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In this study, the authors analyze the impact of geopolitics risk on Sukuk, Islamic and composite stocks, oil and gold markets and portfolio diversification implications during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict period.

The study used a mix of wavelet-based approaches, including continuous wavelet transformation and discrete wavelet transformation. The analysis used data from the Geopolitical Risk index (GP{R), Dow Jones Sukuk index (SUKUK), Dow Jones Islamic index (DJII), Dow Jones composite index (DJCI), one of the top crude oil benchmarks which is based on the Europe (BRENT) (oil fields in the North Sea between the Shetland Island and Norway), and Global Gold Price Index (gold) from May 31, 2012, to June 13, 2022.

The results of the study indicate that during the COVID-19 and Russia–Ukraine conflict period geopolitical risk (GPR) was in the leading position, where BRENT confirmed the lagging relationship. On the other hand, during the COVID-19 pandemic period, SUKUK, DJII and DJCI are in the leading position, where GPR confirms the lagging position.

The present study is unique in three respects. First, the authors revisit the influence of GPR on global asset markets such as Islamic stocks, Islamic bonds, conventional stocks, oil and gold. Second, the authors use the wavelet power spectrum and coherence analysis to determine the level of reliance based on time and frequency features. Third, the authors conduct an empirical study that includes recent endogenous shocks generated by health crises such as the COVID-19 epidemic, as well as shocks caused by the geopolitical danger of a war between Russia and Ukraine.

1. We analyze the impact of geopolitics risk on Sukuk, Islamic and composite stocks, oil and gold markets and portfolio diversification implications during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict period.

2. The results of the wavelet-based approach show that Dow Jones composite and Islamic indexes have observed the highest mean return during the study period.

3. GPR and BRENT are estimated to have the highest amount of risk throughout the observation period.

4. Dow Jones Sukuk, Islamic and composite stock show similar trend of volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic period and comparatively gold observes lower variance during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict.

We analyze the impact of geopolitics risk on Sukuk, Islamic and composite stocks, oil and gold markets and portfolio diversification implications during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict period.

The results of the wavelet-based approach show that Dow Jones composite and Islamic indexes have observed the highest mean return during the study period.

GPR and BRENT are estimated to have the highest amount of risk throughout the observation period.

Dow Jones Sukuk, Islamic and composite stock show similar trend of volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic period and comparatively gold observes lower variance during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict.

This study aims to examine the impact of board characteristics on debt choice.

The sample comprises of unique nonfinancial firms listed in the FTSE 350 over the period 2011–2018. This study uses Tobit and OLS regressions to check the impact of board characteristics on debt choice. The results are robust to the battery of robust checks.

This study finds that board size and board independence are positively associated with public debt. However, CEO duality and board meetings frequency are inversely associated with public debt. Overall, the findings are consistent with the “financial intermediation theory” that the firms with weak governance rely on bank financing, and firms with better corporate governance go for public debt.

This study offers significant insights for investors and policymakers.

This study offers new insights regarding the role of board characteristics in firms’ debt choice by showing the significant impact of board characteristics on debt choice. The findings indicate that the board’s efficient internal monitoring may substitute external monitoring by the bank.

Natural gas makes up about 50 per cent of Pakistan's energy consumption, which is decreasing at an alarming pace, making Karachi – the largest city of Pakistan – one of the major victims of natural gas shortfall. The purpose of this paper is to model natural gas demand and supply using geographic information systems.

Sui Southern Gas Company datasets were used to derive annual per capita gas usages and to analyze the capacity of gas supplies. Union Council is taken as a smallest and basic analytical administrative spatial unit for appraisal of badly affected, with insufficient, low and better gas supply regions.

Results show that the per capita demand for natural gas is higher in high class residential areas while supply is lowest for upper middle and lower middle class residential area populations. Only 19 per cent of the total residential areas are expected to be free from gas shortfalls. About 53 per cent of residential areas are facing the problem of low gas availability; and 3 per cent and 11 per cent areas are under stress of badly affected and insufficient gas supply, respectively.

This research shows an example of constructing a Geographic Information System (GIS)‐based gas demand and supply model that can be used for building strategic guidelines for top‐level planners, engineers and decision makers at the micro‐level. This is not a “deep” paper, but it works in identifying a problem and presenting a quantitative way forward. This paper will have significant impact both on society and academia, as this innovative technology and its implementation on gas utility has happened for the first time in Pakistan. Furthermore, in the international literature this has also been in infancy and will open new avenues of research, especially in developing countries. The work would certainly be applicable for other consumer‐based utilities such as electricity, telecommunication, sewerage and municipal water and they would all benefit from it substantially.

This paper presents development of a laboratory scale setup for production of CNTs by arc discharge process in an argon gas environment. The main problem with existing lab scale production is the cleaning of the chamber which is resolved in presented work by placing a circular metal sheet inside the chamber which is removed after the synthesis, thus allowing easy cleaning and recovery of the CNTs. The most noteworthy feature of the presented setup is its low cost, offering for the first time the synthesis of economical CNTs on small scale. In addition to offering better control over operating conditions, another unique feature of the developed setup is its capability to synthesize SWCNTs and MWCNTs with versatile range of diameters.

Extending the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study investigates the impact of social media influencers (SMI) on consumer well-being (CW) as well as the influence of CW on purchase intention.

A between-subjects experiment (macro- vs mega-influencer) was conducted to assess the proposed hypotheses. A total of 190 consumers participated in the experiment, and SmartPLS 3.3 was used for multigroup analyses.

Overall, argument quality (AQ), source's credibility (SC) and influencer's kindness positively predict CW, and CW predicts purchase intention. It was also found that SC is more important when information comes from a mega-influencer, whilst kindness is essential for a macro-influencer.

The results of this study imply that CW should be an essential component of influencer marketing strategy. Marketing managers should hire credible and kind influencers who can produce quality arguments. Additionally, the selection of SMI (macro- vs mega-influencer) should be aligned with the marketing objective and type of persuasion required.

This is one of the early attempts to extend ELM by introducing influencer kindness as a peripheral cue. Moreover, the study offers novelty by examining the effects of influencer characteristics (AQ, SC and kindness) on CW and comparing these effects across macro- and mega-influencers.

藉著擴展詳儘可能性模型, 本研究擬探討網絡紅人對消費者福祉的影響, 以及消費者福祉對購買意圖的影響。

研究人員進行被試間實驗 (中網紅對大型網紅) , 以對提出的假設進行評價。190名消費者參與實驗, 研究人員使用SmartPLS 3.3 進行多群組分析。

總的來說, 論點品質、來源可信度和網紅的仁慈體貼, 均能積極預測消費者福祉, 而消費者福祉亦可預測購買意圖。研究人員亦發現, 若資訊是來自大型網紅的話, 來源可信度則更形重要, 而對中網紅來說, 仁慈體貼則是不可或缺的。

研究結果暗示, 消費者福祉應是網紅市場營銷戰略的基本要素。市場經理應僱用可靠、仁慈體貼、並能提出優質論點的網紅。而且, 網絡紅人 (中網紅對大型網紅) 的挑選, 必須與營銷目標和說服的種類互相協調。

本研究為早期的嘗試, 利用引進網絡紅人的仁慈體貼作為周邊線索, 來擴展詳儘可能性模型。另外, 本研究探討網絡紅人的特徵 (論點品質、來源可信度和仁慈體貼) 會如何影響消費者福祉; 研究人員亦跨中網紅和大型網紅, 對這些影響進行比較, 就此而言, 本研究提供了創新的研究意念。

This study aims to investigate the influence of personality characteristics (risk-aversion and self-consciousness) on skepticism toward online services information (STOSI), consumer stress and health.

A between-subjects experiment (n = 228) was designed to compare effects based on third-party organization endorsement (TPO endorsed vs nonendorsed).

Results revealed that personality characteristics positively influenced STOSI, which in turn escalated consumer stress. Furthermore, consumer stress predicted detrimental effects on consumer health (increased blood pressure and heartbeat). Regarding TPO endorsements, both the risk-aversive and self-conscious consumers showed lesser STOSI when exposed to TPO-endorsed ads compared with nonendorsed ads.

This study is one of the first to examine the effects of consumer personality on consumer health through STOSI and consumer stress. In addition, the remedial roles of TPO in coping with STOSI and consumer stress also accumulate to the novelty of this study.

This study explores the impact of digital technologies and digitalization management on digitalization performance in Lithuanian manufacturing firms, aiming to unravel the dynamics between digital technology adoption and managerial capabilities in enhancing digitalization performance.

Employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the research analyzes data from a survey of 506 Lithuanian manufacturing firms, focusing on their digitalization strategies and outcomes.

The findings reveal that while digital technologies alone do not directly influence digitalization performance, digitalization management significantly mediates this relationship, highlighting the pivotal role of managerial practices in maximizing the benefits of digital technologies.

The study acknowledges limitations in its scope, primarily focusing on Lithuanian manufacturing firms, which may affect the generalizability of its findings to other sectors or geographical contexts.

The study offers valuable insights for practitioners and managers, underscoring the importance of strategic management in leveraging digital technologies for enhanced digitalization performance and providing a roadmap for more effective digital transformation practices.

This research elucidates the intricate dynamics between digital technologies, digitalization management and digitalization performance, revealing a pivotal mediating role of digitalization management. It notably demonstrates that digital technologies, contrary to expectations, do not directly influence digitalization performance, underscoring the essential function of digitalization management in harnessing digital technologies for enhanced performance.

This paper investigates the interactional relationships between sustainable human resource management (SHRM) and organizational performance (OP). Sustainable HRM is an approach that links HRM and sustainability. These studies focused on integrating HR with sustainable developments, such as economic and social aspects, in favour of focusing on the environmental aspect. Organizational change is an ongoing process that has to be managed effectively to keep the change in place for a long time.

A framework was offered to estimate the cause-and-effect relation of the SHRM and OP factors. Data is gathered from professionals from various pharmaceutical industries. This study applied two methods, Fuzzy AHP and DEMATEL Type II. These techniques are used to understand the cause-and-effect factors and their interactions.

It was observed from the findings that the factor of SHRM, such as Social Justice (F2), Green Job Design (F5), Green Training (F6) and Implementation of Green Policy (F8), was the most critical for the pharmaceutical sector that effects Financial performance (F13), Customer Satisfaction (F15) and Market performance (F14). Pharmaceutical firms ought to coordinate public health advocacy efforts, engage in healthcare initiatives and provide financial support for environmentally friendly efforts that improve social and economic conditions.

For this sustainability, managers concentrate on creating an environment that is healthy and acceptable, and they work hard to mitigate the impact of natural factors and repair damage done to the environment; it is essential to move towards sustainable development to resolve environmental problems. Improving HR efficiency is among essential HRM responsibilities, as they expand the knowledge base of the workforce, enhance human capital, and eventually create valuable intangible assets and promote and encourage sustainable pharmaceutical products for some years.

This research paper has presented exclusive worth to the SHRM and organizational performance literature as it employs fuzzy FAHP and DEMATEL type 2. There is less research on SHRM in the pharmaceutical sector with these factors. In addition, FAHP and TYPE 2 DEMATEL are used in very few researches on SHRM approaches.

The era of digital construction, including building information modelling (BIM), has placed a high demand for a seamless collaboration of people, technology and processes in meeting a project delivery. The project actors involved in a BIM process must ensure compliance with all regulations and contractual requirements from inception. While many studies have disclosed the various contractual implications arising from BIM implementation, little has been examined on the current state of BIM in contract administration practice, particularly in the Malaysian construction industry. This study aims to explore the current state of BIM implementation with specific reference to a design-and-build construction project.

The exploratory case study involved the construction of a public complex. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the project actors, and document analysis was performed on the project’s contractual guidelines to derive the findings.

Findings from the thematic analysis revealed the following five sequences of activities that guided the contract administration practices, particularly during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project: project inception, tendering phase, detailed design, construction and preparation for the handing over phase. Most of the activities were conducted to deliver the final BIM outputs successfully. Nevertheless, some shortcomings were noted in the project monitoring, the validation process of the BIM deliverables and the BIM players’ competency level in fulfilling the specified BIM contractual requirements.

The study contributes to a practical understanding of how BIM can affect project administration and how a public client can improve contractual risk allocation in future BIM implementation.

This paper discloses the current practices of contract administration to better understand the impacts of BIM management during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project.

Antenna miniaturization, multiband operation and wider operational bandwidth are vital to achieve optimal design for modern wireless communication devices. Using fractal geometries is recognized as one of the most promising solutions to attain these characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to present a unique structure of patch antenna using hybrid fractal technique to enhance the performance characteristics for various wireless applications and to achieve better miniaturization.

In this paper, the authors propose a novel hybrid fractal antenna by combining Koch and Minkowski (K-M) fractal geometries. A microstrip patch antenna (MPA) operating at 1.8 GHz is incorporated with a novel K-M hybrid fractal geometry. The proposed fractal antenna is designed and simulated in CST Microwave studio and compared with existing Koch fractal geometry. The prototype for the third iteration of the K-M fractal antenna is then fabricated on FR-4 substrate and tested through vector network analyzer for operating band/voltage standing wave ratio.

The third iteration of the proposed K-M fractal geometry results in achieving a 20% size reduction as compared to an ordinary MPA for the same resonant frequency with impedance bandwidth of 16.25 MHz and a directional gain of 6.48 dB, respectively. The operating frequency of MPA also lowers down to 1.44 GHz.

Further testing for the radiation patterns in an anechoic chamber shows good agreement to those of simulated results.