Arab Business Research Articles

Specifics of syntactic structures of Russian business writing (compared with Arabic)

The object of the study is the syntactic features of modern Russian and Arabic business correspondence; the subject is the specific features of the syntax of modern Russian business documents, which become more obvious in comparison with Arabic business writing. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying the features characteristic of Russian business writing at the present stage of its development, and comparing these features with the features of Arabic business letters. Also a certain novelty is the connection made by the author between the history and culture of Russian and Arab official business correspondance styles and the transformations that they are actively occurring. One of the author’s tasks was to find out why new features of business correspondence, spreading under the influence of globalization, manifest themselves differently in different languages. The study was carried out on the basis of structural-semantic, comparative and functional approaches using methods of component analysis of the text of letters, interpretation of their structure and content, observation, description, comparison. Syntactic structure of modern Russian business writing is currently actively developing. The personal nature of a business letter increases, the ways of expressing imperativeness change, the level of emotionality increases, and all of the above is reflected in the types of syntactic structures used. In Arabic business writing, transformations are less pronounced, which is due to the history of its development and the characteristics of Arab culture. In electronic business correspondence, the syntax of Russian and Arabic business letters has similar changes. It is concluded that Russian and Arabic business writing are influenced not only by globalization processes, but also by their original ancient history, as well as Russian and Arabic culture, which determines the differences in the syntactic structure.

Russian and Arabic documentary tradition: syntactic aspect

The object of the study is documents of business correspondence in Russian-Arabic official communication; the subject of the study is the syntactic features of Russian and Arabic business documents, the similarities and differences between Russian and Arabic syntax in business communication. Syntactic organization is very important for business writing; it serves as the final stage of its structure. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the identification of universal and culturally determined features of the syntactic structure in relation to Russian and Arabic-language business writing. Among the universal elements are the use of sentences that convey the non-personal nature of communication, indirect expression of imperativeness (using forms of the subjunctive mood, interrogative sentences), introductory words with the semantics of politeness. Original syntactic constructions can be used to achieve a similar communicative effect. The research was carried out on the basis of methods of analysis, synthesis, observation, description. Methods of component analysis, interpretation and classification, a system-structural method, and elements of a functional approach were used. As a result of the study, it was noted that the differences in the syntactic structure of Russian- and Arabic-language business letters are culturally and historically determined. The specifics of Arabic business syntax were influenced by increased requirements for the expression of politeness in society (indication of the regalia of the addressee), the predominance of the collective over the personal in culture, the origin of the official business style from the artistic, and not from the colloquial (long sentences). It is concluded that it is necessary to take into account cultural and historical factors both in the process of constructing business letters and in the process of their mutual translation. Among the important techniques of Russian-Arabic translation are combining sentences and increasing content

An Analysis of Arab Undergraduate Students’ Writing Performance: Applying SWOT Framework

Writing is an indispensable skill in the academic as well as professional lives of individuals. As such, an in-depth multi-layered delve into the writing of students becomes necessary to gain a better understanding of these texts from different directions. This study explores the writing skill proficiency of undergraduate Arab business students using the SWOT framework: analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The SWOT framework was adopted as an analytical framework for this study to achieve interdisciplinarity between the different fields of knowledge during face-to-face and hybrid sessions. This, in its turn, could contribute to viewing a persisting issue in the field of language teaching and learning, such as students’ writing performance, from a different angle. An analysis of a written corpus of 80 students’ written analytical essays was thoroughly conducted to depict the nature of students’ writing. The participants of the current study were business major students enrolled in an ESP course at the Arab Open University in Kuwait. Data analysis has yielded interesting findings with respect to the internal strengths and weaknesses in the students’ writing in the business field. The data has also provided valuable insights on the future opportunities as well as the pitfalls to avoid in order to improve the quality of students’ writing as external factors that might be affecting their performance in analytical business writing. Such findings could also be helpful for writing instructors when planning, teaching, and assessing their students’ writing.

Grammatical Cohesion in English and Arabic Business Texts: A Contrastive Discoursal Analysis

The current study centres around uncovering the functions and types of grammatical cohesion in structuring business texts in English and Arabic newspapers. Unequivocally, it aims to unravel the possible similarities and differences in the English and Arab journalistic registers in terms of grammatical cohesion. Moreover, the study is built on two hypotheses. First, there are differences in the frequencies of grammatical cohesive tools manipulated by English and Arabic writers. Unlike their Arabic counterparts, the English articles tend to involve more realizations of grammatical cohesive patterns. Second, both English and Arabic journalists exhibit a general tendency to take advantage of the same types of grammatical cohesion in their business articles. Ten articles have been selected from The Guardian and Ashareq Al-Awsat newspaper websites as data for analysis. Five articles have been picked from each newspaper. Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) model of grammatical cohesion has been applied to the selected articles in both languages. The results show that reference and conjunction exist profoundly in the two newspapers. On the contrary, substitution and ellipsis have almost disappeared in both corpora.

The Role of Strategic Awareness in Developing the Practice of Strategic Foresight in Business Organizations -Epistemological Perspective-

Current research aimed at investigating the role of strategic awareness in developing the practice of strategic foresight in business organizations; in an attempt to cope with an intellectual dilemma summarized in that the practice of strategic foresight is still very limited in business organizations in general and in Arab business organizations in particular, for three reasons, first: its novelty and lacking its awareness; second: anxiety towards the future; third: nature of consideration to the future. Furthermore, to achieve the foregoing, the qualitative approach was used employing the epistemological prospective, because this prospective fathoms on rooting the knowledge for exploring factors, variables, and dimensions affecting the stimulation to use the strategic foresight, and reduce the barriers to practicing this prospective in the lived reality thru stimulating out-of-the-box thinking on the one hand, and increase the cognitive movement sensibly, analytically, critically, synthetically, and evaluative on the other hand. Yet, as for the study sample, it was purposive consisting of many studies, literature, documents, and documented experiments that were predetermined and purposively. However, the research reached a number of conclusions most notably: that strategic awareness plays a (synergistic) role to strategic foresight from the realism simulation perspective. This research depends on the reliable knowledge already gathered from people of knowledge and books. Whereas, strategic awareness plays the (influential) role of strategic awareness from the rationalism simulation perspective which uses logical knowledge that inquires into the fact thru knowing the cause. The research has presented several recommendations first of which: the necessity to invest in the relation of strategic awareness with strategic foresight to activate the synergistic role thru stimulating critical thinking where this type of thinking would help in developing the area of strategic foresight. As well as to activate the influential role thru developing creative thinking, because this thinking encourages the detection of new relations, the adoption of authentic solutions, and the capability to sense problems.

A novel approach for Arabic business email classification based on deep learning machines.

During the last decades, the reliance on email communication, especially in business, has increased significantly. Companies receive a massive amount of emails daily, that include business inquiries, customers' feedback, and other types of emails. This inspired many researchers to propose different algorithms to classify and redistribute the numerous emails according to their content. Nowadays, emails containing Arabic text, especially in the Arab world, have raised an increasing concern since they became widely used in official correspondence. Nevertheless, just a small amount of literature focuses on Arabic text classification. Therefore, this work addresses Arabic business emails classification based on natural language processing (NLP). A dataset of 63,257 emails was used and the emails were classified as: urgency, sentiment, and topic classification. The proposed models are based on machine learning techniques and a lexicon of words on which the emails are identified. The models are composed of different settings of convolutional neural networks (CNN). A separate model was built, trained, and tested for each category. The results were promising and gave an accuracy of about 92% and a loss of less than 8%. They also proved the correctness and robustness of this work.

Are Christian Arabs' business models different from those of Muslim Arabs?

PurposeThe study aims to test a measurement scale to examine social business networks (Wasta) surrounding Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.Design/methodology/approachA 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.FindingsThe 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.Research limitations/implicationsThe 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.Practical implicationsThe 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.Originality/valueThe 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.

Two New Arabic Business Letters from the Berlin Collection

Abstract There is a high percentage of letters among Arabic documentary material. The vast majority of them remain unpublished, however. This article presents the edition, translation, and commentary of two as yet unpublished business letters currently kept at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The first was sent to solicit help with some calculations and to stress the importance of the results (P.Berl.inv. 8582), and the second was sent to grant a monk permission to join the harvest (P.Berl.inv. 6746 verso).

Minority gentrification: Re-evaluation of class and ethno-nationalism intersectionality

The dominant stream of political geography research links ethnic or racial marginalization and class-based marginalization resulting from gentrification processes. This study presents a new phenomenon of “minority gentrification:” gentrification led by Arab entrepreneurs and business owners in the city of Acre which challenges the dominant research narrative and emphasizes the complexity of the relationship between class and ethnonational identity. Based on a qualitative research method including in-depth interviews with Arab business owners and lower-income Arab tenants, as well as analysis of policy documents and press articles, this study offers the term “stratified marginalization” to describe the relative advantage of Arab and business owners over lower-income Arab tenants. Simultaneously, it describes the trap in which they find themselves between their ethnonational and class identities and the explanations they provide for the gentrification process. Finally, the study describes the tension between Arabs from different classes as a result of gentrification. The research findings contribute to a re-evaluation of class and ethnonationalism intersectionality in a way that recognizes the benefits of gentrification for the middle-class ethnic entrepreneurs on the one hand, and the multiple margins of the lower-class ethnic tenants on the other.

Modal Verbs as Means of Epistemic Stance: A contrastive Study of English and Arabic Business Management Research Articles

Modal Verbs as Means of Epistemic Stance: A contrastive Study of English and Arabic Business Management Research Articles

The risky impact of digital transformation on organizational performance – evidence from Tunisia

Considering the increasing attention to digitalization, and its consequent potential agility and associated benefits, the aim of this study is to analyze the impact of digital transformation on organizational performance, emphasizing the related risks. The specific focus of the investigation is Tunisia as an example of an emerging economy. To prove the research hypothesis, linear regressions of data regarding 270 companies from the Institute of Arab Business Managers (IACE) were performed. The outcomes show growing interest in digital transformation, which can help enterprises achieve higher performance, mostly at the organizational level; they also provide, at the same time, a global overview of the potential related risks. Subsequent implications that impact the costs and benefits of digital transformation are also discussed, including specific management competencies as well as advanced technology that are required to generate the expected outcomes.

A cognitive analysis of war metaphors in English business texts and their Arabic translations

ABSTRACT The main role of metaphor in economic discourse is essential in facilitating our understanding of some business situations or concepts. This article offers a comprehensive analysis of English business war metaphors in their immediate context of use and their Arabic equivalents as they naturally occur in authentic business texts. The data of the study are drawn from business articles on BBC, CNN, Financial Times and Project Syndicate websites. The study departs from the traditional view of metaphor as a linguistic expression that has only an aesthetic value in the text and it examines how metaphors shape our perception of the business world as they express business ideas. The study reveals that Arabic and English business metaphorical expressions share both similar and different cognition modes and hence four strategies of translating English war metaphors into Arabic are discussed: SL war metaphor is rendered into its comparable metaphor in Arabic using literal translation; SL war source domain is shifted into another TL source domain; an English metaphor is toned down into an Arabic non-metaphor and finally an English non-metaphor is shifted into an Arabic metaphor.

Innovation in Family Business Syllabus: The Case of the American University in Cairo

Teaching family business has been trending in some European and American business schools. This trend has very limited existence in all Egyptian, and Arab business schools. This manuscript presents the experience of the family business course at American university in Cairo (AUC) which started in 2017, and is still in the evolution phase in spring 2020. The article starts by shedding light on the concept of family business, and its importance in the economy. This is followed by addressing the literature of family business education on the global level, and its status in Egypt, and the Arab world. Moving forward to the micro level of the AUC, through discussing the origins of the family business course inception as a pillar in the school of business strategy, and then the evolution of the syllabus from spring 2017 till spring 2020. The details of the course from pedagogy to assessments, guidelines, and rubrics are explained.

National, cultural and language specificities of Arab official speech style

The problems of building a dialogue of cultures with Arab interlocutors are investigated in the paper; there are practical recommendations for its successful solution. Special attention is paid to the study of national and cultural characteristics of representatives of Arab society, and factors that make influence on the establishment and development partner relations with Arabs. The basic moral values, cultural, national, linguistics norms are briefly formulated in the article. Knowledge of that contributes to the successful conduct of intercultural communication at the “East-West” level. In the Arab countries, the traditions and customs of business ethics and communication, in general, are predominantly developing and changing because of the openness of most countries of the world and the interaction in various spheres (economic, educational, cultural, military, political, etc.). Because of its specificity, Arab society can be described as a closed one. Further on we will present and analyze its characteristics and identify the main features of the Arab official and business style of speech. This requires business participants from all sides to have in-depth knowledge of national, socio-cultural, religious, historical, ethno-psychological peculiarities and possess these skills which can be put into practice when required.

Linguistic and Cultural Specifics of Gratitude in Arabic Business Communication in English

The relevance of the study is due to the interest of linguistics in the problems of the functioning of the English language in various genres of business communication from the point of view of cultural linguistics. The results of a comparative study of the verbal formulation of the valuemarked communicative situation of gratitude in the corpus of English-speaking Arabic (Learner Business Letter Corpus (LBCL)) and English-American business correspondence (Business Letter Corpus (BLC)) are presented in the article. It was found that the linguistic means of expressing gratitude in the BLC corpus demonstrate great lexical and grammatical variability, preference is given to implicit performatives. It is noted that a limited set of lexical and grammatical constructions is used in the corpus of the Arabic English-language business communication, and explicite performatives dominate. It is shown that in both corpuses, gratitude is used to formalize a request or demand; in Arabic English communication, flattery acts as a variation of the speech act rethinking of gratitude. It was revealed that when expressing a proactive gratitude implying a request in the Arabic linguistic culture, strategies of positive politeness are used, demonstrating the unity of interests of the communication participants, in contrast to theAnglo-American linguistic culture, which relies on the strategy of negative politeness, softening impositivity.

Scale development and validation for measuring business-to-business Wasta relationships

PurposeManagers 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.Design/methodology/approachResearch paperFindingsThis 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.Originality/valueOriginal paper

Arabic business relationship characteristics: a social capital perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the development of social capital in an Arab business environment, and provide an in-depth description of the nature and role of three key Arabic business relationship characteristics (ehsan,et-mooneandwasta), their impact on each other and key influencing factors.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research design was used, in which face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with innovation teams (22 team members) at six industrial small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed (thematic coding) through NVivo.FindingsThe findings suggest thatwasta,ehsanandet-moonealign closely with the three social capital dimensions (structural, cognitive and relational); thus, developing these three relationship characteristics most likely results in developing social capital. The findings also expand the description of the three business relationship characteristics. Moreover,ehsan,et-mooneandwastaappear to influence each other, and are affected by other factors such as an individual’s age and position, and the duration of the relationship.Ehsanhas a positive influence on the development ofet-moone, while the existence ofet-mooneappears to be necessary for the establishment ofwasta-capital. A high level ofehsanmight influence the relationship betweenet-mooneandwasta-use and limit the negative usage ofwasta.Practical implicationsInternational managers can improve the level ofehsanin their organizational and business relationships through assigning incentives and playing the role of moral champion to encourageehsanbehavior. Managers aiming to increaseet-moonemay choose team members with a high level ofehsan, emphasizing the development of personal relationships, and providing opportunities for socialization both inside and outside the workplace. A high level ofehsanandet-moonewill assist managers to develop and usewasta.Originality/valueThis study makes a threefold contribution to the literature. First, it provides an expanded description of the three Arabic business relationship characteristics and how they align closely with the dimensions of social capital.Wastaaligns with the structural dimension andehsanaligns with the cognitive dimension, whileet-moonealigns closely with the relational dimension. Second, it suggests and shows how the three relationship characteristics might interact with each other.Ehsanappears to influenceet-moone, and also the relationship betweenet-mooneandwasta.Et-mooneappears to have a positive influence onwastause. Third, the findings also indicate that there might be other factors (e.g. age and position) that influence the interactions between the three business relationship characteristics.

The influence of the culture of nations on a business discussion

This article compares the Hungarian and Arabic business cultures, discussing their similarities and differences with regard to behaviour and ethics. This is an experimental study that was created as a result of a long-term research project, trying to highlight Islamic-Hungarian business tendencies, to reveal the peculiarities of business life in order to present it widely from different perspectives. Fundamentally, the culture of every nation is formed by factors such as their working culture, politics, businesses or trade. These are colourful but very different segments of our lives; however, there is a common point: every area is defined by the relationship between the individuals and groups involved. In the work culture, for example, the definitive factor is the business philosophy, its history, traditions and goals. This article focuses on discussing the Hungarian and Arabic behaviour in the work culture, similarities and differences, work and business culture, ethical and behavioural culture.

The influence of the culture of nations on a business discussion

This article compares the Hungarian and Arabic business cultures, discussing their similarities and differences with regard to behaviour and ethics. This is an experimental study that was created as a result of a long-term research project, trying to highlight Islamic-Hungarian business tendencies, to reveal the peculiarities of business life in order to present it widely from different perspectives. Fundamentally, the culture of every nation is formed by factors such as their working culture, politics, businesses or trade. These are colourful but very different segments of our lives; however, there is a common point: every area is defined by the relationship between the individuals and groups involved. In the work culture, for example, the definitive factor is the business philosophy, its history, traditions and goals. This article focuses on discussing the Hungarian and Arabic behaviour in the work culture, similarities and differences, work and business culture, ethical and behavioural culture.

Translating Terminology in Business Annual Reports (English-Arabic)

Business annual reports are financial statements that contain key information about a company’s activities. The reports are distributed to interested parties (e.g. stockholders, creditors, financial analysts and customers) to satisfy their information requirements. In Oman, annual business reports are produced in English and translated into Arabic in order to provide Arab readers with vital information about the companies’ operations and their financial positions. This article analyzes lexical variations, i.e. financial and business terminologies in both English and Arabic versions of the annual reports. A comparison between the English and Arabic profiles of the reports found that the business terms, e.g. ‘currents assets’, ‘asset impairment’ and ‘changes in equity’ showed less variation than others that occurred more dominantly in earlier Arabic translations. This article contributes to the discipline of Translation Studies (TS) by investigating lexical variations of business terms within sociocultural and ideological contexts in Oman. It attempts to answer the following question, ‘with respect to business and financial terms, do the Arabic versions of the annual reports reflect the notion of standardization over the course of time in specific industrial domains?’ Qualitative methods are applied to compare, describe, and analyze the textual profiles of the two versions of the reports. It concludes that the Arabic business and financial terms have become more widely established over the course of time, thus reflecting the notion of standardization. Finally, this article suggests to integrate textual analysis with sociological input to have more insight into translation agents.