4 Dissertationen und Habilita- tionen / Dissertations and Habilitations

VORTRÄGE 18. DAVO-KONGRESS PAPERS DAVO CONGRESS 2011
games. This paper focuses on the production side of
these popular Arab games and is based on interviews
with key Arab game developers, alongside with content
analysis of more than twenty games produced in
the Arab world in 2005 – 2011. It particularly discusses
how the producers negotiate with their Western
counterparts, global market, as well as the expectation
of the Arab audiences when producing what they consider
as the authentic visual representation of their
own history and culture.
7. Women in Business
Anja Zorob and Heba Amr Hussein (Berlin): Arab
Business Women in the Media – An Overview
Academic research on Arab Business Women has
mainly focused to date on their roles in the economies
of the region and on the relevant ways of how to
strengthen their contribution to growth, development
and job creation. Less attention has been given to the
function of female entrepreneurs in the political and
social contexts of their home countries and, in particular,
on their standing or ‘acceptance’ as actors in
economy and society.
This is all the more surprising as government policies
as well as initiatives ‘from below’ promoting
women at work and in business seem to meet with
significant resistance in different parts of society. In
order to fill this gap the paper aims to discover how
female entrepreneurs are portrayed in the regional and
national media which itself witnessed a substantial
development in recent years with regard to number of
outlets, ownership, coverage and diversity of opinions.
It tries to explore what kind of images of business
women are reproduced in the media and what
functions those modes of representation aim to fulfill.
In their computer assisted qualitative data analysis of
media outlets the authors concentrated on a selection
of Arab countries distinguished by different backgrounds
and policies towards women in general and
female entrepreneurs in specific.
For all countries selected the authors´ sample comprised
of two most prominent and/or newspapers with
the largest readership covering one ‘governmentowned’
and one ‘independent’ or ‘oppositional’ daily
newspaper. In addition, the authors included in each
country’s sample a national business magazine and an
English language newspaper in order to capture as
broad as possible the dominating discourses on female
entrepreneurs in the public sphere. The analysis of
how female entrepreneurs are framed and categorized
in the media is accompanied by an overview of government
policies as well as civil society organization’s
campaigns in the countries concerned and complemented
by background data on the selected media
outlets.
Beverly D. Metcalfe (Manchester): Gender, Development
and Entrepreneurship in the Arab Gulf
Women’s entrepreneurship as a field of social science
inquiry has tended to be addressed as a global universal
issue relevant for all states. The paper advances’
new knowledge of Arab Middle East women and entrepreneurship
by focusing on the cultural nuances
and institutional systems of different Arab states. The
paper critically examines the importance of women’s
entrepreneurship development in the Arab Middle
East. It provides a synthesis of literature and information
available on the potential for growth in women's
business and the barriers that women entrepreneurs
and investors face, in addition to those that are
common to all investors in the economy. Its aim is to
open the debate on the untapped potential of women's
economic contribution as entrepreneurs, investors,
and producers in the region.
Women’s entrepreneurship deals with both the situation
of women in society and the role of entrepreneurship
in that same society. The author is therefore
dealing both with the factors that affect the gender
system and the factors that affect entrepreneurship in
society. The paper reviews the specific cultural and
social reasons for women’s exclusion from the public
realm in Arab states that impact entrepreneurial activity.
This highlights one must consider the diversity
and heterogeneity amongst Arab states.
The paper also provides critical overviews of public
policy initiatives that can engender support for women’s
development as well as relevant strategy
measures to expand women’s development that align
with Arab cultural values. In addition, the paper highlights
the significance of women’s organisations in
facilitating entrepreneurial growth, in terms of human
development initiatives that focus on training, literacy
and employment rights awareness. Overall it is suggested
that opportunities for entrepreneurship can
give voice to women in the decision making realm
and lead to the enhancements of women’s subjective
agency positions premised on women’s social identity
underscored by women’s Islamic interests and cultural
values.
Sharifa al-Yahyai (Muscat): Omani Business
Women’s Opportunities and Challenges
First of all, investigating business women' achievements
and challenges is a global issue. Women’s
rights are slowly coming to the attention of maledominated
societies in cultures around the world.
Even in developed countries, laws are not sufficient to
end various forms of discrimination against women.
Therefore, the paper attempts to shed light upon the
current status of modern Omani business women;
their achievements as well as challenges in general
and social and personal in particular. Secondly, Omani
women in general were widely empowered before
modern laws, as the Omani traditional society was
more moderate and open-minded than the present especially
when it comes to men-women merge. In the
past, women were exclusively involved with social
participation equally with men in building their voices
and shaping their identities. This is due to Omani society
which traditionally promotes partnership and social
responsibility as women derive their status from
her family and her primary role to maintain her family
as a social institution and economic entity.
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