Prelims

Half Title Page

The New Silk Road Leads through the Arab Peninsula

Title Page

The New Silk Road Leads through the Arab Peninsula: Mastering Global Business and Innovation

Edited by

Anna Visvizi, Miltiadis D. Lytras, Wadee Alhalabi and Xi Zhang

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2019

Copyright © 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78756-680-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-679-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-681-1 (Epub)

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

About the Contributors

Izza Aftab, Ph.D., is the Chair of Economics Department at the Information Technology University. Dr Aftab received her Ph.D. in Economics from The New School (2016) on a Fulbright Scholarship. Her research interests include, but not limited to, economics of innovation, macroeconomics, labour economics, and Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

Wadee Alhalabi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Effat University. Dr Alhalabi’s expertise covers issues in virtual reality, rehabilitation engineering, operating systems, and machine learning. In his research, he focuses on the use of virtual reality application in health science. He has a vast experience in the industry, as he worked for Jeddah desalination and power generation plant, Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency, Makkah College of Technology, and King Abdulaziz University.

Eman Alkhammash, Ph.D., works as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Vice Dean of Computers and Information Technology College at the University of Taif in Saudi Arabia. She holds Ph.D. (Computer Science) from the University of Southampton. Dr Eman does research in Formal Methods and Software Engineering. She was awarded Higher Education Academy Fellowship (FHEA) in September 2018.

Saad Haj Bakry, Ph.D., is a Professor at the College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. His work is concerned with digital transformation, cyber-security, and the knowledge society. He writes a regular column on knowledge issues for the Saudi daily Al-Eqtisadia.

Zeyad Haj Bakry, M.B.A., is a Teaching Assistant at the College of Business Administration, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. His work is concerned with teaching entrepreneurship, marketing management, and the knowledge society.

Tayeb Brahimi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada. His current research interests relate to wind and solar energy, sustainability, green engineering, engineering education, quality assurance, and integrating Islamic innovative heritage into the Higher Education Curricula.

Peng Chen is a Graduate Student at the College of Management Economics, Tianjin University, China. He major is Management Science and Engineering. His work focuses specifically on logistics engineering and traffic engineering.

Feiyang Cheng is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics in Tianjin University, China. His major is Applied Economics, and he focuses on capital market, asset pricing and behavioral finance.

Marilena Chrysanthakopoulou, L.L.B., B.Sc., is an International Arbitration Practitioner. She holds a Law degree from the University of Athens and an International Business degree from the Deree College, The American College of Greece. Her practice areas include international arbitration, contract administration, and construction law. She is interested in firm internationalization and investment structuring.

Cencen Fan is a Graduate Student at the Tianjin University, China. Her major is Management Science and Engineering. She studies financial engineering and aims at investors’ transaction behavior in Initial Public Offering (IPO) secondary market.

Suping Fang is a Master Student at the Anhui University. Her research interests include enterprise competitive intelligence and electronic business.

Huanhuan Feng is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Management Science and Engineering. Her work focuses on social media and firm performance.

Yuanjing Guo is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Business Administration. Her work focuses on corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship and innovation.

Saeed-Ul Hassan, Ph.D., is the Director of Scientometrics Lab at the Information Technology University and a former Fellow at the United Nations University. His research interests lie within the areas of data science, scientometrics, bibliometric tools for evidence-based research policy formulation, information retrieval, and text mining.

Syeda Amna Hassan works at the Information Technology University. She is a Teaching Fellow and Project Coordinator at the “Safer Society for Children,” a US Embassy funded program for child sexual abuse prevention. She got her Master’s in Journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, terrorism and national security, refugees, child abuse, and BRI.

Shunqi Hou is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics in Tianjin University, China. His research interests include operation research and complexity theory.

Peiquan Jin is an Associate Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include database, information systems, and Web information extraction.

Yingchao Kong is a Graduate Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. She studies energy economics and business management, especially the part which is combined with policy analyses. She had participated in several projects and published relevant research findings.

Krzysztof Kozłowski, Ph.D. (dr hab.), is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Political Studies at the Warsaw School of Economics. His areas of expertise include political economy of East and Central Asia, social change, and economic analysis of crime.

Tarek Ladjal, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Department of General Education, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic History at the University Malaya, Malaysia. He is an expert in civilizational, cultural dialogue, Muslim world affairs, Islamic history, civilization, and conducted a variety of research and publications in multidisciplinary areas.

Bo Li is a Lecturer at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, China. His research interests include social network, big data, and machine learning.

Cheng Li is a Master Student at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, China. He received the bachelor degree from the Southeast University (China) in 2017. His research interests include knowledge graph and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques.

Zhiqiang Li is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. His major is Business Administration. His work focuses on corporate governance and corporate financing.

Zhengbo Liang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Management Science and Engineering. Her work focuses on revenue management and consumer behavior.

Heng Luo is a Graduate Student of Management Science and Engineering at the Tianjin University, China, who has been studying multichannel, supply chain issues, with special attention to platform supply chain, medical and pharmaceutical supply chain, and so on. She participated in a number of national natural science funds and published conference reports.

Miltiadis D. Lytras, Ph.D., is a Research Professor at the Deree College – The American College of Greece and Visiting Researcher at the Effat University, Saudi Arabia. He is a Researcher, Editor, Lecturer, and Consultant. Dr Lytras’ expertise covers issues pertinent to the broad field defined by cognitive computing, information systems, technology-enabled innovation, social networks, computers in human behavior, and knowledge management. In his work, Dr Lytras focuses on bringing together advances in information and communication technology (ICT) and knowledge management to advance socioeconomic sustainability and citizens’ wellbeing.

Mehedi Masud, Ph.D., is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science, Taif University, Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Ottawa, Canada. His research interests include cloud computing, data security, data interoperability, and data science. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Member of ACM.

Hadas Peled is an Attorney-at-Law and University Lecturer specializing in International commercial law and the Chinese legal system. She is currently completing her doctoral studies at the Law School of Tsinghua University.

Guilin Qi is a Full Professor at the Southeast University in China. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Queen’s University of Belfast in 2006. His research interests include artificial intelligence, knowledge representation and reasoning, and semantic web.

Ahmed Tasnim Siddiqui is a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Taif University, Saudi Arabia. He completed his Masters of Computer Applications and M. Phil (CS) from the MK University, India. His research interests include cloud computing, web science, and e-learning.

Vasilis Trigkas is an Onassis Scholar and Research Fellow at the Belt and Road Strategy institute at the Tsinghua University. A former Visiting Scholar at the Columbia University Vasilis has published extensively on China and has been a regular invitee to conferences on global affairs in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Anna Visvizi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Deree College - The American College of Greece, and Visiting Researcher at Effat University. Researcher, Editor, Policy Advisor, and Lecturer, Dr Visvizi’s expertise covers issues pertinent to the intersection of politics, economics, and information and communication technology (ICT), including multilateralism and international organizations (especially the European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Trade Organization (WTO), smart cities and smart villages, and migration. In her work, Dr. Visvizi places emphasis on engaging academia, the think-tank sector and decision-makers in dialogue to ensure well-founded and evidence-driven policymaking.

Xing Wan is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. His major is Management Science and Engineering. His work focuses on tiered pricing for cloud computing.

Jianfei Wang is a Master Student at the Anhui University. His research interests include social network analysis and electronic business.

Jingjing Wang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Business Administration. Her work focuses on brand long-term management.

Luyao Wang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Business Administration. Her work focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Xiaoyu Wang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics in Tianjin University, China. His research interests include financial market information efficiency and investor behavior.

Yalin Wang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Business Administration. Her work focuses on Internet finance and corporate governance.

Rana Waqas is a Teaching Fellow in Economics. His research interests are focused on international political economy, with an emphasis on development strategies for countries in the Global South.

Xin Wei is a Ph.D. Scholar at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her research interests include pricing of information goods and services and big data management. She has participated in several research projects about ride-hailing platform and sharing economy and published relevant research findings.

Yuxin Wei is a Graduate Student at the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. She is studying for a master’s degree. Her major is Management Science and Engineering. Her research field is construction management, with special emphasis on conflict and dispute resolution and claim negotiation.

Tianxing Wu is a Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received the Ph.D. degree from Southeast University (China) in 2018. His research interests include knowledge graph, semantic web, and data mining.

Jingjing Xiao is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics in Tianjin University, China. Her research interests include citizen participation, urban management, and major construction decision making.

Chunming Yang is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, China. His research interests include text mining, big data, and knowledge engineering.

Tommi Yu is a Ph.D. Scholar at the Tsinghua University School of Law. He is a Senior Legal Manager at the Country Garden Group, China and Professor at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, North Korea.

Hui Zhang is a Professor at the School of Science, Southwest University of Science and Technology, China. His research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and knowledge engineering.

Huinan Zhang is a Master Student at the Anhui University. Her research interests include enterprise competitive intelligence and data mining.

Xi Zhang, Ph.D., Full Professor at the College of Management and Economics (COME), Tianjin University, China. His expertise lies in the fields of information systems (business informatics), information science, and the impact of computers on society. He is an Accomplished Researcher, Educator, and Editor.

Yurui Zhang is a Master Student at the College of Management and Economics in Tianjin University, China. Her expertise includes International engineering management.

Jie Zhao is a Professor at the Anhui University. She is currently the Head of the Department of Electronic Business. Her research interests include information resource management, electronic business, and competitive intelligence.

Qianqian Zhao is a Graduate Student at the College of Management Economics, Tianjin University, China. Her major is Management Science and Engineering. She has great interest in NEV market diffusion and data mining.

Xujian Zhao is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, China. His research interests include artificial intelligence, data mining, and Web information extraction.

Acknowledgments

This edited volume reaches the audience at a time when the notion of trade wars is back on the agenda and the value of trade liberalization is contested; when doubts about the value of multilateralism mount and the clout of international organizations and the achievements of multilateralism are openly questioned. A quiet reshuffling of power and spheres of influence is taking place in the global forum. At the same time, the debate on the emerging global order is restrained by the conceptual and cognitive confines of an era that had passed by now. In this context, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) poses a variety of conceptual challenges too. The modes of its implementation that – essentially – tap into nascent developments and opportunities only add to the explanatory challenge BRI creates. This is fertile ground for confusion, misperception, and bias to step it. Set against this backdrop, the objective of this volume was to add to the debate on BRI, by focusing on selected aspects of this unique initiative, and therefore encourage a more informed debate on what BRI is and what it represents. The unique value added of this volume is that it considers the case of the Arab Peninsula more carefully than any other publication on BRI does.

The Editors of the volume, serving also as researchers and lectures, sought to deliver a volume that would be useful and usable for students and professors, while at the same time appealing to professionals in the fields of business and policymaking. Accordingly, the structure of the volume and the format of the chapters lend themselves to self-study as well as to in-class discussions.

We, the Editors, are grateful to all contributing authors, by now our colleagues and friends, who responded to our invitation to join this project. We would like to thank all contributing authors for their hard work, patience and diligence. We are grateful to the Publisher and the entire team that dealt with the book content, including the arduous process of having the paper work done, typesetting, and making the book look as terrific as it does.

The Editors

Anna Visvizi

Miltiadis D. Lytras

Wadee Alhalabi

Xi Zhang