In today's world, businesses are involved in several different initiatives to gain sustainable performance, which can discourse the expectations and demands of society. Emerging economics faces numerous challenges in terms of social, relational, governance, and financial, which made it necessary for firms to perform responsibly in order to make positive contributions toward sustainability. Therefore, this study based on upper-echelon theory constructs a comprehensive framework on responsible leadership, corporate social responsibility, and managerial discretion to provide the guideline for business sustainability. To (...) fulfill the study purpose, an empirical analysis was performed on 382 Pakistani respondents' data by using PLS-SEM through SmartPLS. Outcomes of the study indicated that responsible leadership entails enormous importance in corporations to influence their impact on society, environment, and economy, which leads to business sustainability. Moreover, the study provides insights into that more responsible and experienced leaders are better able to identify the concerns of their firm's stakeholders in the manners of relational, governing, and orientational perspectives, which help them in satisfying the stakeholders' and society's demands. Hence, responsible leadership enables the firm to better strive for sustainability by applying better CSR activities and directing the decisions by maintaining the compliance of the managers. Furthermore, the current study concluded that the managers and leaders of firms need to develop their business models in such a way that it supports the triple bottom line performance of the firm so that they can achieve sustainability. This study would help managers of firms to realize that they should reexamine their leadership practices and behaviors with the consideration of the triple bottom line framework and integrate the sustainable approach and CSR practice into their business strategy so that they can accomplish the goal of sustainability for business and fulfill the social demands and expectations. (shrink)

The correlation coefficient between two variables plays an important role in statistics. Also, the accuracy of relevance assessment depends on information from a set of discourses. The data collected from numerous statistical studies are full of exceptions. The Pythagorean fuzzy hypersoft set is a parameterized family that deals with the subattributes of the parameters and an appropriate extension of the Pythagorean fuzzy soft set. It is also the generalization of the intuitionistic fuzzy hypersoft set, which is used to accurately assess (...) insufficiency, anxiety, and uncertainties in decision-making. The PFHSS can accommodate more uncertainties compared to the IFHSS, and it is the most substantial methodology to describe fuzzy information in the decision-making process. The core objective of the this study is to develop the notion and features of the correlation coefficient and the weighted correlation coefficient for PFHSS and to introduce the aggregation operators such as Pythagorean fuzzy hypersoft weighted average and Pythagorean fuzzy hypersoft weighted geometric operators under the PFHSS scenario. A prioritization technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution under PFHSS based on correlation coefficients and weighted correlation coefficients is presented. Through the developed methodology, a technique for solving multiattribute group decision-making problem is planned. Also, the importance of the developed methodology and its application in indicating multipurpose antivirus mask throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period is presented. A brief comparative analysis is described with the advantages, effectiveness, and flexibility of numerous existing studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

The increasing interest in online shopping in recent years has increased the importance of understanding customer engagement valence in a virtual service network. There is yet a comprehensive explanation of the CEV concept, particularly its impact on multi-actor networks such as web stores. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap. In this study, past literature in the marketing and consumer psychology field was critically reviewed to understand the concept of CEV in online shopping, and the propositional-based style was (...) employed to conceptualize the CEV within the online shopping context. The outcomes demonstrate that the valence of customer engagement is dependent on the cognitive interpretation of signals that are prompted by multiple actors on a web store service network. If the signals are positively interpreted, positive outcomes such as service co-creation are expected, but if they are negatively interpreted, negative outcomes such as service co-destruction are predicted. These notions create avenues for future empirical research and practical implications. (shrink)

Expedition of the growth of a country’s economy in the wake of entrepreneurial activity is significant. As skills are utilized and knowledge is applied, the entrepreneurs establish new businesses, and the enhancement of the latter is brought about through their sagacious decision-making and ingenuity. At one end, where entrepreneurial activities have been a boon to the societal progress; they have sped up development of economies worldwide. This can be attributed to a gamut of factors, which include, societies’ expansion on the (...) grounds of industrialization and urbanization; nurture of a culture of more information and awareness; formal training of the entrepreneurs; and, relaxed legal procedures. This study lays down emphasis on how upholding stable business policies can positively impact an entrepreneurial venture. Employing a well-developed and verified scale, data collection from 230 respondents was done on a convenience basis. The respondents chosen for this survey among whom the distribution of questionnaires was conducted were all situated in various localities of the District Central of Karachi, Pakistan; and descriptive statistics were applied on the variables pertinent for this study such as the establishment of stable business policies, continuation of the existing business policies, and achievement of the business targets based on the stable policies. It is intended that this research article shall serve to augment the scholarly literature that already exists on the subject matter that pinpoints the significance of the stable and continuous policies for an entrepreneurial business involved in the primary schooling businesses across the District Central of Karachi, Pakistan. This research paper addresses the need of having stable business policies for Pakistani entrepreneurs, and envisions itself to be one of the blueprints that can be considered by the relevant regulatory bodies while they make informed decisions. A well sketched out itinerary of initiatives could then be composed, which can assist in the meeting of the targets of entrepreneurial ventures, and eventually help in eradicating poverty from Pakistan. (shrink)

Advertising is a tool by which the audience who may be the viewers, readers or listeners are communicated and convinced to buy or taking any action regarding the products, or getting information about the services provided. The TV advertisements influence the consumers’ buying behaviour. The need of TV advertisement has increased with the fast growth of mobile phones industry in Pakistan. This paper investigates the relationship between independent variable of advertisement with dependent variables of consumer choice, consumer awareness, consumer perception, (...) and consumer motivation by getting the responses of 250 respondents using questionnaires based on 5-point Likert scale from the graduating students of various faculties at University of Karachi. The main results of the study show a strong association between the independent and dependent variables. It is a fact that the brands which are advertised on TV are purchased more because people become emotionally attached with such brands or products. This study is very useful for producers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers as well engaged in mobile business in Pakistan. (shrink)

We examined the direct and indirect (via relational social capital) relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. We also tested the moderating role of instrumental thinking in the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding and the relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital. Data were collected from 245 employees in different firms spanning different manufacturing and service sectors. The results showed that ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, both directly and via relational social capital. The results (...) revealed that instrumental thinking moderated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital, such that the relationship was weak when instrumental thinking was high. The results also showed that instrumental thinking moderated both direct and indirect relationships between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding, such that the relationships were weak when instrumental thinking was high. The study carries important practical implications for managers concerned about the destructive consequences of knowledge hiding. (shrink)

Many students who are doing their majors in English often suffer from English speaking anxiety. The purpose of this study was to examine the reasons that hinder the process of speaking English in the students who had English as their major course of studies in a public sector university in Karachi. The study was conducted using qualitative research approach and the data was collected using focus group discussion. The participants of this study were selected using convenient sampling technique for focus (...) group discussion. The findings revealed that the pronunciation, syntactic structures, insufficient lexical knowledge, fear of negative evaluation, role of a teacher, financial and social factors are the main causes of English-speaking anxiety among English majors. Recommended measures by the students disclosed that if the institution provides them with the suggested speaking opportunities, it could help them improve their anxiety towards speaking in English. (shrink)

Muslim communities in the village facing the COVID-19 Pandemic attempts to find refuge from the plague and hope for survival. However, this led to more caution, which may lead to xenophobia. Via ethnography, this study unmasks the xenophobic attitude. This research discusses the root causes of panic in the community so that remedies can be implemented. The research attempts to explain, from a socio-anthropological viewpoint, how people and religious groups in the village perceive the pandemic of COVID-19 based on their (...) belief in their faith and in the science. The research takes place in Cigagak village, an area of approximately 7000 m2 on the outskirts of Bandung of West Java of Indonesia. This study examines the selected respondents from about 190 inhabitants who had close ties to managing places of worship and public places. This study utilises a collaborative self-ethnographic method and qualitative analysis. The influence of COVID-19 has moved to new exclusive and disintegrating practices from the inclusion-cohesive religious tradition. Therefore, this study tries to find out ways on how to reduce exclusive perception and religious practices to a minimum level and how to disappear xenophobia. Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, inclusive awareness and actions were re-established, and even social cohesiveness was fostered. This study concludes that in its deep conviction nature, theology can change exclusive behaviour to be inclusive if it is based on the religious principles that are raised in response to human events. In this case, the Muslim community in a village can change the fear of COVID-19 pandemic to be a reducer of the panic based on the support of the religious doctrines.Contribution: This article used a collaborative self-ethnography with a religious socio-anthropological viewpoint. This study could help to solve social problems through theological convergence in Islamic milieu, especially that of the government’s formal Islamic organisation and organic Islamic leaders of the society. (shrink)

Saba Mahmood’s anthropological work studies the gain in skills, agency and capacity building by the women’s dawa movement in Egypt. These women increase their virtue toward the goal of piety by following dominant, often patriarchal norms. Mahmood argues that “teleological feminism” ignores this gain in agency because this kind of feminism only focuses on opposition or resistance to these norms. In this paper I defend Mahmood’s “anti-teleological” feminist work from criticisms that her project valorizes oppression and has no vision for (...) a nonoppressive feminist future. I argue the future envisioned by teleological feminists gets caught in “the Hegelian” trap of replicating past oppression in their feminist future. I find in Mahmood’s work the tools to escape this trap. I argue, rather than a movement of overcoming oppression, Mahmood’s work suggests an immanent and creative movement that emphasizes difference for a truly new future. I turn to a Bergsonian metaphor and argue that this movement can be seen as akin to the movement of biological evolution. I conclude using the work of Eve Sedgwick that the Egyptian women that Mahmood studies are being read in a “paranoid” fashion and demonstrate using Leila Ahmed a better “reparative” reading of these women. (shrink)

This study investigates the significance of understanding police perspectives on community policing as a means of addressing insecurity, particularly within the context of localised and asymmetrical conflicts. It highlights the pivotal role of the police in shaping community security and the substantial impact they can have (positive or negative) in fragile environments. The study contends that the localised nature of the community policing effectively addresses security and development issues and empowering citizens. Qualitative interviews were conducted with senior police in Islamabad, (...) to assess the implementation and potential impacts of community policing in Pakistan’s Federal Capital Territory. The findings reveal how the historical foundations of police structures and operations – which date back to the colonial period – have led to the promotion of fear, mistrust and manipulation under successive regimes. Despite these challenges, the findings are promising highlighting enhanced human security through context-specific community policing. Finally, the paper argues that the movement towards community-oriented policing marks a departure from the control of elites within state systems, and encourages values such as local ownership, social cohesion, mutual engagement, accountability and agency. These developments have profound implications for global security and justice. (shrink)

I begin the first part by showing how situationism should make us question traditional understandings of virtues as intrinsic dispositions. I concentrate specifically on situationist experiments related to mood. I then introduce Islamic virtue ethics and the dawa movement. In parts two and three I examine ethnography of the dawa movement to explore how they deal with worries about the influence of mood on their virtue. In part two I show how they train their habits in very traditional virtue ethics (...) ways in order to be more resilient when faced with virtue-diminishing affective situations. In part three I show how the situation, rather than hindering practitioners, is recruited into helping these women achieve piety. I conclude, in part four, by showing the dawa movement's creative use of the Islamic veil as a way to help these women deal with the objection that one cannot avoid all bad situations. Going beyond social psychological experiments, I examine two methodological sources not found in situationist debates. First, I argue for ethnography as an empirical method through which to study virtue. I draw on ethnography of the Islamic women's dawa movement. Secondly, the work in the philosophy of mind on ‘affective scaffolding’. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, (...) this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

The aim of this work focuses on the relationship among the Dark Triad, perceptions of organizational politics, political skills, and counterproductive work behavior. This study empirically tests the mediating role of perceptions of organizational politics in the relationship between the Dark Triad and counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, the study investigates the moderating role of political skills in strengthening the link between the Dark Triad and the perceptions of organizational politics. A sample of 149 participants was randomly selected. To analyze the (...) data of the present work, we employed a structural equation model using partial least square and PROCESS. From empirical findings, we imply an inference that perception of organizational politics partially mediates the Dark Triad's influence on the counterproductive work behavior. Moreover, the results identify the moderating role of political skills in strengthening the link between the Dark Triad and the perceptions of organizational politics. Empirical findings suggest important policy implications for the hospitality industry. (shrink)

With the growing call for private sector actors to address global challenges, it is necessary to first assess whether regions with the greatest needs are accessing corporate philanthropy. In this paper, we ask whether corporate philanthropy is reaching those with the greatest health-care needs. Drawing on economic geography and corporate homophily, we argue that corporate philanthropy tends to exacerbate health inequality as grants are destined for counties with fewer health problems. We test and find support for this hypothesis using data (...) on health grants made by US corporate foundations and county-level health data. Our results that corporate health grants are less likely to go to counties which have a lower proportion of medical service providers and insured citizens suggest that corporate foundations are unwittingly complicit in worsening the resource gap between small, poor, rural counties and large, wealthy, urban counties. From an ethical perspective, we provide some guidance as to how this may be corrected. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to reframe the practice of veiling as an embodied practice of self-development and self- transformation. I argue that practices like these cannot be handled by the choice/chance distinction relied on by those who would restrict religious minority accommodations. Embodied self- transformation necessarily means a change in personal identity and this means the religious believer cannot know if they will need religious accommodation when they begin their journey of piety. Even some luck egalitarians would find (...) leaning exclusively on preference and choice to find who should be burdened with paying the full costs of certain choices in one’s life too morally harsh to be justifiable. I end by briefly illustrating an alternative way to think about religious accommodation that does not rely on the choice/chance distinction. (shrink)

Mankind is faced with a number of serious problems that demand an effective solution. The prevalence of injustice and the frequency of financial crises are two of the most serious of these problems. Consisting of an in-depth introduction along with a selection of eight of Muhammad Umer Chapra's essays--four on Islamic economics and four on Islamic finance--this timely book raises the question of what can be done to not only minimize the frequency and severity of the financial crises, but (...) also make the financial system more equitable. The author considers the origins of Islamic economics and outlines its development and underlying principles. He compares the approach taken to ethics and economics in Islam with that taken in the West, considering whether lessons can be applied to the global financial architecture in order to mitigate against financial crises. The book also examines the case against interest and looks at both innovation in Islamic finance, as well as challenges facing the industry. Written by a leading authority in the field, this book will be a stimulating resource for students and researchers in Islamic economics and finance, as well as providing valuable insight to all of those with an interest in financial systems and their interaction with society. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a unified causal account of natural kinds. Using as a starting point the widely held view that natural kind terms or predicates are projectible, I argue that the ontological bases of their projectibility are the causal properties and relations associated with the natural kinds themselves. Natural kinds are not just concatenations of properties but ordered hierarchies of properties, whose instances are related to one another as causes and effects in recurrent causal processes. The resulting account (...) of natural kinds as clusters of core causal properties that give rise to clusters of derivative properties enables us to distinguish genuine natural kinds from non-natural kinds. For instance, it enables us to say why some of the purely conventional categories derived from the social domain do not correspond to natural kinds, though other social categories may. (shrink)

Could some social kinds be natural kinds? In this paper, I argue that there are three kinds of social kinds: 1) social kinds whose existence does not depend on human beings having any beliefs or other propositional attitudes towards them ; 2) social kinds whose existence depends in part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them, though attitudes need not be manifested towards their particular instances ; 3) social kinds whose existence and that of their instances depend in (...) part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them . Although all three kinds of social kinds are mind-dependent, this does not make them ontologically subjective or preclude them from being natural kinds. Rather, what prevents the third kind of social kinds from being natural kinds is that their properties are conventionally rather than causally linked. (shrink)

Discussions about politics and human power, including discussions about the concept of the state, have been a discussion that has been going on since Greek times until the time of the growth of Islamic philosophy. The overemphasis on the power of reason led early modern Western societies to reject religion in all political discourse. At this stage, all views of man, power, the constitution, and the state eventually ceased to be associated with God. On the other hand, especially among Muslims, (...) religion is still connected with discussions of politics and human power. This paper will reveal how secularization in political thought grew and developed through principles such as the state of nature and the social contract. Then, based on the thought of one of the influential Muslim scholars, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, the author tries to provide a critique of the views of Western thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and other philosophers, by presenting the concept of the ideal state form derived from the concept of tamaddun formulated by Al-Attas. This research is literature review research using the descriptive method. The findings of this research show that secularization is a product purely born by Western secular thinkers and not taken from any religious teachings, so Western political concepts cannot always be applied, especially in Muslim societies. (shrink)

In step with rapid advancements in computer vision, vehicle classification demonstrates a considerable potential to reshape intelligent transportation systems. In the last couple of decades, image processing and pattern recognition-based vehicle classification systems have been used to improve the effectiveness of automated highway toll collection and traffic monitoring systems. However, these methods are trained on limited handcrafted features extracted from small datasets, which do not cater the real-time road traffic conditions. Deep learning-based classification systems have been proposed to incorporate the (...) above-mentioned issues in traditional methods. However, convolutional neural networks require piles of data including noise, weather, and illumination factors to ensure robustness in real-time applications. Moreover, there is no generalized dataset available to validate the efficacy of vehicle classification systems. To overcome these issues, we propose a convolutional neural network-based vehicle classification system to improve robustness of vehicle classification in real-time applications. We present a vehicle dataset comprising of 10,000 images categorized into six-common vehicle classes considering adverse illuminous conditions to achieve robustness in real-time vehicle classification systems. Initially, pretrained AlexNet, GoogleNet, Inception-v3, VGG, and ResNet are fine-tuned on self-constructed vehicle dataset to evaluate their performance in terms of accuracy and convergence. Based on better performance, ResNet architecture is further improved by adding a new classification block in the network. To ensure generalization, we fine-tuned the network on the public VeRi dataset containing 50,000 images, which have been categorized into six vehicle classes. Finally, a comparison study has been carried out between the proposed and existing vehicle classification methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed vehicle classification system. Consequently, our proposed system achieved 99.68%, 99.65%, and 99.56% accuracy, precision, and F1-score on our self-constructed dataset. (shrink)

This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘interactive kinds’ first identified by Ian Hacking. An interactive kind is one that is created or significantly modified once a concept of it has been formulated and acted upon in certain ways. Interactive kinds may also ‘loop back’ to influence our concepts and classifications. According to Hacking, interactive kinds are found exclusively in the human domain. After providing a general account of interactive kinds and outlining their philosophical significance, I argue that they are not (...) confined to the human realm, but that they can also occur elsewhere. Hence, I conclude by arguing that interactive kinds pose a challenge to scientific realism about kinds by making it difficult to make a distinction between real and non-real kinds. (shrink)

Kinds that share historical properties are dubbed “historical kinds” or “etiological kinds,” and they have some distinctive features. I will try to characterize etiological kinds in general terms and briefly survey some previous philosophical discussions of these kinds. Then I will take a closer look at a few case studies involving different types of etiological kinds. Finally, I will try to understand the rationale for classifying on the basis of etiology, putting forward reasons for classifying phenomena on the basis of (...) diachronic features, thereby making a provisional case for considering at least some etiological kinds to be natural kinds. (shrink)

Due to existence of a huge amount of textual data either on the World Wide Web or in textual databases like PubMed, the development of novel automatic keyphrase extraction methods has emerged as one of the key research problems in recent past. Consequently, a number of machine learning techniques, mostly supervised, have been proposed to extract keyphrases from text documents. But, one of the main bottlenecks that hinders the success of such systems is the requirement of annotated corpora for training (...) purpose. In this paper, we propose the design of a deep text mining system to identify keyphrases in text documents that are either unstructured or semi-structured in nature. The novelty of our system lies in its applicability on a single document, instead of demanding a collection of annotated texts for training, to identify keyphrases embedded within it. The proposed system applies parsing techniques to identify candidate phrases. After mapping the original set of candidate phrases into a low-dimensional space using Singular Value Decomposition, the Markov Clustering technique is applied to cluster related sentences together. Finally, considering each cluster as a document, Latent Dirichlet Allocation is applied to identify feasible keyphrases that are presented to users in non-increasing order of their relevance score values. The efficacy of the proposed system is established through experimentation on datasets from two different domains. On comparative evaluation, we found that the proposed system outperforms KEA and KEA that apply the supervised machine learning approach for automatic keyphrase extraction from text documents. (shrink)

On business ethics from Islamic perspective in Indonesia.

Martin Heidegger broadened the meaning of art to a truth-disclosing event akin to seemingly disparate events such as the founding of a political state, Jesus’s sacrifice for all humankind, and the questioning of a philosopher. Art makes us pay attention to it by presenting the familiar in a new and unfamiliar context and unsettles our presuppositions and reconceptualizes our way of thinking. I begin by explicating the Heideggerian interpretation of the nature of art by looking at the key concepts that (...) make a work of art work. Then I argue that by themselves, the concept of veiling and the concept of fashion are very familiar concepts to Indonesians, but that the practice of combining these two ideas brings something unfamiliar to that society. This new practice reveals a way of Being that combines religious piety with our current, late-modern, consumer society. The combination of fashion and veiling for piety discloses, in the Heideggerian sense, a new “world” that undermines secular and fundamentalist narratives about the religious agent while still remaining an authentic Indonesian art piece. (shrink)

There are many ways of construing the claim that some categories are more “natural" than others. One can ask whether a system of categories is innate or acquired by learning, whether it pertains to a natural phenomenon or to a social institution, whether it is lexicalized in natural language or requires a compound linguistic expression. This renders suspect any univocal answer to this question in any particular case. Yet another question one can ask, which some authors take to have a (...) bearing on the issue of the naturalness of categories, is whether a system of categories constitutes a unique way of organizing a particular set of entities or phenomena, or whether there are other legitimate classification schemes that can coexist with it. Another way of putting this is by asking whether systems of categories can cut across one another, and if so, under what circumstances. Some philosophers have claimed that crosscutting systems of categories cannot exist as genuine natural kinds. This paper examines that claim and puts forward some counterexamples, concluding that this notion of natural kind is not in tune with scientific classification and ought to be rejected in favor of an alternative. (shrink)

This study is aimed to identify the relative effect of online review ratings and perceived crowding on purchase intentions of a consumer. Our study also investigated the contingent effect of gender and perceived crowding between the relationship of exogenous and endogenous variables. This study was conducted in the Malaysian restaurant industry. We applied the purposive sampling technique to identify respondents, the mall intercept survey method was used for data collection. Smart PLS software was applied for data analysis. This study demonstrates (...) through its results that online review ratings and perceived crowding have a positive effect on purchase intentions of a consumer. Moreover, if a consumer perceives crowding at a restaurant, this has a positive contingent effect on the relationship between review ratings and purchase intentions. This demonstrates that the consumer is more inclined to choose a restaurant with a high online review rating and has high perceived crowding at some unfamiliar place. Lastly, no evidence is found for the gender difference between review rating and purchase intentions; however, gender shows contingent effect and results confirmed that males preferred more crowded restaurants as compared to females. There are theoretical and practical implications for managers in the findings of this study. (shrink)

To achieve environmental sustainability, the role of human capital and financial inclusion has been debated in limited empirical studies. Employing a reliable ARDL model approach, this study examines the dynamic link between human capital and ICT, financial inclusion, and CO2 emissions using the China economy dataset over the period 1998–2020. The vivacious side of human capital shows that literacy rate and average year of schooling curb CO2 emissions in long run. The results of human capital are also based on facts (...) in magnitude as well as in direction. Also, empirics unfold that digital financial inclusion significantly increases CO2 emissions. Based on these novel findings, a wide set of economic policies are repaired for environmental quality. Environmental education should be considered at early levels of education. The authorities and policymakers should fix energy-related issues through education. The China government should stimulate the educational sector to conduct a clean and green revolution that acts as a mechanism for a green and clean economy. This study's finding is more effective than the previous unlike empirical studies for policy-making because of the advanced econometric method. (shrink)

Social media marketing has become one of the most significant growth paths for many businesses in today’s world. However, many companies are still unclear about using social media marketing to get their advantages, particularly in an e-commerce environment. In this background, this study is proposed to examine the effects of social media marketing activities on relationship quality, such as commitment, trust, and satisfaction in order to predict consumers’ online repurchase intentions in China’s e-commerce environment. This study proposed a theoretical model (...) by using the stimulus-organism-response theory. Using a structured questionnaire and purposive sampling, this study examined the responses of 403 consumers through partial least square-structural equation modeling. The findings discovered that SMMAs significantly strengthen the relationship quality factors, such as commitment, trust, and satisfaction, which in turn positively increase consumer online repurchase intentions in China’s e-commerce industry. This is novel research that contributes to the S-O-R theory and provides several managerial guidelines that assist managers in improving their business performance in the e-commerce industry. This research also highlighted some limitations. (shrink)

Publication date: 14 June 2017 Source: Author: Muhammad Hussein Oroskhan, Sayyed Mohammad Anoosheh By the 1930s, the Iranian society was driven toward modernization. Consisted with the concept of modernization, feminism ushered a whole new era in Iranian history. Besides, the outbreak of World War II and the consequent abdication of Reza Khan afforded women a golden opportunity to fight for their rights and emancipations. This movement was also supported by the famous male writers of the time among whom Jalal (...) Al-e-Ahmad marked a prominent place. He was keen enough to properly explore women's situation in his works and notice the drastic effect of modernization upon women's situation. Hence, in this study, we try to investigate Al-e-Ahmad's short story entitled “Pink Nail Polish” 1948 with respect to Bakhtin's Carnivalesque's theory. Furthermore, it is shown how Bakhtin's new literary mode can create the excellent chance of studying Iranian women's situation properly. Finally, we explain that due to the drastic change of Iranian women's situation towards modernity, they may lead a double life if their rights are not respected. This can lead to a disproportionate relationship between the husband and the wife as the marital infidelity becomes rampant. (shrink)

Asking whether the sexes are natural kinds amounts to asking whether the categories, female and male, identify real divisions in nature, like the distinctions between biological species, or whether they mark merely artificial or arbitrary distinctions. The distinction between females and males in the animal kingdom is based on the relative size of the gametes they produce, with females producing larger gametes (ova) and males producing smaller gametes (sperm). This chapter argues that the properties of producing relatively large and small (...) gametes are causally correlated with a range of other properties in a wide variety of organisms, and this is what makes females and males natural kinds in the animal kingdom. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between sex and gender: while the difference between the sexes is biologically grounded, the difference between genders is socially based. Since gender depends in part on the perception of sex, whether or not gender is real or not does not depend on whether sex is, since social reality is constituted in part by our perceptions. The claim that sexes are natural kinds in the animal kingdom does not imply that the biological differences among female and male humans do and should have social consequences. (shrink)

Firms have traditionally responded to environmental violations by increasing information disclosure and/or communication to manage stakeholder perceptions. As such, these approaches may be symbolic in nature, with no genuine intention to improve the environment. We draw from restorative justice grounded in stakeholder theory and explore a relatively new approach in the form of supplemental environmental projects aimed at restoring the environment, and empirically examine the role of corporate governance in firms’ decisions to undertake reparative actions. Using environmental violations and SEPs (...) data from the US Environmental Protection Agency between 2002 and 2015, we find that firms with smaller boards are more likely to undertake SEPs. We also find that firms with higher board independence and CEO duality undertake SEPs more frequently; however, board gender diversity and the existence of a sustainability committee appear to have no impacts. These results are robust to propensity score matching and an alternative data source. We extend the scope of stakeholder theory by emphasizing a new approach—restorative justice—by which corporations can repair damaged relationships and also improve the environment. We also contribute to corporate governance and environmentalism literature by identifying governance structures that promote environmental restorative justice. Thus, our study will inform different stakeholders, including regulators, shareholders, and boards of directors, and will open new avenues for business ethics scholarship. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence of service failure in rendering service process during COVID-19. It further explores the outcomes of service recovery offered to customers in case of service failure. Like other businesses, webstores have also faced the challenges in their efforts to satisfy their customers during COVID-19. Service failure has increased due to unexpected circumstances produced by this pandemic. It has become necessary for the webstores to retain their dissatisfied customers by reconsidering their service (...) strategies. Relevant data for the purpose of this study were collected through questionnaires from 383 respondents by using online channels. The online channels were exclusively employed for maintaining the safety of respondents during COVID-19. Respondents for this study were online shoppers who encountered service failure during COVID-19. The results indicated that the incidence of service failure has increased due to an increase in online shopping during COVID-19. Some customers tend to repurchase from the same webstore. On the other hand, some customers do not want to purchase again from the same seller and decided to switch to the alternative webstore. Based on the findings, new strategy for online shopping service providers was introduced. This strategy will be helpful for the online service providers to increase their profitability by retaining their dissatisfied customers. Service providers can minimize the number of customers switching to other webstores by reducing the events of service failure. Customer’s assistive intent can also be helpful for service providers to increase the efficiency of service recovery. Conducting a proper follow-up after providing service recovery can also reduce the switching of customer. It will be helpful for service providers to understand the customers’ expectations before recovery process and their feeling after getting service recovery. (shrink)

The current study investigates whether tournament incentives motivate chief executive officer to be socially responsible. Furthermore, it explores the role of sub-national institutional contingencies [i.e., state-owned enterprises vs. non-SOEs, foreign-owned entities vs. non-FOEs, cross-listed vs. non-cross-listed, developed region] in CEO tournament incentives and the corporate social responsibility performance relationship. Data were collected from all A-shared companies listed in the stock exchanges of China from 2014 to 2019. The study uses the baseline methodology of ordinary least squares and cluster OLS regression. (...) Moreover, firm-fixed effects regression, two-stage least squares regression, and propensity score matching deal with the endogeneity problem and check the robustness of the results. The results provide reliable evidence that tournament incentives motivate CEOs to be more socially responsible. On the other hand, sub-national institutional contingencies positively affect the association between CEO tournament incentives and CSRP. The findings have important implications for companies and regulators who wish to enhance CSP by providing incentives to top managers. (shrink)