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One of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals is to ensure the availability of improved drinking water for everyone. In this study, we examine the association between access to improved drinking water at the district level and child nutritional outcomes in Pakistan.

We employ district-level unbalanced panel data from Pakistan from various rounds of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Surveys and Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys compiled by the Data4Pakistan, Pakistan District Development Portal. We examine the impact of the percentage of the population in a given district with access to clean drinking water on the percentage of stunted, underweight and wasted children in the district. The analysis proceeds in two steps. In the first step, we explore the spatial distribution of improved drinking water coverage and child development outcomes across districts. In the second step, we study their relationship by employing standard panel estimation methods and controlling for district characteristics.

The spatial analysis reveals the large disparity among districts and provinces in terms of improved drinking water coverage and child nutrition. The estimation results indicate that there is a significant association between the accessibility of improved drinking water and child development outcomes. The effect is significant for child stunting and underweight but not for child wasting. The impact appears to be stronger in rural districts. These findings are robust to alternate empirical strategies.

This is the first such study to examine the provision of improved drinking water at the district level in relation to child developmental outcomes in a developing country context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2023-0739

This chapter examines the relative influence of parents (vertical channel) and friends (horizontal channel) when deciding between employment in the public or private sector. Using a novel database and applying network analysis, the influence of peers is first measured. Next, the peer effect is compared with the impact of parental background on individual preferences. For the private sector, findings indicate that the influence (marginal effect) of friends is greater than that of parents. The opposite is observed for the public sector. However, in the case of public sector employment, the overall effect of the horizontal channel may surpass the vertical channel, as individuals typically have two parents but may have many friends. Additionally, it is found that both parents and friends exert a greater influence on women than on men.

Drawing from the conservation of resources theory and organisational justice theory, this study examined the direct and indirect (via career resilience) effects of organisational career growth on work engagement. We further examined the boundary condition of procedure justice in the relationship between organisational career growth, career resilience and work engagement.

We employed time-lagged data collected in three waves from 431 employees working in the public health sector. Hierarchical regression analysis and Hayes Process Macro were used to test the study hypotheses.

The findings revealed that organisational career growth has a significant positive direct and indirect influence on work engagement in the presence of career resilience. Also, the boundary condition of procedural justice was significant for employees who perceived procedural justice to be high as opposed to low.

Organisational career growth has a positive influence on employee work engagement. Therefore, public health organisations need to prioritise employee career growth by creating an enabling environment that will help employees' career prospects and mitigate employees’ perception of low procedural justice.

The originality of this study is in empirically establishing career resilience as an underlying mechanism in the relationship between organisational career growth and work engagement while considering the interactive effect of procedural justice. Additionally, the originality of this paper is demonstrated by empirically establishing that a perceived high level of procedural justice helps healthcare employees improve their work engagement, thus deepening our understanding of work engagement amongst health professionals.

The primary objective of this study is to examine how trust and religiosity, in relation to halal products, impact Turkish consumers' intention to purchase such goods. Furthermore, the study aims to identify whether attitudes towards halal products play a mediating role in these effects.

Data were collected from 847 people living in Turkey using an online survey. The authors empirically tested the proposed conceptual model via structural equation modeling.

The study’s results show that trust in halal products has a positive impact on both the intention to buy halal products and the attitude towards them. Moreover, one’s attitude towards halal products affects the intention to purchase them. Additionally, one’s religiosity-belief level influences the intention to purchase halal products, while religiosity-practice level influences the attitude towards halal products. Furthermore, through indirect effect analyses, it was found that trust in halal products and religious practices has an indirect impact on intention through attitude.

These outcomes significantly contribute to understanding the complex interactions between trust in halal products, levels of religiosity, and attitudes in shaping consumers' purchase intentions and approaches towards halal products. These implications offer valuable insights into how consumers' religious beliefs, trust perceptions, and attitudes influence their purchase of halal-certified products. Validating these conclusions on a larger scale and exploring them in different contexts would be beneficial.

The practice dimension of religiosity pertains to performing actions prescribed by the religion, embodying the practical applications of religious teachings. According to the research findings, the belief dimension of religiosity significantly and positively affects the intention to purchase halal products. This finding aligns with several prior studies.

Sharing information on websites, social media platforms, or product packaging can be effective. If businesses genuinely adhere to halal standards and address the genuine needs of consumers who value halal products, they can enhance consumers' interest in such products.

This research was conducted in Turkey, where most people follow the Muslim faith. The main objective of the study was to examine the trust levels of consumers who have strong religious beliefs and are sensitive to consuming halal products. The study looked at trust on three levels: trust in the halal product, trust in the company that produces halal products, and trust in institutions that provide halal certification. The study also looked at the religiosity levels of the consumers using a two-dimensional approach, which included their beliefs and practices.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to empirical research by identifying the key macroeconomic drivers of equity market development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to ascertain if banking sector development complements equity market development in the SSA region.

The study employed the dynamic panel data approach using the pool mean group (PMG). The sample covered is twenty-seven (27) SSA countries between the period 2000 to 2020.

The result suggests that banking sector development, economic growth, migrant remittance and trade openness are the key drivers of equity market development in the SSA region. The study also revealed that banking sector development complements equity market development in the SSA region.

The use of robust measure in measuring equity market development (i.e. ratio of portfolio equity to gross domestic product) in ascertaining the macroeconomic drivers of equity market development. Likewise, exploring whether banking sector development complements equity market development in the SSA region makes the paper more unique, especially using the ratio of bank credit to bank deposit as a measure banking sector development.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0005

This paper aims to investigate and formulate several business models (BM) for various energy communities (EC) members: prosumers, storage facilities, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, aggregators and local markets.

One of the flexibility drivers is triggered by avoiding the cost and maximizing value that consists of delivering a service such as increasing generation or reducing consumption when it is valued most. The transition to greener economies led to the emergence of aggregators that aggregate bits of flexibility and handle the interest of their providers, e.g. small entities such as consumers, prosumers and other small service providers. On one hand, the research method consists of formulating six BM and implementing a BM that includes several consumers and an aggregator, namely, scheduling the household electricity consumption (downstream) and using flexibility to obtain revenue or avoid the cost. This is usually performed by reducing or shifting the consumption from peak to off-peak hours when the energy is cheaper. Thus, the role of aggregators in EC is significant as they intermediate small-scale energy threads and large entities' requirements, such as grid operators or retailers. On the other hand, in the proposed BM, the aggregators' strategy (upstream) will be to minimize the cost of electricity procurement using consumers’ flexibility. They set up markets to buy flexibility that is valued as long as their costs are reduced.

Interesting insights are revealed, such as when the flexibility price doubles, the deficit coverage increases from 62% to 91% and both parties, consumers and retailers obtain financial benefits from the local market.

One of the limitations of using the potential of flexibility is related to the high costs that are necessary to implement direct load control. Another issue is related to the data privacy aspects related to the breakdown of electricity consumption. Furthermore, data availability for scientific research is limited. However, this study expects that new BM for various EC members will emerge in the future largely depending on Information Communications and Technology developments.

An implementation of a local flexibility market (LFM) using 114 apartments with flexible loads is proposed, demonstrating the gains obtained from trading flexibility. For LFM simulation, this study considers exemplifying a BM using 114 apartments located in a multi-apartment building representing a small urban EC situated in the New England region in North America. Open data recorded in 2016 is provided by UMassTraceRepository.

As a novelty, six BM are proposed considering a bottom-up approach and including various EC members.

This paper aims to investigate whether and how enterprise social media (ESM) affordances affect employee agility.

Adopting self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines a model in which the four ESM affordances (i.e. visibility, association, editability and persistence) impact employee agility through the three basic psychological needs satisfaction (i.e. perceived autonomy, perceived relatedness and perceived competence) of employees. Mplus 7.4 was used to analyze survey data gathered from 304 employees who used ESM in the workplace.

The authors’ findings show that all four ESM affordances contribute to perceived relatedness and perceived competence; visibility and association affordances also have positive impacts on perceived autonomy; and all three psychological needs satisfaction positively impact employee agility.

First, this study adapted SDT to explore how ESM influences employee agility. Second, this study enriches the relevant research on the antecedents of employee agility and also provides new evidence and theoretical support for employee agility. Third, this study effectively expands the antecedents and outcomes of employee basic psychological needs satisfaction in the domain of ESM and agility.

India's Muslim women (MW) face significant underrepresentation within the government and commercial sectors, rendering them virtually invisible in the job market. This underrepresentation is compounded by the double stigma of being both Muslim and female. As a result, this study aims to address this critical issue by looking into MW's intention to work in the industry of tourism and hospitality (T&H).

A survey was conducted online to gather data and 404 of the responses met the requirements for selection. The research model was empirically assessed by applying structural equation modelling. The data collection phase spanned from August 11, 2023, to November 10, 2023.

The study's findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the extended theory of planned behaviour in providing a robust model for analysing MW's intentions to participate in the T&H industry.

This research discloses inclusive policies, reduces discrimination, empowers women in the workforce, improves educational opportunities, promotes cultural sensitivity and fosters inclusive leadership in the T&H industry, focusing on MW career intentions, to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 5 (gender equality).

The importance of this study is contingent upon its ability to inform policymakers in academia and the T&H sector. By recognising and addressing the barriers faced by MW, it has the potential to foster a workplace environment that promotes equality and eliminates discrimination, ultimately improving the image of the T&H industry and harnessing the untapped potential of these women in India.

Design thinking, as a creative and innovative methodology, has been proposed as a process for non-designers to address complex problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using design thinking to foster English-major students’ team creativity and collaboration.

This study employed a quasi-experimental design and was conducted online via Google Classroom. A purposive sample of 31 English-major students from a workplace action research class was used as participants of the study. Design thinking was introduced and employed to foster students’ team creativity and collaboration in the development of group research proposals. The four instruments used to collect the data included: team creativity questionnaire, team collaboration questionnaire, product satisfaction questionnaire and product quality questionnaire.

The results of the study revealed that mean scores of the four outcome variables: team creativity (4.31), team collaboration (4.20), product satisfaction (4.33) and product quality (3.87), were all at a “high” level, supporting that the approach promoted team creativity and team collaboration. Additionally, the correlations between team creativity and product satisfaction (0.49) and team collaboration and product quality (0.33) were both at a “moderate-substantial” level, potentially indicating their roles in ensuring rigorous output.

This research is significant because it provides new insights into the use of design thinking to foster students’ team creativity and collaboration in an action research course.