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Firms need competitiveness in terms of quality, price, and delivery to satisfy public sector customers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of innovation capability on this competitiveness in a market-oriented firm and to determine the role of supply chain integration and marketing-technical integration in enhancing innovation capability.

A theoretical model was developed to test hypotheses. Data was collected from 199 top-level managers serving pharmaceutical companies. Partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used for datas analysis.

The results highlight the vital role of innovation capability in the development of firm competitiveness. Significant results for all relationships were obtained. The effect of market orientation on supply-chain integration was stronger than its effect on marketing-technical integration. Partial multi-mediation of supply chain integration and marketing-technical integration was found in the relation between market orientation and innovation capability.

The study helps managers develop an efficient strategy by using firms’ innovation capability to supply products according to public sector customer needs.

The study is based on a real-time practical problem faced by firms, as the majority of them fail to sell their products to public sector customers. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is one of the first studies that discusses the role of innovation capability at the marketing-supply chain management interface to help a firm become an attractive supplier for public sector customers.

This study examines the impact of network embeddedness (NE) on innovation performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and analyses absorptive capacity as mediator and openness as moderator.

Data were collected from 209 employees of SMEs using a convenient sampling technique. Partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS was used to analyze the various constructs.

The results exhibit a positive and significant relationship in NE and absorptive capacity. Also, this study found a positive and significant relationship in absorptive capacity and innovation performance. Moreover, absorptive capacity has a positive and significant mediation role in the relationship between NE and innovation performance. Also, openness positively moderated the relationship of NE and absorptive capacity.

SMEs should try to implement the functions of NE, such as interaction with other firms in higher frequency, developing trust among all parties, clear alliance among the partners to enhance innovation performance. Similarly, SMEs should focus on absorptive capacity and openness to enrich innovation performance.

This study adds in the current literature of the chosen constructs and empirically contributes the effects in the manufacturing industry of Jiangsu Province, China.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the short- and long-term financial strategies to augment SMEs’ performance in emerging markets. Using a resource-based theoretic perspective; the analysis has investigated the mediating role of distinctive management competencies (DMCs) between efficient financial strategies and SMEs’ business growth.

The empirical data were drawn from a cross-industrial panel of 273 SMEs from Spain and 224 SMEs from Pakistan across all manufacturing sectors over the period of 2006-2013. Multivariate tests are conducted to estimate the impact of efficient financial strategies on SMEs’ performance. The advanced mediation version of Kenny and Judd (2013) is used to test mediation confirmation of DMCs; while Sobel test is applied to examine robustness of mediation results.

The robustness check of 497 privately held SMEs confirmed that practicing efficient financial strategies has significant influence on SMEs’ performance. Stimulatingly, mediating effect of DMCs, that are used for executives’ prudent financial decisions have been traced in both respondent countries. Based on the findings, it is argued that efficient financial strategies realistically translate into DMCs, which taken together are likely to lead more effective and significant to improve SMEs’ performance.

The results suggest that power of distinctive managerial decisions is a crucial factor in the employment process besides efficient financial strategies identified in previous studies. The results of this study are of great importance to managers and major stakeholders, such as investors, creditors, financial analysts and policymakers, to inflate their efforts to reduce the incidence of business failure and for survival and growth of SMEs.

The paper raises a new theoretic explanation by determining the intervening role of DMCs in translating EFS into improved SMEs’ performance, thereby supplementing the extant theories.

Employee position is acknowledged as central in service brand management to achieve competitive advantage. Hence, this study aims to illustrate the importance of brand role clarity (BRC) and employee brand commitment (EBC) by investigating the moderating role of EBC on the relationship between BRC and employee brand equity (EBE) in Islamic banking.

Data is collected from 259 respondents who are involved in Islamic banking. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to select bank branches for the study, and simple random sampling was adopted to choose respondents within these bank branches.

Building on the insight obtained from data analysis, the results of this study demonstrate that the EBC strengthens the significant relationship between employee BRC and EBE. It indicates that EBC is vital in affecting the employee BRC on EBE.

The importance of BRC and EBC has been widely discussed in the literature that both of these variables are essential sources of EBE. However, empirical studies on the combined effect of EBC and BRC on EBE have not been considered in past studies.

In the realm of increased competition among coffee café, the need for customer citizenship behavior (CCB) has increased. But the question of how a café can win CCB through firm-level and individual dispositional factors have not been gained due attention. Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate a moderated-mediation model to predict CCB through CSR, affective commitment and service quality.

The data were collected from 797 coffee café visitors between April–June 2019. The respondents were approached through a convenience sampling technique.

Using both Structural Equation Modeling and Hayes Macros, data analysis proved that CSR significantly predicts affective commitment and CCB. Moreover, it is also witnessed that the presence of high service quality strengthens the mediation mechanism; thus, a moderated-mediation model is supported.

The study is cross-sectional, although the design did not cause a common method variance. The model tested in the study offers a novel mechanism explaining the linking between CSR and CCB through affective commitment and service quality. The findings are useful for the management of café as the large sample size may offer generalizable results.

The study offers a novel way of predicting CCB, the desired customer behavior in the present competitive environment in the coffee market. The usefulness of the findings for management is yet another contribution offered by this study.

The purpose of this paper is to value the role of organizational virtuousness in predicting employee performance through mediation of affective well-being and work engagement.

Data were collected through questionnaires from 487 banking employees from 60 branches of ten banks.

Analysis through structural equation modeling proves that virtuousness positively predicts employees’ well-being and engagement, which in turn influence their performance. Furthermore, both well-being and engagement proved to be partial mediation in the relation, where well-being had stronger explanatory role.

This study offers novel explanatory mechanism in the relationship of employee performance and organizational virtuousness, where in past studies such mediation mechanism has not received due attention.

This paper aims to explore the study of magnetohydrodynamic viscous fluid flow past on a stretching cylinder with nonlinear thermal radiation having gyrotactic microorganisms.

Appropriate transformations reduce the nonlinear partial differential equation to ordinary ones. Subsequent nonlinear equations are calculated to get convergent series solutions.

Fluid velocity declines for elevating values of magnetic field parameter. For larger values of curvature parameter near the cylinder temperature reduces.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, magnetohydrodynamic boundary layer flow of viscous fluid by nonlinear stretching cylinder with nonlinear thermal radiation having gyrotatic microorganisms is not studied yet. The purpose is to study this.

The purpose of this paper is to study two-dimensional nonlinear radiative-convective, steady-state boundary layer flow of non-Newtonian power-law nanofluids along a flat vertical plate in a saturated porous medium taking into account thermal and mass convective boundary conditions numerically.

The governing equations are reduced to a set of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations with relevant boundary conditions. The transformed equations are then solved using the Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg fourth-fifth order numerical method with Maple 17 and Adomian decomposition method (ADM) in Mathematica.

The transformed equations are controlled by the parameter: power-law exponent, n; temperature ratio, Tr; Rosseland radiation-conduction, R; conduction-convection, Nc; and diffusion-convection, Nd. Temperature and nanoparticle concentration is enhanced with convection-diffusion parameter as are temperatures. Velocities are depressed with greater power-law rheological index whereas temperatures are elevated. Increasing thermal radiation flux accelerate the flow but to strongly heat the boundary layer. Very good correlation of the Maple solutions with previous stationary free stream and ADM solutions for a moving free stream, are obtained.

The study is relevant to high temperature nano-polymer manufacturing systems.

Lie symmetry group is used for the first time to transform the governing equations into a set of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations with relevant boundary conditions. The study is relevant to high temperature nano-polymer manufacturing systems.

Successfully fostering employee ecological behaviors can reduce the environmental impacts of an organization while boosting performance. This paper aims to investigate the factors and organizational strategies for employees to engage in ecological behaviors.

The study uses a qualitative method. Academicians from four top-ranked research universities from Malaysia participated in semi-structured interviews.

The in-depth analysis of the interviews identified several factors (environmental attitude, feedback, green self-efficacy, leadership role, organizational culture and employee empowerment) and strategies (incentives; top management support; creating environmental knowledge and awareness; rules and regulations; and sustainability advocates) for promoting ecological behavior in the workplace.

This study was limited to Malaysian public research universities. Future research could investigate additional variables that might influence employee ecological behavior. Implications include policymaking, which emphasizes boosting environmental factors among academicians.

Research studies on employee ecological behavior are minimal. This research contributes to the literature by discussing how different stimuli and strategies are used in the top four-ranked green universities of Malaysia for ecological behavior in the workplace.

This research aims to inspect the existence of the “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) in the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and urbanization throughout 1972–2018 for Pakistan.

For time series analysis, Phillips and Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root tests are used to confirm the level of integration. For robustness, Kim and Perron (2009)’s structural break unit root test is employed, which identifies the order of integration in the presence of structural break years. Further, combined cointegration analysis is performed to confirm the existence of a long-run association between underlying variables. Furthermore, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis is employed for the robustness of the cointegration approach.

The cointegration analysis confirms the existence of a long-run association among variables. The authors find a positive and significant impact of urbanization, FD and foreign development on environmental degradation in the long run. Similarly, only FDI increases environmental degradation in the short run. In addition, the authors find an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental quality which, further, confirms the presence of EKC in Pakistan.

This research contributes to applied economics in many ways: the combined effect of urbanization, FD, FDI and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission is checked simultaneously. To avoid ambiguity, this study constructs the FD index through the principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, the role of structural breaks has been considered through the analysis. Novel Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration analysis is employed to detect the existence of long-run relationships among underlying variables.