This study aims to analyze crowdfunding’s economic success in the Gulf region as the Crowdfunding (CF) experience and practice in this part of the world tend to be unexplored in terms of research. In particular, the study examines whether the adoption of entrepreneurial finance (EF) principles in crowdfunding platforms affects the economic success of funding and entrepreneurs’ ability in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to access financial resources. The study uses an online questionnaire survey on Crowdfunding economic success in the GCC to collect information from the participants. Participants are investors, entrepreneurs, and startups from five Gulf countries (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and UAE) in addition to several Crowdfunding platforms commonly used by crowdfunders in this region (such as Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Eureeca, Beehive and GoFundMe) with total members (102964). Signaling theory and principle-agent theory combine to make a theoretical foundation that explains the relationship between funders and fundraisers. The pilot sample consisting of 10 units was used to validate and verify the research instrument of the study. The research sample consists of 1145 respondents (sample size n = 1145) selected randomly from the five Gulf countries included in the study. The findings reveal that CF’s presence positively impacts economic fundraising success and that crowdfunding platforms are an effective financial technology (Fintech) tool for financing entrepreneurs in the GCC. We conclude with recommendations for future EF and CF research. The findings of this study will have implications for improvements in practices of economic and finance. They may be used as a guide towards advancing the management and performance of the crowdfunding platforms in the Gulf region. Presently, a very few number of published research on crowdfunding exist in this region. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no single study investigating crowdfunding as an alternative financing source in the GCC.

https://doi.org/10.1177/18479790221074477

Predicting crowdfunding economic success in the gulf cooperation council

This fourth and final review into the Collins Class submarine sustainment program argues that submarine maintenance and availability has significantly improved. Summary This report revisits the sustainment environment 15 months on from our November 2012 Report to gauge progress along the transformation path. Previous phases of the Study were necessarily focused on the past much more than the future. The approach taken in this report is more forward-looking. It recognises that the sustainment business has embarked on a major transformation program towards benchmark performance as recommended in the Study, and that positive results have been achieved across the Enterprise. This report therefore investigates recent and projected future performance to make an assessment against the following themes: i. Current Collins Class sustainment performance ii. Likely trajectory towards benchmark performance iii. Prospects for making the transformation enduring. The review has also assessed progress against the 25 recommendations which we consider a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve and then sustain benchmark performance. The Enterprise has developed a Transformation Plan to address the entirety of changes that support the transformation, including many ‘tactical-level’ but nevertheless important initiatives. This review has considered the 25 recommendations and the underlying factors that contribute to good practice sustainment and the results achieved so far, but it has not considered each Transformation Plan tactical initiative in detail.

Study into the business of sustaining Australia’s strategic Collins Class submarine capability: progress review – March 2014

In view of increasing supply chain disruption events, for example the China–United States trade war, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia–Ukraine war, the complexity and dynamicity of global freight management keeps increasing. To build a resilient and sustainable supply chain, industrial practitioners are eager to systematically revamp the freight management decision process related to the selection of carriers, shipping lanes, and third-party logistics service providers. Therefore, this study aims at strengthening decision-making capabilities for global freight management, in which an industrial blockchain-based global freight decision framework (IB-GFDF) is proposed to incorporate consortium blockchain technology with the Bayesian best-worst method. Through the blockchain technology, pairwise comparisons can be conducted over the international freight network in a decentralized and immutable manner, and thus, a secure and commonly agreed-on pairwise comparison dataset is acquired. Subsequently, the pairwise comparison dataset with multi-stakeholder opinions is analyzed using the Bayesian best-worst method in order to prioritize the selection decision criteria related to carriers, shipping lanes, and 3PL service providers for global freight management. To verify the methodological feasibility, a case study of an Australian agricultural supply chain firm was conducted to support the development end-to-end (E2E) supply chain solutions originated from Australia. It was found that port infrastructure, ports of call and communication effectiveness were the major criteria for the selection decision, which can be emphasized in future global freight collaboration. In addition, an immutable and append-only record of pairwise comparisons can be established to support the visibility of time-varying stakeholders’ preferences.

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An Industrial Blockchain-Based Multi-Criteria Decision Framework for Global Freight Management in Agricultural Supply Chains

Major assets such as buildings, infrastructure and defence systems are long term investments that require many outsourced sustainment activities to maintain satisfactory performances over their ser...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/18479790211010125

Anthony Caporaso

Papers

Simulation analysis of engineering business process in asset sustainment activities based on total cost of ownership