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In this paper family entrepreneurship and its banking support in Kuwait is discussed, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world. In the beginning is provided an overview of the Kuwaiti context of entrepreneurship and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), followed by discussion of family businesses' profile and benefits to the economy and society. The paper discusses the banking sector in Kuwait and its contribution to the development of family entrepreneurship and the small business sector in Kuwait.

For purposes of this study a multiple case study approach and a snowballing sample was used.

Even that, Kuwait is considered as an Islamic country, from the answers and comments that were received from our research, we concluded that most of the family businesses cooperate with conventional banks, instead of Islamic banks.

Several supporting products are described and analysed in this paper, which can help family business and SMEs' owners where to address when a support is needed. Also are provided information on similarities and differences between Islamic and conventional banking.

This paper is one of the first papers that discusses family businesses and entrepreneurship in Kuwait and the support they receive from Islamic and conventional banks. It provides original quotes from family business owners regarding this topic.

The purpose of this article is to highlight new directions that are needed in family business research particularly in light of the covid-19 pandemic and changing societal conditions.

This editorial is a review of the main issues discussed in the special journal issue regarding family businesses at the macro, meso and micro level. This approach enables a better understanding about the future research and practical implications for family business in the new economy characterised by substantial changes resulting from the covid-19 pandemic.

The findings suggest that family business studies need to incorporate new industry and societal contexts that have not previously been examined in sufficient detail in family business studies. This includes focusing more on the sport industry that is characterised by many family businesses.

This editorial for the special journal issue is amongst the first to discuss the role of the covid-19 crisis in impacting family business.

Financial reports are the basis of economic decisions that affect organizational interests and shareholders. However, there is a severe research gap concerning the factors affecting the quality of financial information (such as audit report readability and tone). Therefore, considering the importance of presenting high-quality financial information, this study aims to investigate the impact of intellectual capital (IC) and its components on the audit report's readability and tone.

The multivariate regression model tests research hypotheses. Then, hypotheses are tested via a sample of 824 observations of the listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (103 companies) from 2014 to 2021, using the multivariate regression model based on pooled data and fixed effects.

Results determine that customer capital (CC) and structural capital (SC) are likely to influence the audit report tone positively. In general, the IC and human capital (HC) negatively impact auditors' tone. More analyses also document that IC and its CC, HC and SC components positively and significantly affect audit report readability based on two readability indices, including FOG and text length. Finally, findings pertaining to the third readability index (Flesch index) reveal that only HC and SC are robust based on this measurement, whereas the IC and CC have a negative and significant impact on the readability of auditors’ reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address this issue in emerging markets, and it provides helpful insights for users, analysts and legal institutions regarding IC, which significantly affects audit report readability and tone.

In recent years, effective leadership initiatives have been emphasized in the healthcare industry all over the world. This paper aims to examine contemporary healthcare development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and prescribe four essential policy dimensions to its leadership, depicting the imperative needs for direction, integration, revision, and evidence – the “DIRE needs” approach.

The paper reviews literature on the contemporary KSA health system and provides guidelines for policy reforms vis‐à‐vis the emerging challenges.

First, the paper offers a conceptual model to examine the ongoing and future health policy development of the KSA. It identifies four key policy dimensions – direction, integration, revision, and evidence and links these to the scope of broader health sector reforms. Second, it characterizes these dimensions as key initiatives for health resource capacity and infrastructural development, essentially the primary health care, which need to be taken up by KSA mainstream health services leadership. Third, it underlines the importance of integrating institutional research and information systems for evidence‐based policy‐making and practicable implementation. Fourth, it offers a social science research perspective to the need for multi‐dimensional health policy reforms in the KSA.

This paper opens up KSA health leadership initiatives that may be viewed as the DIRE needs, to be mainstreamed in the domains of policy and strategic planning, research and development, and healthcare management practices.

Social research in KSA health policy and planning is rare. This paper introduces a context‐specific multi‐dimensional model that provides critical insights into challenges and complexities that the Saudi health leadership must attend to. It defines a set of four essential benchmarking dimensions for guiding future policy reforms.