INTRODUCTION

Seven pandemics have been recorded in the last 130 years of human’s history, including COVID-19.
Nevertheless, the recently COVID-19 epidemic has not only the worsen the world’s economies but
also the business environment in the Gulf region, including top-performing economies of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC). When family businesses face the dual challenge of survival and growth in
a turbulent gulf business environment, then the family firm’s survival becomes difficult without
scanning for the business environment of oil-dependent GCC economies like Oman, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Kuwait and UAE. For instance, family firms may avoid investing in innovate business plans due
to potential social, technological, political and economic factors.

Family firms in the emerging market are unique and somewhat different from the western family-
owned enterprises (Saleem et al., 2019). The research on Arabian family firms is also scarce when we
talk about the business environment in specific (Mariotti et al., 2020). For instance, a recent study
reveals that the families mainly control the corporations in the GCC. However, ownership
concentration in the family firms of the GCC does not influence the family firm’s performance
(Matinez-Garcia et al. 2020). Similarly, a recently published statistical report about 692 listed firms in
the GCC by Family business in the Arab World confirms that mostly the families own the company in
the GCC region. Thus family firms in the GCC are suffering from the recent pandemic and need to
understand the post-pandemic business environment for survival. For instance, the report reveals
that financial firms in Kuwait, Oman and Qatar have a higher degree of ownership concentration
than those in the UAE Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain (Basco et al., 2020).

Furthermore, a shareholder is found to be positively related to a firm’s size in the GCC and the
families as the largest shareholder across the GCC countries, with Qatar having the lowest
proportion the UAE having the highest (Basco et al., 2020; Matinez-Garcia et al. 2020). The key
shareholders of the GCC business, the ownership concentration, the ownership identity and control
mechanisms of the family firms are presented in Appendix 2, which demonstrate the significance of
studying the family firms in the GCC. Thus further investigation is required, how the family firms can
further expand the business by scanning the business environment of the GCC

The COVID-19 has also caused vide spread of both inaccurate and accurate information about the
business environment. The business infodemic is the type of disinformation, which is circulated
during the period of economic distress and a health crisis like COVID -19 to gain a short term profit
and to kill the competition ( Okan et al., 2020). Such disinformation is usually based on rumours in
the market, deception of the underestimated business environment, and gossipy (See e.g. Bunker,
2020). The business infodemic is generally spread by social media such as WhatsApp, YouTube and
Facebook have confused not only the business leaders of multinationals firms operating in the GCC
but also the family firms. Because such disinformation not only impacts negatively on the
performance of the family businesses in general but has consequences for employees in the form of
job loss, psychological and physical health, poor performance for the expatriate - workforce working
(Mariotti et al., 2020) in the GCC region since last many decades. Sooner or later, the COVID-19
maybe finished; nevertheless, the role of infodemic may continue on the Gulf’s businesses for
several more years to come, and economic recovery could be in many shapes.

The objectives of this chapter include followings:

 To familiarise readers with the GCC business environment.

 To describe the post-pandemic business environment in terms of social, technological,
political, environmental and legal factors in the GCC and its impact.
  To explain the moderating role of the business infodemic.
 To forecast how the family firms can recover from crisis and fight against the business
infodemic in the GCC region.

This chapter has introduced the business environment of the GCC and family firms in the GCC. In the
subsequent sections, we have developed the proposed conceptual model to link business
environment and family firms’ outcomes, related methodology, research findings and implications
for critical stakeholders operating family businesses in the GCC region in the post-pandemic business
environment.

Business Environment of the GCC

The six GCC nations have transformed their infrastructure from deserts to Skyscrapers based on their
aims (Ramady, 2012). For instance: UAE wanted to become the world’s new tourist and cultural
attraction; Qatar aimed at building the foundations for a knowledge economy and hopes to be an
international destination for world events and conferences; Bahrain worked very hard trying to
establish a reputation as a global financial centre; Saudi Arabia attempted to become the region’s
industrial and economic powerhouse. Otherwise, Kuwait would still be a small fishing and smuggling
location; Saudi Arabia would be mostly dependent on annual Hajj (pilgrimage) for its foreign
exchange. Bahrain, along with Qatar and Abu Dhabi, would be dependent on pearling trade ( Mishrif,
2018). But the GCC countries are and can attract large foreign investments, and are getting ready to
change their local laws to encourage investments.

A collection of external factors which affect the firm’s performance and usually are uncontrollable
comprise of the business environment (Palmer & Hartley, 2013). The example for such factors
includes customer’s needs, product’s supply and demand in the market, suppliers, ownership
structure in the family firm (Mariotti et al., 2020), legislation by government, evolution in
technology, social demography, product life cycle and economic changes.

Economic Environment is one of the critical factors that may also affect any family business
operating gin the gulf region: These factors such include interest rates, inflation, exchange rates,
recession due COVID 19 and value-added tax usually affect family business performance. The
economies of the GCC countries are oil-dependent and are observing the shocks due to recent
pandemic. The economic indicators are sound and stable for the last many years. For instance, GCC
economies have reduced inflation by controlling the money supply and financing budget deficits by
issuing bonds, rather than printing money. So, there is a 0.8 per cent increase in the prices of
consumer goods and services in the GCC over the last 12 months to April 2020 i. Similarly, In 2020 the
exchange rate Vs US$ are stable since many previous years, i.e. 0.38 (Bahraini Dinar), 0.31 (Kuwaiti
Dinar), 0.38 (OMR), 3.64 (Qatari Rial), 3.75 (Saudi Riyal) and 3.67 (United Arab Emirates Dirham).
That is why we have not included the economic factor as a key independent variable.

Political environment may be regarded as the activity concerned with determining the rules under
which we live in a society like Oman. The political environment refers to the actions of a government
that impact business operations—for instance, kingdom, monarch, Majles Al-Umma and democracy.
Although there is no political instability in the GCC countries, nevertheless, due to the recent demise
of Omaniii and Kuwaitiiii rules, we have added this variable.

Technological environment of the GCC refers to the state of technological developments such as the
rate of technological advancement - for instance, 5G- Mobile Technology – a fifth-generation
standard for a broadband cellular network like Omantel in Oman. Technical introduction and
adoption of the GCC are also changing form grocery stores to high tech oil and gas industry. So
explaining the impact, of tech-factors can also help us to understand the GCC economic environment
in the post-pandemic era. Although other factors related to pollution are equally crucial
environmental factor are not part of our scope due to unavailability of primary data form our target
population.

LITERATURE REVIEW
A business that is run and owned by a single family since the last few generations can be termed a
family firm ( Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007; Mariotti et al., 2020). Theoretically speaking no organisation
can survive without a conducive business environment; Infodemic - a hybrid of incorrect and correct
information during COVID-19 has made this environment more challenging for a family firm ( Bunker,
2020). However, according to ecology theory of the firm, the firms usually fight for the survival and
growth like any creature (Hannan & Freeman, 1977) and family firm are one of the oldest forms of
the business (Zellweger et al., 2012). In this regard, we can assume that the family firm has to
interact with the business environment and this interaction based on the theoretical assumptions of
an open system perspective within which a firm usually operates (Scott, & Davis, 2015). For example,
classical grocery stores owned by the Arab family in the GCC are trying to use mobile applications to
deal with this pandemic by scanning for a technical environment. Another theory which support
interaction of the firm is with the business environment is resource dependence theory (Pfeffer &
Salancik, 2003). For instance, the Bank of Muscat is dependent on human capital from its external
environment, and the Central Bank of Oman provide the governing rules to the Bank of Muscat.
Lastly, we should understand the stakeholder theory perspective of the organisational (Freeman,
1999) before scanning the business environment of the Persian Gulf. The firm interacts and deals
with its critical stakeholders for survival and growth; which include employees, suppliers and society
at large. For instance, an oil-producing plant in the Gulf region usually employs the plant managers
and labour from Asian countries. At the same time, they have to be socially responsible by taking
care of employee during the pandemic by providing them sanitisers and not destroying waste in the
sea in an unethical way. So, based on Organisational Ecology, Stakeholder Theory, Open System
Perspective, and Resource Dependence perspectives; the purpose of this chapter is to understand
the post-pandemic business environment for the Family Businesses (Mariotti et al., 2020).

Insert Figure 1 here

HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Generally speaking, the scanning of environmental factors that may impact the business outcomes
include economic, political, legal, social, ecological and technological factors (Elearn, 2018).
However, during this pandemic, the businesses have faced the issue of infodemic. The term business
infodemic is the news that is may or may not be accurate and usually harm the performance of the
company (Brown2019). The Competitors and business opportunists spread such rumours inform of
disinformation. Technically speaking, jointly, “information” and “epidemic” is usually referred to as
infodemic and coined in 2003 and frequently being related to the pandemic of this century, i.e.
COVID-19 (Okan et al., 2020). Due to the business infodemic, the established relationship between
the business environment factors and business performance indicators can be weakened or
strengthen (See Bunker, 2020). For example, let’s talk about the technological factor impacting
business performance (Hu et al., 1999). If a company - like a grocery store - during the pandemic - is
opting for a mobile app then as compare to competitors the company may outperform and the
disinformation in the market about facemasks during the first week may give them higher sales
volume. Accordingly to scholars, the environment factors economic, political, legal, social, ecological
and technological can play a positive role for vigilant businesses (Elearn, 2018; Hannan, & Freeman,
1977; Pfeffer& Salancik 2003).

In contrast, the business environment related external factors may also harm all forms of businesses
and may result in the closure of the family business during the pandemic (Elearn, 2018; Zellweger et
al., 2012). Similarly, we can take the example of social and cultural factors that may have a positive
effect in the case of family firms as they know society very well. Generally speaking, an individual’s
social environment usually include surroundings influenced by physical structures, family
relationships, institutions and local culture. However, the social climate of the family business may
consist of the customs, values, and beliefs of any society, like Oman, in which the family business
operates. So social factor may affect the firm’s innovation performance and commerce at the same
time. We should understand that in most of the Gulf countries, the gross national income is either
coming from oil or the trade and commerce across the Gulf and high-tech economies.

Based on the above discussion we may hypothesise that

H1: Business Environment has a positive impact on the firm’s level outcomes

H2: Business Infodemic negatively moderates the relationship between Business Environment
factors and the innovation performance of the family firm in Oman.

H3: Business Infodemic negatively moderates the relationship between Business Environment and
the commerce of the family firm in Oman.

METHODOLOGY AND MEASURE

The data was collected from the various family businesses operating in Sohar city of Oman using an
online survey. Descriptive characteristics of the sample are present in Appendix 1 (see Table 1)

Mesrusrment of the concepts

According to the literature cited in the preceding section, the business environment usually consists
of four factors that may impact the business, i.e. political, economic, social and technological factors.
We have tried to proxy key indicators like political, social and technical using Likert scale and primary
data response of the family business employees and manager. However, we are not using the
qualitative technique to measure economic factors; instead, we have relied on presenting economic
variables like inflation, Riyal- US dollar ratio and other indicators as part of our descriptive analysis.

The six items scale is adapted from Hu et al. (1999) based on the technology acceptance model to
proxy for the ‘Technological Environment’. However, we have used the theme of ‘Intention to us’.
We used four items scale to measure, ‘Political and Legal Environment’, which is adapted from Zhu
et al. (2004). Eight items adapted from Singelis et al. (1995) was used to proxy the ‘ Social and
Cultural Environment’ factors.
Okan et al. (2020) generated two items scale to measure our moderating variable, i.e. business
infodemic. Impact on commerce’ scale was measured using a four items scale and is also adapted
from the study of Zhu et al. (2004). The two items scale for ‘Analysis of the Business Environment’,
four items scale for ‘Innovation Performance was adopted from Maydeu‐Olivares and Lado (2003).

Refer to Table 2. this study a series of confirmatory factor analyses helped us to to archive a better
model with the TLI (Tucker–Lewis Index) above 0.90 and RMSEA (Root-Mean Square Error of
Approximation) score was below 0.05 (X 2 = 1364.20; p ≤ .001; CMIN/df = 1.58; RMSEA = .05; CFI .92
TLI = .92, according to Byrne (2013).). All the indicators had significant factor loadings on relevant
constructs with average loading from 0.86 to 0.93.

Insert table 2 here

RESULTS
The study found exciting relationships between business environment factors and dependent and
control variables. Roughly all the environmental factors found statistically significant. For example,
we found negative associations between Business Infodemic, Social environment, Analysis of the
Business Environment, information performance and commerce (See Table 3).
Insert table 3 here

Multiple regression analysis was run to test the relationships among Business Infodemic,
Technological Environment, Political and Legal Environment, Social and Cultural Environment,
Innovation performance and Commerce. Following table present the impact of business
environment factors and Business Infodemic on dependent variables Innovation performance and
commerce. The model explained 19 per cent variation. We also found that Technological
Environment was positively impacting the innovation-related performance (β=-0.16;p<0.05) of the
family firms while Business Infodemics was negatively impacting and the performance of the family
firms (β=--0.27;p<0.001). However, those family firms who performed the analysis of the business
environment were having a good effect on commerce with the Gulf States (β=-0.54;p<0.001) but no
impact was found on the innovation performance of the family firms (See Table 4).
Insert table 4 here

In Table 5, we can observe that environmental factors explain 12 per cent variation of innovation
performance among family business operating in Oman. We can also watch that business infodemic
in negatively moderating between for the technological environment – innovation performance (β=-
0.47;p<0.01) and the Social and Cultural Environment – innovation performance (β=-0.08;p<0.01).

Insert table 5 here

In Table 5, we can observe that environmental factors explain 41 per cent variation of innovation
performance among family business operating in Oman. However, against our hypothesised model
we can also lookout that business infodemic in positively moderating between for the Political and
Legal Environment – Commerce (β=0.27;p<0.01) and the Social and Cultural Environment –
Commerce (β=-0.08;p<0.01). One key reason could be that due to disinformation we can have more
sales for a shorter period. We collected data during the lockdown of COVID-19, which is why we
think that facemasks and related medical products were costly during this period; opportunists
would have made money due to disinformation in the market. Thus, the relationship between
business environment factors - commerce is positively moderated by business infodemic.

Insert table 6 here

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Lately, one of a critical issue during the recent pandemic is a broad spread of disinformation in the
industry, which is why this is the responsibility of the top management team to properly scan the
business environment in the Gulf before thinking for the growth or to start of a new family business.
So the family firms need to be vigilant about infodemic by competitors by properly scanning for the
business environment in the GCC by adopting for the latest technologies.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Based on the study we can recommend that scholars not only needs to study the external
factor in terms of the business environment for the family firms but focusing on the internal
factors employees commitments, and individual level putcomes need to be studied. One of
the critical research areas that need to be examined during the pandemic is organisational
resilience, psychological resilience and planned resistance for the life satisfaction of the
employees (see, e.g. Prayag et al., 2019). Moreover, regarding the business environment, we
can study the role of economic factors using secondary data, improvement in the world’s
environment during lockdown and analysis of business laws devised during the pandemic
( see, e.g. Mariotti et al. 2020; Saleem et al., 2020). Finally, future research can be conducted
to further understanding of the paradigms related to evolution and failure of the family firms
in the GCC using the theoretical lenses of organisational ecology and open system
perspective (Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003).

CONCLUSION
In the chapter, we have talked about the business environment of the GCC in general by testing our
conceptual model. We tested the moderating role of the business infodemic. We can conclude that
during the pandemic the business infodemic has played a positive role by improving the commence
of the short term business opportunities. However, business infodemic has negatively impacted the
relationship between the business environment and innovation performance of the family firms.
Overall we found that the technological environment has positively impacted the organisational
outcomes, and business infodemic has negatively affected the performance of the family firms in the
GCC. So the the family firms need to avoid the business infodemic by competitors by properly
scanning for the business technological social and political environment in the GCC and adopting for
the latest technologies.

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on Nov 11, 2020.

Berrone, P., Cruz, C., & Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (2012). Socioemotional wealth in family firms: Theoretical
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Bunker, D. (2020). Who do you trust? The digital destruction of shared situational awareness and the
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Byrne, B. M. (2013). Structural equation modelling with AMOS: Basic concepts, applications, and
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Elearn (2018). Business Environment: Management Extra, Published by Elsevier

Freeman, R. E. (1999). Divergent stakeholder theory. Academy of management review, 24(2), 233-

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Gómez-Mejía, L. R., Haynes, K. T., Núñez-Nickel, M., Jacobson, K. J., & Moyano-Fuentes, J. (2007).
Socioemotional wealth and business risks in family-controlled firms: Evidence from Spanish olive oil
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Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organisations. American journal of
sociology, 82(5), 929-964.
Hu, P. J., Chau, P. Y., Sheng, O. R. L., & Tam, K. Y. (1999). Examining the technology acceptance
model using physician acceptance of telemedicine technology. Journal of management information
systems, 16(2), 91-112.

Matinez-Garcia, I., Basco, R., Gomez-Anson, S., & Boubakri, N. (2020). Ownership concentration in
the Gulf Cooperation Council. International Journal of Emerging Markets.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOEM-03-2020-0290

Mariotti, S., Marzano, R., & Piscitello, L. (2020). The role of family firms’ generational heterogeneity
in the entry mode choice in foreign markets. Journal of Business Research.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.10.064
Maydeu‐Olivares, A., & Lado, N. (2003). Market orientation and business economic
performance. international journal of service industry management. 14(3), 284-309.

Mishrif, A. (2018). Economic Diversification in the Gulf Region, Volume I. Palgrave Macmillan.
Okan, O., Bollweg, T. M., Berens, E. M., Hurrelmann, K., Bauer, U., & Schaeffer, D. (2020).
Coronavirus-related health literacy: A cross-sectional study in adults during the COVID-19 infodemic
in Germany. International Journal of Environmental Research and public health, 17(15), 5503.

Palmer & Hartley (2013). The Business Environment, McGraw-Hill Edication

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (2003). The external control of organisations: A resource dependence
perspective. Stanford University Press.
Prayag, G., Spector, S., Orchiston, C., & Chowdhury, M. (2019). Psychological resilience,
organisational resilience and life satisfaction in tourism firms: Insights from the Canterbury
earthquakes. Current Issues in Tourism, 23(10), 1216-1233.

Ramady, M. A. (Ed.). (2012). The GCC economies: Stepping up to future challenges. Springer Science
& Business Media.
Scott, W. R., & Davis, G. F. (2015). Organisations and organising: Rational, natural and open
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Saleem I., Siddique I., & Ahmed A. (2019). An extension of the Socioemotional wealth, Journal of
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ADDITIONAL READING
Books
Ramady, M. A. (Ed.). (2012). The GCC economies: Stepping up to future challenges. Springer Science
& Business Media.
Mishrif, A. (2018). Economic Diversification in the Gulf Region, Volume I. Palgrave Macmillan.
Case studies
Michael, I., Balakrishnan, M.S. and Khan, Z. (2015), “GEA Group – Doing business in the Middle East”,
Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, Vol. 5 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-03-2015-0038
Saleem I., Khalid F. & Nadeem M. (2019), Family Business Governance: What’s wrong? What’s right?
What’s next?, Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 9 (1), 1-23. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-02-2018-0011
Online resources
Gulf Business Environment: https://gulfbusiness.com/
Arabian Business Environment: https://www.arabianbusiness.com/
Doing business in the Middle East: https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/tax/doing-business-
guides-middle-east.html
Omani Business Environment: https://www.omanobserver.om/omans-business-environment-
needs-further-strengthening-isfu/
IMF briefing on the Middle East and Central Asia: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/REO/MECA
Understanding Strategic Alliances: http://huconsultancy.com/strategic-alliances/
Sample Caselet with on Business Environment: http://www.cbsesamplepapers.info/cbse/cbse-class-
12-case-studies-in-business-studies-business-environment
Doing Business in Oman: https://tradingeconomics.com/oman/gdp-from-manufacturing
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
COVID 19: ‘CO’ stands for the corona, ‘VI’ for the virus, ‘D’ for the disease and 19 refer to the year
2019.

Ecological Environment: The environmental aspects include climate, and climate changes like global
working affecting industries such as tourism, agriculture and farming.

Economic Environment: The economic factors such as interest rates, inflation, exchange rates,
recession due COVID 19 and value-added tax usually affect family business performance and are
generally uncontrollable.

External Business Environment: A collection of external and internal and factors which affect the
firm’s performance and usually are uncontrollable. The example for such factors includes customer’s
needs, product’s supply and demand in the market, suppliers, ownership structure in the family firm,
legislation by government, evolution in technology, social demography, product life cycle and
economic changes.

Family Firm: A business that is run and owned by a single family since the last few generations.

Infodemic: Jointly, “information” and “epidemic” is usually referred to as infodemic. Technically

speaking, this term is a hybrid of incorrect and correct information, coined in 2003 and frequently
being related to the pandemic of this century, i.e. COVID-19.

Legal Environment: Understanding of legal environment clarifies the family firm to know what is
legal and what is illegal to trade ethically and successfully in a particular economic region like GCC
such as employee’s health and safety laws and consumer protection laws.

Open System Perspective: The perspective argues that a family firm cannot survive or operate in
isolation. In that view, a family firm is affected and controlled from external factors such as the
political, economic, technological and social environment.

Political Environment: Politics may be regarded as the activity concerned with determining the rules
under which we live in a society like Oman. The political environment refers to the actions of a
government that impact business operations—for instance, kingdom, monarch, Majles Al-Umma and
democracy.

Resource Dependence Theory: This theory assumes that an organisation, including family business,
engages in business transactions with stakeholders (e.g. suppliers) and institutes in its business
environment to acquire useful resources. So resource acquisition impacts organisational behaviour.

Social Environment: Generally speaking, an individual’s social environment usually include

surroundings influenced by physical structures, family relationships, institutions and local culture.
However, the social climate of the family business may consist of the customs, values, and beliefs of
any society, like Oman, in which the family business operates.

Stakeholder Theory: A stakeholder is any individual or an organisation who is directly or indirectly

affects a family business. The stakeholders are usually impacted or impacted by the outcomes of the
firms, for instance, the government, Omani society, expatriate workforce and ecology in general. For
this chapter, we are more interested in the external stakeholder of the family business firm; thus, we
may not be discussing employees, organisational culture and other stakeholders contributing for the
internal business environment of the firm.
Technological Environment: This factor environment for business refers to the state of technological
developments such as the rate of technological advancement - for instance, 5G- Mobile Technology
– a fifth-generation standard for a broadband cellular network like Omantel in Oman.

GCC: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional union of Persian-Gulf region with common
economic and political interests. The GCC was created on May 25, 1981, and six Arabian states are
included, i.e. United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Table 2: Validity of instruments

Variable CR AVE MSV ASV

1. Technological Environment 0.91 0.56 0.18 0.10
2. Political and Legal Environment 0.91 0.69 0.28 0.06
3. Business Infodemic 0.86 0.56 0.537 0.17
4. Social and Cultural Environment 0.86 0.61 0.289 0.14
5. Innovation Performance 0.93 0.70 0.287 0.09
6. Commerce 0.93 0.68 0.283 0.14
7. Analysis of the Business 0.899 0.642 0.537 0.145
Environment
Note:
Threshold of Convergent validity: AVE > .50; Discriminant validity: AVE > MSV; Convergent Reliability ≥ .70;
CR = Composite Reliability. AVE = Average Variance Extracted. MSV = Maximum Shared Variance. ASV = Average
Squared Shared Variance

Table 3. Correlations and Descriptive

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Technological 3.18 0.66 1
Environment
2. Political and Legal 2.70 0.97 0.16* 1
Environment
3. Business 2.08 0.76 -0.31** .51** 1
Infodemic
4. Social 3.66 0.74 0.39** .07 -.17** 1
Environment
5. Innovation 3.93 0.55 0.35** .08 -.11+ .49** 1
Performance
6. Commerce 3.94 0.54 0.22** .10 -.13* .44** .46** 1
7. ABE (Control) 3.83 0.61 0.10 .08 -.09 .40** .43** .65** 1
Note: Analysis of the Business Environment (ABE); n=128**p < 0.01; *p < 0.05.,+ p < 0.10
Table 4. Direct Impact of Environmental Factors

Variable Name Model 1 Model 2

1. Technological Environment 0.16* 0.01

2. Business Infodemic -0.27*** 0.01
3. Political and Legal Environment 0.07 0.11+
4. Social and Cultural Environment 0.10 0.10+
 Controls
1. Industry (Oil and Gas / Tourism) -0.03 -0.10
2. Firm Size 0.07 0.04
3. Generation -0.01 0.00
4. Family CEO 0.01 .11
5. ABE -.069 0.54***
Model Specification
R2 0.19 0.46
Adjusted R2 0.16 0.44
F-test 5.88*** 21.13***
Note: +p <.10 ; *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.
Model 1: Innovation Performance (dependent variable); Model 2: Commerce (dependent variable). N =128.

Table 5. Business Infodemic as Moderator

Variable Name Model 1A Model 1B

1. BI X Technological Environment -.47** -.48**

3. BI X Political and Legal Environment .17 0.16
3. BI X Social and Cultural Environment -.09* -.08**
Controls
1. Industry (Oil and Gas / Tourism) -0.07 -
2. Firm Size 0.11 -
3. Generation 0.01 -
4. Family CEO 0.01 -
Model Specification
R2 0.15 0.13
Adjusted R2 0.12 0.12
F-Test 4.99*** 8.99**
Note: +p <.10; *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.
Innovation Performance (dependent variable); N =128.
Business Infodemic (BI)

Table 6. Business Infodemic as Moderator

Variable Name Model 2A Model 2B

1. BI X Technological Environment .08 .08

3. BI X Political and Legal Environment .27** .24**
3. BI X Social and Cultural Environment .34*** .37***
Controls
1. Industry (Oil and Gas / Tourism) .047 -
2. Firm Size .030 -
3. Generation .087+ -
4. Family CEO -.061 -
Model Specification
R2 .43 .42
Adjusted R2 .41 .414
 F-Test 21.13*** 41.05***
Note: +p <.10; *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001.
Commerce (dependent variable). N =128.

APPENDIX 1
Table 1: Descriptive characteristics of the sample

Variable Percentage %
1-50 59.0
51-100 19.2
Size of the Family firm 101-150 05.1
(Number of Employees) 151-200 01.3
>200 15.4

>40 07.7
31-40 10.3
21-30 12.8
Family Firm’s Age
11-20 12.8
5-10 25.6
<5 30.8
Family CEO 96.2
Independent CEO Nonfamily CEO 03.8

1 46.1
Generations involved in
2 43.6
the same family business
3 10.3
Below 25% 09.0
Family members ratio in 26-50% 09.0
corporate board 51-75% 20.5
76-100% 61.5
YES 41.0
An old employee as a
NO 59.0
board Member
Female 7.7
Gender
Male 92.3

APPENDIX 2
 Source: Basco et al. (2020: pages 16, 36 and 55)

ENDNOTES
i
Statistics https://www.gccstat.org/ lasted accessed on November 11, 2020
ii
Omani Leader https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/11/sultan-of-oman-dies-state-media-announces lasted
accessed on November 11, 2020
iii
Gulf economy and Kuwait https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/09/30/the-death-of-kuwaits-emir-
robs-the-gulf-of-a-real-diplomat lasted accessed on November 11, 2020