Search results

This study examines the interactive effects of work values and organisational commitment on localisation.

This study draws on human capital theory, and reports on a survey of 200 expatriate managers working in Qatar.

We find that localisation is negatively associated with work values and positively associated with organisational commitment. Furthermore, work values appear to influence organisational commitment.

Despite a surfeit of literature on localisation of human resources, few studies previously have explored its relationship with work values and organisational commitment. This chapter presents empirical research on the issue from Qatar, a country in a region which remains under-researched in the literature.

This chapter presents a theoretical and evidence-based investigation of the contribution that national educational systems make to the development of and transition to a knowledge economy in the Arabian Gulf, generally, and Saudi Arabia, specifically. The challenges to creating an Arabian Gulf knowledge economy are twofold. One is a functional and structural challenge of developing a knowledge economy-oriented mass education system. The other is a cultural and contextual challenge of aligning Arabian Gulf expectations, traditions, and norms with institutionalized expectations for knowledge economies. The knowledge economy development challenge that is specific to national versus non-national Gulf populations, information and communication technology (ICT), and formal mass education systems is highlighted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role that national innovation systems play in knowledge economy development in the Arabian Gulf countries.

Experiential learning encouraging critical thinking and creative problem-solving is the essence of innovation. Knowing this, in 2015, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Program in partnership with Stanford University faculty. The purpose of the project was to create customized curriculum for university students, support educators teaching the material, and inspire an entrepreneurial mindset that transitions the nation into an innovation-based society. Three cohorts of university educators participated in workshops, professional development activities, and a four-day visit at Stanford University to learn design thinking, the pedagogical platform of the custom curriculum. After a three-year pilot, remarkable results were realized among students, faculty, and within the entrepreneurial ecosystem of UAE. Analyzing the faculty and student interviews, reviewing an initiative impact report, and referencing related research, this case study: establishes the importance of teaching innovation and entrepreneurship, outlines the program’s practical and operational elements, and documents how educators succeeded in integrating and customizing the curriculum (before and during the coronavirus pandemic).

In recent years, interest in educational issues in the Muslim world has grown rapidly. This interest runs parallel with a media-led exploration of all things Muslim and the ideas that are fundamental to the tenets of Islam. This trend in examining the educational issues that exist in countries that are predominantly Islamic in history, culture, and belief, is part of a wider awareness of the educational elements of a globalized system of commerce, communication, education, and modernization. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has embraced many facets of globalization, striving to become a regional power and a new financial and commercial hub in the Middle East and a high-tech center in a globally oriented society. Along with other Arab nations, the UAE has recognized the strategic role played by education in national development and modernization.

This chapter analyses the causes and effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008, and it examines the dramatic government rescues and reforms. The outcomes of this, the most severe collapse to befall the United States and the global economy for three-quarters of a century, are still unfolding. Banks, homeowners and industries stood to benefit from government intervention, particularly the huge infusion of taxpayer funds, but their future is uncertain. Instead of extending vital credit, banks simply kept the capital to cover other firm needs (including bonuses for executives). Industry in the prevailing slack economy was not actively seeking investment opportunities and credit expansion. The property and job markets languished behind securities market recovery. It all has been disheartening and scary – rage against those in charge fuelled gloom and cynicism. Immense private debt was a precursor, but public debt is the legacy we must resolve in the future.

Purpose – This paper examines the changing regimes of governance and the roles of accounting therein in a less developed country (LDC) by using Sri Lanka tea plantations as a case. It captures the changes in a chronological analysis, which identifies four regimes of governance: (a) pre-colonial, (b) colonial, (c) post-colonial and (d) neo-liberal. It shows how dialectics between political state, civil state and the economy affected changes in regimes of governance and accounting through evolving structures, processes and contents of governance.

Methodology – It draws on the works of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi to articulate a political economy framework. It provides contextual accounts from the Sri Lankan political history and case data from its tea plantations for the above chronological analysis.

Findings – The above four regimes of governance had produced four modes of accounting: (a) a system of rituals in the despotic kingship, (b) a system of monitoring and reporting to absentee Sterling capital in the despotic imperialism, (c) a system of ceremonial reporting to state capital in a politicised hegemony and (d) good governance attempts in a politicised hegemony conditioned by global capital. We argue that political processes and historical legacies rather than the assumed superiority of accounting measures gave shape to governance regimes. Governance did not operate in its ideal forms, but ‘good governance’ initiatives revitalised accounting roles across managerial agency to strengthening stewardship rather than penetrating it into the domain of labour controls. Managerial issues emerged from contradictions between political state, civil state and the economy (enterprise) constructed themselves a distinct political domain within which accounting had little role to play, despite the ambitious aims of good governance.

Originality – Most accounting and governance research has used economic theories and provided ahistorical analysis. This paper provides a historically informed chronological analysis using a political economy framework relevant to LDC contexts, and empirically demonstrates how actual governance structures and processes lay in broader socio-political structures, and how the success of good governance depends on the social and political behaviour of these structural properties.

To discuss the historical roots of contemporary geopolitical economy, this paper aims to explore the complex and influential analysis of Tilly's formation of European national states as a predominant type of territorial political organization in contemporary world. To do this, Tilly described different eras of dominant organization of warfare in relation to state organization: patrimonialism, brokerage, nationalization, specialization. In this paper, we explore the link between the organization of military power and trade policy. We are trying to answer the question, if it is possible to credibly state a connection between the trade policy types pursued by selected states in specific historical periods and Tilly’s eras of dominant form of organization of warfare. For this purpose, we developed a typology of trade policies of important states throughout the history, using the economic history research of leading experts in the field. Our conclusion is that such a connection – between trade policy and Tilly’s eras of organization of warfare – can be made and that this connection is solidly supported by economic history. Our analysis may be of value for any critical assessment of international trade relations in contemporary geopolitical economy – and of influential cosmopolitan interpretations of the liberal trade regime of 19th century or globalization in 20th century.