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This study aims to identify the factors influencing the adoption of extended reality (XR) applications in libraries for sustainable innovative services and reveal the challenges of adopting XR technology in libraries.

A systematic literature review was applied to address the study’s objectives. The 26 most relevant seminal studies published in peer-reviewed journals were selected to conduct the study.

The findings showed that access to digital collections, skill development, marketing, innovation and sustainable development factors influence the adoption of extended reality applications in libraries. The study illustrated that technical challenges, financial challenges, the unavailability of staff expertise and lack of institutional support caused barriers to the adoption of XR in libraries.

The study has added valuable literature to the existing body of knowledge. It has provided a framework to efficiently adopt extended reality in libraries for the delivery of sustainable, innovative services to library patrons.

The purpose of this study is to know the perceptions of university librarians in Pakistan about the benefits of electronic learning for continuing professional development (CPD), to identify the motivating factors to engage librarians in electronic learning programmes for CPD and to investigate the challenges of adopting electronic learning faced by university librarians in Pakistan for CPD.

A quantitative research method followed by a survey research design was applied to address the study’s objectives. Quantitative data was gathered from the target population through a questionnaire. The target population of the study was consisted of all library professionals working in the Higher Education Commission (HEC)-recognized public and private sector universities of Pakistan.

The findings of the study showed that respondents positively realized the benefits of electronic learning for CPD. According to the results, organizational support is a prominent motivational factor for librarians to attend electronic learning programmes and develop their professional skills. Findings revealed that lack of technical support is identified as the most prominent problem in the effective adoption of electronic learning technologies. Technical challenges, such as inadequate infrastructure, poor networks, broadband access issues and low bandwidth, create obstacles for librarians in implementing electronic learning for their CPD.

This study is fruitful for library leadership to apply the emerging technologies to benefit from electronic learning for career development to deliver value-added services to the end users of university libraries.

This bibliometric study is steered to compute the impact of literature published on cloud computing within the fields of information science and library science. The research has been conducted on concentrating the term “Cloud Computing” to search the literature published in both fields, i.e. information science and library science from the time span 2007 to August 2023. This study aims to investigate the top productive country, organizations and highly cited publications.

The period of the exploration was from 2007 to August 2023 for bibliometric analysis and data was collected from the ISI Web of Science. Total 401 documents were retrieved and analyzed to highlight the year-wise distribution of documents type, year-wise most cited articles, prominent journals of the subjects, productivity of organizations, impact of countries and cooccurrences of keywords. The results are grounded on the basis of documents types (articles, early access articles, proceeding papers, book review, editorial material, news items and reviews).

The findings reveal that the most productive year of publication on cloud computing services was 2013. The top productive source is “International Journal of Information Management.” The articles entitled “Assessing the determinants of cloud computing adoption: An analysis of the manufacturing and services sectors” found as the most cited article and the significant increase in citations is also noteworthy. The most productive organizations on the topic include “Islamic Azad University of Iran,” “University Cologne of Germany” and “University Nova Lisboa of Portugal.” The results confirmed that the USA dominates in the production of research on “Cloud Computing Services” and the most repeated keyword in the literature is cloud computing. The research articles are the most cited sources of research.

This bibliometric research is an original piece of work that has been conducted to measure the research production in the field of information science and library science during 2007−2023. This piece of work is valuable for those who want to study the literature on cloud computing in the area of information science and library science.

The purpose of this study are to identify the factors influencing the adoption of big data in libraries, determine the challenges causing the hindrance of big data implementation and reveal the best practices for the efficient adoption of big data in libraries.

A systematic literature review was applied to address the objectives of the study. Twenty-two studies published in peer-reviewed journals were selected to conduct the study.

The findings of the study revealed that decision-making, service enhancement, professional development and preservation factors influenced the adoption of big data technologies in libraries. The study also displayed that challenges of infrastructure, technical skills, data management and legal considerations caused barriers to the adoption of big data in libraries. Results also revealed that training and professional development, guidelines and policies establishment, leadership and strategic planning and resource allocation proved fruitful in the efficient adoption of big data applications in libraries.

The study offers theoretical implications for future investigators through the provision of innovative literature on the factors, challenges and best practices associated with big data in the context of librarianship. The study has also provided practical implications for management bodies by offering guidelines for the successful adoption of big data in libraries.

This study aims to identify the status of virtual library system development in university libraries. It also attempted to examine the availability of virtual library services and reveal the challenges being faced by university librarians of Punjab province, Pakistan in providing virtual library services.

The study used a quantitative research method by using a questionnaire to address the study’s objectives. In total, 62 university libraries in Punjab province, Pakistan were the population of the study. A purposive sampling technique was applied to gather the required data from the respondents.

Results showed that most of the study’s respondents are well aware of the potential benefits of virtual library systems in universities for the delivery of innovative smart services to library patrons. The libraries delivered different virtual library services to meet the diverse needs of the library patrons. The respondents faced the challenges of funding, expertise, technical support, leadership, strategic planning and training to adopt virtual library systems and services in university libraries.

The study has provided a framework based on empirical findings of the study to efficiently adopt virtual library systems and services in university libraries for the delivery of smart services to end users. It has provided pertinent theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis to discover the published information on the effects of e-learning technologies on innovative competency development of university librarians and smart library services.

This study is based on bibliometric research methodology. The data were retrieved from the leading database Web of Science to analyze the scholarly publications on the topic during 1965–2023. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software were used to analyze the bibliometric data on the subject.

Results displayed that the topic of e-learning technologies in the domain of librarianship has been greatly used by several authors as a title to publish their research work. The dominance of countries such as the USA, China and the UK in research output reveals their leadership in advancing research and innovation in the field of e-learning technologies for university libraries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first bibliometric study that has been conducted to measure the productivity of literature at the international level on the effects of e-learning technologies on innovative competency development of university librarians and smart library services.

Conventional theories of financial management are notably inconspicuous when considering the influence of heuristic-driven biases and fundamental and technical anomalies on institutional investors' investment decision-making performance and market efficiency, particularly, in emerging Asian economies. This study aims to explore the mechanism by which heuristic driven biases (i.e. cognitive heuristic biases and recognition-based heuristic biases) influence institutional investors' investment decision-making, investment performance and perceived market efficiency, with a mediating role of fundamental and technical anomalies and the moderating role of financial knowledge in Pakistan.

Data were collected through a survey completed by 180 institutional investors trading on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

The results suggest that heuristic-driven biases have a significant negative influence on perceived market efficiency and investment performance and a significant positive effect on investment decisions of institutional investors. Fundamental and technical anomalies appeared to mediate these relationships. The results also revealed that financial knowledge moderates these relationships.

This study pioneers research on the links among heuristic-driven biases, financial knowledge, fundamental and technical anomalies and institutional investors' decisions and performance. This adds to the understanding of the role that heuristic-driven bias plays in investment management activities and enhances the appreciation of various behavioral aspects and their influence on investment decision-making and performance in an emerging market. It also contributes to the literature on behavioral finance, specifically the role of heuristics in investment strategies, which is still in its initial stage in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. The current research contributes to the literature by defining heuristic-driven biases as antecedents and fundamental and technical anomalies as intervening variables for irrational investment decision-making and poor investment performance. In addition, this study underlines the significance of utilizing financial knowledge to manage the antecedents and repercussions of fundamental and technical anomalies.

Green, lean and six sigma (GLSS) practices are widely used and well accepted techniques that have the capability to improve the economic, social and environmental performance of Pakistani small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, implementation of these practices in an integrated approach has not yet been witnessed in Pakistani SMEs due to a variety of challenges. To overcome the implementation challenges, this study has analyzed the impact of GLSS implementation over the sustainability in Pakistani SMEs.

This study consists of two phases. In phase 1, interviews were conducted to scrutinize the elements of GLSS implementation to simplify the model and in phase 2, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data from the SMEs. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach is used to analyze the relationships among the latent variables and constructs.

Results showed that, leadership for GLSS, understanding GLSS techniques and technology upgradation are considered the most important elements for GLSS implementation in Pakistani SMEs. The environmental and social perspectives have been given more weightage compared to economical perspective. This inferred that there is a need to focus more on environmental and social perspectives in SMEs as compared to economic perspectives to achieve sustainable growth. Moreover, the results of the hypothesis testing revealed that GLSS implementation has a significant positive impact over the sustainability in SMEs considering the Pakistani scenario (β = 0.529, STDEV = 0.078, t = 6.81, p = < 0.001).

This study is the first of its kind for Pakistani SMEs. The structural model developed in this study for Pakistani SMEs will help practitioners to understand the important elements of GLSS implementation and sustainability dimensions.

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the perspectives of key stakeholders on strategies to improve the effectiveness of audit committees (ACs) in African economies, with a specific focus on the Libyan banking sector.

The study uses a mixed-methods approach, combining questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The data collection process involves gathering responses from participants through questionnaires and conducting in-depth interviews to gain deeper insights into the subject matter.

The research findings highlight several key points. Firstly, fortifying Libya’s accounting and auditing profession emerges as the most widely endorsed suggestion for enhancing AC effectiveness. Secondly, participants identified various actions that can strengthen ACs, including appointing members with financial expertise, refining the legal requirements governing AC responsibilities, securing board support, enhancing Libya’s legal and regulatory framework, adequately compensating AC members and reducing government intervention in AC practices.

This research contributes to the field of corporate governance by providing valuable insights into the perspectives of stakeholders on enhancing AC effectiveness in the Libyan banking sector, within the broader context of African economies. The findings offer actionable plans for regulators and policymakers seeking to improve AC effectiveness in Libya.