Background: Saudi Arabia has taken unprecedented and stringent preventive and precautionary measures against COVID-19 to control its spread, safeguard citizens and ensure their well-being. Public adherence to preventive measures is influenced by their knowledge and attitude toward COVID-19. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the Saudi public, toward COVID-19, during the pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, using data collected via an online self-reported questionnaire, from 3,388 participants. To assess the differences in mean scores, and identify factors associated with knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19, the data were run through univariate and multivariable regression analyses, respectively. Results: The majority of the study participants were knowledgeable about COVID-19. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score was 17.96 (SD = 2.24, range: 3-22), indicating a high level of knowledge. The mean score for attitude was 28.23 (SD = 2.76, range: 6-30), indicating optimistic attitudes. The mean score for practices was 4.34 (SD = 0.87, range: 0-5), indicating good practices. However, the results showed that men have less knowledge, less optimistic attitudes, and less good practice toward COVID-19, than women. We also found that older adults are likely to have better knowledge and practices, than younger people. Conclusions: Our finding suggests that targeted health education interventions should be directed to this particular vulnerable population, who may be at increased risk of contracting COVID-19. For example, COVID-19 knowledge may increase significantly if health education programs are specifically targeted at men.

Without sustainability TQM initiatives are usually doomed to fail. The essence of TQM is continuity over time and integration of quality management initiatives into daily organizational operations. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to define what are the key priority elements of TQM on which companies need to focus and to present an evaluation tool based on these key elements that can be used to assess the extent of progress of TQM. The tool encompasses ISO 9000 as well as TQM elements, bearing in mind that they should complement rather than conflict with each other. The research context is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a less developed country where the issue of sustainability is even more crucial than in fully industrialised countries.

This study identifies the costs, benefits and the satisfaction level with ISO 9000 implementation in Saudi Arabian firms. A survey of 140 ISO 9000 certified manufacturing companies was carried out. The results suggest that these manufacturing companies were satisfied with ISO 9000 as far as the benefits gained from certification and its costs were concerned. They considered the benefits of ISO 9000 certification to exceed the costs of attaining the standards, and believed that ISO 9000 contributed to organisational survival and success.

This research aimed at assessing the factors influencing the implementation of ISO 14001 in Saudi Arabia. For this purpose, primary data were collected using a survey questionnaire that was administered to a representative sample of companies in the Jeddah area. The results indicate that the main drivers behind the adoption of the ISO 14001 standard among Saudi companies are corporate image, status, and to some extent the improvement of environmental performance. Hence, the findings suggest that a legitimacy-based model best fits Saudi companies. However, the study also reveals that there are important barriers hindering the adoption of the standard. Among these, the lack of government support and appropriate legislation together with limited pressure from stakeholders as well as the certification costs involved and the huge amount of documentation required are the most prominent. This explains the low number of certified companies in Saudi Arabia. Overall, the study reveals that companies are less likely to voluntarily consider adopting the standard and that the government should develop strategies, policy reforms and incentive schemes to reduce the barriers to implementing ISO 14001.

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