Abstract
Oman, as a welfare state, should have effective administrative strategies for the promotion of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is first to reveal the innovation-based competitive advantages of Oman’s economy; then compare Oman with Qatar relative to the Global Innovation Index’s (GII) sub-indices. The strategic vision and mission of the Sultanate’s four administrative entrepreneurship-promoting strategies are relevant to indices based on GII. The secondary data of the paper is collected directly from the Global Innovation Index Reports 2009–2017 and the regressions are calculated by the authors for both Oman and Qatar. In this study, Qatar, because of its international economic scores and rankings, has been assumed as a benchmark for comparing, evaluating and estimating the distances of the scores in each GII sub-index. After processing the data, the SWOT (SWOT is the acronym for an analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of Oman relative to Qatar was developed as a reference point. The findings show Oman has near scores to Qatar in institutional aspects and distant scores with Qatar in infrastructure indices. The analysis of innovation-based competitive advantage is longitudinal and embraces the span of time from 2009 to 2017. The research implication is that formulated strategies could be applied by the Omani decision-makers for the promotion of entrepreneurship and subsequently improving economic and social welfare in the Sultanate (The social implication could be the facilitation and promotion of the sultanate economy for the betterment of economic prosperity through effective entrepreneurship). Moreover, as one of the pioneering studies in this area, the originality and value of this paper lies in its application of GII sub-indices for the first time to formulate administrative strategies for the promotion of entrepreneurship in Oman. Finally, four strategies are suggested: Economic Diversification Strategy, Human Resources Upskilling Strategy, Economic Globalization Strategy and Economic Privatization Strategy. These are in accordance with Oman’s Vision 2020, and as such enhance economic diversification and the promotion of entrepreneurship in the Sultanate.
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Notes
- 1.
The six GCC members are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, U.A.E., Oman and Saudi Arabia.
- 2.
The governmental body in charge of the promotion of SMEs within the country is The Public Authority for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Development (PASMED) which implements the official entrepreneurship strategies of the Government of Oman.
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The following items are calculated by the authors:
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Innovation Input Sub-Index
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Innovation Output Sub-Index
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Overall Global Innovation
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Innovation Efficiency Ratio
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The highest score amongst the country rankings was Switzerland’s at 67.69 (Global Innovation Index, 2017).
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It should be noted that protection of minority investors is interpreted differently in MENA than in Western countries. Mostly minority investors have same rights as majority investors, but these tend to be enforced as more of a cultural perspective that ‘debts must be repaid’ while Western systems expect protection of rights to be enshrined in the court system (Hill, V.).
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Usually Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Manpower work jointly for the implementation of entrepreneurial strategies for SMEs.
- 20.
“Inefficient government and bureaucracy” for entrepreneurship in Oman are perceived barriers by the Omani entrepreneurs. The justification to this claim is the research type of Blanke et al. (2009); which was a survey study and hence Omani respondents answered the research questions.
- 21.
Maybe this unsatisfactory situation for “government’s effectiveness” (i.e. unsatisfactory situation in reaching to the administrative goals in entrepreneurship) was originated from governmental inefficiency [lack of effectiveness is reflected in our research based on the analysis of the data from Global Innovation Index (2009–2017) and governmental inefficiency was reflected in Al-Shanfari (2012)].
- 22.
Note: These economic strategies are not stated directly by the government of the Oman and they are inferred by the authors based on the stated economic objectives in the official vision statement.
- 23.
The dominant HR strategy of the government of Oman is Omanization, in other words the government of Oman tries to substitute as much as possible the occupied job opportunities by the foreigners with the national workforce jointly with the other complementary HR strategy. The SANAD programme, started in 2001 as a nation-wide programme for promotion of self-employment opportunities for the Omani youth under the supervision and contribution of Ministry of Manpower.
- 24.
If they are self-employed entrepreneurs active in the private sector.
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If they are working within the public or private Omani organizations.
- 26.
The 15 April 2017 Human Resource Development and Education Reform Decree introduced in Jordan is an excellent example of what could be done.
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Sazegar, M., Forouharfar, A., Hill, V., Faghih, N. (2018). The Innovation-Based Competitive Advantage in Oman’s Transition to a Knowledge-Based Economy: Dynamics of Innovation for Promotion of Entrepreneurship. In: Faghih, N., Zali, M. (eds) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75913-5_18
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