Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the entrepreneurial intention literature by applying the theory of planned behavior to Saudi context and determining the factors that affect the intentions of final-year Saudi university business students to become entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach: Through a survey study, the paper aims to investigate the significant theory of planned behavior (TPB) antecedents (attitudes toward behavior, subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioral control) to determine entrepreneurial intentions of 177 students by using correlations, linear and hierarchical regressions models. Findings: The results showed that the antecedents of theory of planned behavior significantly explain 33.4 percent of the variance in students’ entrepreneurial intentions. However, the authors also found that SN associated with entrepreneurial intention had a higher regression coefficient than those of the two other antecedents. Hence, SN has a more significant influence on attitudes and less on perceived behavioral control (PBC). The results also showed that some demographic characteristics have an indirect influence on entrepreneurial intentions through SN and PBC. The findings suggest, therefore, that the TPB is a valuable tool for predicting entrepreneurial intentions. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation stems from the fact that it is not possible to claim generalization as the research is the result of a study focused on one Saudi university. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in order to promote entrepreneurship amongst Saudi students and an entrepreneurially friendly culture in Saudi society. Originality/value: In this paper, the TPB is validated tool to a Saudi university context for predicting entrepreneurial intentions. Broader reflections about the generalizability of results is also considered by undertaking new researches with other Saudi universities and developing contextualized framework based on cultural considerations.

Purpose: There have been few investigations regarding the relationship of gender and role models with students’ entrepreneurial intention (EI). The purpose of this study is to apply a conceptual framework to explain the relationship of gender and role models with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs: attitudes towards behaviour (ATB), subjective norms (SN), perceived behaviour control (PBC) and intentions.Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on data collected from a questionnaire survey completed by 1,496 freshman Saudi students enrolled during the 2016-2017 academic year in business, finance and economics undergraduate programmes. To analyse the data and test the proposed hypotheses, a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) are applied.Findings: The results show that the TPB constructs are validated in the specific Saudi context. In fact, these constructs were significantly related to EI. Only the SN and PBC constructs mediate the relationship between role models and EI. Furthermore, gender moderates the relationships of role models with EI, PBC with EI and role models with the SN. More precisely, this study reveals that gender differences in SN and PBC, and women’s EI are more likely to be influenced by the SN and PBC than men’s EI. However, PBC is a relevant determinant for both male and female students. These results differ from those of previous studies on gender influences. These results could be explained by two main reasons, such as women’s socialization and institutional processes.Research limitations/implications: The main limitation is that it was not possible to claim generalization of findings. Theoretical and managerial implications are proposed to add new evidence in the field. These results could help all stakeholders engaged in promoting entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia and stimulate appropriate and customized entrepreneurial initiatives, curriculum and policies for both men and women.Originality/value: This study is one of the first to conduct such investigations in Saudi Arabia and in institutions of higher education. This study removes the stereotypes about the entrepreneurial potential of women.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between strategic orientations as well as the role played by them to impact the performance of industrial firms.Design/methodology/approach: The paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling with data collected from 292 randomly selected firms operating in several industrial sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Findings: The findings of this study showed the importance of these strategic orientations in enhancing the performance of Saudi industrial firms and emphasized the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation in the relationships of market orientation and technology orientation to new product development performance and firm performance.Research limitations/implications: The study discusses the findings and advances certain limitations and research and managerial implications for future research avenues. It proposes some recommendations to help Saudi firms to choose more than one orientation simultaneously and adopt an appropriate configuration of orientations. Future research has to consider the interplay between these strategic orientations and the impacts of environmental turbulence in terms of market and technology turbulence on strategic orientations – performance relationship.Practical implications: The study suggests that managers of Saudi industrial firms should utilize a mix of aspects from several strategic orientations such as market and technology through entrepreneurial capabilities and resources that enhance higher levels of performance.Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and strategic management by showing the reliability of scales used and the confirmatory of the factor structure. It also contributes to business practices by showing the importance for Saudi firms to combine different strategic orientations and provide more attention to the interplay of these orientations in order to perform better in such a transitional context.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to family firm and entrepreneurship literature by providing an examination of how family involvement in management (FIM) moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO)’s dimensions and family firm performance (FFP). Design/methodology/approach: Through a survey study, the research was developed using a sample of 175 family firms in Saudi Arabia to test the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical linear regression. Findings: The findings revealed a strong positive and significant linkage of proactiveness and FIM with FFP, but, no significant relationship between innovativeness and risk-taking with FFP. However, when FIM contingencies were hypothesized, a new significant influence from the interaction between risk-taking and FIM on FFP was found. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation lies in the fact that it is not possible to claim generalization of findings to family firms in other emerging or transitional countries as the research is focused on Saudi family firms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in order to produce new knowledge on EO of family firms and to help these firms not consider FIM as an impediment to the development of resources and capabilities necessary to the promotion of entrepreneurial activities within their operations. Originality/value: There is a contribution to the literature on EO by showing that EO construct and its dimensions have great generality within family firms in a transitional context.

Our study explores the critical role played by organizational ambidexterity capabilities in the link between big data analytics, strategic innovation capabilities, and innovation performance. We developed a conceptual framework based on resource-based and dynamic capability views to examine the direct and indirect relationships among main variables. We used a quantitative approach to collect data from 172 Saudi IT and Telecom firms. We then employed structural equation modeling through Smart-PLS to test the study hypotheses. Our findings revealed that big data analytics and strategic innovation capabilities have a significant impact on organizational ambidexterity and then on innovation performance. Ambidexterity capability mediates between big data analytics capabilities and innovation performance and between strategic innovation capabilities and innovation performance. Our study contributes to the literature on big data and innovation. It offers valuable insights into the potential impacts of big data analytics, strategic innovation, and ambidexterity capabilities on innovation performance. It demonstrates how significantly boosting a firm’s capabilities for improved firms’ innovation performance can potentially enhance performance outcomes (e.g., competitiveness and sustainability). These findings provide managers with meaningful implications regarding the innovation performance that can be achieved by leveraging these important resources and capabilities.