In the maritime industry, most perceptions, frameworks and methodologies of dealing with hazards are for their risk assessment rather than their risk management. This tendency discloses the reality that within the maritime sectors in areas like shipping, logistics, oil and gas there is a lack of coherent Quantitative Risk Management (QRM) methodology from which to understand the risk-based decisions especially for appropriate risk management such as in seaports’ terminals. Therefore, in this paper initially, during priority assessment of the identified hazards, Fuzzy Set Theory was applied to handle imprecision of the uncertain risk-based statistics to get an accurate result. In the next stage, Fuzzy Fault Tree and Fuzzy Event Tree methods were used to achieve the sequence of quantitative risk analysis. In the final step, a Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution tool was used for the implementation of the mitigation phase to complete and conclude the proposed QRM cycle.

Service quality of any institution is a pull factor for attracting and retaining the customer. The present study examines the customer satisfaction level toward the quality of service offered by the Islamic banks in Oman. It also aims to find out which dimension influences customer satisfaction more concerning the other dimension chosen for the study. To fulfil the need of the study, a structured questionnaire is distributed amongst 100 customers of Islamic banks. The random stratified sampling technique is used for the collection of the data. The collected data is analyzed using the correlation and the multiple linear regression techniques. The result of the study indicates that timely service provided by the banking personnel has a mean score of 4.57, bank staff readiness to serve the customer has a mean score of 4.36, and the security of the banking operation has a mean score of 4.37 occupies the highest rank in their respective dimension chosen for the study. The study reveals that all three dimensions of quality of service represented by Services Reliability, Services Responsiveness and Services Security have a positive and significant correlation with customer satisfaction. The regression results also indicate that all three dimensions influence customer satisfaction of the Islamic banks.

Internationalization of SMEs has gathered pace in recent times with falling trade barriers and rising world trade encouraging small firms to seek profits and growth in foreign markets. This has attracted the attention of researchers, and several studies have been conducted in Western nations on the factors influencing the process of SME internationalization. However, hardly any study has been done on SME internationalization in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) region, thus leaving a gap in the literature. This study investigates the influence of four factors, namely, human capital, network competency, entrepreneurial orientation, and market volatility on the degree of internationalization of SMEs in Oman. The study employs survey data collected from 150 SME owners and managers using a structured questionnaire having 27 items, and has been analyzed using correlation and logistic regression, as the dependent variable is binary in nature. The results reveal the impact of the chosen variables on the degree of internationalization of SMEs. The findings of the study suggest that network competency has the highest impact on degree of internationalization of Omani SMEs, followed by human capital and entrepreneurial orientation, while market volatility, though insignificant, moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and degree of internationalization of Omani SMEs.

It is undisputable that crude oil and its price fluctuations are major components that affect most of the countries’ economies. Recent studies have demonstrated that beside the impact that crude oil price fluctuations have on common macroeconomic indicators like gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rates, exchange rates, unemployment rate, etc., it also has a strong influence on stock markets and their performance. This relationship has been examined in a number of settings, but it is yet to be unraveled in the Omani context. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to examine the possible effect of the oil price fluctuations on stock price movements. The study applies Toda and Yamamoto’s (1995) Granger non-causality test on the daily Oman stock index (Muscat Securities Market Index) and oil prices between the period of 2 January 2003 and 13 March 2016. The results indicated that the oil price fluctuations have a significant impact on stock index movements. However, the stock price movements do not have a significant impact on oil prices. These findings have significant implications not only for the Omani economy but also for the economy of similar countries, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The latter should carefully consider their policies and strategies regarding crude oil production and the generated income allocation as it might potentially affect the financial markets performance in these countries.