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Outlines the role of the Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) in Saudi economy policy: chiefly industralisation through joint ventures with foreign multinationals. Reports a 1993 survey of 312 SABIC employees divided into Saudi nationals, expatriates from developed countries and those from developing countries. Compares their educational and employment levels, family attitudes towards their jobs and the provision and take‐up of training; and finds significant dissatisfaction with SABIC’s training policy and the skills acquired. Considers the importance of salary levels, the implications of pay and promotion differentials between the groups and the likely impact of giving higher pay rises to the Saudis. Discusses the attitudes of the three groups towards management decision‐making, job termination/transfer proceedings, holidays, working hours, shift scheduling, working conditions and safety.

The current study contributes to filling the gap in studies that discuss the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth and employment in Saudi Arabia. Although the study found that FDI inflows contribute to the government effort to reduce or at least control the high unemployment rate, the study found no relationship between FDI inflows and economic growth in Saudi Arabia. However, we must be careful in interpreting the result of the positive influence of FDIs on employment since almost half of the Saudi workforce is employed by the public sector. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Data regarding FDI inflow to Saudi Arabia were collected from the World Bank database and the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), while GDP per capita (economic growth) used data from the World Bank database only. Unemployment rate data were collected from the SAMA annual book. This study covered the period from 1999 through 2012. The study used the time series analysis methodology to study the impact of FDI inflow on economic growth and employment in Saudi Arabia.

Although the current study found that FDI inflows contribute to the government’s effort by reducing or at least controlling the country’s high unemployment rate, it also found no relationship between FDI inflows and economic growth in Saudi Arabia. However, we must be careful in interpreting the result of the positive influence of FDI on employment since almost half of the Saudi workforce is employed by the public sector.

In recent years, the government of Saudi Arabia has issued a number of initiatives to achieve diversification of income sources, create jobs for Saudi workers, and transfer advanced administrative techniques and technology to the Saudi economy; one of these initiatives involves attracting foreign investors to the Saudi market. This study contributes to fill the gap in studies that discuss the impact of FDI inflows on economic growth and employment in Saudi Arabia.

Environmental degradation is recognized as a serious problem globally, and hence, Saudi Arabia is no exception. This paper aims to focus on the economy of Saudi Arabia to identify the determinants of environmental degradation.

Time series data spanning from 1971 to 2014 is used and analyzed using the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach.

The obtained results reflected that natural resources, per person income and urbanization, have impacted environmental degradation both positively and significantly in the long run. Similarly, an insignificant negative relationship is established between trade openness and environmental degradation. Moreover, energy consumption has positively but insignificantly affected environmental degradation. In the short run, only per capita income has positively influenced environmental degradation while the rest of the variables have lost either significance levels or their direction of relationship has reversed.

As this is a pioneering study on the economy of Saudi Arabia, therefore, the authors assume that policymakers will find the findings of the current study very useful while formulating and implementing policies to control environmental degradation.

In the context of Saudi Arabia, this chapter investigates how clustering promotes knowledge sharing and transfer in an emerging, government-directed industry cluster. It is determined that lateral actors play a key facilitating role, and formal and informal mechanisms and interpersonal links among actors support that cluster knowledge exchange. Limited social capital strength and depth and a lack of trust that prevents knowledge sharing are partially explained by the cluster's limited vertical and horizontal actors.

This study aims to examine the short- and long-lived effects of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandate on the quality of reporting information of initial public offering (IPO) firms in emerging market economies.

The study used several difference-in-differences models for a sample comprising 102 Saudi Arabian IPO firms for 2003–2017.

It found that mandating the application of the IFRS had a significant short-lived but no long-lived effect on IPO firms’ information asymmetry. When information asymmetry was high such as in the primary market, the IFRS succeeded in alleviating the underpricing of IPO firms. Conversely, in the secondary market, with negligible information asymmetry, the IFRS was not beneficial for the long-term performance of companies in the IPO market.

This study is the first of its kind in the emerging market context and has important implications for IPO investors and analysts, IFRS-IPO researchers and policymakers in emerging economies. The results empirically confirmed that the IFRS mandate had solely a short-lived effect and no long-lasting impact, on the problem of asymmetric information in the IPO market. The effectiveness of the IFRS in producing quality financial reporting is contingent upon large-scale information asymmetry and vanishes when investors and analysts have abundant information about listed firms, even for emerging economies such as Saudi Arabia.

This paper aims to examine the impact of e-commerce on business strategy, especially on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. It also investigates the relationship between e-commerce and business strategy and how the e-commerce niche changes SMEs’ strategic management approach. Additionally, this paper identifies the factors that moderate this relationship.

To evaluate and examines the impact of e-commerce on business strategy, the study used a quantitative method by conducting a questionnaire survey in Saudi Arabian SMEs.

The analysis of collected data confirms that e-commerce adoption has an impact on SMEs strategies. Many participants asserted that the introduction of e-commerce in Saudi market has changed their businesses’ plans and strategies. The findings identify the major factors that moderate and predict the relationship between e-commerce and business strategy.

This study contributes to the literature by discussing and examining the impact of e-commerce adoption on SMEs strategies in the context of Saudi Arabian SMEs. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between e-commerce and business strategies. The findings of this study can benefit SMEs’ owners, managers and employees to understand and acknowledge the impact of e-commerce on their plans and strategies. It also can assist policymakers and governments to develop suitable policies and initiatives.

Even with the Saudi Arabian Government's discretionary measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the economic sectors were not spared from the damage. Thus, the paper aims to use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's (KSA) economy, with a special focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and production. These influence the level of poverty.

The paper adopted the social accounting matrix (SAM) for Saudi Arabia built in 2021 by Imtithal Althumairi from Saudi Arabia's 2017 SAM. The model represents a snapshot of the economy and different flows that exist within the tasks and institutions. Two simulations (mild and severe) were conducted because of the focus on the distributional outcomes.

Decrease in job creation and economic growth were significant evidence from the study's findings. Findings show that more families hit below the poverty line because the negative impacts of the pandemic have shifted the income allocation curve. Findings show that the weakest of the poor are mitigated by government social grants during the pandemic.

The paper is restricted to the relevant literature relating to the impact of COVID-19 on Saudi Arabia's economy and evaluated using the SAM model. Moreover, the COVID-19 is still an ongoing scenario; thus, the model should be updated as data utilised for the operationalisation are made available.

The information from the suggested model can be suitable to measure the degree of the harm, and thus, the likely extent of the desirable policy feedback. Also, the model can be updated, as data are made available and formulated policies based on the updated data implemented by the policymakers.

Apart from the recovery planning of SMEs during the pandemic, the paper intends to stir up Saudi Arabia's policymakers through the macro-micro model to recovery planning and resilience of the economy with emphasis on mitigating unemployment.

This study aims to examine the role of fund family size on the money flow of Saudi Arabian open-end equity mutual funds. The author also investigates whether the relationship between fund flow and past return varies based on the fund's family size.

The study analyses 256 equity funds that operated in Saudi Arabia from 2006 until 2017. Pooled and fixed-effect regression models are used to test the relationship between mutual fund flow and family size.

The results indicate that fund flow is higher for large size family funds. The results also show that the relationship between mutual fund flow and past performance is more pronounced for large size families, which supports the concept that investors pay extra attention to funds' return and size.

The author provides evidence of the significant effect of family size of mutual funds on future money flow, which helps fund managers to understand investors' motivations for allocating their cash.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the impact of family size level on the interaction between fund flow and past performance. This study is believed to be the first to investigate the family size factor in Saudi Arabia using a comprehensive data set.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency's (SAMA's) regulatory policies.

Both descriptive and comparative analyses are used, especially in highlighting SAMA's monetary policies and approach during the 2008 world financial crises.

The analyzes revealed that SAMA has more than adequately met international regulatory supervision standards, but will face challenges in regulating the domestic Islamic banking sector, meeting the self‐imposed 2010 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) gulf monetary union under a fixed parity rate regime, developing cross border regulatory and supervisory skills, and suggests possible solutions.

The paper noted the role of SAMA in managing monetary policy under a fixed parity regime, its banking supervision policies, and the evolving nature of banking regulation in the face of globalization challenges, World Trade Organization (WTO) accession in 2006 and in coping with the 2008 global financial crises which could be a template for other GCC central banks. The paper highlighted the major elements and effectiveness of Saudi banking law and restrictions on Saudi banks in terms of capital adequacy, reserve requirements and financial services, and address issues such as the impact of new regulatory reforms by SAMA, and their effectiveness on monitoring and supervising Saudi banks.

The paper concludes that the effectiveness of SAMA's regulatory policies has withstood both domestic and international financial crises and that SAMA can play a powerful influence in the proposed GCC monetary union.

This paper aims to empirically examine the impact of economic development and energy consumption in Saudi Arabia (the leading OPEC giant and the Arab energy icon country) between 1971 and 2015, whilst incorporating globalization, financial development and capital accumulation.

This study uses econometric tools and the analytical framework based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model.

The study found that, unlike economic development, globalization and financial development increased energy consumption. Also, capital accumulation created a boost in the country’s energy consumption. Results of variance decomposition indicate that the innovative shocks in globalization and financial development affected energy consumption at the rates of 15.28% and 28.98%, respectively, over 15 years’ period, while shocks in capital accumulation affected energy consumption at a rate of only about 1.24%. In addition, the results of impulse response function show that globalization and economic development were highly responsive to shocks in financial development, and capital accumulation greatly spurred financial development.

The findings of this study have implication for promoting an efficient and sustainable energy systems that enhance sustainable development based on the accrued benefits of globalization, financial development and capital accumulation.

Given the increasing level of globalization, financial development and energy consumption, our study uses econometric tools and the analytical framework based on the ARDL model to revisit how energy consumption is influenced by economic development in Saudi Arabia by incorporating other determinants of energy consumption such as globalization, financial development and capital accumulation. The results were validated based on the innovative accounting.