Purpose -The purpose of the study is to examine whether there is a difference in the entrepreneurial intentions among male and female students in UAE. The study is extremely relevant and interesting since females in the UAE have a higher success rate in education but this has not been translated into comparable increases in employment rates. Given the social, cultural, and religious fabric of the country's indigenous society and the rising number of female graduates, this anomaly in the corporate sector might result in more female entrepreneurs in this part of the globe, as compared to the rest of the world.Design/methodology/approach -The research studies a sample of first year business students from the United Arab Emirates, namely Dubai Men's College and Dubai Women's College. The primary survey was a part of an international study involving 12 universities in Europe, Middle East and Australia. A five-point Likert scale was used for each question and dummy variables were computed based on the scores. The authors used a multivariable econometric model to assess the statistical significance of the determinants of entrepreneurial attitudes. The empirical assessment of the students' entrepreneurial propensity was based on the estimation of a logistic regression. Findings -The authors' results show that male and female students were equally strong in terms of their propensity to become future entrepreneurs. Female respondents showed higher risk-taking behavior than males, which was contradictory to past research findings that have typically found females to be more conservative in risk-taking than males. The estimation results showed that the propensity of future entrepreneurship does not depend on gender -it depended on factors like creativity, motivation and awareness. This is a very important result since the authors' sample does not follow the expected trend in the existing literature on gender differences and entrepreneurship propensities where a wide gender gap has been found.Originality/value -Both academia and practitioners have increased their efforts in promoting an entrepreneurial mindset within society. However, only a few studies have investigated entrepreneurial attitudes amongst students and no research studies have been conducted in the UAE. The authors' research fills this lacuna and shows that the efforts need to be directed towards nurturing the creativity and awareness of both male and female students for future business ventures.

The banking sector has seen major changes with advances in technology. Electronic financial transactions are gradually taking over traditional banking services in terms of transferring funds, utility payments, insurance premium, mortgages and even stock trading. Despite the widespread popularity of smartphones and the advantages of mobile banking, the adoption rates of the mobile apps have been very low all over the world. Our study explored the consumer acceptance of mobile apps in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by using a structured online questionnaire that was designed using standard variables from the Technology Acceptance Model. Principal component analysis was used to identify and score these factors for the subsequent categorical regression analysis. Consumers were assigned numerical categories depending on their level of usage of the app, and the CATREG nonlinear technique was used to determine the significance of technology acceptance factors. The results show that almost two-thirds of the sample were currently using Mobile Banking apps, and they predominantly belonged to the 30–40 age-group. Perceived usefulness and available information were identified as the main factors influencing acceptance and level of usage of mobile banking apps. This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by identifying consumers according to their level of usage and adopting the categorical regression model, which has not been attempted earlier. The results provide important insights for banking professionals in the UAE, in terms of marketing initiatives, information technology and customer service.

PurposePreparing today's students for success and eventual leadership in the new global marketplace is one of the most important responsibilities in education today. This study seeks to represent the first, in‐depth analysis of future entrepreneurs and to show that its results indicate that the investment in entrepreneurship education is valuable.Design/methodology/approachA primary survey was conducted among first‐year Business Studies students from Australia, Portugal, Finland, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, the UK and the UAE. There were a total of 860 students, of whom 510 were female respondents. A five‐point Likert scale was used for each question and mean scores were generated from the ranks.FindingsResults indicated that the majority of students possessed entrepreneurial attitudes. Furthermore, both student characteristics and entrepreneurial experience were found to be associated with certain entrepreneurial attitudes. The results show that the young female students in Dubai are positive regarding the role that universities can play in fostering their interest towards entrepreneurship, for their education and as the incubator for their new venture.Practical implicationsSignificant scope was found for promotion of entrepreneurship in the education system in the United Arab Emirates. Emirati female students showed a high inclination to become entrepreneurs, provided that they undertook a specialized entrepreneurial Business Program. This research shows that students have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship and it provides evidence, which urges action to advance entrepreneurship education globally.Originality/valueBoth academia and practitioners have increased their efforts in promoting an entrepreneurial mindset within society. However, only a few studies have investigated entrepreneurial attitudes among students. This research shows that students have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship and it provides evidence which urges action to advance entrepreneurship education globally.

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Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is becoming an increasingly popular tool for assessing the relative performance of industries and companies. By applying DEA theory to the non-financial sector, the relative efficiency of 27 listed corporations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been analyzed in this paper. The focus of the study has been on the impact of the financial crisis and the recovery thereafter. Further, the productivity change was decomposed into technical efficiency change and technological change by using the non-parametric Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) over the period from 2007 to 2014. Based on Malmquist analysis, we find that the most efficient industries during the post-crisis period were food and beverages, telecommunication and pharmaceuticals. In contrast, the sectors that were adversely affected by the crisis were services, real estate, construction and cements. The break-up of the TFP indicated that the efficiency indices in the top performing industries were driven by technological improvements or frontier effects. The top-performing companies in the UAE during the 2007-14 period demonstrated innovation-led growth, aided by the use of better technology, investments in capital equipment, and adoption of new production processes.