Webinar 1 – january 16, 2024

Dr Sumaya’s participation in the MENAGEN MPP 2021-22 resulted in a single-authored publication in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (ERD) titled “Women Entrepreneurs in the Gulf States: Taking stock and moving forward,” recognized by the ERD Editors as The Bold Type: Junior Scholars’ Initiative. During the webinar, Dr. Sumaya provided enlightening insights drawn from her recent publication in ERD, and Professor Natalia Vershinina provided guidance on reviewing for academic journals. 

Presenter: Dr Sumaya Hashim

Dr. Sumaya Hashim is an Assistant Professor at Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, where she also earned her Ph.D. Her research focuses on women’s entrepreneurship and family business in the GCC. Her scholarly contributions are featured in journals like Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, the Journal of Family Business Strategy, and the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. Dr Hashim’s international experience includes roles at AlFaisal University in Saudi Arabia and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, across both Bahrain and Ireland campuses.

MENAGEN MPP Mentor: Professor Natalia Vershinina

Natalia Vershinina is a Full Professor of Entrepreneurship at Audencia Business School in Nantes, France. She started her academic career at Leicester Business School, De Montfort University and also worked for University of Birmingham in the UK. Natalia has researched how entrepreneurship intersects with ethnicity, gender, class and family business contexts and her latest work is on effect of regulation on small firms; impact of online communities for development of confidence and legitimacy amongst women; and finally transitions to self-employment and entrepreneurship of women in couples. She is currently a Chair of the ECSB Gender and Entrepreneurship Special Interest Group, a member of ECSB Board and trustee of ISBE. She is an Associate Editor for Journal of Business Research, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, and International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior Research. She is the incoming Co-Editor in Chief of Gender, Work & Organization Journal.

Webinar 2 – february 21, 2024

Presented by

Dr. Sara Alshareef & Professor Haya Al-Dajani

Dr. Sara and Professor Haya’s recent case study publication at Sage Business Cases (2024), narrates a real-life case of how daughters are leading family firms in Saudi Arabia. The case study was developed from Dr Sara and Professor Haya’s research collaboration exploring how daughters in Saudi Arabian family firms are conquering gendered constraints. The aim of the webinar was to illuminate the process of crafting and publishing case studies addressing gender and entrepreneurship issues, and to emphasize the integration of such real-life scenarios into entrepreneurship education. They discussed the seamless connection between research and teaching, and how such case studies can bridge theoretical concepts with practical, real-world applications from ‘under-published’ contexts such as Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations.

Presenter: Dr Sara Alshareef

Dr Sara Alshareef is an Affiliate Professor at FAU and a Faculty Member at Quantic School of Business and Technology. She serves as the Co-chair of the Middle East and North Africa Gender and Enterprise Network. Additionally, Sara’s research focuses on women’s entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia. She has published journal articles, book chapters, and case studies. She also received an award for excellence in cross-cultural research (GLOBE) in 2021.

MENAGEN MPP Mentor: Professor Haya Al-Dajani

Haya is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the EMBA Signature Learning Experience at the Mohammed Bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship (MBSC) in Saudi Arabia. Her award winning research centers upon women’s entrepreneurship in the Arab world. She is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behaviour and Research, and Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. She is also a member of the Editorial Boards of several other leading entrepreneurship journals. Haya is co-founder and co-chair of the Gender and Enterprise Network and its affiliate in the Arab world, the Middle East and North Africa Gender and Enterprise Network (MENAGEN).

Webinar 3 – March 19, 2024

Presented by
Beverly J. Best & Professor Dilani Jayawarna

The presenters focused on female entrepreneurship, digital enterprising and the relevance of context in entrepreneurship research. The Heightened importance of the role of female entrepreneurship in driving the growth and development agenda, as well as the recent accelerated and pervasive digitization trends in businesses have sparked global interests in the effects of digital technologies on sustainable venturing. Yet, the interlinkages between digital technologies and entrepreneurial transformation for female entrepreneurs remained under-researched. 

The study examined how digital technologies enabled or constrained the transformation and sustainable development of female entrepreneurship in the Caribbean region. The Caribbean, which mostly comprises Small Island Developing States, provided an interesting setting for novel contextual perspectives; particularly in light of calls to expand the spatial boundaries of entrepreneurial research to consider empirical data from countries of the Global South. The research revealed that the way in which digital technologies impacted gender inequality and bias in female entrepreneurship in the Caribbean lent itself to cultivating openings for highlighting critical sensitivities and assumptions of a digital economy that were interlinked to the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Presenter: Beverly Best

Beverly J. Best is a 3rd year PhD scholar at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde. Her research project focuses on how digital technologies impact female entrepreneurship in developing countries. Beverly is enthusiastic about the prospects of her research contributing to the unique policy space of developing countries, such as those of the Caribbean given the overall strategic alignment of the topic to the UN-SDGs 5, 8 and 10. Moreover, she is keen on undertaking studies that will impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of an under-researched region and help to broaden the scholarship on female entrepreneurship in the Global South.

MENAGEN MPP Mentor: Dilani Jayawarna 

Dilani Jayawarna is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Liverpool Management School, University of Liverpool. She has a wide range of research interests in business management in general and small firm and entrepreneurship in particular. Her current research focuses on business start-ups and modelling entrepreneurial life course using longitudinal data from secondary data sources. Related research interests are in the fields of social entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship and resourcing entrepreneurial ventures.

Webinar 4 – May 16, 2024

Presented by

Dr Sally Shamieh & Professor Hayfaa Tlaiss

Dr. Sally Shamieh and Professor Hayfaa Tlaiss presented a webinar focusing on their research titled ‘Arab Women Entrepreneurs and Resilience in Contexts and at Times of Compounded Crises’. Their research examined the resilience of women entrepreneurs in Lebanon amid ongoing compounded economic, political, social, and humanitarian crises. By drawing on individual narratives with Lebanese women entrepreneurs, they explored how their resilience unfolded at the intersection of their own resilience, familial resilience, and enterprise resilience. Their findings shed light on the influence of gendered expectations and socio-cultural values on the strategies the women mobilized to achieve their resilience, thus further highlighting the importance of contextualizing our understanding of the phenomenon of resilience and its embedded nature. This research contributed to studies on entrepreneurial resilience and women’s entrepreneurship in crisis contexts, and aided in the development of theory by demonstrating how Arab women entrepreneurs’ resilience occurred at the juncture of compounded crises, patriarchy, sociocultural values, and gender ideologies.

Presenter: Sally Shamieh

Dr. Sally Shamieh is an Associate Researcher and Project Manager at the CRED Research Center, ESA Business School in Beirut, and the founder & CEO of Maverick Partners, a consultancy firm based in Dubai. With over 15 years in consulting and academia, she specializes in entrepreneurship, sustainability, and gender issues. Her work spans multiple roles including social expert and academic consultant. Dr. Shamieh holds a DBA from SBS Swiss Business School and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Kansas. She also leads Heart of Rachaya, an NGO focused on social development in rural Lebanon.

MENAGEN MPP Mentor: Hayfaa Tlaiss

Dr. Hayfaa Tlaiss is Visiting Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. Her scholarly interests occur at the nexus of fostering inclusive working environments that embrace equality, diversity, and inclusivity, and on understanding how marginalized groups, especially women in the Arab world, forge through multi-level institutional challenges to advance their entrepreneurship and professional careers. Her research has been published in Financial Times Top 50 journals and other top-tier journals including Human Relations, Human Resource Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, International Small Business Management and others.

Webinar 5 – June 5, 2024

Presented by

Dr Sally Jones

Dr. Sally Jones have presented an insightful session on gender theory and how to develop theoretical contributions in academic research. This presentation addressed the essence of what constitutes a theoretical contribution and how gender theories can fortify this aspect of scholarly work.

The session proved particularly beneficial for researchers aiming to publish in gender-focused journals such as Gender, Work and Organization (GWO), Gender and Society, and the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (IJGE). Dr. Jones provided valuable guidance on embedding a strong theoretical foundation in gender theory, which is crucial for authors submitting gender and entrepreneurship papers to broader academic journals. Overall, the session enhanced participants’ understanding of integrating gender theory into their research, laying the groundwork for future projects with a gender focus.

Presenter: Dr Sally Jones

Sally is a Reader in Entrepreneurship and Gender Studies at MMU. She is also co-founder and Chair of the Gender and Enterprise Network (GEN), an international community advancing scholarship on women’s enterprise and the gendering of small enterprise. She currently holds a Leverhulme International Fellowship, focused on gender and ecosystem research in Scandinavia. Her research interests include critical, qualitative approaches to women’s leadership and entrepreneurship/self-employment policy and practice. She has published widely in high impact entrepreneurship and gender journals.

Webinar 6 – June 11, 2024

Presented by

Dr Debashish Sengupta

Dr. Debashish (Deb) Sengupta has presented a compelling webinar on the entrepreneurial intentions of Bahraini female university business students. This research utilized the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to critically analyze the varying entrepreneurial intentions among these students.

The study identified three distinct types of entrepreneurial intentions: Doers, Procrastinators, and Abstainers. Despite the students sharing similar cultural and economic backgrounds, as well as access to the same university facilities, curriculum, and lecturers, significant variations in their entrepreneurial intentions were observed. This raised an intriguing question: What causes these differences in entrepreneurial intentions among students with such similar profiles?

According to Ajzen (1991), entrepreneurial intention post-graduation is a strong predictor of whether students will pursue entrepreneurial ventures. This finding is particularly relevant in Bahrain, where females constitute approximately 49.4% of citizens and 38% of the overall population. Understanding what shapes the entrepreneurial intentions of female university students can significantly enhance Bahrain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, encouraging more female entrepreneurs to emerge. The insights from this research are valuable for various stakeholders. Universities can use these findings to improve their entrepreneurship curricula and co-curricular offerings, as suggested by Darwish et al. (2022). Policymakers can implement changes and introduce provisions to support and encourage female student entrepreneurs. Additionally, other stakeholders can develop empowering systems that nurture entrepreneurial intentions among female students.

This webinar highlighted the importance of understanding the underlying factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions and provided actionable recommendations to foster a more inclusive and supportive entrepreneurial environment in Bahrain.

Presenter: Dr. Debashish Sengupta

Dr. Debashish (Deb) Sengupta is presently working as Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at University of Portsmouth, London. He was mentored by Dr Sally Jones during the MENAGEN MPP 2023-24, whilst he was employed at the Royal University for Women in Bahrain. He is recipient of the Best Research Project Award (2022-23) in the Kingdom of Bahrain and also the winner of the Business Book of the Year Award (2018) for his Stanford University featured research and book on millennials. Deb’s research is on Young People at Work and his research and consulting work has helped many corporations in India, Dubai, UK and US. He has presented in his research work in conferences like the DIRC and EURAM.