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The coating process increases the durability, quality and effectiveness of the web, is used in manufacturing of wallpapers, adhesive tapes, wrapping, protection of fabrics and metals, X-ray and photographic films, beautification, books and magazines, film foils, magnetic records, coated paper, etc.

This paper gives a detailed study of the Oldroyd-4 constant fluid rheology during blade coating technique to check the sensitivity of velocity slippage on blade surface and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) on final coating thickness and other mechanical properties. Heat transfer effects are also considered with viscous dissipation. The governing expressions under Lubrication Approximation Theory (LAT) are shortened and non-dimensionalized. A numerical technique with root finding algorithm is employed to determine the velocity profile, pressure and pressure gradient, shear stress, coating thickness, blade load and temperature profile. Figures and tables are exploited to show and discuss the effects of Hartmann number, slip parameter, geometrical parameter and viscoelastic fluid parameters on the flow and mechanical quantities. Comparison is also presented with previous literature under specific conditions.

From a technical vantage point, blade load and pressure are significant results of research as they lead to varying coating thickness, which gives an efficient coating process and extends substrate life. Shear stress is directly proportional to the magnetic parameter and inversely proportional to velocity slippage on blade surface. Temperature curve increases with increment in magnetic parameter and Brinkman number, while decrease in temperature is detected from slip parameter.

In literature, this investigation fills a gap in the numerical prediction of slip and MHD effects on the thin layer coating of rheological viscoelastic fluid during blade coating phenomena.

The boundary layer flow of immiscible fluids plays a crucial role across various industries, influencing advancements in industrial processes, environmental systems, healthcare and more. This study explores the thermally radiative boundary layer flow of a shear-driven Ree–Eyring fluid over a nanofluid. The investigation offers valuable insights into the intricate dynamics and heat transfer behavior that arise when a nanofluid, affected by thermal radiation, interacts with a non-Newtonian Ree–Eyring fluid. This analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex interactions governing such systems, which is essential for enhancing efficiency and innovation in multiple applications.

The simulation investigates the convergence of boundary layers under varying shear strengths. A comparative analysis is conducted using γAl2O3 and Al₂O₃ nanoparticles, with water as the base fluid. The model’s numerical outcomes are derived using the bvp4c method through the application of appropriate similarity transformations. The resulting numerical data are then used to produce graphical representations, offering valuable insights into the influence of key parameters on flow behavior and patterns.

The temperature of the Al₂O₃ nanoparticles is always higher than the γAl2O3 nanoparticles, and hence, Al₂O₃ nanoparticles become more significant in the cooling process then γAl2O3 nanoparticles. It is also observed that the fluid velocity for both regions is enhanced by increasing values of the Ree–Eyring fluid parameter.

The results stated are original and new with the thermal radiative boundary layer flow of two immiscible Ree–Eyring fluid and Al₂O₃/γAl2O3 nanofluid.

Agri-entrepreneurship is considered a promising strategy to address poverty, particularly in developing countries. However, embarking on an agri-entrepreneurial venture poses significant challenges. The existing literature on agri-entrepreneurship in developing countries, particularly focusing on smallholders’ constraints, is often scattered and fragmented, focusing mainly on individual barriers rather than providing a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted constraints. Therefore, this study aims to fill the gap by conducting a systematic review to identify, categorize, and prioritize the smallholders’ constraints.

By systematically reviewing literature retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, published between 2013 and 2023, and following the PRISMA guidelines, this study identifies agri-entrepreneurial constraints through content analysis and categorizes and prioritizes them using thematic analysis.

This study revealed a range of constraints which are categorized into thematic areas including market-related challenges, financial constraints, limitations in human capital, institutional barriers, socio-cultural factors, technological shortcomings, and infrastructural challenges. Moreover, the study examines the role of social networks and their impacts on the livelihoods of smallholders in developing countries.

The study’s scope is limited to constraints for agri-entrepreneurship, particularly for smallholders in developing countries. The review considers English articles published between 2013 and 2023, and ABS 3 and above ranked journal articles.

The study systematically identifies, categorizes, and prioritizes the significant constraints to agri-entrepreneurship in developing countries by conducting a systematic review and identifying research gaps and future directions.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertain working patterns in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world wherein unleashing power of knowledge became prototypical for real-time decision-making capacity of organizational workforce. Drawing from Vroom’s expectancy theory, this study aims to investigate whether shared leadership (SL) mediates the impact of perceived fairness of rewards (PFR) on knowledge capitalization (KC).

A survey of 484 employees in the Indian real estate industry was completed in two phases. Confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation model were applied for analysis and hypothesis testing.

PFR positively affected employee’s KC in Indian real estate industry. Also, SL partially mediated the effect of PFR on KC.

This study indicates the positive impact of PFR on employees’ KC and demonstrates position of SL for boosting its occurrence in organizations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the mediating role of SL between relationship of PFR and KC of employees.

This paper aims to investigate the zakat disclosure of Islamic banks at the global level. It is important for depositors and shareholders of Islamic banks to know whether the bank is paying zakat on their behalf or not. Additionally, disclosing the calculation method used is also necessary to eliminate uncertainties resulting from ambiguous reporting that can mislead the stakeholders. This issue becomes more obvious when considering that depositors and shareholders may have different accounts with different Islamic banks, which makes it quite confusing to have multiple ways of zakat calculation or different approaches on who is the party that pays it. This study analyzes the current practices across 13 countries and recommends best practices.

The objective of the paper objective is achieved through analyzing the annual reports of 34 Islamic banks in 13 countries for the years 2014 and 2019. It further quantifies the zakat disclosure by constructing a zakat disclosure index. This index considers the disclosure of four major constituents covering the amount and the responsibility for payment, the calculation method, the involvement of the Shariah board and the zakat duty on investment account holders. For further robustness, this study is further supported by content analysis measures using the zakat word count in annual reports.

The results indicate a major issue in zakat disclosure. The overall average of disclosure index is low. Most of the banks disclose limited information about zakat, such as the amount and the responsibility for payment, in their annual reports. Less than 40% of the examined banks disclose information about the role of the Shariah board in zakat calculation, and a very limited number of banks (9%) are found to disclose enough details about the zakat calculation method. Furthermore, none of the examined banks mentions the zakat due for the investment accounts. Overall, zakat disclosure of most of the banks, whether following Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions or otherwise, are found to be not up to the expected best practices.

Among the limitations of this study is the sole dependence on annual reports of Islamic banks without considering other means that banks might be using to communicate zakat-related matters to stakeholders. Examples of such means include a website, social media and other direct or indirect marketing materials. Additionally, the results of this study shall not be overgeneralized regarding differences between countries because the sample does not include all Islamic banks in the selected country. Future research may use the proposed zakat disclosure index on a country-specific data sample.

The findings have significant implications as they raise a serious concern regarding the sufficiency of the Islamic banks’ disclosure about a core area of their responsibility, that is, the zakat. The index developed can be a tentative measure of zakat disclosure transparency pending further review. The result further suggests looking at the composition of members of Shariah boards to include at least one member with a sound accounting background. Zakat is a religious duty; therefore, a perceived lack of transparency on the amount, method of calculation and how the zakat is paid may affect the future injection of capital into Islamic banks.

An important contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the collected data is not provided in any available database. Rather, it is manually captured from the individual annual reports of reviewed Islamic banks. Further, this paper proposes an index to measure the zakat disclosure at bank and country levels.

The construction of infrastructure projects for extracting natural resources is vital to the economies of countries and the strategies of mining companies. Project performance success (PJPF) means achieving the planned scope, cost, schedule and quality. This study aims to analyze if PJPF is influenced by the team’s psychological empowerment (PEMP) and structural empowerment (SEMP), the project manager’s transformational leadership (TLD) and shared leadership (SLD) styles and the cultural power distance (CPDT). The study also examined the mediating roles of TLD and CPDT.

This paper tested its hypotheses through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling in AMOS. Data were collected using the online survey platform SurveyMonkey. Owners, contractors and consultants from 24 countries across the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia contributed a total of 222 responses. All participants were involved in construction projects owned by a mining company listed in the S&P 500.

PEMP has a positive impact on PJPF, SEMP and CPDT. PEMP fosters engaged and autonomous employees with agility and problem-solving skills. TLD mediates the relationship between PEMP and SLD. The results indicated that SEMP, TLD and SLD, on their own, do not directly contribute to project success. In contrast to prior studies, CPDT does not mediate the effects of PEMP on PJPF.

Although construction projects remain labor-intensive, research on measuring PEMP, SEMP, TLD, SLD and CPDT in this field is limited. This document is notable for incorporating the perspectives of owners, EPC contractors and consultants.

The Takāful (Islamic insurance) industry operates on the principles of Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah, and of late, the industry has witnessed significant market growth. The purpose of this study is to develop a performance measurement model based on Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah to evaluate the performance of Takāful firms.

A mixed-method research approach was adopted to conduct the present study. Priorities were assigned to various dimensions of the Maqāṣid model using analytic hierarchy process and by taking inputs from 18 Takāful experts. On the contrary, six experts were involved in identifying the elements and measures for the operationalization of the Maqāṣid dimensions.

Maṣlaḥa (0.359) was found to possess the highest priority, followed by Justice (0.345) and Educating Individuals (0.295). Furthermore, under Necessity, protection of religion (0.398) and protection of life (0.388) are assigned almost similar priorities. These two are followed by the protection of progeny (0.107), protection of wealth (0.058) and protection of intellect (0.047). The final outcome of this study is a hierarchical model for the evaluation of performance of Takāful firms.

The application of the performance evaluation model will provide information to the management of Takāful firms on where they stand in terms of fulfilling Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah principles. If any firms are found to have a deficiency in a certain part of Maqāṣid components, then proper and adequate measures can be taken to ameliorate the situation.

It is necessary to have a performance evaluation model based upon Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah to evaluate the performance of Takāful firms as these firms operate on the principles of Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah. Because there does not exist any such model, this study fills up this gap. Details of the measures that can be used to evaluate the performance of Takāful firms are also provided.

The paper discusses sustainability, in terms of creating purposive social value, which is increasingly an inherent characteristic of project leading and doing. Consequently, project scholars are currently grappling with what purposive social value creation means to initiation and execution of projects.

In line with recent development we offer reflections on the empowering nature of leadership enabling social value, its underlying forms of power and the dilemmas involved. Our theorizing is based on recent developments in literature on the value of sustainability in the context of projects, combined with literature on project leadership and reflections on the processes of power.

Based on a process ontology, we suggest that leadership for purposive social value creation calls for a rethinking of leadership as an inclusive patterning of actions, making it relational, boundary spanning and socialized in nature and essentially entailing a politics of representation.

The paper is conceptual, so it has all the limitations of any conceptual paper that innovates a new field of inquiry. It is a not a hypothetic-deductively structured paper but is abductive in nature, combining disparate literary studies in a conceptual framework for further inquiry.

The legitimacy of leadership for purposive social value does not reside in the singular formal position of a project leader but in its broader vesting and representation.

The paper calls for a rethinking of the nature of project leadership power relations, processes oriented toward the achievement of purposive social value and representation of interests.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how purposive social value can be enabled by socialized and distributed project leadership that represents a broad-based and coherent conception of interests.

This study drawing upon opportunity-ability-motivation (OAM) theory focuses on digital entrepreneurship opportunities (DEOs), knowledge generation capabilities (EKGCs) and enterprise market-sensing capabilities (EMSC) affecting digital innovation in terms of exploitative and exploratory DIs.

Employing quantitative methodology on a sample of 352 software SMEs' managers, the study employed a hierarchical regression analysis to investigate whether and how digital entrepreneurship opportunities and knowledge generation capabilities support and nurture both DIs. Additionally, the moderated–mediation effect of market-sensing capabilities on the relationships among digital entrepreneurship opportunities, enterprise knowledge generation capabilities and DIs are considered.

The study findings reveal that digital entrepreneurship opportunities influence exploitative and exploratory DIs. Knowledge generation capabilities partially mediate the relationship between digital entrepreneurship opportunities and exploitative and exploratory DIs, respectively. Moreover, market-sensing capabilities strengthen not only the effect of digital entrepreneurship opportunities on knowledge generation capabilities but also the effects of knowledge generation capabilities on exploratory DI. The moderated–mediation outcomes reveal that the mediating role of knowledge generation capabilities on the relationship between digital entrepreneurship opportunities and both DIs is stronger when EMSC are high.

This research integrates the opportunity-ability-motivation perspective to present a comprehensive framework that reveals the intricate interdependencies among digital entrepreneurship opportunity, knowledge generation and market-sensing capabilities in driving both exploratory and exploitative digital innovation in software SMEs. This approach significantly enhances our understanding of how software SMEs can strategically strengthen their internal skills and resources, ultimately leading to superior digital innovation outcomes.

This study aims to investigate the influence of requirement engineering (RE) on project performance (PP) in the context of NEOM* in Saudi Arabia. The study also aims to examine the relationship between three components of RE, evolving market needs (ECN), market changes (MC) and technological advancements (TA), on PP, through the mediating influence of effective communication (EC), change readiness (CR) and stakeholder engagement (SE). Further, the study aims to examine the moderating effect of team cohesion (TC) on the RE–PP relationships.

A research framework is developed by drawing on the resource-based theory and with the support of empirical evidence and rational arguments to propose a set of hypotheses relating to the constructs in the framework. The hypotheses are tested through survey data collected from individual employees working on different projects across NEOM. A total of 336 useable responses were collected that were analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling using AMOS v.28.

The results show although ECN and TA both have a positive impact on PP, MC had no significant relationship with PP. In terms of the mediation hypotheses, EC, CR and SE all partially mediate the relationships between ECN and TA with PP. However, there was no mediating effect in the relationship between MC and PP. Moreover, EC, CR and SE themselves have a significant positive influence on PP. Finally, TC proved to be a significant moderator between ECN and PP and TA and PP, but not in the case of MC and PP.

This study makes three novel contributions. First, most prior empirical studies examined the overall impact of RE on PP; however, the current study provides a more nuanced insight into the relationships between the three components of RE (i.e. ECN, MC and TA) and PP. Second, the mediating roles of EC, CR and SE between components of RE and PP present a finer-grained understanding of how project resources are linked to project success goals through features of the project team. Third, moderating influence of TC with regard to a higher possibility of success for projects are highlighted through this discovery.