Public Companies in Saudi Arabia - Example

The paper "Public Companies in Saudi Arabia " is a perfect example of a business capstone project. The primary research was conducted by means of a survey amongst 137 exchange-listed firms in Saudi Arabia, which represented a variety of business sectors. The 137 firms were from a target sample of 150 firms. As explained in the first chapter, the number of exchange-listed firms varies as firms are added or de-listed; 150 appeared to be the approximate number of “long-term” exchange participants, i.e., firms that have been listed for two years or more and are not subject to potential suspension due to capitalisation problems (Tadawul, 2011). As of June 1, 2013, there were 141 companies with active issues – i.e., those with shares that are included in the main Tadawul All Shares Index (TASI), whereas smaller issuers whose trade transactions are less than SAR 15,000 are not included (Saudi Fransi Capital, 2013; Bloomberg, 2013). Although the distinction between the two types of exchange-listed firms was carefully considered in connection with the sampling requirements for the primary research, because public companies in Saudi Arabia are subject to the same regulations regardless of their level of share trade activities, the distinction between the main index and smaller issuers was deemed not important for the purposes of this study.

5.1.2 Sampling

The sampling method was a combination of systematic and “snowball” sampling. The systematic component of the sampling involved recruiting one manager from each of the selected firms for the survey; after completing the survey, the manager-respondents were asked to suggest other managers in their firms who might provide additional insights, which was the “snowball” aspect of the sampling. The rationale for this approach was simply to increase the number of survey respondents to allow for more extensive data analysis. While it is recognised the snowball sampling technique has the potential to introduce certain biases in the data gathered (Atkinson & Flint, 2004), because the final overall sample encompassed a very high percentage of the exchange-listed firms (which numbered 157 at the beginning of 2013 according to the Tadawul website, thus the proportion of responding firms was 137/157, or 87.3%), much of the risk of non-randomness was eliminated.