The strategy of successful relationship marketing and customer focus are instrumental to domestic and global business growth. Many domestic companies face the dilemma of launching global-based operations while competing with the growth of indigenous competitors. The strong influence of native competitors in foreign markets necessitates a multinational company to develop a marketing strategy that would offer the firm a culturally diversified global market advantage. Many companies do not succeed in international markets, but most can succeed with the awareness of effective strategic leadership, marketing and cultural competence needed to be successful in international business environment. Key Words: Business, Strategic, Leadership, Marketing, Culture.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study related to the negative impacts of gold mining in the Amazon. The case describes the concept of the resource curse syndrome to explain why the negative costs of gold mining in the Amazon could outweigh the positive benefits. Environmental and human rights issues that are discussed in the case study include: the use of mercury in the mining process; deforestation; the impact on indigenous people and the use of child labor. Key Words: Gold Mining, Amazon, Human Rights, Environmental Issues, Resource Curse Syndrome.

This study aimed to investigate commercial banks use of decision support systems to achieve marketing creativity. The study’s population consisted from all the commercial banks operating in Jordan, totaling (19) banks according to the records of the Central bank of Jordan. To achieve the study’s objectives, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to (19) marketing managers in the aforementioned banks. All the questionnaire forms were collected from the marketing managers. However, 5 questionnaire forms were disregarded, so (14) questionnaire forms were used for statistical analysis. Thus, the response rate was (73.7%). The following results were concluded by the researcher: 1)The commercial banks use of the decision support system contributed to achieving marketing creativity. 2)There are no differences that are considered statistically significant in the role of commercial banks use of the decision support system in achieving marketing creativity, which can be attributed to the marketing manager’s qualifications. 3) There are no differences that are considered statistically significant in the role of commercial banks use of the decision support systems in achieving marketing creativity, which can be attributed to the marketing manager’s practical experience. The researcher believed that there is a need for keeping up with the developments that concern decision support systems in a way that enables commercial banks to increase their efficiency in using these systems to achieve marketing creativity. Key Words: Decision Support System, Innovation, Creativity, Marketing Creativity, Commercial Banks.

This study aims to identify the significance of information technologies and their impact on the marketing performance of Jordanian business organizations. For this purpose, a research model incorporating information technology use, sales, market share and marketing performance has been proposed. A questionnaire has been developed to examine the hypotheses based on the literature review. The initial survey was pretested and evaluated by a panel of experts in marketing and IT in order to assess the validity of each construct. The data was collected from (66) business organizations (industrial and service) in the area of Amman, Jordan. The results of the study indicated a statistically significant correlation between the independent and dependent constructs of the study. The paper additionally employs Ortica applications. All the hypotheses of the study were accepted, there is a statistically significant correlation between the information technology use and improvement in marketing performance (market performance, sales, and market share) percentage. Key Words: Information Technology, Infrastructure, Knowledge, Information Systems, Marketing Performance.

This study aimed to assess the level of patient satisfaction in a private hospital. Satisfaction is an important factor for hospitals to gain a competitive advantage, and continued measure of the extent of satisfaction among patients is imperative. The study drew on published work since it adapted the SERVQUAL model to assess service quality dimensions. Data was collected from patients in three wards chosen by the researchers based on certain criteria. A total of 126 questionnaires was collected and analysed, and seven hypothesis statements tested. Findings have shown that there is a positive relationship between all five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model and patient satisfaction. However, there was no relationship between socio-demographic variables and satisfaction. Since data was collected from one hospital in a big city, the results may not be generalised to other towns. The SERVQUAL instrument is suitable for use in the hospital environment, but only to measure the functional component of quality. Therefore, the findings of this study are important for managers in private hospitals to point out the factors that carry most weight in determining patient satisfaction. Key Words: Private Health Care, Patient Satisfaction, SERVQUAL, South Africa.

The purpose of this study is to explore which leadership style/styles are suitable for universities in the light of governance principles. This study is a qualitative study based on literature review. About 2000 previous studies were collected, after screening them; only 200 were suitable to be used to fulfill the purpose of this study. The study concluded that there is no leadership style that can suite all organizations and industries, even can fit for one organization, because leadership style depend on leader, context, followers and culture. In universities at least three leadership styles can be used based on the leaders and followers whatsoever the context and culture: shared leadership style among the governance board members, transformational leadership style for academicians and mid-level management, and finally transactional leadership style for other workers who perform routine work. The study recommends using different styles based on leaders, context, culture and followers’ education, experience, position and readiness to be as team player. Key Words: Universities’ Leadership, Shared Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Governance Principles.

This paper elaborates about usury and its types in the era of Islam presence by applying documentation method, which is finding out the data related to the title of the study, that aims to know the definition of usury, the kinds of usury, how the perpetrators of usury before the arrival of Islam and how well usury laws in the age of the Islamic presence. Usury means to grow and to thrive. It is an addition to exchange one of the two similar goods. Generally, usury is defined as debts or borrowing money or goods are accompanied by additional interest. Usury consists of two types; they are nasi’ah usury (debt context), and fadhl usury (sale and purchase context). Nasi’ah usury refers to additional requirements from the person who gave the debt to take additional payment as the postponement from the one who has a debt. Meanwhile, fadhl usury is to sell (or change) money with money or food to food, with additions.The writers use historical and theological approach. The results showed that the things that lead to usury (riba) is about buying and selling goods, borrowing money, the exchanging of goods, as well as to know the law of devour the usury or the using of usury are so-calledas haraam (forbidden). The implication of this research is Muslims must be careful in debts, buying and selling, as well as the exchange of goods accompanied by additional interest. In the world, people are perpetrators of usury although they invisibly have wealth;sometimes people’s heart will not be peaceful. In other words, having a lot of wealth is not a blessing but it makes so greedy and never satisfied with what they got. Key Words: Usury, Types of Ususry, The Presence of Islamic Era.

This study focused on gender discrimination on workplace and argued two main research questions, first whether organizational injustice and work/life balance issues considerably affect women advancement career in the form of glass ceiling effect and second, whether both organizational injustice and work/life balance issues leads to increase women turnover intention to job due to managerial pressure for the specific job tasks in the form of glass cliff. These questions addressed in this study by collecting responses from working women in different industries of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The results of step-wise regression for glass ceiling effect indicate that organizational justice and women job experience both are the significant contributor to women advancement career in an organization. The results of binary-logit regression effect for glass cliff effect confirmed that work/life balance issues, marital status, women job experience, and income are the chief contributing factor that affects women advancement career. The study concludes with food-for-thoughts for the feminist scholars and human right activists to play their role to reduce gender discrimination on workplace and formulate gendered based policies that should be based on equity and justice in an organization. Key Words: Gender Ceiling, Gender Cliff, Organizational Justice, Work/Life Balance Issue, Demographic Factors, Regression.

This paper investigates the possible short-run and long-run causal relationships between foreign workers' remittances and financial development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a major labor-hosting, remittance-sending country. The research methodology utilizes the Johansen Cointegration approach, Vector Error Correction (VECM) mechanisms, and the Toda-Yamamoto to estimate specified and appropriate model to examine the causal relationships between variables appearing in the model using annual data covering the period 1971-2013. The study utilizes three conventional financial indicators as proxies for financial development; respectively being the ratio of broad money to GDP (m2gdp), the ratio of banks' deposits to GDP (depgdp), and the ratio of claims of banks on private sector to GDP (clpgdp). The cointegration test results revealed the existence of long-run relationships among variables. The long-run estimation results show that remittances are pro-cyclical increasing during booms and declining during recessions. Interest rates turn out to have the expected inverse relationship with remittances, while results pertaining to financial development indicate that the alternative financial development proxies have similar negative impacts on the flows of remittances from Saudi Arabia. The Toda-Yamamoto causality procedure shows the existence of bidirectional causality between remittances, m2gdp and clpgdp but unidirectional causality running from remittances to depgdp. A policy recommendation derivable from these results is the need for more innovations in the financial sector of KSA to slow the flow of remittances and to direct them towards domestic investment opportunities instead of the current existing competition between domestic financial institutions in offering innovations that would hasten and increase these outflows. Key Words: KSA, Financial Development, Remittances, Granger Causality, Cointegration Test, Ksa, Toda-Yamamoto Causality.

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypotheses that relations between organizational learning culture, developmental feedback and career satisfaction in the manufacturing organizations. A sample of 155 engineers was drawn from two major manufacturing organizations located in the Northern Malaysia. Participation in the research was voluntary and data were gathered by means of a survey questionnaire. Multiple regression results provided support for the direct impact of organizational learning culture and developmental feedback on the engineer’s career satisfaction. Key implications of the survey findings both of the theory and practice are discussed, potential limitations are specified, and directions for future research are suggested. Key Words: Engineers, Career Satisfaction, Manufacturing, Malaysia.