environmental issues are added to this interface. Nonetheless, the perception among researchers and the industry is that in many instances, supply and demand in this green interface does not coincide. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to identify the matches and gaps between LSPs' green supply and the shippers' green demand.

This paper is based on a web‐based survey sent out to Swedish LSPs and shippers. A gap analysis based on mean values and confidence intervals was conducted.

Findings indicate that the LSPs overachieve when it comes to green categories and also that they are aware of this situation. Shippers, on the other hand, interestingly are not aware of this and they seem satisfied with what they perceive is offered by LSPs.

Contrary to previous research, the paper specifies matches and gaps in the green LSP‐shipper interface. As the survey covered actors in the Swedish market, future research would benefit from similar analyses from other countries.

The findings are of use for LSPs' understanding of shippers' environmental demands, and thereby enable them to adapt better to market demand. Similarly, shippers can use the findings to understand green supply and possibly change their demands accordingly.

This paper adds to the knowledge of the green LSP‐shipper interface. Furthermore, it uses gap analysis, which appears to be something not previously done within environmental logistics research.

This paper aims to focus on Master of Business Administration (MBA) alumni and their ability to provide institution-specific insights into MBA program delivery. Given desired MBA positioning dimensions, a case exemplar is used to reveal gaps between “should have” program emphases and “actual” emphases. Departures from expectations are used to reveal either under- or over-emphases which require repair.

The study develops a gap assessment procedure and the theory of gaps, and it presents insights into the prioritization of gaps for closing through the revelation of gap themes of varying magnitude. It also reveals the benefits and the limitations of emphasis-based gap assessments. Additionally, the study addresses the complexity of creating the dimensional structure for MBA program gap revelation.

This paper reports on the issues of framing dimensions, including the possibility of dimensional omissions, with a particular emphasis on the utilization of an emphasis-based gap model within an a priori identified structure.

The methodological approach provides a blueprint for additional program review, and it produces a strong structural base for MBA program positioning. It is also is particularly important in evaluating newly created one-year MBA programs.

The work reveals the potential for the revelation of both under- and over-emphases in MBA program delivery and the possible issue of sub-optimization in gap closing (i.e. the closing of one gap while opening another).

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the concept of service quality in a supply chain and present a framework for its measurement.

A literature review was conducted on key service quality models and measurement issues. Various dimensions related to the quality of service were explored. This was followed by in‐depth exploratory interviews at different levels. Based on the insights gained, a conceptual framework for measurement of quality of service in supply chain is presented.

The paper presents a conceptual model of service quality in supply chains based on gap analysis. These gaps are bi‐directional. The bi‐directional gaps cover both inter‐ and intra‐organizational transactions in the supply chain. They include the gap between supplier and focal firm, focal firm and distributor, and distributor and customer. Further, implications of various factors such as economic, politico‐legal, technical, socio‐cultural, competition, demographic are also highlighted. A novel methodology for the measurement of these gaps using various tools such as quality loss function, data envelope analysis, etc. is also presented along with segregating indicators in three categories, namely, quality of service indicators, quality of service and performance indicators, and performance indicators.

The assessment of quality of service in the supply chain is an attempt to cover the relatively less explored area. It is expected that this research will further motivate researchers to work in this area. This service quality framework will be beneficial to researchers and practicing managers in identification of opportunities for improvements in service quality.

This paper explores research in the less explored area and offers practical help to researchers and practitioners in providing a direction for service quality improvement in the supply chain.