CALL FOR CHAPTERS
Entrepreneurial Rise in the Middle East and North Africa: The Quadruple Helix Influence on Technological Innovation
Editors: Stavros Sindakis, University of Sharjah & Sakshi Aggarwal, Institute of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Education for Growth
Submission Deadline of Extended Abstracts: December 6th, 2019
Submission Deadline of Full Chapters: June 30th, 2020.
Expected Book Publication: first quarter of 2021
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a distinct region, covering a large region extending from Morocco to Oman, including all Middle Eastern and Maghreb countries. MENA economies are implementing reforms to improve employment, economic growth, diversification, governance structures, private sector development, and integrity. A generation of local MENA start-ups has emerged and gained a base throughout the value chains of various sectors, such as e-commerce, logistics, digital music, last-mile delivery, and travel. All these illustrate the growth of local digital entrepreneurship. As a result, start-ups in the MENA region play an important role in technological innovation, which is affected by several factors, such as differences in strategies, economic structure, infrastructures, environments, and culture.
We aim to examine the start-up scene environments in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, among others. We wish to touch on the government strategies that support the start-up communities, the local challenges, and the unique strengths of each country. This book aims to address such issues as:
- How does technological advance occur, and what are the strategic processes and institutions involved?
- How are new businesses created? To what extent is intellectual property protected?
- Which cultural characteristics serve to promote or impede innovation? In what ways is wealth distributed or concentrated?
Contributions from researchers and practitioners in a wide variety of fields will connect and relate the relationships and inter-dependencies among (1) Innovation, (2) Political Regime, and (3) Economic and Social Development. We will consider whether innovation is demonstrated differently across sectors (e.g., health, education, technology) and disciplines (e.g., social sciences, physical sciences), with an emphasis on discovering emerging patterns, factors, triggers, catalysts, and accelerators to innovation, and their impact on future research, practice, and policy.
The book, which is part of the Emerald book series Advanced Strategies in Entrepreneurship, Education, and Ecology, will provide the space to studies, which address this intersection both through the presentation of empirical case studies and through theoretical analyses. Both, contemporary and historical accounts will be considered of particular interest to the volume are contributions that explore the intersection of entrepreneurial initiatives through the complex prism of Government, NGO's, Universities, and Civil Society: The Quadruple Helix Model of Innovation.