WiMax technology adoption by SMEs in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This research focuses on developing a framework for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) technology adoption by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). WiMax has emerged as a technology to overcome the limitations of traditional and existing broadband technologies and support a great number of organisations and consumers/citizens in providing a higher speed over substantial distances i.e. in areas that are difficult for wired infrastructure to reach. Despite all the interest in the types of broadband adoption as demonstrated by SMEs in several countries, there seems to be slow progress and lack of information supporting the decision making process for WiMax technology adoption by SMEs specifically in the context of KSA. This may illustrate that SMEs adopt WiMax technology solutions at a slower pace and make them characterised as laggards in terms of new technologies adoption. This research takes into consideration this literature gap and makes a step forward and investigates on WiMax technology adoption by SMEs in KSA with an organisational cultural view, vendors’ commercialisation strategies and government policies by analysing the normative literature related to this research. The data collection of this study was carried out in two phases including quantitative and qualitative approaches. The first phase of the research provided results indicated that, the Saudi SMEs who participated in this research are strongly dominated by clan culture and adhocracy culture. These cultures also have a positive impact on the Internet technologies adoption such as WiMax by SMEs. It is found that, the combination of clan and adhocracy cultures in Saudi SMEs is making them more likely to adopt latest Internet technologies. In the second phase, the results showed a wide difference in views among SMEs, WiMax vendors and government agencies involved in WiMax technology diffusion to SMEs in Saudi Arabia. Although WiMax technology started as an innovation that has the potential to be disruptive and could replace the widely diffused fixed wire line Internet connection, the research findings showed an interesting deviation from this path. In particular, the WiMax technology market analysis in Saudi Arabia highlighted the vendors’ tendency to treat WiMax technology as a sustaining innovation. Research findings also indicated that, the Saudi government provided funds for Information and Communications Technology‘s diffusion in the country. However, the level of awareness displayed by SMEs is persistently low. Knowledge deployment, mobilisation, innovation directive and subsidy have been emphasised by SMEs as the most important government interventions that might have an impact on WiMax adoption by them. Finally, further important issues have been uncovered by the research such as taxation, experience exchange, herd culture/bandwagon, consumer right protection and customer service in relation to the adoption of WiMax by SMEs. The perceived future prospect of these additional issues has been considered as an influence on adoption of WiMax technology by SMEs. The findings of this research can be useful to guide analysts and researchers in determining critical aspects of the complex issues involved in technologies adoption, and lead to suggestions for further valid research

Analyzing challenges toward on-demand economy applications using external factors of PESTEL model: Case of Saudi applications"

Nowadays, the growth in popularity of on-demand applications opens up new opportunities for conducting information system studies. Considering that on-demand applications are a relatively new phenomenon which extensively used in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the lack of understanding of its potential, some problems arise from the increasing numbers of economy business where they run them. Due to its capability of attracting consumers, on-demand applications take place in Saudi context where they play a major role in the accomplishment to create a solution that leverages ubiquitous smart phones to aggregate demand and make the supply more efficient. E-commerce growths to prop up diversification strategy, In addition to current developments, investments in the e-commerce market are set to rise under the government’s Vision2030. It is really that the on-demand applications are a quite new fact particularly in promising countries, the lack of perception of its potential. Therefore, we need to explore different effects of the on-demand applications economy business in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, How Saudi application business can make investment opportunity and product development during these days? This preliminary study provides the proof of the factors for which the on-demand applications uses of the external factors of (PESTEL) analyst which Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.   It gives a bird’s eye view of the whole environment from many different angles that one wants to check and keep a track of while contemplating on a certain idea/plan. The researcher found that the challenges on-demand applications face to interact with customers, and on the value such applications provide. So context of the research and the overall contribution which will be the Saudi on-demand applications that made to the field of research. Keywords: Islamic culture of Saudi Arabia, privacy, public awareness, Saudi architectural elements, , PESTEL analyst , Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental

Barriers and motivations affecting information systems usage by Hajj-Umrah religious tourism operators in Saudi Arabia

Hajj & Umrah religious tourism accounts for seven million visitors each year in Saudi Arabia. The government has recently taken initiatives to promote the use of Information Systems (IS) in the religious tourism industry, encouraging firms to adopt IS innovations like e-commerce and enforcing the use of the Makha'a information system in Umrah for external pilgrims and the Yosr information system in Hajj for internal pilgrims. This study outlines the motivations and challenges that affect the utilisation of various IS services in the Saudi religious tourism industry through a qualitative analysis of the views and perceptions of senior executives and owners of travel firms. The findings suggest that while government initiatives and industry competitiveness were two positive factors promoting IS use, there are some major barriers preventing private firms from fully utilising the advantages of information systems. These include external factors such as lack of support from the IT industry and access to IT resources as well as internal factors within an organisation such as lack of commitment or the need for professional IT expertise. The study finds that relative advantage is a critical contributor to IS utilisation which depends on information systems characteristic

Exploring the impact of digital technology on women’s employment in Saudi Arabia

Digital technology is revolutionising employment, creating new job opportunities while disrupting traditional occupations. Few studies, however, have examined the impact of technology on women’s employment in developing countries. There is a scarcity of literature on employment opportunities arising from the digitalization of economies for women in Arab countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, from the leadership perspective. Hence, the aim of this study is to focus on exploring the impact of digital technologies on the employment opportunities in digital technologies for women of Saudi Arabia, where the unique political, social and economic characteristics of the state compound may contribute to employment opportunities and barriers against the successful participation of Saudi women in the labour market. This study explores the perspectives of leaders working in the government, businesses and the academic institutions about the employment opportunities created by digital technologies in the Saudi labour market for women.This study has adopted a methodology based on the structuration theory to explore the complexity involved in the subject matter which warranted the selection of participants from three key social structures: government, businesses and academic institutions and the results of semi-structured interviews with 40 participants (13-14 participants from each group) guided the researcher to derive important findings presented in this study. The afore-mentioned three groups were selected based on their overwhelming role in shaping and implementing the digital technologies in the emerging Saudi economy. Additionally, participants at leadership positions from the respective groups including both men and women were included as participants in this study, so that an in-depth insight into employment opportunities for Saudi women could be gained to highlight not only the employment opportunities but also the potential barriers in the ways of Saudi women in exploiting the employment opportunities if they do exist as a result of digitalization of Saudi economy. Importantly, leaderships from the included three groups included in this study are supposed to decide whether Saudi women need to be integrated in the labour market, which justifies the selection of participants occupying the leadership positions in business, academia and government and involved in digitalization of Saudi society and economy were included in this study. Thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the qualitative data, while the interpretation of data was done using the theoretical insights from the structuration theory.Based on the data presented in this study, the social structures of the Saudi society were theorized to play an important role in enhancing or hindering the Saudi women’s participation in the labour market created by digital technologies. Participants believed that there are employment opportunities for Saudi women in different areas of digital technologies such as graphics, entrepreneurships, online businesses, e-marketing, robotics and artificial intelligence. It was found that Saudi government has introduced several affirmative action programmes for women in collaboration with academic institutions and businesses for training and educating Saudi women in digital technologies. This study found evidence supporting the widespread use of social media as a marketing tool for home-based businesses, which could enable employment indigital technologies. The academic institutions in collaboration with businesses were found to be engaged in training women in digital technologies at vocational level, so that participation of Saudi women in digital technologies-assisted labour market could be made successful. The result showed some of the socio-cultural and structural levels barriers for a successful participation of Saudi women in the digital technologies-mediatedlabour market in Saudi Arabia. Among other obstacles that were identified involved the inadequacy of the educational curriculum for girls, particularly in science and engineering and technology-related disciplines. The finding of this study also revealed that career options were limited; family and community pressures and stereotypical attitude towards Saudi women’s employment in digital technologies. The lack of separate working environment, childcare facilities at organizations could limit participation of Saudi women in the labour market created by digital technologies. Moreover, the lack of transport facilities for female workers were identified to be some other barriers.This study has implications for governmental bodies endeavouring to foster the equal employment, education and training opportunities for Saudi women. The outcomes of this study could inform government of the potential socio-cultural and structural issues which could prevent the successful participation of Saudi women in the national economy and society productively. The results of study contributed to the practice by presenting the Women-Employment in Digital Technologies Promoting Structuration (WEDTPS) theory which was informed by the findings of this study.The data from this study did not show the views of women aspiring to participate in the labour market generated by digital technologies, which may provide some additional insight into the women’s positions on the utility of current training and skills programs arranged by social structures in terms of increasing the employment opportunities for women. This study does not specify or focus on particular type(s) of digital technologies; variations in terms of implementation and emphasis of industries on different digital technologies may affect the employment opportunities for Saudi women in different ways. This may limit the generalizability of outcomes of this study to a particular digital technology

E-commerce diffusion in high-income developing countries: determinants of e-commerce adoption and post-adoption of Saudi enterprises

The ubiquitous nature of e-commerce in developing countries demands an innovative conceptualisation of its adoption and post-adoption that responds to various contextual circumstances. Despite efforts made to investigate e-commerce adoption in developing countries, the literature suggests that the focus is mostly on a single perspective of a single adoption stage and concentrates on specific locations. To extend our understanding of the phenomenon, an exploratory phase is undertaken through a literature review as well as an exploratory investigation. Consequently, a holistic framework is integrated that includes organisational and environmental factors, in addition to innovation attributes. The framework is empirically validated using a statistically representative sample size of 384 enterprises of various sizes and industries in a high-income developing country from a poorly investigated region. The empirical analysis shows that perceived benefits as well as mimetic pressure are more influential for the adoption of e-commerce and scope of use than the utilisation amongst adopter organisations. In addition to coercive pressure, the readiness of financial institutions, IT industry and the government affect the scope of e-commerce use. For adopter firms, the extent of e-commerce adoption is influenced by business process readiness, government readiness and security. Commitment, especially from top managers, is a key determinant that links e-commerce adoption to the extent of adoption and the scope of e-commerce use. The findings indicate that the proposed models are sufficiently reliable in discriminating not only adopters from non-adopters, but also the extent of adoption and use across the value chain. Together, this research offers a multi-perspective framework of e-commerce adoption and post-adoption in high-income developing countries and identifies the factors that affect e-commerce adoption, and how these effects vary across adoption stages. It presents insight into various issues that influence e-commerce adoption and post-adoption in this little-explored region, which will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and policy makers

Impact of leadership skills on entrepreneurs’ business success in Saudi Arabia

Most entrepreneurial businesses fail within the first 5 years of establishment. One of the major causes is the lack of leadership skills by the entrepreneurs. The aim of this quantitative study was to define the leadership skills that were required by entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia in creating and sustaining entrepreneurial business successfully beyond 5 years and to identify the environmental factors affecting entrepreneurship ecosystem in Saudi Arabia. The population of interest in this study was entrepreneurs from Tasamy in Saudi Arabia. Tasamy is a non-profit organization that focuses on supporting entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia. To answer the research questions for this study, online surveys were gathered from 125 entrepreneurs, who were 23 years or older, and whose businesses have been in operation for at least 5 years or longer in Saudi Arabia. There were more men in the sample (70.4%) than women (29.6%). Ages of the participants ranged from 23 to 29 years (16.0%) to 50 or above (4.0%) with the median age being 34.5 years. All 125 participants but 6 (4.8%) had at least a bachelor’s degree with 40.8% had earned master’s or doctoral degrees. The top 5 leadership skills, which contributed to their entrepreneurial business success included self-confidence, decision-making ability, determination in setting and achieving goals, effective communication, and adaptability to market circumstances. These helped entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia to create and sustain business beyond 5 years. Additionally, it was found that the Saudi young generation is a major driving force, there is a need to combat corruption, as well as the need for increased cooperation efforts among government, universities, and private sector to foster entrepreneurial activities in Saudi Arabia. These were the main environmental factors affecting the entrepreneurship environment in Saudi Arabia. Although entrepreneurial success depends on both internal and external factors, entrepreneurs who are planning to start or sustain their businesses may find these findings helpful in their pursuit to create and run successful, new businesses

E-Business assimilation in the context of Saudi Arabia : utilising Habermas' lifeworld and system theory

E-business assimilation in Saudi Arabia becomes critical due to the overarching social issues that the stakeholders encounter. Grounded in Habermas‘ Critical Social Theory (CST), this study applies the theory of lifeworld and system to understand the relevance of the Islamic faith as well as the Arab culture in the conduct of businesses in Saudi Arabia, which in turn, would make e-business assimilation a success. This study seeks to contribute to the IS literature‘s lack of research in which the aim is to emphasise social factors as the main determinants of e-business assimilation. We point out that inherent to the other important factors (e.g., technological, organisational, and cultural), people‘s actions (emancipated or regulated) are most critical to realising business‘ innovation and growth through utilising e-business technology. The sample of the study was composed of 1071 SAP end-users from the three leading Saudi companies, namely, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), and Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed), an affiliate of SABIC. Also, seven consultants contributed their knowledge and expertise regarding e-business adoption, on which they have been working for many years. The necessary data were collected through two methods: (1) distributed survey questionnaire for the SAP end-users; and (2) face – to - face (semi-structured) interview for the consultants. The value of Habermas‘ theory of lifeworld and system is shown by the development of a business model that can be used to achieve e-business assimilation success in the context of Saudi Arabia because it has the ability to distinguish the actions in various social situations – whether the actions reflect emancipation or restriction of the actors‘ way of living; and consequently, whether the actors‘ way of living should remain as it is or should undergo necessary changes. The newly developed ―E-Business Assimilation Model‖ (EAM) includes as its constructs the most important factors relevant to e-business success as well as the concepts of lifeworld and system: that is, all factors are subject to be ―filtered‖ through both the lifeworld and the system constructs. Through EAM, it was found that it could be easy for the project team to execute an e-business project if they will give critical consideration II to the people‘s social and cultural beliefs, aspirations, perspectives and preferences. Understanding the people‘s social and cultural means allows the project team to customise the e-business systems to be installed, and to make sure that the new system really fits the organisational setting. For every challenging lifeworld and system situation, the top management can provide improved solutions to be applied. The findings show how SAP implementation in the selected companies was affected by social factors such as age and gender; cultural factors such as religion; organisational factors such as performance motivating, management support and consultancy; and technological factors. The companies‘ change management programmes had enabled resolution of problems by the adoption of measures suited to each company‘s holistic characteristics and needs. Evidence of system-lifeworld interactions was demonstrated in each of these cases. Saudi society was shown to be strongly lifeworld oriented, such that ‗system‘ comes into conflict with a member of lifeworld and there are some lifeworld elements (such as gender roles and constraints) that system cannot change but must work within. The findings demonstrate the value of a system – lifeworld perspective in analysing factors influencing a change such as e-business assimilation and result in development of an elaborated model for holistic analysis of pertinent factors

Artificial Intelligence Techniques in E-Commerce: The Possibility of Exploiting them in Saudi Arabia

E-Commerce has transformed business as we know over the past few decades. The rapid increasing use of the Internet and the strong purchasing power in Saudi Arabia have had a strong impact on the evolution of E-Commerce in the country. Saudi Arabia is yet another country that will release artificial intelligence power to fuel its growth in the economic world.  Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) applications that can facilitate e-commerce processes have been widely used. The impact of using artificial intelligence (AI) concepts and techniques on the efficiency of e-commerce, particularly has been overlooked by many prior studies. In this paper, a literature review was conducted to explore and investigate possible applications of AI in E-Commerce that can help Saudi Arabian businesses

Electronic commerce adoption:a study of business-to-business practice in Saudi Arabia

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) has become an increasingly important initiative among organisations. The factors affecting adoption decisions have been well-documented, but there is a paucity of empirical studies that examine the adoption of e-commerce in developing economies in the Arab world. The aim of this study is to provide insights into the salient e-commerce adoption issues by focusing on Saudi Arabian businesses. Based on the Technology-Organisational-Environmental framework, an integrated research model was developed that explains the relative influence of 19 known determinants. A measurement scale was developed from prior empirical studies and revised based on feedback from the pilot study. Non-interactive adoption, interactive adoption and stabilisation of e-commerce adoption were empirically investigated using survey data collected from Saudi manufacturing and service companies. Multiple discriminant function analysis (MDFA) was used to analyse the data and research hypotheses. The analysis demonstrates that (1) regarding the non-interactive adoption of e-commerce, IT readiness, management team support, learning orientation, strategic orientation, pressure from business partner, regulatory and legal environment, technology consultants‘ participation and economic downturn are the most important factors, (2) when e-commerce interactive adoption is investigated, IT readiness, management team support, regulatory environment and technology consultants‘ participation emerge as the strongest drivers, (3) pressure from customers may not have much effect on the non-interactive adoption of e-commerce by companies, but does significantly influence the stabilisation of e-commerce use by firms, and (4) Saudi Arabia has a strong ICT infrastructure for supporting e-commerce practices. Taken together, these findings on the multi-dimensionality of e-commerce adoption show that non-interactive adoption, interactive adoption and stabilisation of e-commerce are not only different measures of e-commerce adoption, but also have different determinants. Findings from this study may be valuable for both policy and practice as it can offer a substantial understanding of the factors that enhance the widespread use of B2B e-commerce. Also, the integrated model provides a more comprehensive explanation of e-commerce adoption in organisations and could serve as a foundation for future research on information systems