This book looks at the current state of entrepreneurship development in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It is a comprehensive state-of-the-art coverage of entrepreneurship and small business management issues, supported with theoretical discussion and empirical evidence. The book covers current processes in each country, paving the ways for potential investors, researchers, academics and professionals to better understand this region. An outcome of long-lasting endeavour, this book includes contributions from experts across the Gulf region.

This volume represents a comprehensive state-of-the-art picture of family business and entrepreneurship issues in countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council. It provides major theoretical and empirical evidence which depicts the current processes in each GCC country including problems, faced by family business owners and entrepreneurs, such as succession, financial constraints, and conflicts. The chapters offer recommendations to policy makers on how to improve the general business environment and encourage potential investors, researchers, academicians, and professionals to be more involved in the region. The book is an outcome of a long-lasting endeavor and includes contributions from highly reputed authors and experts from the region and abroad.

Straddling North Africa and Western Asia, the Middle East has been a cradle of civilisation and entrepreneurship — well before the arrival of Islam. In this region, gender roles were traditionally specified by culture, with women often expected to stay within the family environment, while men would trade in society at large. This book contributes to the literature on a highly neglected field of study: women entrepreneurs in the Middle East. Recognising that entrepreneurship does not take place in a vacuum, it focuses on contexts, and the ecosystems of this region with largely patriarchal societies, that are influenced by culture, religion, and colonial experience.This book provides readers with a topical analysis of women entrepreneurs in the Middle East on the context, ecosystems, and future perspectives for the region. Authors have presented the reality of 11 countries from the region based on women entrepreneurs' historical backgrounds, challenges, and achievements, as well as the contribution towards economic development in their local/immediate communities and the Middle East at large. Following the country analysis by the authors of each chapter, the editors provide a general assessment of the future of women entrepreneurs in the region by focusing on the current entrepreneurship policy and strategies of various countries in the region. This volume will be an essential reading for anyone researching or working on projects related to women's entrepreneurship and small businesses in the Middle East.

Not one size fits all. Yet, some books teach business with minimal focus on the context for business. In reality, firms — large and small — are highly affected by the context in which they operate; yet, context is not uniformly conceptualized, theorized, and operationalized by scholars of business and management. While most theories have come from developed countries with bountiful contexts, the diverse contexts of Western Asia are little understood. Religious factors are profoundly dominant in Western Asia, and businesses in this diverse area operate with considerations that are rarely considered in research. This book reveals a variety of schools of thought that have molded several business models and mechanisms, which are, to some extent, different from the context of Western economies.

Entrepreneurship in the Gulf Cooperation Council: Entrepreneurship in the Gulf Cooperation Council promotes a practical approach to starting businesses, and is useful not only for students, but also to anyone seeking practical insights on the essential aspects of entrepreneurship. As a wide-ranging introduction to theories and their applications, the book covers business plans, feasibility studies, and sources of startup funds. Case studies from GCC countries make the book a useful source of guidelines for starting and managing a business. Provides local and regional cases and examples familiar to GCC students Covers all important subjects within entrepreneurship, from cultivating entrepreneurial habits and values, to sources of business financing Emphasizes the variety of practical alternatives available to entrepreneurs

This book introduces entrepreneurship as a concept that is popular in the general media but also in academic study. What is evident is due to its positive and negative connotations in society. This book identifies that it is important to debate the topic of entrepreneurship in order to understand its multi-faceted nature. This edited book includes a number of chapters that discuss multidimensional perspectives from an international perspective. This book emphasizes the geo-political frontiers related to entrepreneurship based on current debates, which includes recent global changes. This book also challenges the debatable as to whether entrepreneurship should be examined at the individual, firm, regional, or industry level. This book goes further to demonstrate that this depends on the type and nature of the study. Therefore, it is better to consider entrepreneurship in a multidimensional way that incorporates different levels of analysis. This book shows each level of analysis that can be considered from a geo-political perspective. This means including an overview of the cultural factors that influence entrepreneurial behavior. In this way, this book helps readers to understand how and why geography and politics influence entrepreneurial action.

This book delves into the economic development of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Since the 1960s, the GCC states have harnessed their potential to exploit the wealth accrued from the oil boom to build their infrastructure and grow their economies. However, the high level of dependency on oil as the primary source feeding their output made their economies volatile and vulnerable to fluctuations in the global oil prices. Moreover, the plunge in oil prices and the threat of depletion of this natural resource pose serious challenges to the GCC countries. Consequently, the GCC governments have realized the importance of diversifying their economies following the need to move away from reliance on hydrocarbon. This book contributes to the theoretical literature by enriching the debate on the transition of the GCC countries from rentier states to diversified economies. It helps students and scholars understand this transformation with an expansive comprehension of the contemporary challenges facing the region, as well as outlining prospects for the future.