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This study addresses the impact of the corona crisis on the performance of women small- to medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and explores the adopted innovative strategies by these women to stay in their businesses.

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this cross-sectional country-level survey. A representative sample of 260 Palestinian women businesses completed the questionnaire. As well, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 15 female entrepreneurs who succeeded to survive to collect qualitative data. Frequencies, cross-tabulations and Chi-Square tests are used to analyze quantitative data and thematic analysis is used to analyze the qualitative one.

The main findings show that the corona crisis harms the performance of many women MSMEs in terms of production, turnover profit. To reduce their lost sales during the crisis, women are more likely to benefit from social media and promotions than other methods. This study highlights the innovation strategies applied by the women MSMEs who managed to survive such as, among others, cash management and digital marketing.

The innovation strategies could be a road map for other women struggling MSMEs businesses to re-enter businesses again.

So far, little research has focused on women MSMEs in developing countries. The identified innovation strategies will potentially help aspiring women MSMEs to survive during the economic crisis.

This project aims to examine how entrepreneurial orientation and succession planning among Palestinian family businesses positively affects their associated growth potential, considering the mediating role of innovation and the moderation effect of geographic location. Leveraging ethnic entrepreneurship theory, the authors compare these types of enterprises in the USA with their counterparts in Palestine.

This cross-sectional quantitative research analyzes data collected from October through December 2022. 180 Palestinian family-owned firms completed a survey; 90 companies were located in Palestine, while the other 90 were in the USA. Structural equation modeling analysis was conducted using Smart-PLS4. The interrelations of the conceptual framework were examined via path analysis and bootstrapping techniques.

The authors found a statistically significant positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on Palestinian family business growth; the authors’ results concurrently indicated succession planning did not affect growth within the authors’ selected population. The authors also discovered innovation mediates the relationship between orientation and growth, and business location appears to moderate this relationship. The authors’ research indicates geography appears to favor Palestinian family-owned companies in the USA, where the authors found opportunity-driven immigrant entrepreneurs benefit from the structured business systems in a highly-developed country.

Given the current situation in Palestine, it is essential to understand the potential contribution that Palestinian family-owned businesses globally can make to reconstruct the country’s local economy. The next few years will be critical in figuring out how innovative thinking can boost the region’s recovery and increase Palestinian-based family companies’ ability to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship with reinvestment support from its diaspora. Therefore, it is important to have research that identifies factors that could improve these businesses’ continued performance and growth potential. This study also aids in further understanding the defining characteristics of Palestinian-owned family firms, enhancing general theories related to entrepreneurship among ethnic and diasporic groups.

This article explores the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), governance and geographic location on the performance of Palestinian family-owned businesses.

This quantitative study uses data collected in the fall of 2022 from 180 Palestinian-owned family companies – 90 were located in Palestine and the other 90 were located in the USA. Using R software, multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between the constructs that formed the study's conceptual framework.

The results indicate that (1) the risk-taking, innovation and proactiveness dimensions of EO have a significant positive impact on the performance of Palestinian family-owned businesses; (2) Governance moderates the EO dimensions of risk-taking and proactiveness on the performance of Palestinian family-owned companies and (3) geographic location does not moderate the relationship between the EO and performance of Palestinian-owned family businesses.

The current intensified conflict in Palestine warrants exploring the role Palestinian family-owned businesses worldwide can play in rebuilding the local economies of Gaza and the West Bank. The following years will be crucial in determining how proactive risk-taking and innovation will support regional recovery and augment the entrepreneurial and reinvestment capacity of diasporic and home country-based Palestinian family-owned firms. Thus, our study into factors that might enhance these businesses' performance and growth potential is pertinent. A further contribution of this study is new insight into the particularities of Palestinian family-owned businesses, augmenting general theories associated with ethnic and diasporic entrepreneurship.

This study aims to analyze the challenges facing five Palestinian clusters and to understand their dynamics and level of development. Using multiple sources of evidence, the research questions are answered using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. Content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained. The five clusters in Palestine are located in a complex environment that imposes a mix of challenges that adversely affect their performance. The challenges facing Palestinian clusters are different in terms of their degree of complexity. The common challenges facing the Palestinian clusters are the fundamental lack of innovative stimulation policies or incentives in the Palestinian ecosystem, lack of trust, unfair competition, limited access to finance, lack of access to promising markets, and the limited collaboration between different parties. More focused policies are suggested to the Palestinian authorities.

This study aims to analyze the nature of challenges facing five low-tech Palestinian small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clusters and to understand their dynamics. The study proposes a number of key policies necessary to foster start-ups and the growth of the current clusters.

Five low-tech Palestinian clusters were selected for investigation. Using multiple sources of evidence, the research questions are answered using a case study approach. Twelve semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives from the government, private sector and universities. Content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained from the interviews.

These five low-tech clusters in Palestine are located in a complex environment that imposes a mix of challenges which adversely affect their performance. The challenges facing Palestinian clusters are different in terms of their degree of complexity. The common challenges facing the Palestinian low-tech SME clusters are the fundamental lack of innovative stimulation policies or of incentives in the Palestinian ecosystem, lack of trust, unfair competition, limited access to finance, lack of access to promising markets and the limited collaboration between different parties. More focused policies are suggested to the Palestinian authorities.

Clusters represent a new and complementary way of understanding an economy, organizing economic development, enhancing competitiveness and innovation through sectoral specialization and cooperation and implementing public policies. In the overwhelming majority of Palestinian entities categorized as SMEs, clustering adds value to the firms from the point of view of productivity and by battling unemployment, which is rampant among Palestinian youth.

Even though the issue of clusters in SMEs has been well researched in developed countries, empirical studies are still lacking in this developing region. The attention given to policies in this article allows using the insights gained for cluster development in Palestine.

Many businesses in the world are family-owned. A family-owned business differs from other types of businesses in several ways, because it is composed of both a family and a business. A recurring question in management research has been: which type of business performs better, the family-owned or the non-family owned? An alternative question which in this respect can also be asked, in the light of the high-performance organization (HPO) theory which has become popular these past years, is: which type of business is more likely to become and stay high performing, the family-owned or the non-family owned? To try to answer these questions, many studies have been done in which the performance of family firms was compared with firms that have no family ties, but these studies gave mixed results and conflicting opinions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

It seems evident that a new research approach is needed. A way forward is to use the HPO concept which looks at the factors important for an organization to become an HPO. Thus, the research question which this study attempts to answer is: are there differences in performance between family and non-family businesses, and if so, can these be traced back to differences in the way these businesses deal with the factors of high performance? The research used the HPO questionnaire and interviews to collect data at Palestine family and non-family owned businesses.

The research shows that Palestine non-family businesses significantly outperform family-owned businesses. Family businesses thus seem “a living paradox.” Balancing family interest and business interest often requires a compromise between family and business goals. It seems that Palestinian family businesses focus more on family interest by putting the goal of survival and “keeping the business in the family” above (short-term) financial goals. Family businesses might also feel more that the company’s money is the family money, and as a result their investment and expenses strategies are more conservative thus missing possible economic investment opportunities.

The study results add to the current debate in the literature about which type of business performs better, and at the same time they add knowledge because if there are differences these might be explained by the factors of high performance. In this vein, the study results also contribute to the literature on high performance, as the HPO framework has not been used before for this type of comparative research.

The study results have practical value because they yield knowledge about the ways to organize a business so it can achieve high organizational results which is of great value to managers attempting to make their organizations perform better.

The purpose of this research paper is to explore innovation activity between the three institutional spheres of government, universities and industry in the Palestinian MAPs sector, with the aim of supporting the growth of the sector through the THM.

The research study employed a qualitative exploratory design. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from the three spheres of the THM related to the agricultural sector. Content analysis was conducted on the data obtained from the interviews, followed by comparative analysis.

Some elements of the THM are present in the Palestinian MAPs sector, but others are missing, preventing its success. An effective policy is an important prerequisite for a THM to survive and thrive. There is a need to clarify the rules of engagement in terms of collaboration between the three institutional spheres. To promote innovation in the sector, there is a need to empower the farmers and cooperatives, improve farming system efficiency, upgrade distributors to logistic service providers, and build hybrid processing models.

The role of government is to apply policy to facilitate relations and exchanges between the three spheres. Industry possesses the motivation to invest in high-growth potential sectors. Universities could take the opportunity to establish its presence and fine-tune its portfolio of tasks so that industry is aware of these tasks and sees value in them.

The paper discusses the university–industry–government relationships in the framework of a developing and unstable economy such as Palestine.

The purpose of this paper is to prove that competitiveness of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) among developing countries in the conflict regions will be enhanced through clustering.

The study used quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Questionnaires were administered on a sample of SMEs working in food-processing sector in Palestine, Jordan and Israel. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Palestinian SMEs to deeply understand the food-processing cluster. The dependent variable “SMEs competitiveness” is measured by the balanced scored card while the independent variable “cluster” is measured by the “related and supporting industries.”

The cluster and SMEs performance of food-processing sector in Palestine is the lowest in relative to Jordan and Israel. The results show a significant positive relationship between cluster and SMEs performance in the Palestinian food-processing sector.

Cluster can help SMEs in the food-processing sector in Palestine to enhance their performance. It has also been found that these SMEs need to build linkages among themselves and with related and supporting industries within the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Israel.

The paper discusses the enhancement of SMEs performance working in a conflict region through clustering.

Interest in creating high performance organizations (HPOs) has been growing in the Middle East and Middle Eastern managers have been looking into practices that will help them elevate organizational performance. Unfortunately there is a shortage of HPO studies conducted in the Middle East which could help these managers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the recently developed HPO Framework in a Middle Eastern context, namely at Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU). The goal of the study was to evaluate whether this framework could be applied in the Middle Eastern context and thus help improve performance of Middle Eastern organizations.

A workshop was conducted with management and staff of the university at PPU's premises in Hebron. During the workshop, management, staff and teachers filled in the HPO questionnaire, which gauges the current HPO status of an organization. The resulting HPO score of PPU, and the comparison with the scores of other Middle‐Eastern organizations in the database of the researchers, were discussed during a workshop with representatives of PPU and initial improvements were established and put down in an action plan.

With an average HPO score of 6.8, PPU was an average scoring organization that performed more or less the same as the other Middle‐East organizations. However, two main issues for PPU emerged that had to be addressed in order to transform the university in an HPO. The first issue was that PPU's performance management process had to be improved, as not everything that mattered to PPU's performance was communicated to everybody adequately enough. The second issue was that the performance‐driven behavior of PPU's people had to be strengthened, as the decision‐making and action‐taking processes took too long and people were nor resilient and flexible enough to deal quickly with changing conditions.

Practically, the research findings could help managers of Middle Eastern organizations to achieve sustainable high performance in their organizations.

The research described in this paper constitutes one of the first studies into the determining factors of sustainable high performance in the Middle East and as such, it adds to the strategic management literature by showing that the HPO concept can be applied in the Middle East to evaluate the high performance status of Middle Eastern organizations.

The main purpose of this paper is to propose a model of economic development able to generate a cross‐border sustainable economic development, in regions in conflict. The Italian industrial district model implements a community industry synergy process led by the authorities according to a top‐down approach. The cluster model implements a clustering specialization process led, in the American version, by a bottom‐up approach and in the European version by a top‐down approach. The regional innovation system (RIS) provides the regional and international innovation networking required for both models in order to confront the global competition. The proposed progressive model creates the industrial specialization (industrial district) required for the development of the clustering process supported by the RIS.

The authors have selected, from the list of producers (growers and producers of olive oil), a random sample of 103 growers of olives and producers of olive oil from both groups from the Northern regions (Galilee in Israel and the Northern West Bank): 26 Palestinian growers, 25 Palestinian producers, 13 Israeli growers and 39 Israeli producers of olive oil, and interviewed them.

The results show that the community‐industry synergy of the industrial district model is supported by the economic actors from both sides of the border but refused for political reasons by the regional authorities and professional associations. The raw material (olives), the human capital and the knowledge required in order to start the clustering process exist.

The study has evaluated the Israeli‐Jewish and Arab and the Palestinian olive sector, and clearly indicates that bottom‐up decision‐making process is the only way for the moment for initiating the cluster and RIS models in the olive sector. The intervention of a third party is required in order to start the bottom‐up implementation of the industrial district model and launch the clustering process.

The main contribution of this paper lies in organizing the industrial district in such a way that it will generate a cluster in the long run. Thus, it is called progressive model.