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The information and communication technology evolution is aggressively affecting the business world in the twenty‐first century. The magnitude of change in business development from a global perspective, unconstrained by time or distance barriers, has reached both developed and developing nations. E‐commerce currently represents 2 per cent of the global business transactions but promises to dominate the business environment during the course of the twenty‐first century. The successful presence of e‐commerce through the Internet has helped create low cost and high efficiency for product and service sales through a more dynamic and interactive venue of opportunities where the world becomes the marketplace.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of connective action characterised by interconnection and personal communication on social media (SM) for participating in collective action in the physical world of social movements.

A research model is developed integrating different modes of connective action into the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) to investigate pathways to participating in offline collective action (CA) from an individual perspective. Following a survey design approach, data collected from 194 respondents in the background of Egypt's social movements are examined using partial least squares (PLS) path modelling and mediation analyses.

The authors' main results reveal that interactive socialisation (IS) on SM provides an important momentum for the user to internalise (consume) and externalise (share) content online from a social learning perspective. In terms of translating these activities to participating in offline CA, the authors find support for two independent causal chains: An “instrumental” chain building on content externalisation (CE) and efficacy considerations and an “obligatory” chain based on content internalisation (CI) and collective identity.

The authors' results highlight the individual-level origins of offline mobilisation in social movements, which are not only grounded in social-psychology, but also develop out of interrelated connective actions supporting social learning. Prior work has mainly conceptualised the value of SM in social movements for online political communication. The authors' conceptualisation is novel in terms of integrating online and offline behaviours with social-psychological perspectives and the application with primary data in a protest movement context that heavily relied on connective actions for offline mobilisation.

Business schools are becoming invaluable platforms linking academia, business and industry. The constantly changing nature of markets requires a continuous and iterative dialog between business schools and other constituents including the government, the private sector and the civil society to guarantee that business and management education is catering for local and global market needs. The purpose of this paper is to address the growing role of business schools in transforming the society, building on the experience of the school of business of the American University in Cairo, and its impact in preparing the business leaders and entrepreneurs who can make a difference in society through rigorous and adaptive business and management education while addressing the elements of governance, accreditation, internationalization, and relevance, creativity and innovation in research.

In this study, desk research is coupled with sharing of the development of the accreditation journey of American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business and the lessons learned over the last 15 years.

While undergoing multiple accreditations, the school should effectively and efficiently manage the timeline, otherwise the maintenance of all accreditations could end up in one year, and that could be really challenging, a situation faced by the school during the academic year 2016–2017. While having a task force or a committee is mandatory, for the long-term development and sustainability of a continuous improvement culture, an office for academic assessment and accreditation is a must. For the school, the office helps create and embed the culture that accreditation is a journey and not a destination. Accreditation as a process should involve all school stakeholders on and off campus including faculty, staff, students, alumni, advisory boards, employers and the university administration; they should all be engaged and their buy-in through creating a sense of ownership and empowerment is invaluable. Throughout the accreditation journey, nothing is more important than communication, a school can never have enough of it. While the accreditation process needs a strong, transparent, effective leadership style, a bottom-up approach aligning and motivating the school’s different constituents is essential. For accreditation and continuous improvement to be sustainable, it should be driven and guided by a unified school-wide strategy addressing and catering to its different objectives. Accreditation is all about an invaluable triangle of building blocks, including an informed human capital, a respected and well-thought process and a timely, accurate and efficient wealth of data and knowledge about the school.

The limitations are primarily the focus on the case of Egypt and AUC School of Business. Obviously, there is no one size that fits all, but there are lessons learned that could be replicated and tested in business schools located in similar environments.

The study presents the experience of the governance model at AUC School of Business with both internal council of the school of business and external board of advisors.

The study presents the implications of the school on the society and the role, directions, guidelines that accreditation and continuous improvement introduce to the curriculum.

Historical background of business and management education at large in Egypt and Middle East North Africa is coupled with the overview of the school of business, sharing the challenges and opportunities of accreditation and continuous improvement.

The information and communication technology evolution is affecting many nations around the world and forcing changes to business and socio‐economic development plans, and reflecting major implications on the realization of the concept of globalization. Egypt, as a developing country with an economy in transition, started to invest in building its communication and information technology infrastructure since 1985 as a vital tool for development. This paper describes the emergence of e‐commerce in Egypt with a focus on the challenges faced that relate to a number of social, technological, financial and legal issues, and the road map formulated in collaboration between the government and the private sector to diffuse e‐commerce in Egypt.

Despite discussions of the increasingly global character of information systems (IS), IS research remains highly “Western‐centric” both in terms of its subjects of study and the nationalities of the authors. Researchers interested in IS in non‐Western settings are thus reliant on a fragmented and not easily accessible literature that presents a potentially distorted picture of IS practice in these regions. This paper explores this situation through an examination of the literature relating to IS in Egypt (both directly, but also as a Middle Eastern, Arab or Islamic country). A macro analysis of these studies indicates that they are predominantly positivistic in epistemology, quantitative in methodology and focused on economic development and national culture. Although many of the studies make comparisons with other countries in the region, the explicit, or sometimes implicit, point of reference is almost invariably with “the West”. This is repeated in a detailed analysis of individual studies. Implications of these findings for research on IS in non‐Western settings are discussed.

This paper examines the time-varying efficiency of nine major Middle East and North Africa (MENA) stock markets namely Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Morocco and Tunisia during times of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and vaccines.

The authors use two econometric approaches: (1) autocorrelation tests including the wild bootstrap automatic variance ratio test, the automatic portmanteau test and the Generalized spectral test, and (2) a non-Bayesian generalized least squares-based time-varying model with statistical inferences.

The results show that the degree of stock market efficiency of Egyptian, Bahraini, Saudi, Moroccan and Tunisian stock markets is influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Furthermore, the authors find a tendency toward efficiency in most of the MENA markets after the announcement of the COVID-19's vaccine approval. Finally, the Jordanian, Omani, Qatari and UAE stock markets remain globally efficient during the three sub-periods of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

The results have important implications for asset allocations and financial risk management. Portfolio managers may maximize the benefit of arbitrage opportunities by taking strategic long and short positions in these markets during downward trend periods. Policymakers should implement the action plans and reforms to protect the stock markets from global shocks and ensure the stability of the stock markets.

This paper aims at studying earnings management phenomenon in its wider social and economic context to get better understanding for the following points: whether there is “one-size-fits-all” earning management approach which can be widespread applied among nations and whether the Egyptian context affects managers’ trade-off between three different earnings management approaches: accounting, operational and investment.

The paper adopts interpretive approach and analyses data from official documents and 34 interviews with company executives; financial analysts; external auditors; and Stock Exchange regulators to inform our understanding of the influence of the Egyptian context on the trade-off between earnings management approaches.

The results show that there is no application for “one-size-fits-all” earning management approach; unlike the developed cultures, where R&D expenses and overproduction are extensively used for boosting profits, in Egyptian context they are not valid tools. The findings indicate that the Egyptian political and economic context remarkably affect managers trade-off earnings management approaches, leading executives to prefer operational manipulation compared with others.

This paper extends but adds to the literature by shedding light on the different implications of earning management theories based on the variation in the political, economic and operational contexts of firms; identifying that operational cash flows matter more to managers than accounting profits; focusing on the fact that managers differentiate and compare between three various earning management approaches: accounting techniques, investment activities and operational activities; and showing that changes in political and economic Egyptian context makes operational manipulation favorable to be adopted compared with others. It also overcomes the criticism of New Institutional Sociology Theory.