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The current chapter proposes a theoretical framework to assess the sustainability of economic growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. The authors integrate insights from endogenous growth models and consider the unique socioeconomic characteristics of the GCC region to provide a comprehensive and tailored approach to understanding the determinants of economic growth and formulating effective policy measures to foster sustainable development and growth. This chapter highlights the environmental challenges faced by GCC; based on this, the authors suggested indicators to construct a theoretical framework (Economic Growth, Climatic Indicators, Energy Indicators, Social Indicators, and Economic Resources Indicators). The authors propose that policymakers and researchers in GCC States should take these factors into account when devising policies or conducting research aimed at fostering sustainable economic growth. Overall, this chapter presents significant insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders involved in promoting the sustainable economic advancement of the GCC States.

This paper aims to explore the crucial role of socio-cultural factors in the entrepreneurial experiences of women in the Gulf region.

A focused qualitative systematic analysis of 65 published articles was conducted to present existing approaches to studying women's entrepreneurship in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and identify the key socio-cultural factors impacting women's entrepreneurial realities.

It was found that gender roles, family influence, social networking and religion are among the most significant factors influencing the entrepreneurial experiences of women in the GCC.

It was found that the region's prevalent social norms, vis-à-vis how gender roles are defined and practiced, greatly influence the lived experiences of women entrepreneurs. The role of family support (or lack thereof) and the access to networking opportunities to start and grow ventures significantly affect women's entrepreneurial successes. The findings also point to the overarching ideological and practical guidance, Islam is believed to offer, on how life in general and businesses, in particular, should be conducted.

The paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on women's entrepreneurship in the Gulf by promoting context-dependent knowledge. In particular, the findings highlight the importance of critical and nuanced evaluation of existing theories of gender and entrepreneurship. The examination can help policymakers develop more effective and inclusive entrepreneurship policies in the region.

This study aims to compare recent topics on value-added tax (VAT) in the European Union (EU) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), understand the differences in VAT discourses between the two regions and explore the connection between research agendas, institutional legacies and semantic output in the field of VAT in each territory.

A bibliometric study was conducted using R programming. The data were gathered from the Scopus database, which contains 99 English-language publications with publication dates ranging from 1996 to 2022 (87 of which are from the EU and 12 from the GCC). Information about publications, journals, authors and citations is gathered, validated, cross-referenced and analyzed using bibliometric metrics.

The results highlight two ideal research contexts for studying VAT: the EU countries approach VAT research with a centralized, pluralistic and quantitative focus, while the GCC countries adopt a centralized, qualitative and practically oriented approach, highlighting distinct research goals, collaboration styles and institutional legacies. The authors extend their result findings to broader discussions on competing knowledge systems in VAT, the significance of the state and the level of autonomy within tax governance after identifying the most popular issues among scholars working in GCC and EU countries.

Although the focus of this analysis is restricted to the GCC and EU, it includes theoretical recommendations for broadening its application to other nations. Researchers from the GCC and the EU may benefit from this study by gaining more about VAT and being encouraged to share their research with young researchers. The study’s findings are relevant and important for comprehending the comparative state of research on VAT in GCC and EU countries, tax fields, publications and institutions.

This study analyzes the VAT systems of the GCC and the EU while identifying the intellectual structure of the field from each author’s point of view, revealing the scientometrics and informetrics intellectual structures in detail.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of countries has some of the highest electricity consumptions and carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the world. This poses a direct challenge to the GCC government’s ability to meet their CO₂ reduction targets. In this review paper the current household electricity consumption situation in the GCC is reviewed.

Three scenarios for reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are proposed and evaluated using strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) as well as the political, economic, social, technical, legal and environmental (PESTLE) frameworks.

The first scenario found that using solar Photovoltaic (PV) or hybrid solar PV and wind system to power household lighting could save significant amounts of energy, based on lighting making up between 8% to 30% of electricity consumption in GCC households. The second scenario considers replacement of conventional appliances with energy-efficient ones that use around 20% less energy. The third scenario looks at influencing consumer behavior towards sustainable energy consumption.

Pilot trials of these scenarios are recommended for a number of households. Then the results and feedback could be used to launch the schemes GCC-wide.

The proposed scenarios are designed to encourage responsible electricity consumption and production within households (SDG12).

All three proposals are found viable for policymakers to implement. However, to ensure successful implementation GCC Governments are recommended to review all the opportunities and challenges associated with these schemes as laid out in this paper.

This study examines herding in Islamic bank equity markets under various market conditions (up/down, high/low trading and high/low volatility) and during events such as Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting days, Ramadan, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also look at the impact of rising and falling oil prices on herding behaviour.

This study uses the model of Chang et al. (2000) to estimate herding behaviour in the Islamic bank markets.

First, the authors estimate herding at the GCC region level, and the results reveal an absence of herding under all market conditions and during all the events considered, except for the GCC crisis of 2017. Second, the authors investigate herding in four Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates [UAE], Qatar and Kuwait) separately and find that herding is evident in all these countries during various market conditions. During Ramadan, herding appears in the Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Islamic bank equity markets. Herding is not prevalent during OPEC meeting days in any of the markets, whereas herding is evident in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait Islamic bank equity markets during the GCC crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, the rising and falling oil prices do not influence herding at either GCC region or country level.

From the practitioner's perspective, this study provides useful insights for investors in Islamic banks and policymakers, in terms of asset pricing, portfolio diversification, trading strategies and market stability.

Many studies explore herding in the equity markets of Muslim majority countries, but not specifically in the Islamic bank market. This study fills this literature gap by comprehensively examining herding in Islamic bank equity markets under various market conditions (up/down, high/low trading and high/low volatility) and during events, such as OPEC meeting days, Ramadan, the GCC crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of the paper is to provide some insights into the importance of family business in the transition of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region into a diversified, modern economic region.

This is a viewpoint paper, bringing together recent relevant academic and industry literature combined with the authors' observations of emerging regional trends.

The authors find that family businesses have been an anchor of private sector economic development in the GCC. Family businesses across the region reflect both the challenges and opportunity of the context. Recent social and economic changes present challenges to the historical ways of operation, and yet they also present opportunities.

This paper is intended to be thought provoking and insightful for those in the region and those with an interest in the region. The unique social, historical and economic characteristics of the region are discussed along with their impact on family businesses.

This study aims to empirically examine the impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms (ICGM) related to the size of the board, board composition, CEO duality and audit committee independence as a single metric on a firm’s investment decisions.

This study attempts to develop an internal corporate governance quality index comprising 10 items under four main ICGMs – size and independence of the board, CEO duality and audit committee independence – employing panel data analysis to investigate its impact on the investment decisions in 301 nonfinancial firms listed in six emerging capital markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries for the years 2015–2020. Data were extracted from sample companies' websites, stock markets, annual reports and Refinitiv database.

This study provides convincing evidence that effective ICGMs minimize inefficient investment and ultimately boost investment efficiency. The findings remain consistent even after considering the potential endogeneity bias.

This study provides empirical evidence on investment efficiency in the GCC region and emphasizes the importance of high-quality ICGMs in reducing inefficient investment. By examining the impact of ICGMs on investment inefficiencies, this study contributes to the corporate governance literature. The GCC region's unique economic and social contexts, with its growing economies, are considered to shed light on this issue.

Entrepreneurship has been recognized as a vital tool to combat youth unemployment and rising exclusion, as it is an incredible force that impacts economic development and societal growth by stimulating innovation, job creation and social empowerment. On the other hand, higher education institutions (HEIs) can foster entrepreneurship and thus develop entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-employment, innovation, enhanced ability to risk-taking and thus result in benefiting people, society, organizations and economy. This prompted the authors to carry out an in-depth investigation of published research on entrepreneurship development and HEIs across Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

This study strives to analyze the work carried out until now on entrepreneurship development in HEIs across GCC countries and describe the constructs characterizing it. Bibliometric and content analysis were carried out, integrating citations in Scopus database for last 10 years. Two software packages – Bibliometric R and VOS viewer – were used to investigate the research questions and construct various visualizations of bibliometric networks. Thematic mapping of this multidimensional research area is demonstrated, and evolving trends are identified.

Findings revealed that research on entrepreneurship development in HEIs is more prevalent in UAE and Saudi Arabia followed by Oman and Qatar. However, more efforts are required to further consolidate cross-national collaborations among all the GCC countries to obtain a comprehensive overview of the regional context.

Such a comprehensive bibliometric review coupled with content analysis on entrepreneurship development in HEIs across GCC countries has not yet been published, to the best of the authors’ knowledge.