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The main purpose of this paper is to explore the borrowers’ intention to participate in small entrepreneurship based on Islamic principles. In doing so, this study has conducted an investigation in the case of a new Waqf-based model for Islamic microfinance in Bangladesh, which targets extending loans to the rural poor to alleviate rural poverty in society.

The researchers used the survey technique to investigate the microentrepreneurs’ intention to participate in this new Islamic microfinance scheme. A total of 290 responses were collected from the rural poor located in three different districts of Bangladesh and the participation of respondents was on a voluntary basis. The structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze the data using the SmartPLS-3 software.

Findings of the study indicate that Islamic moral obligations are observed to be substantially significant to influence empathy, favorable and unfavorable reasons to participate in the scheme. In turn, empathy is also found to be robust to influence intention or niyyah toward borrowing microfinance to initiate microentrepreneurship. However, among the four mediating effects, only two are found to be statistically significant.

Theoretical implications suggest that Islamic moral obligations remain at the core of the present research model. The significant impact of this variable implies that Islamic moral values and obligations are substantially important for the people in Bangladesh who strictly follow Islam in their daily lives. The research recommends the necessity for an awareness program on Islamic microfinance and the role of a Waqf-based scheme in the economic empowerment of the rural poor in society.

This institution practically implies harnessing the role of the Waqf-based philanthropic scheme to empower microentrepreneurs in society to alleviate poverty. Practical implications also highlight that Humanitarian Economic Lending Program (HELP) is a new type of Islamic microfinance institute based on Karz-e-Hassanah scheme and started in a small business initiative. In this study, one of the most important findings is that most people are strongly concerned about reasons, which may help the founder of HELP to propagate its branches across Bangladesh.

The model of this scheme may empower poor microentrepreneurs and consolidate the potential of a Waqf-based scheme for attaining socio-economic development. This fund may be used for social Islamic business as well.

Only a few studies have been directed on microfinance from an Islamic perspective in Bangladesh. This is the first initiative for a new scheme to be verified using an empirical method. Thus, testing the viability of this scheme in the Bangladesh context will certainly add value to the clients, institutions and policymakers in the Islamic microfinance paradigm.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between quality education and human resource management practices of faculty supervisor’s support, job autonomy and working condition in the private universities. Specifically, how does the working atmosphere in the private universities in Bangladesh play a mediating role in the links between faculty supervisory support and job autonomy toward excelling quality education?

To answer this question, a theoretical framework using the strategic contingency theory as its basis was established. Data (n = 515) were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings of the study indicate that faculty supervisor’s support and working condition have significant positive relations with quality education and the working condition has an important mediating role in the links between supervisor’s support, job autonomy and quality education in the private universities in Bangladesh.

First, the study used faculty as respondents from only 19 private universities in Bangladesh where more than 100 universities are in active operation at present. Second, the study included only top-ranking private universities and ignored other low-grade local private universities ranked by the university grant commission and they should be included in the study. Third, this study did not include public universities in the survey. Fourth, only two antecedents to the working environment toward quality education were included. Finally, this study collected data only from the faculty of the school of business and economics for examining their opinion.

From an academic and practical perspective, as a cumulative body of study on the relationship between different HRM practices and quality education, this paper will be better able to advise concerned authorities of higher education intuitions on the elements they need to address to ensure quality teaching and learning in their institutes.

Several factors that directly and indirectly influence quality education through pleasant working environments appear to the surface. Thus, to create a vital working condition in private universities, academic leaders or authorities should be aware to make some improvements.

The study reveals a paramount finding that can help academicians and authorities of private higher education institutes.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the individual bounded rationality of the rural poor toward participation in borrowing from rural development scheme (RDS). Specifically, how do respondents’ demographic variables such as gender, age, education, income and religion affect their attitude, subjective norms (SNs) and perceived behavioral control (PBC) to influence bounded rationality toward actual participation in borrowing the Islamic funds from RDS?

To answer these questions, the theory of bounded rational planned behavior as its basis was established. Data (n = 375) were collected from rural women clients of RDS based on snow-balling sampling technique. Data were analyzed following the procedure of structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that all the demographic variables except education influence attitudes, SNs and PBC in turn influence the individual respondents’ bounded rational intention toward participation in RDS.

The sample was not randomly drawn to represent a population to which findings could be generalized. Instead, it was a snow-balling sample, and as such, the ability to generalize the findings very far beyond the sample is limited.

This paper implies that respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics are important to consider changing individual subjective rationality of human being toward performing actual behavior.

Social implications refer that rural women in Bangladesh are positively and subjectively motivated toward bounded rational intention and participation in RDS.

This research is based on the primary data collected from the participants in an Islamic microfinance institute called RDS. This paper draws on several insights about the participation behavior of the rural poor in Bangladesh.

Both QS World university rankings and US higher education accreditation agencies provide external quality evaluation for institutions to deliver quality control and assurance, which causes ample criticism about the academic freedom of teaching staff. Moreover, Austria-based Green Pedagogy advocates outcome-based sustainable quality learning, which promotes teachers’ psychological empowerment and autonomy and the UNESCO model of education advances a transformative paradigm to sustain social, economic and environmental well-being. In this backdrop, this study aims to attain two objectives: the first is to conceptualize a research framework investigating psychological empowerment for predicting faculty academic autonomy, which, in turn, influences sustainable quality education in private higher education institutes (HEIs); and the second is to explore the expert opinion on the suitability of an approach to sustainable quality education between the movements of Green Pedagogy and the UNESCO model globally.

To attain the objectives, this study uses a model of psychological empowerment (MPE) as its theoretical basis. The data (n = 390) was electronically collected from the teachers of 21 private universities through a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed following the procedure of Smart-PLS-SEM. Respondents were selected based on a random sampling procedure.

Findings of this study indicate that psychological empowerment significantly influences teacher autonomy, which significantly influences sustainable quality education. The findings also highlight that the scholars vie for the Green Pedagogy in comparison to Education for Sustainable Development to ensure sustainable quality education in private HEIs. Furthermore, content analyses show that the US higher education accreditation process dilutes faculty academic freedom as well as quality education.

From a research perspective, this study results demonstrate that the MPE appears to be a robust theoretical approach. It also implies that a psychologically empowered teacher is characterized by greater autonomy, responsibility, belief in their competences and application of them in work practice and ability to teach their students effectively. Future research needs further investigation to reconfirm the results.

From a practical standpoint, the results of this study have significant and pervasive lessons for the administrators and academic leaders in HEIs. First, the management of HEIs can capitalize to psychologically empower the faculty members and also allow adequate academic autonomy to ensure sustainable quality education. Second, this study highlights that the Green Pedagogy approach is practically more suitable to attain sustainability in HEIs. And third, with the advancement of new technology, faculty members have to prepare themselves with improved knowledge and pedagogy techniques for which they need to be empowered more by allowing significant level of faculty autonomy.

Social implications of this study are that Green Pedagogy is observed to be superior to UNESCO model in terms of ensuring sustainable quality education by which the students and teachers can contribute more in social and community development.

This study has a significant empirical contribution in understanding the importance of faculty empowerment and freedom or autonomy to ensure sustainable quality learning embodying the Green Pedagogy approach in HEIs, when international HEIs are competing for accreditation and QS rankings.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relationship between bankers’ perspectives and their pro-green banking behaviors (i.e. intentions). Specifically, how do bankers’ perspectives on environmental concerns, environmental normative structure and green technology affect their intentions toward G-banking activities?

A theoretical framework of the theory of bounded rational planned behavior (TBRPB) as its foundation was established. Using measurement scales to measure different aspects of environmental concern, environmental normative structure, green technology, attitudes, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms, a survey instrument was developed to examine the various associations implied by the model of TBRPB. Data were collected from the bankers of selected commercial banks in Bangladesh following the random sampling procedure. The data were analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling technique.

Findings indicate that all of the predictors appear to be robust in predicting the G-banking intention of the sampled bankers in Bangladesh. The results also show that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control have significant mediating effects toward bankers’ bounded rational G-banking intention.

There are a few limitations in the study. First, the study considers environmental concerns as an antecedent of the attitude of bankers toward G-banking activities. Future studies can explore other variables related to environmental problems to study G-banking adoption and practices. Second, this study only considers the private conventional bankers as respondents to the survey to assess G-baking intention. In the future, other types of bankers, such as Islamic bankers and public banks’ bankers could be included in the survey to explore G-banking practices. Finally, this research has been done in a developing country-context.

In this study, environmental concerns of bankers appeared to be highly significant predictors to influence their attitudes toward bounded rational G-banking intention. Similarly, the social normative structure also appears to be a robust antecedent of subjective norms to influence bounded rational G-banking intention of respondent bankers. Finally, green technology or bakers’ personal and skill-related ability to control bounded rational G-banking intention also appeared to be a strongly significant predictor of green banking activities. All this evidence implies that respondent bankers in the sample responded positively to provide their positive intention toward G-banking activities based on their environmental concern.

Important social implication of the current study is G-banking practices can help reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants which would enrich overall environmental sustainability and ecological conditions.

Few studies are directed on G-banking perspective in Bangladesh. This research is one of the empirical studies which will certainly add values for the clients, institutions and policymakers in banking paradigm.

The main purpose of this study is to propose an Islamic model of human behavioral analysis that can explain the determinants such as Islamic moral values, internal factors (e.g. self-efficacy or reasons for and against), external factors (e.g. perceived social support or others from external sources) and empathy (EMP) (humane attitude) to predict niyyah (worshipful intention) toward actual behavior (a’mal) in question.

With this end in mind, this research uses the theory of Islamic entrepreneurship and behavioral reasoning theory as their theoretical foundations. To validate the model, the study uses empirical data on investors’ intention toward sukuk (Islamic bonds or Shari’ah-compliant bonds) purchase in the context of Bangladesh, where very recently the sukuk were introduced by the Central Bank.

Findings of the study indicate that Islamic values and internal factors have the highest effects on external factors and EMP, respectively. Internal factors and Islamic values have moderate and almost similar impacts on EMP. Besides, external factors and EMP have somewhat equally moderate effects on niyyah. Islamic moral values and internal factors have the least influence on internal factors and niyyah, respectively. The external factor is also found to be insignificant to influence EMP. The findings also indicate that EMP, internal control factors and external control factors have mediating effects on niyyah toward sukuk purchase.

These results imply that the present research model successfully predicts and explains the determinants of Islamic worshipful intention toward the actual purchase of sukuk.

Sukuk has been an important Islamic financial instrument that has been growing much rapidly in recent times. So, this paper will help to comprehend that pattern empirically.

Islamic finance has emerged as a dominant financial tool nowadays. This paper contributes to advance that initiative one step further in terms of social and economic development.

This is a conceptual paper written in the area of Islamic Finance. This model has been validated by collating primary data collected from the selected respondents residing in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the influence of working condition on faculty retention and quality education in the private higher education sector; and second, to see whether there is any mediating role of faculty retention linking working condition and quality education in the private universities in Bangladesh.

To attain these objectives, a total of 516 data were collected from the faculty members of the private universities located all over the country based on random sampling procedure. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling technique.

The findings of the study reveal that though working condition has a direct significant influence on both faculty retention and quality education and faculty retention has a partial mediating influence on quality education in private higher education institutes in Bangladesh.

From a research perspective, the study results demonstrate once again the robustness of the Muslow’s hierarchy need theory of motivation for helping to explain the faculty members of the private universities. As more and more studies of faculty behavior and its antecedents are done within the similar framework, the author is more able to discover and confirm which antecedents are most important, helping the author build a robust theory of quality education affected based on human resource practices by the management of the institutes.

From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on the nexus between human resource management and quality education emerges, the author will be better able to advise private university authorities on the elements they need to address in order to excel quality education. In this study, the one area of findings that may help university authorities the most concerns work environment. These findings imply that in order to excel quality education the authorities of the private universities should focus more on friendly and enjoyable working environment for prolonging faculty retention and excelling quality education.

This study has revealed an important contribution focusing the influence of working condition on faculty retention as well as quality education in private universities in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of work atmosphere which have a positive influence on job satisfaction. Specifically, it focuses on how supervisor’s cooperation and career growth affect job satisfaction mediating through work atmosphere in a private corporate entity.

To attain this objective, a research framework with a mediating variable of work atmosphere was formulated. Using measurement scales created to assess different aspects of job satisfaction, career growth, supervisor’s cooperation and work atmosphere, a survey instrument was developed to test the various relationships implied by the framework. Data (n = 325) were collected from the employees of a local chemical company in Bangladesh following convenience sampling procedure. The analysis has been done by bootstrapping procedure following structural equation modeling (SEM).

The result shows that work atmosphere has a significant mediating role in linking supervisor cooperation and job satisfaction of the employees in the organization.

As with any study, there are limitations to the study described here. One possible drawback is the use of a single company’s employees as respondents. Second, the sample size is not very large, because respondents were observed to be negligent in filling the questionnaire provided to them. If the sample size could be increased a bit more, then the authors might have better outcomes as postulated in the paper. Nevertheless, the usual cautions about over-generalizing findings from this sample, to populations for which it is not strictly representative, apply. The sample was not randomly drawn to represent a population to which findings could be generalized. Instead, it was a convenience sample, and as such, the ability to generalize the findings very far beyond the sample is limited.

From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on job satisfaction with mediating variable of work atmosphere emerges, the authors will be better able to advise employers on the elements they need to address to increase their employee retention rate. In this study, the one area of findings that may help business and commercial organizations the most concerns work environment in the workplace. The authors found that supervisor cooperation and work atmosphere were associated with positive path value toward job satisfaction. Similarly, career growth and work atmosphere also exhibit positive path value towards job satisfaction. The implication is that employers can focus on supervisor cooperation in rightly and duly promoting the deserving employees, and in doing so, they can generate positive attitudes toward these activities.

This paper will add immense importance of work atmosphere to the organizational learning and behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect effects of demographic factors on employee compensation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in private higher educational institutes in Bangladesh. Specifically, how do compensation structure and job satisfaction mediate in the link between demographic factors and organizational commitment? To answer this question, a theoretical framework using the theory of employee retention provided by Martin and Kaufman, as its basis was established.

Data (n = 515) were collected from faculty members of the private universities in Bangladesh. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Findings indicate that though demographic factors have no direct impact on organizational commitment, they have indirect impacts on organizational commitment through the mediation of compensation structure and faculty job satisfaction. Besides, compensation structure also has a significant mediating role in the link between demographic structure and faculty job satisfaction.

One possible drawback is the number of private universities from which the data were collected. In the sample used here, only 20 private universities were selected to conduct the survey. Besides, the study could not include public universities that are also a significant part and parcel of higher education in the country. So, if more private and public universities were taken into consideration to collect the data, the results might be improved. Thus, the usual cautions about overgeneralizing findings from this sample, to populations for which it is not strictly representative, apply.

From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on organizational commitment, we will be better able to advise policymakers and educators on the elements they need to address to increase the longer engagement of the faculty members in their institutes. In this study, the one area of findings that may help policymakers and educators the most concerns compensation package that affects job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We found that demographic factors and compensation packages are the most important factors for the faculty members to impact on organizational commitment in this study.

The social implication is that policymakers of the private universities can focus on fair justice in terms of demographic factors and compensation package for job satisfaction, motivation and organizational commitment of the faculty members in their universities.

The findings of the study are important for the policymakers of the higher education institutes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the growth and characterization of the two different compound semiconductors, namely, n-zinc oxide (ZnO) and p-gallium antimonide (GaSb). In this paper, fabrication and characterization of n-ZnO/p-GaSb heterojunction diode is analyzed.

Thermo vertical direction solidification (TVDS) method was used to synthesize undoped GaSb ingot from high purity Ga (5N) and Sb (4N) host materials. Thermal evaporation technique is used to prepare a film of GaSb on glass substrate from the pre-synthesized bulk material by TVDS method. Undoped ZnO film was grown on GaSb film by sol–gel method by using chemical wet and dry (CWD) technique to fabricate n-ZnO/p-GaSb heterojunction diode.

The formation of crystalline structure and surface morphological analysis of both the GaSb bulk and film have been carried out by x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and scanning electron microscopy analysis. From the XRD studies, the structural characterization and phase identification of ZnO/GaSb interface. The current–voltage characteristic of the n-ZnO/p-GaSb heterostructure is found to be rectifying in nature.

GaSb film growth on any substrate by thermal evaporation method taking a small piece of the sample from the pre-synthesized GaSb bulk ingot has not been reported yet. Semiconductor device with heterojunction diode by using two different semiconductors such as ZnO/GaSb was used by this group for the first time.