Talent Management (TM) is of growing interest within academia and in the strategic HRM literature in particular. Despite many attempts to study TM from different perspectives, it remains an ambiguous and elusive concept that is difficult to define and hence challenging to explore and address. Studies on TM are based within Western contexts and therefore it is questionable whether TM models and theories are transferable to other nations and contexts. This research examines the nature of TM in the Middle Eastern context of Oman, from the perspective of Institutional Theory. Through a qualitative, multiple case-study approach, data was collected from four banking and petroleum-sector organisations through semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that the different influences of institutional pressures (e.g. nationalisation, competition, organisational characteristics) have significantly shaped TM in these organisations. The findings show that TM effectiveness and sustainability depends upon a range of factors including: generational differences, employee expectations, the role of expatriates and national culture. Thus, TM and its approach has to be understood and framed within the context of institutions which interact with organisational characteristics; this shapes the way in which the organisations define their TM approach in order to seek legitimacy, business continuity and effectiveness.

L’atelier de Sinope (Turquie), cité située sur les rivages du Pont-Euxin, a émis des monnaies de bronze depuis la fondation coloniale, en 46 av. J.-C. jusqu’à l’arrêt des productions sous Gallien (260-268). Le présent ouvrage, qui s’accompagne d’un catalogue et de planches illustratives, en reconstitue l’histoire, en le replacant dans son contexte. La production est analysée selon deux grilles de lecture : l’objet-monnaie en tant que tel (sa diffusion, ses caractéristiques métrologiques, la répartition chronologique des émissions) et la monnaie comme support d’images et de textes, témoin privilégié de l’évolution de ses allégeances et de ses croyances, au premier chef desquels figure le dieu Sérapis. / The mint of Sinope (Turkey), a roman city on the Pontus Euxinus, has produced bronze coins since the colonial foundation in 46 a.C. up to Gallienus (260-268). This thesis, accompanied by a catalogue and illustrative plates, is devoted to explain its history. The coinage, contextualized, is studied within two approaches: the coin as an object (chronological and geographical distribution, intrinsic characteristics) and as a means to convey images and text. Those testify mainly of its allegiance and its beliefs, in first place the god Sarapis, and how they evolved.

Intrashelf basins occurring on epeiric carbonate platforms are commonly associated with the presence of excellent carbonate source rocks, and because they often border potential carbonate reservoirs updip, they may form the core of rich petroleum systems. This is a common phenomenon of many Mesozoic hydrocarbon plays in the Middle East. Despite this fact, studies investigating intrashelf-basinal, fine-grained carbonates are rare, because it is assumed that little lithofacies variability is present in these successions as a consequence of their relatively homogeneous appearance where they are sampled in core or visited in exposures. Those that have been performed mostly lack process-detail analyses, and interpret the organic-carbon enrichment in these sediments to be simply a function of either occurrence of localised bottom-water anoxia or high primary organic production under low-energy conditions, dominated by suspension-settling events.

This paper is a case-study on a group of American students, who spent a four- month period in Oman on a semester abroad program hosted by Al Amana Cen- tre. This paper examines the changes that have occurred in the students concep- tual thinking, their attitudes towards Muslims, Arabs and Islam and their personal theology, and identifies causes of those changes. In the first section, I will introduce the interfaith work that Al Amana Centre does, and lay a summary of the history and theory of Christian-Muslim dialogue. I will also explain the concept of Theology of Religion, which is central in examining the students’ own theological views. I will also introduce transformative learning theory that I use as a theoretical framework in this study In the last section of this paper, I analyze the research material which includes program curriculum, student interviews, student essays and students’ answers to questionnaires and surveys. From this material, I have identified repeating ideas and patterns and compared them to the framework offered by transformational learning theory. This paper seeks to answer to the question: what kind of effects does the Al Amana semester abroad program, infused with cultural immersion, have on the students in this particular case study. In the conclusion part of this paper, I con- clude that the semester abroad program facilitates opportunities for deep reflec- tion and extrarational experiences that work as a catalyst for transformation. It is hoped that this study can offer guidelines for other programs that aim at transforming attitudes and believes, and that work with cultural immersion and interfaith dialogue. It should be noted though, that the conclusions and outcomes of this study are tied to the specific context and people who attended the semes- ter abroad program, and should not be taken as universal or context-free.

Bibliographic Note CAPUTO, Alexandria. The Sultanate of Oman: Resistant to Extremism?. 104 p. Master Thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science. Supervisor : Prof. Oldřich Bureš Abstract This thesis analyses the Sultanate resistance to violent extremism as a Middle Eastern nation that has consistently scored a "0" on the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), an ongoing indexing of global terrorism from 2003 onwards. The Sultanate was markedly stable for those years unaccounted by the GTI. This case study examines institutional and legal frameworks established by the Sultanate and their value on countering radicalization and extremism processes that might lead to an act of terrorism. This research is supported by literature on radicalization and countering violent extremism (CVE) models, with great focus on a five- pronged, comprehensive working paper that approaches major problems across the Middle East. Radicalization and extremism notably fester in such problematic approaches, and the objective is to parallel these problems with the strategies, approaches, and norms of the Sultanate of Oman to see if this paper can come to a conclusion about the ability of nations and their populations to resist radical pathways and extremist ideologies. With religion at the crux of...

Judicious modeling of an energy system can help provide insights as to how elements of the energy system might be configured in the longer term. The current and future electricity and water desalination systems of each GCC country were represented using a full-cost based optimization tool called MESSAGE and the following scenarios were examined: 1. The business as usual scenario (BAU): current energy system is extended into the future without any changes. The energy system structure and characteristics are kept the same. The fuel prices are also kept at the current subsidized levels. 2 - The netback-pricing scenario: all fuel costs are increased to the international market price. The freed amount of fuel is assumed to be available for export to the international market. Moreover, this scenario examines different carbon tax options of 0, 20,30 ,40 and 50 dollars per kilo tons of CO2 emissions. 3 - The Nuclear hub scenario: examines the idea of a “nuclear hub” state for the GCC region that can have all the “know-how” and logistics to provide sufficient nuclear energy for the GCC through the Interconnection Grid “GCCIG”. Results shows that fossil fuels will continue to play an important role in a least cost future for the region. This is due, in no small part, to the cheap natural gas resources in the GCC. Despite the high renewable energy technologies potential, their penetration – given the study assumptions - proved to be important, but limited in the GCC. On the other hand, nuclear energy shows clear economic potential.

Resume Presented dissertation discusses the topic of environment for female employment in the Sultanate of Oman as created by the state. The research is done on two levels. In the first one analysis of public policy and its implementation is presented, the second one examines the laws and legislative process. Besides analysis of the environment for female employment, the dissertation aims to pinpoint the gaps and obstacles in current planning and legal framework, and to offer recommendations for improving the situation. The study uses qualitative research methods, primarily contents and gender analysis, complemented by chronological descriptive method.

Mountain building is the result of large compressional forces in the Earth’s crust where two tectonic plates collide. This is why mountains only form at plate boundaries, of which the Al Hajar Mountains in Oman and the United Arab Emirates is thought to be an example of. These mountains have formed near the Arabian–Eurasian convergent plate boundary where continental collision began by 30 Ma at the earliest. However, the time at which the Al Hajar Mountains developed is less well constrained. Therefore, the timing of both the growth of the mountains, and the Arabian–Eurasian collision, needs to be understood first to be able to identify a correlation. Following this a causal link can be determined. Here we show, using apatite fission track and apatite and zircon (U-Th)/He dating, as well as stratigraphic constraints, that the Al Hajar Mountains were uplifted from 45 Ma to 15 Ma. We found that the mountains developed 33 Myr to 10 Myr earlier than the Arabian–Eurasian plate collision. Furthermore, the plate collision is ongoing, but the Al Hajar Mountains are tectonically quiescent. Our results indicate that the uplift of the Al Hajar Mountains cannot be correlated in time to the Arabian–Eurasian collision. Therefore the Al Hajar Mountains are not the result of this converging plate boundary.

Yes / The current healthcare systems have numerous gaps that need to be filled to reach the best practice. This paper presents a novel approach to design and validate a hybrid knowledge-based system (KBS) to evaluate QM of healthcare environment (QMHE) using a hybrid system that has not been used before. It will be combined with gauge absence perquisite (GAP) method to sustain a successful operation of the large number of key performance indicators (KPIs) that involved in QMHE and to detect the gap between each KPI and the anticipated point. Out of 354 KB rules answered, the system has categorised 225 as GPs and the remaining 128 as BPs. The 128 bad points are categorised into different problem categories (20 PC-1, 34 PC-2, 34 PC-3, 40 PC-4, and 0 PC-5) where they represent the actions that need to be enhanced to reach the desired level of quality management.

Talent Management (TM) is of growing interest within academia and in the strategic HRM literature in particular. Despite many attempts to study TM from different perspectives, it remains an ambiguous and elusive concept that is difficult to define and hence challenging to explore and address. Studies on TM are based within Western contexts and therefore it is questionable whether TM models and theories are transferable to other nations and contexts. This research examines the nature of TM in the Middle Eastern context of Oman, from the perspective of Institutional Theory. Through a qualitative, multiple case-study approach, data was collected from four banking and petroleum-sector organisations through semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that the different influences of institutional pressures (e.g. nationalisation, competition, organisational characteristics) have significantly shaped TM in these organisations. The findings show that TM effectiveness and sustainability depends upon a range of factors including: generational differences, employee expectations, the role of expatriates and national culture. Thus, TM and its approach has to be understood and framed within the context of institutions which interact with organisational characteristics; this shapes the way in which the organisations define their TM approach in order to seek legitimacy, business continuity and effectiveness. / Ministry of Manpower (Singapore)