This paper’s intent is to examine the reasons of the shortcomings of research attention to the Middle East (ME) and Africa regions. The objective of this study is to determine the reasons for and implications of the absence of ME- and Africa-based studies in outstanding international journals in the marketing field with a specific emphasis on the challenges in conducting and publishing research on these regions.
This paper differs from previous studies, where academic freedom come forth as the most critical inhibitor to conducting and publishing research. The most talked about challenges in conducting research in Africa were access to data, data collection concerns, and availability of a network of researchers. For the ME, the significant challenge include the validity and reliability of data, language barriers, data collection concerns and presence of network of researchers.
Editors’ and reviewers’ lack of interest and reserved knowledge were ranked high in both regions. South Africa, Israel and Turkey transpired as exception, in which research barriers were less challenging than in the rest of the two regions. This is distinction is attributed to the high incidence of US-trained or US-based scholars originating from these countries.
Join us in the upcoming QS-MAPLE 2019 from 25-27 February 2019 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as we discuss the topic on “Research in the Middle East and Africa: Overcoming the Barriers”.