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The purpose of this study is to explore alternative models of substitutes for leadership. These alternative models are a leadership-only model, substitutes for the leadership-only model and substitutes for the leadership-mediated-effects model.

Four occupational groups were targeted, namely, PhD faculty of institutions of higher education, medical doctors who work in district headquarters’ hospitals, licensed pharmacists and certified engineers. Also, a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data, and 523 usable responses were received.

Partial least square path modeling was used for data analysis, and the results of structural models revealed that: the dimensions of transformational leadership significantly affected the followers’ outcomes; a few substitutes for leadership also significantly affected the followers’ outcomes; and, in some cases, substitutes for leadership significantly mediated the relationship between dimensions of transformational leadership and followers’ outcomes.

Findings of the study provide useful implications to improve the managerial practices of organizational leaders, work design strategies in organizations and overall organizational policies for effective functioning. Other developing countries with similar socio-economic status may use these findings to improve organizational functioning.

This study makes important contributions to the leadership literature. It tests three alternative models in the domain of substitutes for the leadership theory and tests the separate effects of dimensions of transformational leadership and substitutes for leadership on followers’ work outcomes. Further, it specifies the mediating effects of substitutes for leadership on the dimensions of transformational leadership and followers’ work outcomes. Most important, this study for the first time tests transformational leadership and substitutes for leadership concepts in Pakistani work settings and advances the theoretical and empirical literature in this local context.

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of social capital on supply chain performance via supply chain quality integration (SCQI), which refers to integrating supply chain partners from the perspective of quality management. It also examines the moderating role of environmental uncertainty in the link between social capital and SCQI and determines the conditional indirect effect of social capital on supply chain performance via SCQI.

Data were collected using a time-lagged research design through a self-administered survey of supply chain professionals in manufacturing firms in Pakistan. Hayes’ PROCESS Macro was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show a positive relationship between social capital and supply chain performance. SCQI partially mediates the relationship between social capital and supply chain performance. Environmental uncertainty significantly moderates that relationship in such a way that firms that operate under high environmental uncertainty are more likely to use their social capital to develop SCQI than firms that operate under low environmental uncertainty.

The study has practical implications for managers who seek to implement SCQI practices using social capital. Leveraging social capital across the supply chain fosters strong connections and a quality-oriented approach across the supply chain, and improves overall performance. Managers can use the power of social capital to navigate environmental uncertainty.

This study’s originality lies in its drawing on the dynamic capability theory and contingency theory and integrating the dispersed scholarly work on social capital, SCQI, and supply chain performance under the boundary condition of environmental uncertainty.

This paper aims to explore how narcissistic traits and personality influence entrepreneurial behaviour. In entrepreneurship and psychology, research has shown that narcissism and personality have “productive” and “unproductive” influences on entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, this paper explores the entrepreneur from a social constructionist perspective by using the narrative from the emerging literature. The narrative focus is on narcissism, entrepreneurial personality and the intention to start a new venture, focusing on activities in the early stages of entrepreneurship.

This study draws upon the narcissism theory and the big five personality models. Using the conceptual model, the authors identify commonalities with entrepreneurial activities such as product and service development, market competitive strategies, marketing, networking, performance management, learning from failure and fund-raising activities. The conceptual framework demonstrates a connection between narcissism, the big five personality and entrepreneurial activities.

This study proposes an innovative conceptual framework for productive entrepreneurial behaviour. Productive traits of the grandiose narcissist are extraversion and openness to experience, which may have positive influences on the entrepreneurship process. Traits such as assertiveness, overconfidence and intellect have been found to be instrumental in resource acquisition activities. Findings also suggest that the grandiose narcissist will be high in openness to experience (intellect) and extraversion (excitement and social networking). The narcissist is most likely to choose an internal source of funding to protect their fragile ego and maintain control over their entities. Those with high extraversion and openness to experience may be more open to pursuing external sources of funding, as they are more inclined to have social networks and enjoy the external process. Though the study focuses on the “dark trait productivity” of narcissism, it is important not to overlook the damaging side of the narcissistic entrepreneur – “dark trait unproductivity”. The study also discusses the unproductive traits of narcissistic entrepreneurs, such as constantly chasing goals, deflecting and blaming the environment and others for failure, embarking on risky financial decisions, a lack of empathy in team dynamics and poor stakeholder management.

The influence of narcissism on entrepreneurial activities and its impact have gained traction among academia and practitioners. Yet, this is an insufficiently understood area of study and has not been explored in depth. Previous research has focused chiefly on entrepreneurial intentions in the context of entrepreneurship, and what influences the choice to start a business. There is limited research that bridges the gap between entrepreneurial finance and psychology–narcissism personality.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the applicability of transformational leadership and substitutes-for-leadership theories in Malaysia’s and Pakistan’s work settings.

This study employed a survey-based approach using professional employees in both countries as respondents. In total, 215 responses to a web-based survey in Malaysia and 523 responses to a survey administered using personal methods in Pakistan were used for the analysis.

The results revealed that Malaysia’s leaders were rated high on the dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership. The transformational leadership dimensions produced desirable effects on subordinates’ outcomes in both samples, but the contingent punishment dimension of transactional leadership produced especially undesirable effects on subordinates’ outcomes. Substitutes for leadership also independently affected subordinates’ outcomes and produced similar effects on subordinates’ outcomes in both samples. In general, the effects in the Malaysian sample are larger than those in the Pakistani sample.

The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society’s high level of collectivism and moderately high-power distance orientation.

The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society’s low power distance orientation.

Since this study is the first to compare the applicability of western theories in collectivist cultures that differ significantly in their power distance orientation, it contributes meaningfully to the cross-culture leadership field.

This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of supply chain resilience enablers on supply chain disruption orientation per supply chain resilience. It conjointly examined the moderation of supply chain complexity on resilience enablers and supply chain resilience. It further detailed the conditional indirect effects of supply chain resilience enablers on supply chain disruption orientations via supply chain resilience at varying levels of supply chain complexity.

This study employed a time-lagged design (three-wave) and self-administered surveys to collect data from the supply chain managers of fast-moving consumer goods firms. A sample of 214 responses was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

The results showed that supply chain resilience significantly mediated on the relationship between supply chain resilience enablers and supply chain disruption orientation. Further, supply chain complexity positively moderated on supply chain resilience enablers and supply chain resilience. The results also supported the moderated mediated hypothesis.

This study contributes to prevalent theory and practices in the wake of recent disruptions faced by the firms. It persuades the managers to emphasize on structuring resilient supply chain system to recover from the disruptions and accumulate and incorporate learning gained from the disruptions to strengthen the firm's response management system.

This study attempted to explore the underlying antecedents and consequences of supply chain resilience in Pakistan and established boundary condition effects of supply chain complexity on the proposed relationships. This research complemented and extended the conceits of resource-based and contingent resource-based views.

This research aims to investigate the direct and indirect (via creative self-efficacy [CSE] and thriving) effects of regulatory focus (RF) on employee intrapreneurship (EI) in Pakistan’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A time-lagged (six weeks apart) design is used to collect data through self-administered questionnaires. The researchers retrieved 492 usable responses from frontline employees working in SMEs.

The results showed the positive direct and indirect (via CSE and thriving) effects of promotion focus on EI. As expected, the results showed negative direct and indirect effects of prevention focus on intrapreneurship. The follow-up analysis revealed the mediating effect of CSE is stronger for the promotion focus and intrapreneurship, and the mediating effect of thriving is stronger for prevention focus and intrapreneurship.

This study reveals the importance of RF facets as important predictors of EI. The study highlights the importance of intrapreneurship in emerging economies, but expecting such behavior from every employee is a fallacy. Thus, decision-makers in organizations can nurture prevention-focused employees to engage in intrapreneurship.

This is a pioneer study to include RF (promotion focus and prevention focus) in an emerging country – Pakistan – to reveal its significance in EI. It establishes CSE and thriving as mediating mechanisms between RF and EI for the first time to offer new insights into theory and practice.

This study aims to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership (EL) and new product development performance (NPDP) at the firm level (level 2) of analysis and employee’s creativity (EC) at the cross level (level 1) of analysis. It also examines the serial mediations of (1) intrinsic motivation (IM)-EC and (2) creative self-efficacy (CSE)-EC on the relationship between EL and NPDP.

A systematic random sampling technique was used to collect data through self-administered surveys from leaders and employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan’s IT sector. Analysis was conducted on net responses from 114 leaders and 476 employees.

The results revealed significant positive associations between EL and NPDP at the firm level of analysis and EC at the cross level of analysis. The results of the cross-level serial mediations show that (1) IM and EC, and (2) CSE and EC serially mediate the relationship between EL and NPDP.

This study is among the few to use the Coleman bathtub model to show top-down and bottom-up relationships. The study extends and complements the multilevel perspective on leadership and new product development research by simultaneously examining the relationships between EL and NPDP at the individual and firm levels.

This research aims to investigate relationship between workplace spirituality and employees' knowledge-hiding as mediated by organizational identification.

In this research, a time-lagged design is employed and multi-source data are collected through self-administered questionnaires. A sample of 305 focal respondents and 1,048 of the respondents' peers is used to test the hypotheses using AMOS (analysis of moment structures) 24.0.

The results reveal that two dimensions of workplace spirituality – meaningful work and values alignment –play significant roles in reducing knowledge-hiding in terms of workplace spirituality's three dimensions of evasive hiding, rationalized hiding and “playing dumb.” However, contrary to expectations, a sense of community has significant positive effects on the dimensions of knowledge-hiding. The study also reveals that organizational identification significantly mediates the relationships between the dimensions of workplace spirituality and those of knowledge-hiding.

This pioneer study introduces workplace spirituality (which differs from religious spirituality) and the significance of workplace spirituality in the workplace in the religious and conservative society of Pakistan. This study uses the lens of social identity theory (SIT) to establish for the first-time organizational identity as a mediating mechanism between workplace spirituality and knowledge-hiding to offer new insights for theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of mission and vision in the process of state development. Using the case of Pakistan, it will be argued that state organizations do not develop and find the right direction without outlining a clear mission and vision which will be beneficial to all citizens, who are the real stakeholders.

Yin (2003) and Baxter and Jack (2008) argue that case study is an enriched method to explore a complex relationship. The complex relationship may be understood better by qualitative methods than quantitative. Following their suggestion, case study method will be adopted to understand the relationship between the mission and vision and state development. In this study, Pakistan will be used as a case. Moreover, the technique of historical analysis will be employed to understand this relationship. Historical analysis is important because the repercussions of current actions can only be evaluated in the future.

The paper shows the importance of “mission and vision” for state development. Using Pakistan as the case, it is argued that a state can lose its direction without having a clear mission and vision. It is further contended that it is not erection of institutions or verbal/written pronouncements and slogans, but a strong commitment to the mission and the vision brings the required change, which helps to develop a state. In the future research, the researcher can further examine the role of mission and vision in relation to state development.

The limitation of this study is that it has only focussed on the leadership and politics of Pakistan. In the future, a comparative study investigation may be useful.

The research is useful for political leaders, political scientists and public management researchers.

The research is unique and original that it evaluates the role of leadership and the development of the state from the perspective of mission and vision, which has not been done in the earlier research. Moreover, the paper elaborates the concept of state development.