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The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges, prompting policymakers to navigate complex trade-offs between safeguarding public health and upholding civil liberties. This chapter examines how political systems influenced policy responses during the pandemic, focusing on South Africa, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Drawing on existing literature and empirical data, we explore the impact of political constraints on COVID-19 policy outcomes, comparing the effectiveness of measures implemented in democratic and authoritarian contexts. Our analysis reveals distinct patterns: while South Africa exhibited stricter precautions, political dynamics in Somalia and Zimbabwe allowed for more aggressive measures despite lower policy effectiveness. We attribute these variations to differences in political accountability, media freedom, and judicial independence. Our findings highlight the critical role of political constraints in shaping pandemic responses and provide insights for future research on crisis governance and policy-making in diverse political contexts.

This review paper aims to provide a comprehensive retrospective analysis of the research landscape in the Halal industry through a threefold approach, including bibliometric analysis, latent theme identification and examination of driving factors of research citations.

A total of 2,510 research documents, identified from the Scopus through a systematic search, were considered for review. The review methods included bibliometric analysis of the domain, application of the machine learning structural topic modeling (STM) to identify latent themes and negative binomial regression to estimate the impact of paper, author and geographical characteristics on citation rates.

In addition to bibliometric insights, the STM uncovered 10 key topics within the Halal industry literature, including certification processes, dietary practices, consumer behavior, ethical considerations, supply chain management, market dynamics, Halal tourism, verification methods, regulatory frameworks and Halal food production and marketing. Positive associations with citation rates were found for abstract length, number of keywords, paper age, number of references, funding, number of authors and international collaboration, while a negative association was observed for authorship from Malaysia.

This paper, besides providing insights into research dynamics and citation patterns, also guides future research avenues in the Halal industry.

In today’s competitive business landscape, organizations are increasingly recognizing the strategic advantage of implementing sustainable practices to gain a competitive edge. This study aims to investigate the effect of green artificial intelligence (AI) on achieving a green competitive advantage, examining the mediating roles of green organizational learning, green product innovation and green process innovation. Additionally, the research explores the moderating role of perceived green climate in the relationship between green AI and these mediating factors.

This research examined companies in Isfahan, Iran, that have varying levels of artificial intelligence adoption within their business processes. The target population consisted of 148 senior managers from these companies. This study uses structural equation modeling to examine the proposed model.

Green AI positively impacted green organizational learning and green process innovation but not green product innovation. In addition, the results showed that green organizational learning, green product innovation and green process innovation had positive effects on green competitive advantage. Finally, the results showed that the perceived green climate did not play a moderating role in the relationship between green AI and these mediating factors.

Organizations should prioritize green AI initiatives, foster a culture of green learning and invest in green innovation to achieve sustainable growth and outpace competitors in the environmentally conscious marketplace.

This study positions itself at the forefront of research on green AI and green competitive advantage. It offers a unique framework by examining the combined effects of green AI, green learning and both product and process innovation on achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.

This study aims to prepare some disperse dyes based on pyrazole derivatives and fully evaluate their use as azo-disperse dyes linked with pyrazolo[1,5-a] pyrimidine. This study aims to prepare dye polyester fabric at different conditions (pH and time) at a depth of 4% using a high-temperature pressure process in water.

The disperse dyes were created by dissolving enaminone and pyrazole derivatives in glacial acetic acid and fusing sodium acetate at reflux for 6 h. The chemical structure of the produced dye was studied using elemental analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopic analytical methods. The dyeing of Dispersed dyes 14–16 on polyester under diverse conditions was comprehensively investigated in this work.

The prepared Organic dyes 14–16 were found to be highly functional and suitable for this type of dyeing technique. High color strength is possessed by the materials dyed with Disperse dyes 14–16. Even in low alkaline conditions, these dyes exhibited a strong affinity for polyester fabric, changing just little in response to pH changes. The hue of the dyed polyester samples varied from beige to reddish brown and yellowish brown because of the coupler moieties.

This study is important because it offers novel dyes that may be used to dye polyethylene terephthalate fibers that exhibit remarkable brightness and levelness. It also offers a viable solution for creating a variety of colors in polyester fabrics.

This study aims to investigate the effects of board cultural diversity (BCD) and board gender diversity (BGD) of the board of directors on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the European banking sector using resource-based view (RBV) theory. In addition, this study analyses the linkages between BCD and BGD and knowledge sharing on the board of directors to improve ESG performance.

This study selected a sample of European-listed banks covering the period 2021. ESG and diversity variables were collected from Refinitiv Eikon and analysed using the ordinary least squares model. This study was conducted in the European context regulated by Directive 95/2014/EU, which requires sustainability disclosure. The original population was represented by 250 banks; after missing data were excluded, the final sample comprised 96 European-listed banks.

The findings highlight the positive linkages between BGD, BCD and ESG scores in the European banking sector. In addition, the findings highlight that diversity contributes to knowledge sharing by improving ESG performance in a regulated sector. Nonetheless, the combined effect of BGD and BCD negatively impacts ESG performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to measure and analyse a regulated sector, such as banking, and the relationship between cultural and gender diversity for sharing knowledge under the RBV theory lens in the ESG framework.

The study was initiated to test the relationship of social media site addiction on librarians' performance. Furthermore, the study also tested the mediating role of task distraction and moderating role of effective self-control in aforesaid relationship.

This was an empirical study, and data for the research were collected through a standardized questionnaire from 503 librarians who were having Facebook accounts and are questionnaire developed through “Google Forms” and the link of the questionnaire was distributed using Facebook groups. Data was analyzed using descriptive analysis, correlation, Baron and Kenny's approach, and Normal Test Theory.

Results indicate that social media addiction is an important factor for that is reducing librarians' performance. At the same time task distraction also adds to negative impact of social media addiction on librarians' performance. However, effective self-control can reduce the negative impact of social media addiction on their performance.

This research has some important theoretical as well as practical implications for librarians, library management, and well as for policy makers and government.

Social media is commonly used for communication but when it becomes addiction, it can reduce the employees' performance. Most of existing researched focused on positive aspects of social media; only few researches explored the negative impacts of social media. The proposed relationship was never tested on librarians. This study filled this literature gap and proposed as well as empirically tested a model for evaluating negative impact of social media on librarians' performance.

This study aimed at exploring to what extent social media has educated and shaped public opinion regarding cash waqf. This research comprehensively analyzed the social media content to find the most discussed topic and highlighted the trends in cash waqf literacy.

Twenty-nine videos discussing cash waqf in Indonesia from the YouTube platform were analyzed using NVivo R1 with a content analysis approach.

The research findings revealed that YouTube videos addressing cash waqf were categorized into four distinct clusters: government, ulama/influencers/professionals, nadzir (waqf manager) and TV stations, with the government cluster producing a higher number of videos (n = 11) than the other clusters. The findings also highlighted the limited involvement of nadzir in educating the public about cash waqf, as evidenced by a smaller number of videos (n = 5). Among these videos, the most frequently discussed topics included the utilization of cash waqf (n = 20), promotion of cash waqf (n = 14) and risk management (n = 13). Negative sentiment (n = 262) was observed to exceed positive sentiment (n = 107).

The findings of this study contribute to the fundraising aspect of cash waqf because the inclusivity of digital content in cash waqf campaigns is crucial to raise awareness of the public. In addition, these findings may help waqf managers (nadzir) assess the extent of educational content about cash waqf on YouTube and the public’s response to this content.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the social media content, particularly from YouTube platforms, and public sentiment against cash waqf.

Excessive digital consumption can lead to a blurring of boundaries between work and leisure. This paper aims to investigate the influence of digital consumption on the work ethic among Muslims, integrating demographic variables like gender and marital status into the analysis.

Using data from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey, this study focuses on a subset of 12,979 employed Muslims to assess the relationships between their engagement with digital media and their work-related values. Multiple linear regression models are used to analyze the effects of various digital platforms, including mobile phones, social media and internet usage, on the perceived importance of work and related ethic principles.

The findings indicate a significant negative impact of over digital consumption on work ethic, suggesting that increased digital engagement and tech-overload may undermine traditional work values. The relationship persists in all models on success inclusion of control variables, which confirms the robustness of the relationship. However, this relationship varies among demographic groups, with males and singles being more susceptible to the negative impacts compared to females and married individuals.

The study contributes to understanding how digital consumption influences traditional work values and offers recommendations for balancing digital consumption to maintain a robust work ethic in modern digital societies.

International trade and its effects on the environment are increasingly discussed both in academia and by policymakers. To counter negative effects of international trade on the environment, so called environmental provisions have been integrated in trade agreements aimed at businesses and economies. However, as both the intent and effectiveness of these provisions are controversial, this paper aims to provide an overview of the current state of research and identified key factors influencing their effectiveness.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of 44 papers on the effects of environmental provisions in international trade agreements on the environmental performance of businesses, as well as economies from 1992 to mid-2024.

The integration of environmental provisions into trade agreements generally has positive effects on the environment while their effectiveness is influenced by their design and several boundary conditions. Alongside the importance of effective enforcement mechanisms, reputation concerns of businesses and lobbyism are discussed as intermediary factors in the design and impact of environmental provisions.

The insights can benefit policymakers to optimize future environmental provisions and advance the effectiveness of policies aimed at balancing the effects of trade liberalization with environmental protection.

Social sustainability is increasingly relevant for creating more sustainable trade policy while societal mechanisms seem to be an adequate tool to ensure effective enforcement of ecological provisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review is the first of its kind to provide a systematic overview of the literature on the effectiveness of environmental provisions that combines the micro-level of businesses and macro-level of economies, although the importance for trade in general and environmental protection, in particular, has been recognized in the academic literature.

This paper provides a snapshot of educational and economic trends across South Asia with an exploratory and comparative approach. Before COVID-19, South Asia was the world’s fastest-growing regional economy, concurrently achieving major strides in poverty reduction and access to education. Despite the region’s economic and educational accomplishments, the countries of South Asia fall short of international benchmarks in public education expenditure, resulting in a persistent lag in educational quality that hampers individuals, the workforce, and overall economic productivity. The paper highlights themes in the literature, including context-specific evidence for the various theories of economic growth, the returns to education, and educational inputs (e.g., teachers and private schools) that highlight how spending can be leveraged to increase educational outcomes. In addition, it examines the relationship between education, poverty, and marginalization factors that explain why some populations are deprived of education and its benefits. We provide a broad perspective of the dynamics of the economics of education and the related challenges in this region. This discussion aims to enhance the understanding of the inefficiencies in South Asia’s educational systems and, ultimately, in the development of the region’s human capacities.