The global aquaculture industry is expanding to support increased demand in global markets and supplement traditional fisheries. The rapid increase of aquaculture production relies on introducing and using species outside their native range, posing significant regional environmental and socio-economic risks. Non-native species are selected based on transferable large-scale production protocols, fast growth, and existing market demand. Aquaculture is an important sector within Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 (anticipated >400% production increase by 2030). Barramundi (Lates calcarifer) was introduced into the Red Sea for open sea-cage farming in 2008, with large-scale production beginning in 2014. Regionally, there are numerous anecdotal reports of escape events of this species, including an incident in 2015 involving the release of ~300,000 fish. Since then, local fishers have caught up to 15 wild individuals per month in Al Lith, central Saudi Arabia. This study presents the first biological information on L. calcarifer aquaculture escapees in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. Wild-caught L. calcarifer (n=5) were collected from a local fish landing and measured up to 10 kg, eight years of age, were sexually mature, and consumed benthic and coral reef fishes. In contrast, individuals in aquaculture facilities are harvested at < 1 kg and < 400 mm. In their native range, L. calcarifer can reach up to 200 cm and 60 kg. To assist in detecting and monitoring escapees within the Red Sea, I designed and validated a species-specific SYBR-based environmental DNA quantitative PCR assay targeting a 16S mitochondrial region of L. calcarifer rRNA (Barramundi_16S assay). Preliminary results, using DNA metabarcoding and environmental (seawater) samples, detected L. calcarifer near active/historical aquaculture farms and north/south of areas where this species has not been reported previously in the Red Sea (10–250 km from aquaculture facilities). In the future, the Barramundi_16S assay can screen additional eDNA samples (n=250) collected for this study to delineate the geographic range of barramundi in the Red Sea. Cumulatively, this study highlights the need to consider the ecological impacts of aquaculture escapees and provides managers and industry with valuable information and a novel molecular monitoring tool for detecting aquaculture escapees.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered to be a most efficient tool which is able to push economic and social development to experience significant progress and development as they offer useful services to consumers, and provide much needed employment. With this in consideration, they are useful for training, acquiring experience and technical and managerial skills. The objectives of this research are to identify the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for SMEs in Saudi Arabia. Based on the literature review, 20 factors have been identified and subsequently structured into three groups, namely entrepreneurial, enterprise and environmental factors. The study also focuses on the SMEs Support Programme by identifying the current situation and accordingly providing recommendations based on those made by the support providers. Data have been collected by utilising a mixed method approach: first, 146 postal questionnaires with SME owners/managers have been analysed by using SPSS; second, in order to gain further understanding of the situation and particular challenges, 15 in-depth interviews with support providers have been conducted; and third, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used to analyse the pairwise comparison of the factors. The main findings of this study are that, for the CSFs for SMEs in Saudi Arabia, three factors are deemed to be important both for owners/managers and support providers. These factors are quality of the product and service, customer satisfaction, and business planning. The findings also indicate that there are many ¿important support gaps¿ which show that existing support needs to be addressed in order to improve and develop the support structure. / Government of the Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Higher Education.

This research explores the nature and extent of training and development (TD) provision, as well as top managers' and TD personnel's attitudes towards the TD function within the medium and large-size private manufacturing organisations of Saudi Arabia. Extensive details of the TD situation are provided and assessed for their adequacy, covering among other elements a descriptive analysis of the main characteristics of the organisations concerned, an evaluation of their TD plans and policies, and a review of their budget allocation and funding. The research then proceeds to describe and discuss the extent to which such organisations are applying a systems approach to TD, both in terms of its design and implementation. Thereafter, the main factors impeding the effectiveness of TD programmes are examined, followed by a consideration of the future challenges that are likely to increase the importance of TD for the organisations in question. The research has adopted a mainly descriptive approach and uses both quantitative and qualitative analytical methods. The required data were gathered through a combination of semi-structural interviews with a number of top managers, and survey questionnaires addressed to the persons responsible for TD within the targeted organisations. The sampling strategy was disproportional stratified random sampling. In total 16 senior executives, 132 medium-size organisations and 94 large-size organisations took part in the study. The findings reveal that although attitudes towards the value of TD are generally favourable, in practice in the majority of cases TD is under-resourced, unplanned and patchy, hardly the ideal features of a systematic model of TD that will enable private manufacturing business to successfully meet the challenges of the future ahead. The research ends with a number of specific and practical recommendations intended to improve the effectiveness of TD in the private manufacturing sector of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as a number of suggestions for further research. / Government of Saudi Arabia

In the last decade, the rapid development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has forced its government to implement modern management styles such as Total Quality Management (TQM) to ensure continuous improvement in the provision of healthcare. There is a considerable body of literature that shows the benefits of implementing TQM in hospitals, but there are few empirical studies that show TQM implementation efforts in the healthcare sector. Furthermore, the healthcare literature did not explore the implementation of TQM in a context of gender segregated environment such as the case in KSA. This research project is an exploratory investigation assessing the impact of TQM in a gender segregated healthcare environment such as KSA. The research design used triangulation methods to investigate the problem at hand. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used through field-work and external comparisons. The approach was based on the following: (1) Assessing the level of perception and understanding of TQM principles in several KSA hospitals, taking into account the differences and similarities between the different gender population, (2) Examining the approach to TQM implementation and its degree of effectiveness in four Saudi hospitals to highlight critical factors for effective implementations using the Baldrige assessment method; (3) Benchmarking the Saudi hospital experiences to UK and USA hospitals to highlight key facilitating and inhibiting factors; (4) Using key findings from the previous steps to identify the critical factors and propose a model for TQM implementations in a segregated healthcare environment such as the case in the KSA. The survey research findings show a weak appreciation, awareness and understanding of TQM in managing healthcare organisations by the respondents in the KSA. It clearly shows that many employees in the organisations do riot understand TQM. The degree of emphasis for each quality activity varied and thus more research needs to be done to investigate the importance of each quality activity to a TQM implementation process, as there are varying degrees of emphasis across the board. The KSA case studies show that in implementing organisations, TQM intentions and TQM policy frameworks are generally acceptable. However, the implementation process is generally weak and lacks coordination in the majority of these organisations. It is clear that the majority of the KSA cases have not succeeded in total commitment towards a total quality culture. When compared to the UK and USA hospitals, the majority of the KSA cases show deficiencies in most of the critical activities that form the foundation of a successful quality process. Furthermore, the study indicates three critical factors in KSA hospitals that either did not exist or were not given full attention. The importance of these factors were further validated in the literature. The factors were continuous top management commitment, continuous education and training, and culture awareness. These factors were then used to develop a model for TQM implementation for a segregated healthcare environment. / King Saud University

This study will focus on explaining the dynamics of Saudi Arabia’s national security. In explaining these dynamics, the study will consider two of Buzan’s frameworks for analysing national security. Further enhancement will be given by conceptualising specific assumptions about Saudi Arabia’s national security – these will be based on the manner in which certain features are utilised within the Saudi state. Semistructured interviews will be utilised to examine the findings from the adapted frameworks. By studying the state’s domestic, regional and international concerns, as well as the specific threats that each level pose with regards to several security sectors (including the: social, political, economic, militant and environmental), this study will provide a distinctive analysis of national security within the Saudi state. Initially, this study acknowledges that only a few studies have been conducted into Saudi Arabia’s national security; furthermore, these have focused on the internal perspective by considering Saudi national security in terms of its military and strategic partnerships. Secondly, the study proposes that Saudi Arabia is unique (and unlike any other state) as it holds various important social and religious aspects that are not fully understood by external sources. Consequently, this study conceptualises Saudi national security from the internal perspective by considering the Saudi state’s specific features.

Concern for project failures and successes have posed a controversial and much debated topic amongst scholars and practitioners alike. IT projects are no exceptions and they too suffer from a high rate of failure. This research aims to explore the reasons why certain IT projects succeed). Besides its academic importance, the research intends to assess the implications for successful implementation of current and future IT projects. The review of the extant literature reveals the enormity of the challenges involved in minimising or avoiding project failures. Present work is contextualizing these issues in a large national organisation with branches throughout the KSA. The Saudi Arabia constitutes the case study for this research. Qualitative methodology was adopted to generate and collect adequate and relevant data. Main instruments were; Semi-structured interviews involving senior managers in five geographical areas who were involved in the management of the IT projects and selected project documents. Thematic analysis was used and led to emergence of seven main ‘themes’, 19 major ‘issues’, and the construction of the first time generic model for success of IT projects. The core issues identified in the model are: Quality, Time and Cost at three levels; individual, organisation and environment with specific order of importance. The implications of the findings for the theory and practice have been identified. It is also recommended that there is a need for further research into individual and contextual factors that influence both managers as well as the circumstances under which IT projects are implemented. / Ministry of Education, KSA

The globalisation of commerce, alongside growing information on the Internet, has increased the demand of E-Learning (EL). Furthermore, knowledge management (KM) is capable of generating significant organisational/institutional competitive advantages. KM and EL systems contribution to the requirements of education has resulted in their increased demand of their integration across business/academic world. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is one of the most widely used framework of organising levels of expertise. Bloom’s different cognitive domains are based on a hierarchy of learning which progresses from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract. This study considers ways to improve higher education in Saudi Arabia, based on the significant factors (of KM/EL systems) contributing to learner performance and the way in which New Bloom’s Taxonomy could potentially affect/benefit these individual systems; previous academic works will be considered, in an attempt to achieve higher standards of education using this theory/framework. This research presents the value of learning process/tactical approaches, to encourage staff and students to accept the idea of integrating EL and KM factors under New Bloom’s Taxonomy; examples will be given to demonstrate instances where systems have been adopted successfully. To investigate the effectiveness of New Bloom’s Taxonomy on the integration of EL and KM factors in Saudi higher education, a questionnaire methodology was chosen to collect data from experts of both systems; furthermore, the public sector was chosen as it has adopted both systems. Therefore, an integrated framework is proposed.

No description available.

This thesis investigates the perceptions of female migrant household workers situated in Saudi Arabia and how remittances can be a sustainable livelihood for them and their households. There has been limited research surrounding female household workers' own perceptions of sustainable livelihoods and particularly of those situated in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill a research gap surrounding both Saudi Arabia and female household workers perceptions. The research is focused on understanding livelihood outcomes for these women’s households and what assets are important to maintain and enhance remittances as a livelihood strategy. The study is a case study that was conducted by semi-structured face-to-face interviews involving 18 female household workers from Africa and Asia. Furthermore, the study was highly influenced by the Sustainable livelihood framework and the findings suggested that remittances have a positive impact on livelihood outcomes in terms of intangible and tangible well-being. The study also explores the complex dynamics of remittances and assets whereas the findings regarding assets suggest that different capitals and assets have been highly important in maintaining and enhancing both each other and the option to use remittances as a livelihood strategy. Lastly, the perceptions of the interviewed women fall under the criteria of what a sustainable livelihood should entail and the findings further highlight knowledge brought by theories from the Sustainable livelihood approach and New Economics of Labor Migration.

This thesis analyzes Iran-Saudi relations in the context of growing regional hostility. This research encompasses the domestic and foreign policies enacted by both states since 1979, accompanying a discussion of the historical background of their ties. Moreover, the future prospects of their relations regarding the utilization of Oman as a neutral negotiator for regional conflicts are examined. The significant contributing factors of each state to such dynamic ties include: the leadership, national security, religion-politics connection, and their reaction to global instability indicators. Recently, Iran-Saudi hostility has been worsening due to their policies in the region in reaction to regional events. Thus, some may argue that the outlook of success for Omani role in negotiating between the two is seemingly less likely. The relations of these two Persian Gulf regional powers need to be examined further for future prospects.