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Average bank net interest margins vary widely across Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, net interest margins of Omani banks are significantly higher. The resultant low level of financial intermediation implies reduced investment and economic growth. Understanding the reason for these high and persistent spreads is important to develop a policy for improving effectiveness of the banking system. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Net interest margins of Arab GCC banks during the period 1999-2012 are examined using the balanced panel regression model with bank specific, financial/market structure specific and macroeconomic factors as determinants. The method used for estimation used is the estimated generalized least squares (EGLS) method with both fixed effects and random effects.

Bank-specific variables, which explain net interest margins in GCC, are bank capitalization ratios, loan ratios and overhead expenses. Spread of banking sector (as measured by ratio of total bank credit to GDP) is positive and highly significant, implying that along with the expansion of the banking sector in GCC economies, interest margins of banks also improved. Omani banks were able to increase interest margins by aggressively marketing high yield personal and credit card loans, and, zero interest paying deposit products. The study also finds a negative relationship between concentration and net interest margin, and attempts to explain this finding which is at variance with other country studies using the price leadership model of oligopoly.

The standard, accepted econometric model of net interest margins which has been used in earlier studies is unable to explain the high net interest margins of banks in Oman although it is able to explain interest margins in other GCC countries. There is a need to develop non econometric models. More work is needed on the implications of NIM spreads for how they affect an economy.

The study shows that as the banking sector spreads in the economy, individual banks have more opportunities to market their products while at the same time maintaining interest margins. Bank managements should note this point and look for opportunities to expand.

There is no evidence of any empirical studies which focused on net interest margins in the GCC countries. This study attempts to fill in this gap with a view to nudge policy makers to look at the issue of high interest margins and its detrimental impact on economic growth and development in the Gulf region. The paper is useful for policy makers to understand and rectify the problem of excessive interest spreads which is hurting the financial intermediation process.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between high‐involvement human resource management practices and organizational performance in the Sultanate of Oman, an Arabian Gulf country.

Companies listed in the Muscat Securities Market in the Sultanate of Oman were surveyed. The final sample consisted of 87 companies. Survey responses were subjected to statistical analysis. Financial measures of organizational performance were also used in the analysis for a subset of the sample for which these data were available.

Results of the statistical analysis indicated that, after controlling for size, type of firm (publicly traded or closely held) and average industry price‐earnings ratio, high involvement human resource management practices were positively related to subjective organizational performance and an objective measure of performance, ratio of market value to book value.

Research limitations include measuring high‐involvement HRM practices and subjective organizational performance from the same source, assuming that HRM practices are uniform across organizational levels and using a composite measure of high‐involvement HRM practices. Future research should address these limitations.

The results of the study suggest that organizations in the Arabian Gulf can enhance their performance by implementing high‐involvement HRM practices in spite of the unique national culture and special features of the labour market in the region.

To the best of one's knowledge, this is the first study of high‐involvement HRM practices and organizational performance in the Arabian Gulf using both subjective and objective measures of organizational performance. Unlike other studies on HRM in Oman, this study was based on data collected from private‐sector organizations.

This study focusses on the intersection of social sustainability and human resource management (HRM) as a strategy for crisis management. It aims to provide detailed insight by exploring the associations between socially sustainable HRM (SSHRM), employee well-being, trust in social capital and employee resilience.

This study used a cross-sectional research design to test relationships amongst variables. Data was gathered from employees in India’s private-sector information technology (IT) industry, making the framework relevant to this specific context. The study employed the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse complex relationships between the variables.

The results indicate that organisations can boost employee resilience through SSHRM implementation, promote personal well-being (PWB) and family well-being (FWB) and foster trust in social capital. Additionally, the study highlights the moderating impact of employee empowerment, improving the translation of positive employee behaviour in organisational settings.

Our research emphasises the importance of sustainability efforts and strategies focused on social capital to build long-lasting employee connections. This highlights the necessity of incorporating social sustainability objectives into the organisation’s strategic blueprint, ensuring integration into decision-making procedures.

This study uniquely explores the underlying mechanisms through which SSHRM influences employee resilience. An in-depth empirical analysis evinces the causal mechanism between SSHRM, employee well-being, social capital trust and employee resilience.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among a set of human resources management (HRM) practices, entrepreneurial traits (ET) and corporate entrepreneurship (CE) in an emerging market such as the Egyptian one.

This research is explanatory in nature where it explains the causal relationships between the variables. Data was collected from 230 human resources (HR) managers and professional serving in top Egyptian financial institutions. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling with relevant goodness-of-fit statistics.

The results of this study indicate that HRM practices have significant impact on the development of ET of personnel currently operating in the Egyptian financial institutions. Besides, the results confirm the effect of HRM practices on ET, which in turn have significant impact on CE.

This research provides an appropriate direction for HR managers on how to best design HR programs directed toward the development of strong CE orientation. It also highlights the core ET needed to enhance CE in emerging economies. The validated hypothetical relationships of this model serve as the baseline for those managers to plan, execute and measure the consequences of those HRM programs.

Although HRM is widely considered as a critical driving force for CE, there is a remarkable scarcity of empirical research examining the role of ET. The conceptual model tested in this research typically deepens both HRM scholars and managers’ understanding of how they can best connect HRM practices to ET and CE in emerging economies. The findings of this study open the door for a new venue of research in the HRM area of study, particularly in emerging markets that search for a fast-growing rate of economic prosperity. The findings of this study lend support for HRM as an antecedent to CE rather than vice versa.

Building on the resource-based view (RBV) and the theory of other orientation, this study aims to examine the association between Islamic work ethics (IWEs) and organizational performance highlighting the role of employee relations climate as an underlying mechanism.

Data were collected from 239 employees working in diverse sectors in the state of Qatar. Structural equation modeling of partial least squares was used to analyze the data of the study.

The results suggest that IWEs positively impact organizational performance and employee relations climate. Furthermore, employee relations climate demonstrated to play a mediating role in the IWEs-organizational performance link.

The study can be used by administrators pertaining to the importance of IWE and employee relations climate to cultivate higher organizational outcomes such as organizational performance.

This research is distinctive as it examines the connection between IWEs and organizational performance in Qatar, a country where the influence of Islamic values and beliefs on work ethics is profound. In addition, the research sheds light on a topic that has received little attention in the literature: the significance of the workplace climate in determining how IWEs affect organizational performance. Finally, the research integrates two important theoretical frameworks, the RBV and the theory of other orientation, to create a comprehensive model that explains the complex relationship between IWEs, employee relations climate and organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of voluntary compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance (CG) best practices, and the extent to which board characteristics and shareholding structures can explain discernible differences in the level of voluntary CG disclosure in a number of emerging Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) economies.

The paper uses a number of multivariate regression methods, namely, ordinary least squares, weighted, non-linear, lagged-effects, two-stage least squares and fixed-effects regression techniques to analyse data collected for a sample of listed corporations in emerging MENA economies from 2009 to 2014.

First, in general, MENA listed firms have a relatively lower level of voluntary compliance with, and disclosure of, CG practices compared to listed firms in developed countries. Second, the evidence suggests that corporate board characteristics, including board diversity, have a positive association with the level of voluntary CG disclosure. In contrast, the findings indicate that unitary board leadership structure, director shareholdings and government shareholdings negatively impact on the level of voluntary CG disclosure. The study does not, however, find any evidence to suggest that family shareholdings have any significant relationship with the level of voluntary CG disclosure. The findings are generally robust to alternative measures and potential endogeneity problems.

This is one of the first empirical efforts at investigating the association between CG mechanisms and voluntary disclosure in emerging MENA economies that observably relies on a multi-theoretical framework within a longitudinal cross-country research setting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of human resource management (HRM) practices on the performance of Jordanian banks as determined by using the balanced scorecard (BSC) performance measurement system and by testing the effect of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as a possible mediator variable.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from the study sample, which consisted of 230 managers working in various banks across Jordan. The study hypotheses were then tested using SPSS and AMOS software by applying structural equation models (SEMs).

The data set revealed that the use of HRM practices had a significant impact on both employee OCB and bank performance in all the four dimensions of the BSC (financial, customer satisfaction, internal processes, learning and growth). In addition, OCB was found to have a positive significant impact on organizational performance. Moreover, results indicated that OCB partially mediates the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance.

The authors examine the impact HRM practices on the organization performance through the mediation role of OCB. The results obtained from this study extend the existing literature by providing evidences from non-western country such as Jordan. Based on the findings, the theoretical and practical implications of the study as well as limitations and suggestions for future studies are also discussed.

Saudi Arabia (SA) is amongst the few countries with a significant foreign workforce who are employed in the higher education sector. More specifically, 39% of SA's academic staff members are foreign nationals and 63% of that proportion occupy professorial positions. Drawing from a workforce localisation perspective, the study was framed as an exploration of equity and social justice amongst Saudi nationals and foreign nationals in a university work setting. The authors employ the lens of how human resource development (HRD) opportunities are administered.

Following the choice of an exploratory qualitative study, the authors employed a multi-case study approach where each of the six universities represented a unit of analysis.

The authors found that nationality differences influenced access to HRD opportunities. These differences are reinforced by practices associated with procedural processes, managerial discretion and selective restrictions in accessing HRD opportunities.

The findings have both practical and social implications, specifically for the SA government's strategic vision of developing local human capabilities.

The workforce localisation agenda within the higher education sector has both a compounding effect on local human capital and supports SA's 2030 Vision and human capital target. Nonetheless, perceived inequity and injustice in accessing HRD opportunities by foreign nationals potentially undermine morale, academic quality standards and research performance, which impacts the development of future human capital and the ‘Saudization’ goals.

In cultivation, early harvest offers farmers an opportunity to increase production while decreasing the chances of lower crop production rates, ensuring that the economy remains balanced. The significant reason is to predict the disease in plants and distinguish the type of syndrome with the help of segmentation and random forest optimization classification. In this investigation, the accurate prior phase of crop imagery has been collected from different datasets like cropscience, yesmodes and nelsonwisc . In the current study, the real-time earlier state of crop images has been gathered from numerous data sources similar to crop_science, yes_modes, nelson_wisc dataset.

In this research work, random forest machine learning-based persuasive plants healthcare computing is provided. If proper ecological care is not applied to early harvesting, it can cause diseases in plants, decrease the cropping rate and less production. Until now different methods have been developed for crop analysis at an earlier stage, but it is necessary to implement methods to advanced techniques. So, the detection of plant diseases with the help of threshold segmentation and random forest classification has been involved in this investigation. This implemented design is verified on Python 3.7.8 software for simulation analysis.

In this work, different methods are developed for crops at an earlier stage, but more methods are needed to implement methods with prior stage crop harvesting. Because of this, a disease-finding system has been implemented. The methodologies like “Threshold segmentation” and RFO classifier lends 97.8% identification precision with 99.3% real optimistic rate, and 59.823 peak signal-to-noise (PSNR), 0.99894 structure similarity index (SSIM), 0.00812 machine squared error (MSE) values are attained.

The implemented machine learning design is outperformance methodology, and they are proving good application detection rate.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an empirical investigation of the linkage between total productive maintenance (TPM), people management (PEM) and organizational performance in the apparel industry of Bangladesh. This study also explores the direct and mediating effect of TPM on organizational performance.

Empirical data were collected using a close-ended structured questionnaire from 227 small, medium and large-scale garment manufacturing industries. The causal relationships between PEM, TPM and organizational performance were examined using structural equation modeling.

The findings of this study have provided significant evidence that the PEM has both direct and indirect impact (through TPM) on organizational performance. The results of the analysis also indicated that TPM has direct and mediating effects on operational performance.

Data for measuring PEM practices and organizational performance were collected from the same source, assuming that PEM practices are uniform across the organization. Therefore, response bias is not unexpected.

This study explores the interdimensional linkage between PEM, TPM and organizational performance and argues based on the empirical data in the context of the apparel industry in Bangladesh. The apparel industry is a complex manufacturing system synchronizing man, machine and material. The findings provide empirical evidence that employee engagement and practice of TPM will enhance the operational performance of the apparel industries.