• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2013

Purpose: Demirjian's dental maturity scores and curves have been widely used for human age determination. Several authors have reported considerable differences between the true and estimated age based on the Demirjian curves, which have been accounted for by ethnicity. The purpose of the current study was to assess the role of ethnicity-specific dental maturation curves in age estimation of Saudi children. Materials and Methods: A sample of 452 healthy Saudi children aged 4 to 14 years were aged based on the original French-Canadian Demirjian curves and several modified Demirjian curves specified for certain ethnic groups: Saudi, Kuwaiti, Polish, Dutch, Pakistani, and Belgian. One-way ANOVA and a post hoc Scheff$\acute{e}$'s test were used to assess the differences between chronological age and dental age estimated by the different curves (P<0.05). Results: The curves designed for Dutch, Polish, Saudi, and Belgian (5th percentile) populations had a significantly lower error in estimating age than the original French-Canadian and Belgian (50th percentile) curves. The optimal curve for males was the Saudi one, with a mean absolute difference between estimated age and chronological age of 8.6 months. For females, the optimal curve was the Polish one, with a mean absolute difference of 7.4 months. It was revealed that accurate age determination was not related to certain ethnicity-specific curves. Conclusion: We conclude that ethnicity might play a role in age determination, but not a principal one.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.381-389
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• 2021

The study examines differences in entrepreneurial intentions and its antecedents across countries and cultures. This study uses Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour to compare the entrepreneurial intention of two diverse countries: Saudi Arabia and India. The study uses the non-parametric Mann Whitney U test and Structural Equation Modeling to analyze a sample of university students of the two countries. The study finds significant differences among the students of these two countries. The result indicates that entrepreneurial intention is higher in Indian students than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. The result further indicates that attitude and perceived behavioral control explains entrepreneurial intention in both the countries. However, social norms are significant in explaining entrepreneurial intention only in India and not in Saudi Arabia. The findings of this study suggest that entrepreneurship has higher social approval in India when compared to Saudi Arabia. Social norms impact entrepreneurial intentions differently for India and Saudi Arabia. The study attributes the results to the differences in per capita income and socio-cultural norms in both countries. This study is one of the few that have explored cross-country entrepreneurial attributes as it addresses the research gap in terms of comparing entrepreneurial intentions of India and Saudi Arabia.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Business Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.43-66
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• 2019

Home-based business (HBB) is one of the fastest growing form of business start-ups where the business is conducted from home. In develop economies, the HBB industry is an engine for economic growth that has proven its viability through significant contribution to the national GDP. In view of its importance, the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry encourage local women to start and develop their own HBB as it gives them the flexibility while still contributing to the national economy. Although various initiatives have been taken place, little information is available about Saudi HBB. This study therefore aims to determine the factors that contribute to the growth as well as the challenges of female HBB in Saudi Arabia. The study was based on qualitative approach which adopted an in-depth interview with eleven Saudi females who run HBB. The findings revealed that HBB contributing factors comprised of access to funding, sufficiency of savings and the influence of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in starting the business. Meanwhile, the obstacles are government regulations and policies, culture, and home design. The study recommendations include improving banks and service institution policy and procedures to enable HBB to have access to funding and services and to develop legal policies to protect the right of the HBB operator and customers. Finally, the study also suggests future research on managerial factors that can contribute to HBB female success, the stress coping mechanism of HBB and the factors contributing to the difference between HBB in growth strategies.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.673-685
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• 2021

This study aims to determine theoretically the best workers layoff/training strategy that entrepreneurs should apply to manage the COVID-19 crisis successfully. It also examines the impacts of the Saudi government's emergency measures on firm performance. The paper develops a theoretical framework in which the optimal control technics is applied to model the entrepreneur's hiring, layoff, and training behaviors. The results show that, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, the entrepreneur should first lay off the less productive workers to reduce labor costs. As more and more inefficient workers quit and profit increases, the entrepreneur starts expanding his activity and training workers. In the long run, only the training activity allows the firm efficiency to grow at a constant rate. This finding suggests that the key to long-run economic recovery in Saudi Arabia will rely on training, innovation, and adaptability to the new digital environment. The paper also shows that the Saudi government initiative of covering 60% of salaries for the small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic will enhance training activities in small- and medium-sized enterprises and improve their efficiency in both the short and long run. This policy will also prevent Saudi entrepreneurs from laying off half of their staff.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.323-331
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• 2021

This paper examines the relationship between ownership structure and level cash holdings in an emerging country, namely, Saudi Arabia, by constructing a corporate governance mechanism (foreign ownership, family ownership, institutional and managerial ownership). This paper uses data from 100 listed firms at Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL) from 2011 to 2019. The firm's decision to hold cash has come to the fore in the last two or three years as a result of the recent global financial crisis, and the impact that this has had on the firms' ability to raise funds from external sources. Using the random-effect generalized least square (GLS) regression model, the findings reveal that foreign and family ownership negatively influences cash holdings, while managerial ownership has a positive association with cash holdings. Further, institutional ownership did not have a direct effect on cash holdings in Saudi Arabia. Our results suggest that ownership structure include foreign ownership, family and managerial ownership is an essential vehicle to promote the performance of cash holding of all the 100 public-listed non-financial firms in Saudi Arabia. We recommend that sound policies should be targeted toward foreign ownership, family, and managerial ownership since they are essential to improve cash holding in Saudi Arabian firms.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.21-30
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• 2021

This study examines the role of the manufacturing sector in stimulating economic growth in the Saudi economy. Even though the economic literature shows how the manufacturing sector stimulates economic growth, it does not clearly show the role of the manufacturing sector in economic growth. The study employed annual time-series data spanning the 1980-2018 period from the databases of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. Moreover, the cointegration and VECM approaches were employed to examine the short- and long-run relationship causality between variables. The results show a two-way causal relationship exists between the manufacturing sector and economic growth. Furthermore, the results indicate that a unidirectional causal relationship exists, running from the manufacturing sector to the services sector. The study recommends that the determinants of the growth of the Saudi manufacturing sector must be investigated. Moreover, the most productive Saudi manufacturing industries must be identified, and the productivity of other sectors must be increased in a way that contributes to economic plans and policies. Thus, adopting economic policies that stimulate investment in the manufacturing sector contributes to increasing non-oil exports to diversify sources of income to achieve vision 2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.179-185
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• 2021

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of board of directors' activity on the audit committee's effectiveness score among manufactured listed companies on Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the period 2015-2017. The final sample of this study consists of 195 firm-year observations that represent manufactured companies listed on Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the years 2015-2017. The data of this study in terms of board of directors' meetings, audit committee size and meetings, firm leverage, firm performance, and firm age were hand-collected from the annual reports of the considered companies. The Pooled OLS regression's result indicate that audit committee's effectiveness score is influenced by the board of directors' activity. This result gives support to the agency theory prediction. This result is also consistent with the complementary function of corporate governance mechanisms in which board of directors' activity complements the function of audit committee's effectiveness score. The result of this study should be useful for manufacturing companies, Saudi Stock Exchange, auditors, and regulators which relates to the association between board of directors' activity and audit committee's effectiveness score. This study provides a new empirical evidence on the impact of board activity on the audit committee's effectiveness score in an interesting context which is Saudi Arabia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.277-285
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the impact of the Corona pandemic on the earning quality (EQ) of Saudi national banks. It was conducted to evaluate the measurement of the earning quality based on the Penman approach. The researchers used the analytical method to conduct the study to find the effect of this Pandemic. Data was collected from the annual reports for the period 2010 to 2020 from Saudi national banks, which are twelve according to the annual report for the Saudi central bank, and eight of them were selected as a sample of the study. The banks are Alinma Bank, Al Rajhi Bank, Bank Al Bilad, The National Commercial Bank, Bank Aljazeera, Riyad Bank, Samba Financial Group (Samba), and Arab National Bank. The study findings showed that the Corona pandemic had a negative impact on the Saudi economy, and led to deflation in 2020 by 4.1% due to the oil sector. They also showed reducing oil production by the (OPEC +) agreement to achieve stability in the oil market and the non-oil sector. It was also revealed that the profits of Saudi commercial banks in 2020 decreased by 23.1% and that the Corona pandemic had Caused the earning quality to decline in all the studied banks.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.313-324
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• 2022

The goal of this research is to see how closely accounting programs in Saudi Arabian colleges comply with the International Accounting Education Standards (IESs). Further, it aims to assess the level of awareness and knowledge of IESs among accounting academics and to examine the possible explanatory factors for their variation. A structured questionnaire was sent to accounting faculty members at 37 Saudi universities. Out of 541 distributed questionnaires, a total of 102 usable responses were received from 26 universities. The findings show that accounting programs in Saudi universities are partially compliant with the guidelines of IESs and accounting academics in those universities are moderately aware of IESs. High variation in the level of academics' knowledge of IESs was detected and was significantly influenced by industry work experience, academic ranks, and professional qualification. The findings of this study suggest that Saudi Universities should work closely with the local and international accounting professional bodies, i.e. the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants (SOCPA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) to improve accounting programs based on the guidelines of IESs to cope with the recent changes in the capital market of the kingdom and the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.273-280
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• 2022

The study aimed to determine the impact of societal participation on the customer loyalty of Saudi banks and identify the statistical differences in customer loyalty according to sex, age, education level, and occupation type. The independent variable is corporate societal participation, and the dependent represents customer loyalty. Corporate societal programs have two dimensions: social participation and philanthropic participation. The research population consists of Saudi workers in three sectors: government, military, and private reached 3.58 million people in 2021. The unit of analysis is the Saudi employee in one formal industry and dealing with the Saudi banks that offered corporate societal participation programs. The research used the appropriate stratified sampling method, and the recommended sample size reached 387 respondents. A fully structured questionnaire is used. The study concluded that corporate social programs have not impacted customer loyalty, while corporate philanthropy programs strongly affected customer loyalty. On the other hand, there are no differences in customer loyalty according to demographics (sex, age, education, and occupation type). Finally, the study presents a set of recommendations in the field of corporate social responsibility and develops the local communities.