This research paper aims to study the elements of organizational behavior in a downsized work setting for the survivor’s efficiency with the moderation role of shared leadership. Five downsized organizations were approached through structured questionnaire as target population with sample size of 288. The theoretical model was developed with seven hypotheses to predict the role of organizational behavior variables for the survivor’s efficiency with the moderation role of shared leadership. Principal component analysis, stepwise regression analysis and moderation analysis was used for the results. Once the constructs of creativity, communication, perception, turnover and stars were independently regressed except turnover all the constructs have shown significance with the survivors’ efficiency. The regression model also testifies the significant relationship between organizational behavior and survivors’ efficiency. The moderation analysis shows positive and significant moderation effect. The study revealed that it is these independent variables which have a significant role in making the organizational behavior worthwhile after being downsized. Organizational reluctance to public downsizing information has been found a biggest limitation of this study.

Keywords: Downsizing, Organizational Behavior, Survivors’ Efficiency, Shared Leadership, Moderation Effect.

Exchange rate plays a crucial part in the development of the country and it highlights the prosperity of the country's economy. This study takes various set of determinants, which affect the instability of rate of exchange in the country. This study investigated the relationship of interest rate, inflation, Forex, trade balance and inflow of net foreign capital with exchange rate. The study analyzed the data for the period 1972 to 2014 for Pakistan. Multi-level statistical estimation techniques, VECM, Johnson co-integration, impulse response, variance decomposition and granger causality are applied. The results demonstrated long relationship of interest rate, trade balance, foreign exchange reserve, net foreign capital inflow and exchange rate. The study also confirmed the positive effect of these variables on exchange rate. The study can be especially significant for the government, to make appropriate action to better deal with exchange rate volatility.

Keywords: VECM, Granger Causality, Instability of Exchange Rate, Pakistan.

The crash of global financial markets is evident of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) led economic recession shaping into an imminent financial crisis now. The identification of firms prone to default in such crisis in important to keep the investors confiding in the financial markets. This study presents a hybrid model to preemptively identify the financially distressed firms which are expected to default. The hybrid model has been constructed by infusion of accounting variables into and option based financial model, hence seeing the default phenomenon in a hindsight as well as foresight. A sample of 30 housing sector firms listed at New York Stock Exchange (NYSE. Area Under Curve (AUC) methodology has been used to evaluate the results of the hybrid model. The results show that the proposed hybrid model has the highest AUC in comparison with either of accounting information or option based model, alone. The study concludes at a comparatively better ability of the hybrid model in anticipating financial stress among the firms and recommends the same to be used for identification of firms prone to default. An out of sample testing of the proposed hybrid model has been mentioned as the future research to evaluate its efficacy out of the restrictive assumptions of this study.

Keywords: Financial Distress, Default, Accounting Based Models, Option Based Models, Hybrid Model, US Housing Sector.

This study's basic premise is to examine the retail investor perspective regarding the decision usefulness of the corporate website. Corporate social media play a vital role in determining stakeholder behavioral intentions. This study's concern is to evaluate how a corporate website, as a corporate social media tool affects retail investor behavioral intentions. The technology acceptance model and signaling theory conjunction provide the foundation for developing the proposed theoretical framework. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) has been carried out to examine the strength of the measurement model statistically. The study's findings suggest that the corporate website as a social media toll positively influences the retail investor behavioral intention. The perceived ease of use positively impacts the actual usage intention of the corporate website by investors to effectively make their investment decisions. Similarly, the perceived usefulness of corporate websites significantly impacts the investor's behavioral intentions to engage in corporate social media. The proposed model is novel to insight the retail investor investment decision in the context of Pakistan. The study has implications for retail investors, listed companies on the stock exchange and regulators to understand how corporate websites remain robust for informed asset allocation decisions.

Keywords: Corporate Social Media, Corporate Website, Retail Investor, Pakistan Stock Exchange.

Social entrepreneurship has been recently becoming center of attention for academicians and practitioners. It is mainly because of its critical role in addressing unmet needs and social problems of underprivileged communities around the globe. Social entrepreneurs are often confronted with the scarcity of resources as they are inherently located in resource constrained settings. Given the scarcity of resources and the crucial role of social entrepreneurship, bricolage is emerging as a promising strategy to address resource scarcity in impoverished settings. In this vein, this paper provides a comprehensive review of literature on bricolage and how it unfolds in social entrepreneurship. The review also sheds light on the conceptual evolution of bricolage and how it invades the entrepreneurship literature. A systematic approach was adopted for conducting the literature search in order to capture all the recent work on bricolage in context of social entrepreneurship. The review shows that most of the studies on bricolage in context of social entrepreneurship are concentrated in developed countries and more stable environments with only few exceptions. Also social bricolage theory which is an extension of entrepreneurial bricolage is still understudied and needs further investigation and documentation. The paper holds particular relevance for academicians and researchers as it provides useful insights into concepts of bricolage and its relevance to social entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Bricolage, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Bricolage.

This paper provides direct empirical assessment of Uncovered Interest Rate Parity (UIP) for Pakistan. To Test UIP, wide range of maturities have been used and for estimation purpose, we used Johansen cointegration and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS). We find that UIP does not hold for short to medium term maturities. However for the long term maturities i.e., 10-year, the result showes that the UIP holds. It means the exchange rate is better predicted by the long term interest rates. These findings suggest that the interventions in the foreign exchange market distort the price discovery mechanism of the foreign currency in the short to medium term. In the long run, however, the market fundamentals dictate the price discovery guiding the exchange rate to converge to its long run equilibrium.

Keywords: UIP, Johansen Cointegration, DOLS, Foreign Exchange Market, Price Discovery Mechanism.

The recent development in Pakistani higher educational sector has compelled university management to improve educational service quality. Student dysfunctional behaviours (SDB) is one of the key factors that adversely impacted educational environment. Various researchers have investigated these behaviours in the western context. The objective of this study is to investigate SDB within the Pakistani context. This study used a qualitative approach to develop an in-depth understanding of SDB within Pakistani higher educational context. This current study identified three dimensions of SDB and concluded that understanding of these dimensions will facilitate university management in policy formulation to tackle the issue of SDB.

Keywords: Student Dysfunctional Behaviours (SDB), University Management, Qualitative Study.

In recent years, substantial attention has been given to the impact of Financial Participation on Financial Performance. However, there is a lack of research of the impact of Financial Performance on Financial Participation and the mediating role of Fnancial Participation between Financial Performance, Employee Recruitment and Employee Retention. In this paper, Financial Performance, Financial Participation, Employee Recruitment and Employee Retention is examined, including two types of financial participation; Employee Stock Options and Profit Sharing. The purpose of this research was to understand the role of financial participation in attracting individuals and retaining them. Non-probability-based convenience sampling technique was used in this study. The technique was used mainly due to ease of access of respondents, geographical proximity and cost-effectiveness (Etikan et al. 2016). Structural Equation Modelling was applied on the data analysis using Partial Least Squares method on SMART-PLS Software. Drawing on the data collected from 211 respondents from various national and multinational companies in the FMCG Sector of Karachi, Pakistan. The results indicated that Financial Participation has important interaction effects with Financial Performance, Employee Recruitment and Employee Retention. It is also found that indirect effect of Financial Participation has a strong mediating relationship with Employee Retention as compared to Employee Recruitment. The findings suggest that by incorporating financial participation by employees, HR can effectively recruit and retain better individuals. Also, ESOPs are a better form of attracting and retaining better employees.

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership, Financial Participation, Profit Sharing, Financial Performance, Employee Recruitment, Employee Retention.

This study determines the effect of entrepreneurship education on attitudes toward starting a business, entrepreneurial desirability, competence, and intention. Experimental research using pre-test and post-test design was used. The authors have set-up a mini-store inside the school campus and taught the students the basics of business operations for four months. The students were asked to evaluate themselves before and after the program about their perceptions of attitudes toward starting a business, entrepreneurial desirability, competence, and intention. The findings show that entrepreneurship education program has a significant influence on students’ attitudes toward starting a business and entrepreneurial intention.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship Training; Theory of Planned Behavior, Entrepreneurial Intention, Entrepreneurial Skills, Entrepreneurs.

Halal in Islam is a central concept, referring to any permissible to use e.g. thing, entity, object or action in accordance with Islamic principles & practices, because Islam has a unique consumption & dietary system different from other ethnic consumption & dietary systems so what Muslims can eat is defined in halal food regulations because there are ingredients of food and processes of preparation and both must be halal, therefore all the Muslims are required to ensure that their food comes from halal sources according to principles of Shariah both its ingredients & its whole preparation process. And now world community has recognized the importance of Muslims dietary & other consumption needs. Muslim consumers towards halal food products have more positive intention & attitude than non food products though halal concept is applicable to all products including food, pharmaceuticals, fashion, banking, insurance, entertainment and tourism. However what an overall concept encouraging, Muslims to seek & use goods & services is promoting ‘cleanliness’ in all the aspect of human life hence halal food is produced in a clean environment is of quality & safe to consume. Now the term halal has attracted attention and certified halal food and other products market is increasingly growing both internationally & domestically. Halal rules govern the tastes & preferences of Muslim consumers so where Muslim consumers exist, market for halal food also exists. Therefore Market for halal products is very fast growing market and is to the tune of trillion dollars. This paper encompasses the points i.e. what is halal? What is origin of halal food such as animal food or plants food? What is extent of halal products market in the world?

Keywords: Halal, Food, Products, Markets, Consumption.

ICT investment is the key factor of human development in developing countries. Human development has three main components such as GDP, health and education. The current study explores the impact of ICT investment on the components of human development in 67 selected developing countries. Selected developing countries are divided into four panels on the basis of income as lower, lower middle, upper middle and high income countries. Data were collected from World Bank, ITU and Word Information Technology and Services Alliances website for the period of 2000 to 2018. Pesaran, Friedman and Frees CSD tests confirmed the presence of cross-sectional dependency in the variables and consequently, CIPS second generation unit root test were used for stationarity. Kao and Pedroni test and ARDL model were employed to check the long-run cointegration and regression analysis respectively. The regression results showed the mixed findings in different panels. The results explored that ICT investment have different impacts on the components of human development in four panels of the developing countries. Communication investment, software and hardware investment have positive impact on the components of human development in all panels. It is recommended that government should focus on ICT investment to increase GDP, level of education index, life expectancy index and HDI.

Keywords: ICT Investment, Human Development, Developing Countries, Panel Data.

This study investigates the effects of microcredit on crop productivity in three villages located in district Charsadda, Pakistan. Khushali Bank, Pakistan, is an important institute that finances microcredit ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 PKR (Pakistani Rupees) per person. Sample size of 200 was choose for the analysis of this study, out of which 90 responded. Ninety farmers from three villages producing maize, tobacco, and sugarcane were interviewed. A paired sample t-test was applied to compare crop productivity in situations where microcredit was supplied with situations where it was not. Production per acre of all the three crops show a significant positive correlation with the amount of microcredit obtained from the bank. However, crop productivity remained significantly constant. Thus micro financing generally improves crop production; however, the constancy of crop productivity is explained by small credit volumes, by high interest rates, by lack of modern agricultural technology, by lack of productive ideas, and by bad monitoring through field officers of banks. The analysis of this study suggests some policy implications first, micro financing is a source of encouragement for the needy farmers, so local banks should advertise micro financing regularly. Second, the banks should increase its micro financing credit up to 200000 PKR, so that farmers can easily manage their expenses that will be more beneficial for local economy and individual profit. Third, Banks must decrease interest rate that will encourage needy farmers to take loans on regular basis.

Keywords: Agricultural Technology, Microcredit, Productivity, Khushali Bank, KP, Pakistan.