Entrepreneurship: An Emirati Perspective Report (Assessment)

Encouraging private entrepreneurship in the highly competitive environment of a globalized market is not an easy task; however, by addressing the current economic, political and financial issues efficiently in order to encourage the progress of private entrepreneurship and introduce European and American standards into public and private entrepreneurship, the government of UAE will be able to handle the current problems faced in the private and public sector.

In their research Entrepreneurship: An Emirati perspective, Halah El-Sokari, Constance Van Horne, Zeng-Yu Huang, and Mouawiya Al Awad discuss the problems that entrepreneurs face nowadays and provide the methods of dealing with these problems.

Although the research does not cover all of the problematic issues, which the Saudi Arabian entrepreneurship is currently suffering from, it still offers a fairly decent account of the significant problems and the strategies that can improve the current state of affairs and reinforce the UAE business sphere.

The research features some of the grand accomplishments of the UAE government in defining the current entrepreneurial issues. To start with, it is crucial that the research was conducted based on the results of a statewide survey since it allowed for not only providing the audience with the latest (2006–2011) data but also the information regarding both domestic UAE companies and the companies located in other states.

Another strong point of the given report concerns the authors’ skill of noticing the critical tendencies in the UAE business sphere and bringing these tendencies to the readers’ attention. One of the least expected and, quite honestly, the most welcomed ones concerned the introduction of the so-called intrapreneurship into the UAE business sphere.

According to the definition provided by the authors of the study, intrapreneurship can be defined as a “type of entrepreneurial activity which is recognized and measured by the GEM survey is employee entrepreneurship” [1, p. 16].

By emphasizing the fact that a number of UAE employees showing the signs of entrepreneurial activity, the authors of the research state that the rates of the private business initiative are growing fast within the UAE setting, which is a perfect sign for the state’s economic improvement.

The given conclusion is crucial for the further evolution of the UAE business, since, at present, the state economy depends on SMEs for the most part. Therefore, it is the duty of the state government leaders to do everything possible in order to encourage the development of SMEs.

Seeing how the phenomenon of intrapreneurship contributes to the evolution of small businesses in that it encourages employees to start their own small business.

Another apparent strength of the paper concerns the description of the Entrepreneurship Leave framework, which is bound to have a significant effect on the UAE SMEs evolution and the economic growth in general.

Not only do the authors provide a detailed overview of the given strategy, but also explain its significance in the context of the “diversified knowledge economy” [1, p. 21], making it clear that the competitiveness increase, which the given strategy triggers, is exactly what the UAE economy needs.

The role of social networking in the reconstruction of the Emirati economy is the third element that makes the given report stand out. In the era of globalization, when significant companies join to create transnational corporations, the means of getting in touch, as well as expanding, promoting services to different states and making essential business connections.

Social networks have gained incredible weight as both the means to promote directly to the target audience and keep in touch with the latter, creating the illusion of an essential link between the potential customers and the company in question, therefore, engaging people into a conversation and, with the basic principles of customer psychology applied, thrilling them into making a purchase and using the company’s services.

It was also brilliant of the authors of the research to come up with an average UAE businessman profile; with an academic endeavor of their own, Halah El-Sokari, Constance Van Horne, Zeng-Yu Huang, and Mouawiya Al Awad have defined the key features of an average UAE entrepreneur quite precisely.

Finally, Halah El-Sokari, Constance Van Horne, Zeng-Yu Huang, and Mouawiya Al Awad must be credited for finally shedding light on such a painfully notorious issue within the UAE business sphere as the obstacles on the way of female entrepreneurs.

It is rather impressive that the authors discuss the problem in a separate chapter, outlining the critical issues regarding the progress of female entrepreneurship, taking the cultural aspects of the UAE into account and providing an overview of the measures that are undertaken to address the problem.

However, the research also contains several rather weak or, at the very least, dubious elements. First of all, one of the most notorious issues in the UA business sphere, the fact that the private sector is dominated by foreign businessmen, has been ignored in the report.

While the authors mention that migrant labor is used in the UAE, stressing the need to “encourage Entrepreneurial Population by reaching out to all demographic groups including youth, women, seniors, migrants, and

the unemployed” [1 p. 111], they provide only a short paragraph with a brief mentioning of the issue without going into any further detail about the problems that the UAE natives suffer, or mentioning the rates of unemployment induced by the unwillingness of foreign owners of private companies to recruit native residents of the UAE.

While the report seems to represent other current UAE issues quite decently, Halah El-Sokari, Constance Van Horne, Zeng-Yu Huang, and Mouawiya Al Awad have ignored the question above of foreigners ripping the UAE citizens off of their right to compete with immigrants.

Drawing the conclusion, one must admit that the authors of the report did a reasonably good job by conducting such vast research. However, some of the significant issues have still been overlooked, which means that the given report needs further improvement.

The study admittedly has a number of strong points, covering most of the problems that the modern UAE businessmen, company owners, and employees face regularly. It is also quite refreshing that the study embraces not only political and economical but also social issues, allowing one to define more factors that shape the current UAE market.

However, the research also has several problems in terms of the integrity of the results; for example, the lack of insight on the gender profiling issues within the present-day UAE business sphere, as well as the lack of analysis.

With that being said, the report still provides an excellent general overview of the UAE economic situation and gives much food for thoughts. With several minor corrections, the presented research could provide the basis for drafting a plan of the UAE financial situation improves.