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This paper aims to generalize emic studies of culture and thus provide indigenous view nuanced particularly for emerging markets.

The authors review four local business frameworks and deconstruct each into three different constructs. The authors systematically evaluate culture specific studies, particularities of jaan pehchaan (India), guanxi (China), sviazi (Russia) and wasta (Arab countries).

Building on social networking theory, the authors synthesize an emic model for four types of large emerging markets cultures – China, Russia, India and Arab countries – and divide them according to their affective, conative and cognitive elements.

By knowing the impact of the constructs and how to leverage it, managers can successfully penetrate and manage these complex markets.

Current models of culture, such as the ones proposed by Hofstede and GLOBE, are etic in their orientation, attempting to find variations in common dimensions across different cultures. Emic approaches to studying culture are more bottom-up and are idiosyncratic to the culture.

The study aims to test a measurement scale to examine social business networks (Wasta) surrounding Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.

A 31-item scale was used to capture Wasta, consisting of the following: Mojamala (emotional), Hamola (conative) and Somah (cognitive) tri-components. A total of 149 Christian Arab and 304 Muslim Arab respondents were sampled and multi-group structural equation modeling was used to confirm the concept and test several hypotheses.

The findings from the study reveal that in order for success to occur within the Arab context, a sequential process of first developing Mojamala is necessary, before Hamola can prevail. Christian Arabs are motivated to integrate with society and form relationships via generalized trust. Muslim Arabs meanwhile tend to retain their distinct culture, using social networks to forge particularized trust. Shariah principles may also play a significant role in explaining why satisfaction was not found to be a necessary condition for Arab Muslims in driving relationship performance.

The study suggests that the 370 million Arab population may not be totally cohesive and should be refrained from being grouped together. In-group identification is a major contributor in explaining why business models are different between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians. The findings further support that Muslim Arab business models are based on tribalism or sheikocracy, whilst Christian Arab business models are based on legalistic frameworks and integration.

The study supports prior research associated with Muslim Arab business models based on tribalism or sheikocracy (Ali, 1995). The findings suggest that Arab Muslim business models focus on particularized trust as opposed to generalized trust that is common in Arab Christian business models and in most western countries. The study demonstrates that Mojamala (the emotional construct), Hamola (empathy) and Somah (particularized trust) are useful constructs for building Wasta and they serve a core element for Arab Muslim business models. Mojamala and Somah both directly affect satisfaction. Somah and satisfaction have a direct influence on performance.

The findings provide evidence to support institutional theory. Also from a stakeholder theory perspective, viewing companies, not only through an economic lens, but also building social institutions, can lead to a better understanding of business models drawing on diverse cultures and faiths. The study may therefore serve as a useful reference for academics and practitioners as they grapple to enhance satisfaction and leverage performance advantages within this context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of Wasta, a culturally based system of social networks of exchange among in-group members in the Arab world, as exemplified by three groups of Arabs in the Palestinian Authority, and then compares it to Guanxi (China), Sviazi (Russia) and Jaan–Pechaan (India). The use of social networks is a common business model around the world to accomplish business objectives and is especially relied upon in emerging economies where formal institutions are weak. It is important to understand the commonalities and differences in the use of reciprocity in various cultural contexts in order to conduct business effectively. The aim of the paper is to illustrate the structure of Wasta and how it is perceived and constructed among three Arab social groups, and then compare and contrast it with social business models in three other high context cultures.

Qualitative approach based on interviews to better understand the relationships involved.

The findings provide the foundation for a number of critical insights for non-Arab managers seeking to do business in the Arab world. For international managers to conduct business successfully, it is essential to understand how Wasta works, and establish relationships with members of influential social networks by building trust over time such that they create Wasta for themselves and indirectly for their firms. Using Wasta in the Arab world, as noted above, is similar to doing business successfully in other emerging economies such as using Sviazi in Russia (McCarthy and Puffer, 2008; Berger et al., 2017), Guanxi in China (Yen et al., 2011) and Jaan–Pechaan in India (Bhattacharjee and Zhang, 2011). The authors feel more confident in stating this view after comparing Wasta with these other three concepts, and noting that all four are built upon the same fundamental constructs.

The authors recognize that the study is limited in terms of the geographical sample since it does not include any non-Palestinians, although the managers the authors sampled came from various regions in the Palestinian authority. Additionally, Palestinian managers are highly educated and mobile, and can be found in many other Arab countries working in managerial positions (Zineldin, 2002), thus potentially broadening the generalizability of the findings. Nonetheless, the samples would be called ones of convenience rather than randomly drawn from the three groups, since the latter would be extremely difficult to execute not only in the Palestinian Authority but in most of the Arab world due to the culturally based reluctance to provide sensitive information to those outside one’s network. Despite the difficulties that might be involved in exploring such culturally sensitive issues as the authors did in this study, the benefits in knowledge gained can be of significant importance to the study of international business in emerging and transition economies.

Little research has focused on the use of Wasta in the Arab world, a gap which this paper addresses. The authors do so by analyzing the views of Wasta held by three important groups – leaders, business people and students. While each type of reciprocity has its own unique characteristics, the authors focus on three interrelated constructs that have been found to underlie the use of reciprocity in various cultures. In the Arab world, these are Hamola, which incorporates reciprocity; Somah, that incorporates trust; and Mojamala, which incorporates empathy through social business networks.

Using the social constructivist perspective of learning, this study aims to examine the patterns and the key areas of entrepreneurial learning based on a case study of 16 participants who were the incubatees of two technology-based business incubators in China. The key research question is: how do novice entrepreneurs, focusing on technology-based business incubators, learn from a social constructivist perspective?

The researchers applied a qualitative methodology in this study as they wanted to understand better the complexity of the learning process that is hard to achieve quantitatively. The qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews with the incubatees, who were the managers and owners of their businesses. The interviews with the entrepreneurs were mainly focused on the learning patterns and the factors influencing learning through the use of the critical incident technique.

This will allow incubator managers to better evaluate the extent of effective entrepreneurial learning within the incubator's eco-system. The results show that the participants learn through socially constructivist systems that are structured around the support provided by the incubators. Learning in this context takes place in an extended spectrum, and participants are more interested in learning from networking with experienced entrepreneurs rather than from other incubatees or formal courses. Findings of this study help incubator managers and novice entrepreneurs to better shape learning and teamwork in an effort to improve the learning process. Policy makers should consider introducing schemes that encourage novice entrepreneurs to exhibit the creativity and innovation behaviour reported by experienced entrepreneurs.

The focus of this study is primarily on incubators as the context of learning, whereas the macro-environmental factors, such as the socio-cultural and regulatory environments in China, were considered as playing a subtle role and would affect the incubatees' learning indirectly. The paper is based on a relatively small sample size and is geographically located in Ningbo, China. As such, the authors call for further research for comparative studies with a larger sample size so that a possible theory of entrepreneurial learning in the context of incubators might emerge in the future.

Managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from developed economies are often cautious to understand the cultural environment where they do business. This is predominantly true in developing economies, and even more so in certain Arab countries where MNEs have limited knowledge and experience. The purpose of this study is to report on the development of a research instrument that is applicable to Arab business culture, following the 2011 Arab Spring. The investigation draws on data from three different groups of people, i.e. leaders (business professors and leading politicians), business people and postgraduate business students, all of Palestinian nationality. The article examines the Arabic culturally based business structure called Wasta, a system that relies on social networks and the reciprocal exchange of favors. A research instrument is developed to measure three dimensions of Wasta across these three different groups of people and examines their influence on relationship satisfaction and organizational performance. The findings reveal that the groups are affected differently by these dimensions and see different utility in Wasta. Such insights may be useful for MNE practitioners when entering Arab countries, when seeking to employ younger Arabs and when partnering with Arab businesses or dealing with government officials.

Research paper

This study has focused on the impact of Wasta on relationship satisfaction and on relationship performance for three different groups of individuals: business people, students and leaders. It was hypothesized that higher levels of each component of Wasta would contribute positively to relationship satisfaction, and that the latter would in turn lead to higher relationship performance. Findings generally supported these hypotheses with some variations among groups. Furthermore, it was predicted that the model would be relevant to all three groups, but would be structured differently reflecting their different views of business. The findings of this study help answer our research question about the socio-economic, cultural and political factors that influence the business process involving Arab and non-Arab business managers.

Original paper

The primary purpose of this paper is to fill the research gap regarding the evolution of managerial processes within (largely family) diamond industry firms, especially over the past seven decades.

Qualitative data were gathered from interviews with 100 managers in the diamond industry in Israel, together with data from Israeli Government, industry and academic sources.

Over the recent life cycle of the diamond industry, with its changing structures and dynamics, participant firms have evolved through seven stages of engagement, from one based on trust and personal connections to more impersonal, standardized connections that exist today.

In seeking to tell the story of industry participants as a group, the differences in behaviours between the family firms and the non-family firms have not explored. This should be the work of future research, which, if aimed at teasing out the results of this study, may help shed additional light on the strategic processes that occur within family firms.

Although the firms examined in this study were from one industry (and an arguably narrow cultural base), their development over time was not dissimilar to the experience reported in other industries and cultures. This suggests that the components of the evolution of the strategic process that ensues within family firms may be generalizable throughout cultures. In the absence of kin relationships, the importance of trust in their dealings cannot be overstated.

The findings demonstrate how one group of participants in the global diamond industry has responded to the changing economic, social and political contexts of their operations, where trust and personal connections have been replaced by more impersonal, standardized dealings.

The purpose of this study is to examine the emergences of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have changed the way human beings communicate and interact. In the past few years, this has become crucial in the context of business, especially in start-up fund raising. Access to venture capital financing is a crucial issue in the entrepreneurial finance literature. To further explore the use of social media for entrepreneurs, the authors have explored how entrepreneurs use social media for fund-raising purposes. The authors have used Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to collect entrepreneurs’ funding data from Crunchbase and entrepreneurs’ social media data from Facebook and Twitter. The results show that social media is significant for start-ups in their success or failure in fund raising. Investing energy into utilizing online social media and exhausting these platforms consciously contributes to the financial success of start-ups. Therefore, start-ups which are popular among online fans and followers can manage to raise larger amounts of funding in the early stages.

This research relies on a wide range of quantitative data, which was obtained from three different online sources which includes Facebook, Twitter and CrunchBase. The use of a variety of internet technologies have been linked to increases in individuals’ social network diversity, which likely increases access to social capital at the individual level (Hampton and Wellman, 2003). The dataset was retrieved by using APIs, which enables the collection of novel metrics, from various sources that provide a well-structured dataset (Priem and Hemminger, 2010). Hypotheses were tested on a longitudinal dataset from 2000 to 2013, comprising general and investment data and social media metrics of start-ups. First, a sample from the database was selected to ensure data availability and reliability. After sampling, all the selected companies’ Twitter and Facebook activities were observed and metrics were analysed. SPSS was used to conduct correlation and regression analyses.

This study analysed whether start-ups’ social media convention is able to influence investors’ choices, especially the amount of total funding given. The paper showed that innovative start-up companies were able to benefit from communicating on social media platforms. Start-ups, which were using Facebook and Twitter effectively, focusing on valuable social media metrics, received larger amount of funding in total. Furthermore, it was observed that as their business grew, they intended to put more effort into online social networking. It confirmed the idea that businesses are using social media consciously.

This is the only paper that the authors could find that examines the relationship between fundraising and activity on social networks.

Private-label goods are now available in more than 55 countries worldwide and their total sales value is estimated to be in excess of one trillion US dollars. The prevalence of such goods, however, drastically differs across countries. Whilst market share in some developed economies exceeds 50 percent, penetration appears much lower in emerging economies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate marketing issues surrounding such low-penetration levels in emerging markets.

In-depth interviews were conducted with: 36 store managers and the marketing director of a large emerging market retail chain.

Eight factors were found to impede the retail chain’s vision regarding implementation of the private branding strategy.

Several implications are extracted from the study, mainly in the context of emerging markets that managers should consider in order to improve their private branding strategies.

Although some research has aimed to shed light concerning the significance of private brands from retailers’ perspectives, such research has not tended to address the issue of how to implement private brand strategies in emerging markets. To bridge the gap, this study investigates these issues from a retail chain management perspective in order to potentially leverage performance advantages associated with the nurturing of private-label branded goods.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the evolution of Chinese business ethics over time and how it impacts business. While much research attention has been directed toward China and its various industries, the Chinese diamond industry has been largely neglected. This industry is the second in size and fastest growing globally. It is interesting to examine its evolution over time and how external factors affect the firms’ business ethics behavior.

Exploratory field work involving the interview of major players was undertaken, complemented by extensive desk work, was used to create a base for future in-depth research of the secretive Chinese diamond industry.

A paradox was identified in the Chinese diamond industry, namely, that while Chinese businesses tend to follow a relational governance model, China’s diamond industry tends to use rational mechanisms of governance and exchange, a paradox that is explained by mitigating factors.

Future studies should use a quantitative questionnaire with a larger set of Chinese diamond firms to further examine the paradox found. Future studies could also examine whether the transformation from a system based on social networks to a system based on market forces as found in the Chinese diamond industry is an indicator of an ethical and business evolution of the whole Chinese industry. This may illustrate the rationalization of the Chinese economy and its progression toward Western models of exchange as it further opens up to the West.

This paper is a pioneering work on the business ethics and strategy implemented by firms in the Chinese diamond industry.

The Chinese diamond industry is dominated by SMEs. The purpose of this paper examines which of the three business strategies prevalent in the global diamond industry is utilized by Chinese diamond SMEs compared to those used in other western countries. In so doing, it maps the major actors in the Chinese diamond industry and identifies the challenges faced by SMEs when entering the highly competitive but very lucrative Chinese diamond industry.

A two stage approach was undertaken. Step 1 involved exploratory field work with leading institutions. In the second stage a qualitative questionnaire was administered to members of 54 small to medium-sized international diamond SMEs operating in China. The difficulty of acquiring information on this secretive industry was further hindered by the equally secretive nature of Chinese culture.

Guanxi was found not to be prevalent in the Chinese diamond industry. This is an interesting finding as China is a socially embedded and highly networked society. Chinese diamond SMEs conduct business by implementing a transactional-based approach to business strategy that centers on short-term cash-based transactions.

Future studies should use a quantitative questionnaire with a larger set of Chinese SME diamond firms. Studies could also examine whether the transformation from a system based on social networks to a system based on market forces as found in the Chinese diamond industry has been transposed to other Chinese industries dominated by SMEs. This may show the rationalization of the Chinese economy and its progression toward western models of exchange.

This paper is a pioneering work on the structure and business strategy implemented by SMEs in the Chinese diamond industry.