Gulf Business Environment for the Arabic Family Firms

The purpose of this chapter is to understand the business environment for the family businesses in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) based on the theoretical foundation of organisational ecology and open system perspective during the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, the reader can understand the business environment of the family firms and how firms can recover from the pandemic by fighting against the infodemic in the GCC region. The authors have used a survey to collect data online from the family firms from Oman during the first and second waves of COVID-19 (i.e., Feb.-Dec. 2020). The results of the study demonstrate that business infodemic negatively moderates the linkage between the business environment-innovation performance nexus and positively moderates between the business environment-commerce association. This research implies the scanning of the Gulf business environment and continuous innovation by family-owned enterprises is vital to avoid a U-shaped recovery in the Arab economies.