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Family businesses (FBs) have a high rate of extinction through generations; hence, it is crucial for their owners to give succession planning top priority. In light of this, the study aims to determine the key factors that significantly influence effective succession.

This study illuminates the crucial factors of effective succession among Palestinian FBs (PFBs) by relying on the relay race model. A self-administered questionnaire used to gather the data; partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data obtained from 282 participants based on the two-step approach to evaluate structural equation models. In the first analysis stage, measurement items’ validity and reliability were tested. Convergent and discriminant validity tests for the measurement (outer) model were performed. The square root of average variance extracted (AVE) and the correlation between latent constructs were compared to evaluate the discriminant validity. The structural (inner) model and hypotheses were tested in the second analysis stage. The research model’s hypotheses relations were predicted using the coefficient of determination (R²).

As they draw attention from existing and future founders and incumbents of FBs that successfully complete a succession process within the Palestinian setting, the findings offer a deeper understanding of the primary familial succession factors. Where it is important to place a focus, among other things, on familial bonding and trust placed in the next generation, as well as on next generation’s credentials and capabilities, financial and operational performance of FBs, next generations desire to join the business beside the job satisfaction and the financial returns they will earn. Additionally, findings show that the size of the FB and generation, as well as the incumbent’s age and education, have positive impact on the incumbents’ willingness to step down.

The value of this study comes from the following: first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first that conduct a quantitative analysis on succession factors, the thing that adds value to the PFBs literature. Second, this study adheres to its own willingness scale, as it aims to analyze other success factors that PFBs are not fully aware of, particularly, family bonding and trust, the qualifications and capabilities of the next generation, plus financial and operational performance of the FB.

In both developed and developing countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a new generation of first-time online shoppers. More significantly, academics and practitioners believe that the shift to online shopping will continue in the years to come. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of digital marketing tools as a moderator variable between the independent variables (i.e. consumption patterns, lifestyle, level of income, and payment methods) and dependent variable (i.e. the consumer's attitude towards online shopping) during the COVID-19 pandemic time in Arab countries.

A structured and self-administered online survey has targeted online shopping users in six different Arab countries based on a snowball and convenience sample. In total, 577 useable questionnaires were analyzed.

The findings show a significant positive relationship between the independent variables (i.e. consumption patterns, lifestyle, level of income, and payment methods) and the dependent variable (i.e. consumer attitude towards online shopping). Furthermore, the results reveal that the positive relationship between the independent and dependent variables is strengthened by the existence of the moderator variable, the digital marketing tools.

This study was based on cross-sectional data collection, rather than a longitudinal study and collected data from six Arab countries. It is suggested that future research should expand the survey in more similar countries to broaden the database for further generalizations and use a longitudinal approach to better assess changes in attitudes over time. In addition, this study focused on the issue from a consumer's viewpoint, so it is recommended that future research could be conducted, but from the viewpoint of marketing managers.

This study represents a further deeper insight into consumer behaviour; it advocates giving more emphasis on organizations' awareness of their customers' consumption pattern, lifestyle, level of income, and payment method. The findings of this study can help managers and marketers to design a promotional mix to improve consumer's behaviour towards online shopping. The results suggest paying more attention to the high relevant effect of the consumption pattern, lifestyle, level of income, and payment method on the consumer attitude towards online shopping.

This paper is one of the few attempts that investigated consumer attitudes toward online shopping in the Arab world. Importantly, it identified the drivers of online shoppers' attitudes in the Arab world. This may be used to develop and implement e-marketing strategies. Furthermore, this paper examines the role of digital marketing as a moderator variable to provide empirical evidence to the body of knowledge of these drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic time in the Arab countries.

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey to investigate factors of quality that are absolutely essential for successful implementation in Palestinian organizations. Out of a possible list of 78 names of organizations, 78 were targeted, with 78 usable questionnaires returned, thus giving a response rate of 100 per cent. The analysis led to the development of a criticality quality factor structure, comprising 19 factors sorted in descending order of criticality through three tiers. All of the factors were found to be supported by similar studies and quoted literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that affect Palestinian customers’ use of online banking services.

An empirical study was conducted using a questionnaire in order to test the hypotheses. The questionnaire was distributed to 500 respondents selected by the participating banks. A total of 369 complete questionnaires were returned. The study’s independent variables include technology adoption propensity, customers’ value for online personalization, customers’ privacy concern, e-trust, technological leadership and loyalty. Palestinian customers’ usage of online banking services is the dependent variable.

The results of the model tested clearly suggest that the use of online banking services is influenced, respectively, by the technological leadership, e-trust, e-loyalty, customers’ value for online personalization, customers’ concern for privacy and propensity of technology adoption. Finally, this paper suggests that policy makers should develop a prioritized hierarchy of actions in developing the effective use of bank’s online services, based on the t- and p-values of the latter mentioned factors.

One limitation of the study is relying on self-reported cross-sectional data collection, rather than longitudinal surveying. Despite such limitation, the study provides the Palestinian banking sector with recommendations to promote online banking services based on the empirically identified factors affecting such service adoption.

Palestinian banks should promote the adoption of online banking services by supporting personalization of services, privacy and trust. Customers should always be informed that their bank is among the first banks to introduce the latest state-of-the-art online services. Technology innovative and diverse online services should be offered by banks to attract customers.

Although numerous research studies have studied the factors affecting customers in using electronic and online banking services, few studies have considered such usage in the developing countries, such as Arab countries in general and Palestine in particular. This is the first study to examine the factors affecting the adoption of online banking services in Palestine. This study provides empirical evidence to fill in the gap by providing a deeper understanding of the factors affecting the usage of online banking services in the country. The findings of this study can help decision makers in the Palestinian banks to develop practical plans that might accelerate and expand the adoption of online banking emphasizing personalized and trusted services offered with high level of security and privacy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of female portrayal in advertisements on Palestinian female consumers’ purchasing decisions. TV and online media were selected as the medium for the study. Specifically, the researchers examine the one-dimensional sexualized female portrayal in advertisements.

Culture is used as the lens through which the study examines the relationship between independent and dependent variables concerning the topic of this study. The study collected primary data from 395 Palestinian participants through a survey questionnaire.

The findings of the study revealed that there is a relationship between the independent variable (the sexualized female portrayal in foreign advertisements – advertisements originating in foreign countries) and the dependent variable (Palestinian female consumers’ purchase decision). Additionally, the study found that the cultural differences between Palestine and other foreign countries have a negative impact on the Palestinian female consumers’ perception of the product being advertised.

Although traditional marketing procedures would allow companies to filter and adapt particular adverts to suit various cultural, social and political environments, the advent of the open web and satellite TV channels extend the advertisements reach to audiences beyond their intended demographic.

This is the first study set in the Arab context (including Palestine) to explore the impact of sexualized female portrayal in advertisements on Palestinian female consumers’ purchasing decision.

This paper aims to identify the factors affecting university students’ behavioral intentions towards adopting the new Facebook currency while controlling for the direct and the moderating impacts of narcissism.

A self-administered questionnaire of 344 respondents from six major Palestinian universities was analyzed. The structural model is fitted for assessing the hypothesized relations.

Findings indicate that the effect of Facebook advertisement in predicting the behavioral intentions to adopt the new Facebook currency relies on: privacy, security, the expectations in the new Facebook currency and knowledge about the targeting options within the Facebook platform. Moreover, the moderating role of narcissism supported the relationships between perceived privacy, the expectations in the new Facebook currency and knowledge about the targeting options within the Facebook platform but did not support the moderating role of narcissism in the relationships between perceived security and the behavioral intentions.

In this study, only the Facebook platform and the behavioral intention were investigated with data collected from Palestinian University students through self-reported cross-sectional survey.

This study adds insight on the moderating role of narcissism in predicting the behavior intentions towards adopting the new Facebook currency (Diem) which has a substantial potential to threaten all other crypto currencies and the other alternatives. Therefore, managers should consider altering or adapting their Facebook advertising tactics accordingly.

This study is the first to contribute through empirical evidence from a developing country to theory building the results of clarifying the propensity to adopt the new Facebook currency, outlining the consumers’ reaction to social media advertising and its influential factors and providing evidence proving relevance of narcissism for non-Western users.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2021-0666

The paper aims to examine the moderating role of both the perceived value and perceived trust in the relationship between the ease of use, perceived risk, perceived usefulness and quality of website and the Palestinian millennials’ behavioral intention toward online shopping.

A survey questionnaire was carried out targeting 357 Palestinian millennials. In total, 311 valid responses were processed and analyzed using PLS-SEM model fitting approach.

The findings demonstrate that the impact of ease of use, perceived usefulness and website quality on online shopping behavioral intention are reinforced by perceived value and perceived trust, while the effect of perceived risk is weakened. This implies that improving convenience and lowering non-monetary costs such as time and effort will enhance the customers’ perceived value and, as a result, their shopping behavioral intention. In addition, one of the most significant barriers to online shopping is a lack of trust. Therefore, once trust is established, shopping willingness rises, and vice versa.

As this study focused on consumers from a developing country, it neglected the cross-cultural issue; thus, future studies may have to make a comparison of other samples from various nations to gain a deeper understanding. Furthermore, this research focused on the ease of use, perceived risk, perceived usefulness and perceived quality of the website to predict the customer’s behavioral intention toward online shopping, which shows significant results, indicating that more research is needed to look at these independent variables as predictors of customers purchasing decision.

Online shopping is a critical topic that has significant impact on the business world. Investigating the moderating role of perceived trust and perceived value on Palestinian millennials’ online shopping behavioral intention during COVID-19 might give useful information for organizations developing policies and strategies to create direct sales using social media platforms. Furthermore, the findings might also be valuable for management studies and academics to better understand consumers’ intentions when it comes to commercial internet buying.

The empirical nature of this paper gives a thorough explanation of the phenomena of online shopping from a developing country. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that examines the moderating effect of perceived trust and perceived value on Palestinian millennials’ online shopping behavioral intention during COVID-19.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of total quality management (TQM) implementation in Palestinian governmental and non-governmental hospitals using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework.

The study is based on collecting data using a survey questionnaire that was designed according to the MBNQA criteria. In total, 363 questionnaires from governmental and non-governmental hospitals operating in Gaza Strip were analyzed to assess the level of TQM implementation level in all hospitals (governmental and non-governmental).

The main results of this study indicate that Palestinian hospitals operating in Gaza Strip perform at a relatively acceptable level. Comparing results shows that the performance of non-governmental hospitals is better with higher degree of TQM implementation than the governmental hospitals. Detailed analysis identifies improvement opportunities-related specific aspects of the human resources focus and the performance results.

Although this study has collected data from one Palestinian Territory, the Gaza Strip, it still identifies the critical factors and practices for TQM implementation within the Palestinian healthcare organizations to improve performance.

This paper suggests that business excellence models such as the MBNQA criteria can be used to assess the level of implementation of quality practices and identify the strengths and weaknesses to improve the quality of service delivery, processes, and performance of hospitals.

Despite the widespread use of TQM in the developed countries, little attention has been placed to implement and assess the quality initiatives by organizations in the developing countries and even fewer in low-income Arab countries (Aamer et al., 2017; Øvretveit and Al Serouri, 2006). In addition, a very few number of studies in reference to the assessment of TQM implementation in the Palestinian context, in general, and in healthcare organizations, in particular, highlight the need for this study. To move the field in that direction, the goal of this research was to assess the level of TQM implementation in the healthcare organizations (mainly hospitals) in Gaza Strip (one of the least fortunate areas of the Palestinian-occupied territories) where no prior similar research studies could be found. Therefore, this study contributes to filling this gap in the literature by providing empirical assessment of TQM level of implementation in Gaza Strip hospitals.

The aim of this study is to examine the factors that lead to success or failure of a small business in the West Bank of Palestine.

This study methodology is a survey research, testing the Lussier model of business success and failure with a sample of 246 small businesses (90 failed and 156 successful) to better understand the reasons of their success or failure using logistic regression statistical analysis.

The model is significant (p = 0.000); it will predict a group of businesses as successful or failed more accurately than random guessing 99 per cent of the time. The model will also predict a specific small firm as successful or failed 94 per cent of the time vs. 50 per cent for random guessing. The r-square is very high (r = 0.70), indicating that the model variables are, in fact, significant predictors of success or failure. Results indicate that having adequate capital, keeping good records with financial controls, making plans and getting professional advice on how to manage the firm are the most important factors for the viability and success of small businesses.

With the high rate of small business failure globally, results of this study provide a list of variables that contribute to the success of small firms. Firms that focus on these important factors will increase their odds of success. Thus, avoiding failure, firms better utilize resources that contribute to economic growth.

This is the first study that looks at success and failure of small businesses in Palestine. There is no one single accepted theory that may be applied to small businesses. This paper aims to further contribute to the global validity of Lussier success and failure model moving toward a theory to better understand why some businesses succeed and others fail.

The non‐prescriptive framework described in this paper is based on an empirical study of total quality management (TQM) implementation in the Palestinian industrial context. The main focus of the study was to identify the critical quality factors for effective TQM implementation and to understand how these critical quality factors are implemented by the Palestinian organizations. It is believed that the successful implementation of TQM in the Palestinian context should be a gradual approach with progression and selection of appropriate major top management actions. Therefore, a logical and simple framework based on the empirical evidence derived from the analysis of three levels of investigations is provided including the major top management actions, the organizational activities and the guidelines that need to be taken when addressing the foundation elements and the core components (critical quality factors) for successful implementation.