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This study aims to examine the mediating role of government support programs in the halal cosmetics and personal care industry between local demand conditions and competitive advantage.

Data were collected from 96 companies in the cosmetics and personal care industry in Malaysia, and the analysis was conducted using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach.

The results indicate that demand conditions do not have a direct effect on competitive advantage in the halal cosmetics and personal care industry. However, government support programs, specifically regulatory and innovation programs, play a crucial mediating role between demand conditions and competitive advantage. This highlights the importance of both regulatory and innovation programs in shaping the halal market ecosystem.

The halal industry policy should prioritize innovation and regulatory programs to ensure that nonfood halal products, including beauty products, are evaluated not only based on ingredient content but also on broader aspects such as product effectiveness, quality, safety and affordability.

This study offers a unique perspective by highlighting the often-overlooked role of government support programs as key drivers in shaping the halal market ecosystem and enhancing competition in the halal cosmetics and personal care industry. While the government’s role is frequently neglected in market dynamics, this research emphasizes how government intervention, when implemented through effective policy, can significantly contribute to industry growth and competitiveness.

To deal with the issue of irresponsible consumer behavior, this study aims to find out the significant determinants that direct sustainability in consumers' responsible behavior.

The study is quantitatively designed (survey approach) and targeted 520 respondents by deploying multistage sampling technique. The collected data is statistically analyzed in SEM-path analysis technique through Smart PLS 3.

The outcomes of study indicated that awareness of wasteful consumption (ß = 0.27, p = 0.00) and wastophobia (ß = 0.73, p = 0.00) strongly influence consumers’ mind to bring sustainability in responsible behavior.

This study suggests that the empirically tested wastophobia model can pave foundations in the theoretical literature to manage waste other than electricity waste, including time, food, water, agriculture, garbage, hazardous environmental pollution and natural reservoirs waste.

The study originates that promoting various conscious and unconscious aspects of wasteful consumption by focusing on fearful consequences of electricity waste supports to bring sustainability in consumers’ responsible behavior.

The present study aims to encompass the bidirectional magnetized flowing of a hybrid-nanofluid over an unsteady stretching device with the inclusion of thermal radiation and entropy generation. Brick-shaped nanoparticles (zinc-oxide and ceria) are suspended in water, serving as the base-fluid to observe the performance of the hybrid mixture. The Maxwell thermal conductivity relation is employed to link the thermophysical attributes of the hybrid mixture with the host liquid. Additionally, a heat source/sink term is incorporated in the energy balance to enhance the impact of the investigation. Both prescribed-surface-temperature (PST) and prescribed-heat-flux (PHF) conditions are applied to inspect the thermal performance of the hybrid nanofluid.

The transport equations in Cartesian configuration are transformed into ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and an efficient method, namely the Keller-Box method (KBM), is utilized to solve the transformed system. Postprocessing is conducted to visually represent the velocity profile, thermal distribution, skin-friction coefficients, Bejan number, Nusselt number and entropy generation function against the variations of the involved parameters.

It is observed that more entropy is generated due to the increases in temperature difference and radiation parameters. The Bejan number initially declines but then improves with higher estimations of unsteadiness and Hartmann number. Overall, the thermal performance of the system is developed for the PST scenario than the PHF scenario for different estimations of the involved constraints.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no investigation has been reported yet that explains the bidirectional flow of a CeO2-ZnO/water hybrid nanofluid with the combined effects of prescribed thermal aspects (PST and PHF) and entropy generation.

Historically, investments in innovation are perceived as one of the paramount decisions businesses opt to thrive and the impact of such investments on businesses' market performance is well documented in the literature. However, the environmental aspects of making such investments are yet to be addressed by the firms, which in turn, present considerable damage to the environment. Coupling with the natural resource-based view (NRBV) and the stakeholder theory of the firm, this research builds on an earlier work of Khalil and Nimmanunta (2021) in an attempt to examine the link between innovation and firms' environmental and financial value. The authors extend their analysis and document a more consistent approach to measuring environmental innovation which allows the authors to investigate the firms from three additional economies with respect to firms' investments in both traditional and environmental innovations.

The underlying models are tested using the time fixed-effects panel regression by utilizing information from publicly traded companies of ten Asian economies, including Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. The reported sample covers annual firm-level ESG data obtained from Thomson Reuters' Datastream and Refinitiv Eikon during the 2015–2019 period.

This research offers support to the conventional wisdom that innovation is advantageous to the firms' market value. The authors further decompose innovation into traditional innovation and environmental innovation. The findings of this research suggest that traditional innovation is favorable only for the firms' market valuation and traditional innovation is strongly ineffectual for the environment – traditional innovation produces sizeable environmental distress by contributing substantially to carbon emissions. In contrast, the resultant effects of investments in environmental innovation are evident to be instrumental for both firms' financial performance and the environment.

This research has primarily focused on only two components of a company's environmental performance: reduction in carbon emissions (CO2) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Given the complexity of firms' environmental strategies and the multidimensionality of the variable, which encompasses a wide range of corporate behavior in terms of relationships with communities, suppliers, consumers, and broader environmental responsibilities broadening the scope of the study by including other important aspects of environmental sustainability is, therefore, critical.

The findings of this research signify environmental innovation as one of the vital investment approaches as firms can exploit benefits related to the market from firms' sustainable practices, developing eco-friendly processes by introducing steady yet systematic chains of green products and services. Such products and services may have a feature of enhanced functionality with a better layout in terms of improved product life with better recycling options, and lower consumption and exploitation of energy and natural resources. These sustainable practices would be advantageous for the firms regarding the possibility of setting prices above the standard level through establishing green brands and gaining market share of environmentally anxious consumers. For those companies that are striving to take the leading role in the green industry and longing to seek superior returns on the companies' environmental investments, these benefits, in particular, are exceptionally critical to them.

The linkage between firms' financial and environmental performance in the context of simultaneous inclusion of both green and traditional innovations remains unclear and is yet to be investigated by researchers. Thus, this research shed light on the role of environmental innovation and traditional innovation on firms' environmental performance and financial performance. The authors utilize a novel dataset with a clear indication of measuring different elements of innovation that allows us to develop a more robust approach to corporates' environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance metrics having the slightest biases related to transparency and firm size.

The purpose of this paper is to fabricate and investigate sensing properties of a novel, flexible resistive tensile load cells based on multi-walled carbon nano-tubes (MWCNTs)/rubber composites. The use of carbon nanotubes makes it very attractive for being used as sensors.

On thin rubber substrate, MWCNTs powder was deposited and pressed at elevated temperature. Two types of samples were prepared: first sample was made by depositing MWCNTs suspension in water on the substrate, then the sample was dried at room temperature; the second sample was prepared by applying dry MWCNTs powder directly on the substrate.

The resistances of the cells made from wet MWCNT powder are much lower than those made with dry powder. It was found that the fabricated load cells were highly sensitive to the force and showed good repeatability. The resistance of the flexible resistive tensile MWCNTs/rubber composite load cells increased 1.37 times, on average, with the increasing force (up to 0.045 N). The sensitivity of the cells was equal to 142 N-1.

The device fabrication method used here provides a simple, less expensive and effective approach for preparing resistive tensile load cells.

A novel, flexible resistive tensile load cells using MWCNTs/rubber composites have been successfully fabricated and investigated. MWCNTs, in dry and wet form, have been deposited on thin rubber substrates by adopting a very simple and inexpensive technique.

This paper begins with a challenge to explore the scope and dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Islamic banking and design a CSR disclosure index, which may gauge the level of CSR disclosure in Islamic banking.

It adopts a two-fold approach to develop the CSR disclosure index for Islamic banking, such as “identification” and “prioritization.” In the ambit of identification, it relies on the existing literature related to CSR and Islamic banking. However, it undertakes analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method for prioritization through the sample of 104 experts related to Islamic banking of Pakistan.

It concludes the CSR index for Islamic banking contains five dimensions, including 79 items across 20 sub-dimensions. The results of AHP indicate that the CSR dimensions are important for Shariah governance, employee, community, customer and environment. Moreover, within dimensions, the most important sub-dimensions are Shariah compliance, customer service and quality, green investing/banking, customer relationship, training and development and poverty alleviation.

The CSR disclosure index of this study has important implications for academicians, such as it paves the ways for further investigations and practical usage of index to gauge the level CSR disclosure of Islamic banking. Moreover, it delineates the spectrum of responsibilities for managers of Islamic banking under the domain of CSR.

The proposed CSR disclosure index is comprehensive and stresses on the social responsibility of Islamic banking toward stakeholders. In nutshell, this study offers what is expected from the practitioners of Islamic banking in the domain of social responsibility.

Green practices are essential for sustainability. However, it is challenging due to the socioeconomic and environmental concerns. Similarly, after the induced SDG-12 and SDG-13 by United Nations, the pressure groups forced manufacturers to consider sustainability. Therefore, this research aims to examine the sustainability through multifaceted green functions in manufacturing is examined.

Data were collected from 293 supply chain professionals of manufacturers from a developing economy. Hypotheses were tested through a quantitative method using partial least squares-structural equation modeling with the help of SmartPLS version 4 to validate the measurement model.

The findings revealed that all six direct hypotheses were supported. However, out of four hypotheses of mediation, one was not supported. Besides, a sequential mediation of green supply chain environmental cooperation and green human resource management was supported. The findings illustrated that green supply chain practices positively influence all used variables.

This research provides practical insight to practitioners to implement green practices in their supply chain networks for social, economic and environmental sustainability and compliance with SDG-12 and SDG-13. The sustainability was validated in a higher-order construct (HOC) (formative), including sequential mediation in the model with the support of resource dependency theory. Therefore, this study adds substantial literature to the existing body of knowledge.

This research provides an interdisciplinary framework by adding knowledge to the Resource Dependency Theory to address Sustainable Development Goals-12 (SDGs) and SDG-13. Likewise, this research provides an extension towards the body of knowledge on the issue, which can be used in future research and critical examinations for cleaner and sustainable production. So far, in Pakistan, no research has looked at the function of these integrated variables in the manufacturing industry with a diligent focus on sustainability as it was validated in a higher-order construct (formative) with one sequential mediation, which makes this research unique.

This paper aims to review the relevant literature on training needs assessment (TNA) with an objective to provide users/beneficiaries of TNA with the understanding of its growing concept, multiple uses (outcomes), and valuing these uses (antecedents).

To conduct the literature review on uses of TNA, the authors used the systematic search comprising four stages: selection of appropriate search terms such as training, needs assessment, needs analysis, training needs assessment, and training needs analysis; carrying out search in established databases such as EBSCOhost, Emerald, JSTOR, SpringerLink, and Wiley‐Blackwell; initial sample filtering (relevance‐based); and further sample filtering (access‐based). Based on this review, a conceptual framework for examining the forward and backward linkages between TNA and nine human resource management and development areas is proposed for further examination.

This paper highlights training plans, goal setting, employee development, managing change, career development, knowledge, skills, and attitude, learning motivation, cost effectiveness, and performance appraisal as nine major human resource management and development areas revealing different uses of TNA. This gives an appropriate place to the expanding view of TNA.

This paper offers important implications for human resource professionals. Their learning about multiple uses of TNA can help them attain comprehensive solutions of varied organisational problems.

This paper attempts to make a significant contribution towards understanding the growing concept of TNA by expanding the long‐established way of looking at it through increasing its potential effects and subsequently enhancing its purposes and uses for both training and non‐training initiatives.

Environmental degradation is recognized as a serious problem globally, and hence, Saudi Arabia is no exception. This paper aims to focus on the economy of Saudi Arabia to identify the determinants of environmental degradation.

Time series data spanning from 1971 to 2014 is used and analyzed using the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach.

The obtained results reflected that natural resources, per person income and urbanization, have impacted environmental degradation both positively and significantly in the long run. Similarly, an insignificant negative relationship is established between trade openness and environmental degradation. Moreover, energy consumption has positively but insignificantly affected environmental degradation. In the short run, only per capita income has positively influenced environmental degradation while the rest of the variables have lost either significance levels or their direction of relationship has reversed.

As this is a pioneering study on the economy of Saudi Arabia, therefore, the authors assume that policymakers will find the findings of the current study very useful while formulating and implementing policies to control environmental degradation.