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This paper aims to investigate how employees’ perception of the ethical conduct of their leaders affects their level of job stress and job satisfaction in the restaurant industry, specifically in the context of Pakistan. Therefore, this research investigated the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction, and job stress as a mediator between ethical leadership and job satisfaction.

This research is based on a quantitative method, employed a survey strategy, utilized a cross-sectional research design, and data was collected using a convenient sampling technique. In all, 236 questionnaires from the front-line employees of the restaurants were used for data analysis. Initially, normality (univariate and multivariate), demographic description, descriptive analysis and common method bias were computed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v23) software. Moreover, direct and indirect effects were conducted using SmartPLS v3 software.

Results of this research indicate a (i) negative relationship between ethical leadership and job stress, (ii) positive relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction, (iii) negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction and (iv) job stress play a mediating role in the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction.

This study highlights several theoretical and practical implications, thereby providing more insight into how job satisfaction can be maximized in the restaurants of Pakistan.

This research is novel, as it highlights the direct and indirect effect of ethical leadership behavior on job satisfaction, specifically in the context of the restaurants of Pakistan.

More and more governmental organizations are switching to information systems to enhance their operations and reduce cost but the development of these systems involves a lot of challenges. This paper aims to find out the challenges that project managers have to face during the development of such systems and the practices they can adopt to address these challenges.

To identify the challenges, data have been gathered across six key project management areas. The six targeted key areas are project integration management, project scope management, project time management, project cost management, project human resource management and project communications management. The authors have coordinated with 11 managerial-level IT professionals using semi-structured interviews and have gone through their communication archives.

Findings prove that practices such as focusing on cost reduction, informal congregations, trainings and frequent communication between vendor and client help in addressing the challenges. Furthermore, learning from management experiences of the managers can assist managers in similar role to create a pattern of success while working with governmental projects.

The authors peek into the development life cycle of a public sector project named as prison information management system. The project has encountered numerous challenges and has been accomplished in significantly delayed time than designated.

The aim of the case is to understand the performance management system of academic staff members in higher education institution. Furthermore, students would be able to compare two performance appraisal policies and analyze which one could better serve the purpose considering the context of educational institution. The case would help students understand the performance dynamics of the academic staff and how the performance management system in place affect employees.

The case study presents a troubling situation faced by Asim Khan, a newly appointed director of the Midland University, regarding retention of the faculty. Upon joining Midland, Khan noticed a trend that faculty who was serving the university from many years are leaving the organization one after the other. He decided to revise the faculty policies that he believed was the root cause of faculty turnover in Midland. He formulated a committee to review the existing policies and revamp if required. The committee identified some flaws in the faculty appraisal policy in place at that time and formulated a new one with the consultation of top management. However, when the new appraisal policy was presented to the faculty, few faculty members raised their eyes over a few aspects of the proposed policy. As the new academic year was approaching, Khan had to make an important decision after critically analyzing the pros and cons of both policies that which of the two should be followed for the upcoming year’s appraisals.

The case can potentially be used in the post-graduate courses in MBA programs offering a major in human resource management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

This study aims to examine the relationship between ethical leadership and project success directly and indirectly through psychological empowerment along with the moderating role of Islamic work ethic.

Using a time-lagged design, data were gathered from 202 employees working in project-based organizations of Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the distinctiveness of variables used in the study.

Consistent with the cognitive evaluation theory, the findings supported the hypotheses other than the moderating role of Islamic work ethics between psychological empowerment and project success. The results confirmed that ethical leadership promotes project success directly and indirectly via psychological empowerment. Furthermore, theoretical and practical implications are also discussed highlighting the importance of ethical leadership for researchers and practitioners.

Literature is insufficient on the topic of ethical leadership in the project management domain with the effect of Islamic work ethics and psychological empowerment. Therefore, the current study explored unanswered research questions in the project management domain.

The study examines the influence of quality management practices (QMP) on project performance (PP) and the indirect association of QMP with PP through the mediating role of intellectual capital (IC). QMP may be one of the most successful strategies to improve project performance. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory, the study examines the impact of QMP on PP through the mediating role of IC.

The sample frame of 329 employees in different NGOs and public healthcare organizations was selected. Data were analyzed on SmartPLS 3.2.7 by applying SEM.

The outcome reveals that QMP has a significant impact on PP. The results found partial mediation of IC on the linkage between QMP and PP.

The key research limitation was that it examined only two antecedents (QMP and IC) of project performance based on RBV and institutional theory, which did not yield deep insights from other institutional forces that could influence the model, such as mimetic pressure, institutional pressure and business orientation.

QMP is highly significant in the healthcare sector; however, research on the relationship between QMP, IC and PP is lacking. Thus, this research is an initial attempt to investigate these relationships empirically. We add to our understanding of RBV by investigating the role of IC in mediating the QMP-PP linkage.

Innovations are imperative for organizational growth and sustainability. This study focuses on the employees' innovative behavior, a source of organizational innovations, which has received substantial attention from the researchers. Based on the psychological empowerment theory, the study exposes the effect of the various dimensions of public service motivation (PSM) on employees' innovative behavior (IB) in public sector institutions especially in the context of developing countries such as Pakistan. Moreover, the study also investigates the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PSE) between the dimensions of PSM and IB.

This study used the cross-sectional research design. By using random sampling, the adapted survey questionnaires were used to collect data from 346 faculty members of public sector universities located in provincial capitals of Pakistan. A partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) tool was used to assess the proposed hypotheses through SMART-PLS software.

Results revealed that attraction to policymaking (APM), compassion (COM), self-sacrifice (SS) have a significant impact on employees' PSE and their innovative behavior, while the relationship of commitment to the public interest (CPI) with PSE and IB was found insignificant. Moreover, PSE partially mediated the relationship between PSM dimensions and employees' IB.

There was a scarcity of research on IB especially in public sector institutions such as academia. This study theoretically contributed to the literature by providing a refined picture in assessing the proposed relationship of the constructs. This is also one of the original studies that examine the relationship between the dimensions of PSM and IB.

The ethical issues arising at work demand the role of both leader and employees, but how both the levels are linked in determining the ethical responses is an area that has not gained due attention in the past. Against this backdrop, this study aims to address the influence of a leader’s authenticity and ethical voice on ethical culture and the role ethicality of followers.

Survey design has been used, and a questionnaire is used to elicit the responses. In total, 381 filled questionnaires were used for data analysis.

The findings of this study highlight the role of authentic leadership in predicting the role ethicality of followers both directly and through the mediation of ethical culture. Furthermore, a leader’s ethical voice strengthens the authentic leadership and outcome relationships (with ethical culture and followers’ role ethicality). The moderated-mediation mechanism has proved as the leaders’ voice foster the indirect mechanism.

There is a dearth of literature that has focused on leadership traits (authenticity) and behavior (ethical voice) in predicting the followers’ outcomes (perceptions – ethical culture and behaviors – role ethicality). The moderated-mediation mechanism has been unattended in the past.