Search results

The sound leadership style can be indicative of organizational success and explanatory of quality performance. Besides this, there are various factors that can impact organizational performance. To this end, this study aims to investigate the effect of ethical leadership on organizational performance, with the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational culture.

The service sector in Jordan was targeted by this research, and data were collected from 371 middle-level and top-level managers working in service companies. These responses were analyzed by using analysis of a moment structure.

The result conveyed that ethical leadership does not only influence organizational performance, but it also, and positively so, affects the organizational culture and CSR. In addition, CSR and organizational culture significantly mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational performance.

The findings of this study are a guide for managers and owners of service companies who are aiming to enhance organizational performance. If they follow the ethical leadership approach and emphasize CSR initiatives and organizational culture, they can attain, and naturally so, the maximum level of organizational performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is the first to analyze ethical leadership in the context of the service sector in Jordan and highlight its influence on organizational culture, CSR and ultimately organizational performance. Moreover, it examined the mediating effects of organizational culture and CSR between ethical leadership and organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the use of strategic planning tools and techniques by hotels in Jordan and the nature of its relationship with managers' views of the strategic planning process.

A review of the literature relating to both strategic planning and strategic planning tools and techniques in both developed and emerging markets is provided. The empirical research was conducted via a questionnaire survey of Jordanian hotels in two cities; namely, Petra and Aqaba.

The main findings of this research are that the Jordanian hotels engage in the strategic planning process by using a number of techniques. The use of strategic planning tools and techniques relates more to the size of hotel and less to age and ownership type. There is a positive relationship between the use of strategic planning techniques and size of hotel. The managers of these hotels have generally positive attitudes towards the strategic planning process. The managers who believe in the benefits of strategic planning engage more in the practice of it.

The nature of this research is descriptive and the method used is a cross‐sectional survey. Therefore, future research could be conducted on a small number of these hotels by using a more in‐depth approach. Second, the sample was restricted to hotels in two cities in Jordan. Further research should include other regions in Jordan and should analyse the ownership types of hotels (such as independent versus chain) and its star rating.

This paper provides empirical evidence about the use of the strategic planning tools and techniques by hotels in an emerging market context.

Political‐legal risk perception is just as important a consideration in dealing effectively with the threats exposed by international enterprises. This research emphasizes how important it is to integrate the perception of risk factor into the analysis. This is an essential factor when catastrophic risks are involved. Relatively, nevertheless, little work has been done to explore the concept of political‐legal risk as it applies to international commercial and business applications. The purpose of this research is to first examine the perception of Kuwaiti executives to political‐legal business environment while conducting outward investment and where a number of recent events like those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen illustrate that the rise of enterprises onto the world stage will not necessarily be entirely without risk and second, to explore the correlations between the executives' perceptions of political‐legal variables and enterprise‐specific characteristics.

A review of the literature relating to risk in international business in both developed and emerging markets is provided. The empirical research was conducted via a questionnaire survey. In line with the research aim, questionnaires were distributed to the entire target population of Kuwaiti international enterprises. Nonparametric statistics were used to analyze the findings.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been shaken like never before. The recent events of the uprising in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya and the regional reverberations of the upheaval are unfolding, inter alia, concerns about rising exposure to more risks and the instability in the MENA have reached a fever pitch. Findings of this research suggest that the political‐legal related risks associated with enterprises' activities pose a threat to the majority of executives and the vulnerability to these risks are not related to any enterprise's‐specific characteristics.

The research on international enterprises states that some parts of the globe have remained detached. Given its economic and political importance, the most obvious omission is the Middle East. To date and despite that the region has garnered its fair share of coverage in current news, little is known on management practices by enterprise in the region. This research, therefore, provides empirical evidence of executives' perception of political‐legal business environment in an emerging market context: Kuwait. Furthermore, most recent literature omits oil‐producing nations. Focusing on this oil‐rich region is an attempt to fill this void.

This study aims to analyse the environmental scanning and information sources used by Jordanian firms. Furthermore, the relationship between environmental scanning and organisational characteristics (firm size and industry type), as well as organisational performance, is explored.

The empirical research was coordinated via a survey of 190 Jordanian publicly quoted firms. The results of the survey provided a rich source of data in relation to a variety of practices associated with environmental scanning in these firms.

The findings of this study show that scanning focus was higher for the general environmental sectors than the task environmental sectors. The results also demonstrate that these firms rely more on internal sources of information. Larger firms have more scanning activities, while smaller firms tend to focus on different sources of information. Additionally, some differences in the industry sector in terms of scanning behaviour were identified. This study also supports the literature regarding the positive relationship between environment scanning and organisational performance by providing new empirical evidence from the context of Middle East countries.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the nature and the practice of environmental scanning and its value for organisational performance in business firms in a Middle East context. From a theoretical perspective, this study engages in the “convergence versus divergence” debate regarding managers’ scanning behaviour around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the institutional context impacts on strategic decision implementation in an emerging market. Previous studies of strategic decision making in emerging markets have not examined decision implementation. Given the changes in the world economy during the past decade, and in particular the growing importance of emerging market multinationals, this is an increasingly salient issue.

Questionnaires were delivered to general managers in all Jordanian publicly quoted industrial firms. A 53.7 per cent response rate was achieved. The structure of the questionnaire built on earlier studies in developed markets and, in particular, Alexander’s (1985) seminal study.

The strategic decision implementation problems which are found in Jordan are similar to those found in developed economies. However, external shocks are a more important influence on strategic decision implementation that has been found to be the case in developed economies. The success of companies in the emerging market of Jordan is associated with the frequency and extent of their experience of strategic decision implementation problems. Formal strategic planning helps Jordanian firms to deal with these problems more effectively.

It was difficult to explore some of the “why” questions related to the implementation of strategic decisions in the sampled firms since most respondents agreed to complete the questionnaire but not to be interviewed. Single, rather than multiple, respondents participated in the research. A larger sample size would be desirable, although the results are statistically robust.

The results will help managers to make and implement strategic decisions, both in the context of market entry and market maintenance, in the Middle East and in other emerging markets.

Context (institutional) factors are found to be less influential in the case of decision implementation than strategic decision making itself. This is the first study of the problems associated with the implementation of strategic decisions in Jordanian firms and one of the first in any emerging market.