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Agri-entrepreneurship is considered a promising strategy to address poverty, particularly in developing countries. However, embarking on an agri-entrepreneurial venture poses significant challenges. The existing literature on agri-entrepreneurship in developing countries, particularly focusing on smallholders’ constraints, is often scattered and fragmented, focusing mainly on individual barriers rather than providing a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted constraints. Therefore, this study aims to fill the gap by conducting a systematic review to identify, categorize, and prioritize the smallholders’ constraints.

By systematically reviewing literature retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, published between 2013 and 2023, and following the PRISMA guidelines, this study identifies agri-entrepreneurial constraints through content analysis and categorizes and prioritizes them using thematic analysis.

This study revealed a range of constraints which are categorized into thematic areas including market-related challenges, financial constraints, limitations in human capital, institutional barriers, socio-cultural factors, technological shortcomings, and infrastructural challenges. Moreover, the study examines the role of social networks and their impacts on the livelihoods of smallholders in developing countries.

The study’s scope is limited to constraints for agri-entrepreneurship, particularly for smallholders in developing countries. The review considers English articles published between 2013 and 2023, and ABS 3 and above ranked journal articles.

The study systematically identifies, categorizes, and prioritizes the significant constraints to agri-entrepreneurship in developing countries by conducting a systematic review and identifying research gaps and future directions.

Wealth Management Products (WMPs) are the largest and most crucial component of China's Shadow banking, which are off the balance sheet and considered as a substitute for deposits. Commercial banks in China are involved in the issuance of WMPs mainly to; evade the regulatory restrictions, move non-performing loans away from the balance sheet, chase the profits and take advantage of yield spread (the difference between WMPs yield and deposit rate).

In this study, the authors investigate what bank related characteristics and needs; influenced and prompted the issuance of WMPs. By using a quarterly panel data from 2010 to 2019, this study performed the fixed effects approach favored by the Hausman specification test, and a feasible generalized least square (FGLS) estimation method is employed to deal with any issues of heteroscedasticity and auto-correlation.

This study found that there is a positive and significant association between the non-performing loan ratio and the issuance of WMPs. Moreover, profitability and spread were found to play an essential role in the issuance of WMPs. The findings of this study suggest that WMPs are issued for multi-purpose, and off the balance sheet status of these products makes them very lucrative for regulated Chinese commercial banks.

Non-guaranteed WMPs are considered as an item of shadow banking in China, as banks do not consolidate this type of WMPs into their balance sheet; due to that reason, there is no individual bank data available for the amount of WMPs. The authors use the number of WMPs issued by banks as a proxy for the bank's exposure to the WMPs business.

From a regulatory perspective, this study helps regulators to understand the risk associated with the issuance of WMPs; by providing empirical evidence that Chinese banks issue WMPs to hide the actual risk of non-performing loans, and this practice could mislead the regulators to evaluate the bank credit risk and loan quality. This study also identifies that Chinese banks issue WMPs for multi-purpose; this can help potential investors to understand the dynamics of WMPs issuance.

This research is innovative in its orientation because it is designed to investigate the less explored wealth management products (WMPs) issued by Chinese banks. This study's content includes not only innovation but also contributes to the existing literature on the shadow banking sector in terms of regulatory arbitrage. Moreover, the inclusion of FGLS estimation models, ten years of quarterly data, and the top 30 Chinese banks (covers 70% of the total Chinese commercial banking system's assets) make this research more comprehensive and significant.

Shadow banking has been evolving rapidly in China, with banks actively using wealth management products (WMPs) to evade regulatory restrictions. These products are the largest constituent of China's shadow banking sector. A large number of these products are off-balance-sheet and considered a substitute for bank deposits. China's banking sector, especially the small and medium-sized banks (SMBs), uses these products to avoid regulatory restrictions and sustainability risk in the deposit market.

This study empirically examined how banks in China, specifically SMBs, utilize these products on a short and long-run basis to manage and control their deposit levels. This study utilized a quarterly panel dataset from 2010 to 2019 for the top 30 Chinese banks, by first implementing a Panel ARDL-PMG model. For cross-sectional dependence, this study further executed a cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributive lag model (CS-ARDL).

Under regulations avoidance theory, the findings revealed that WMPs and deposits have a stable long-run substitute relationship. Furthermore, the WMP–Deposit substitute relationship was only significant and consistent for SMBs, but not for large four banks. The findings further revealed that the WMP–Deposit substitute relationship existed, even after the removal of the deposit rate limit imposed by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) to control the deposit rates.

The individual bank-issued WMPs' amount data is not available in any database. Therefore, this study utilized the number of WMPs as a proxy for China's banking sector's exposure to the wealth management business.

This research helps policymakers to understand the Deposit–WMP relationship from the off-balance-sheet perspective. During the various stages of interest rate liberalization, banks were given more control to establish their deposit and loan interest rates. However, the deposit rates are still way below the WMP returns, making WMPs more competitive. This research suggests that policymakers should formulate a more balanced strategy regarding deposit rates and WMPs returns.

This study contributes to the existing literature on China's shadow banking by concentrating on the WMPs. This research represents one of the few studies that analyze regulatory arbitrage in terms of the WMP–Deposit relationship. Moreover, the implementation of CS-ARDL panel data models and multiple data sources makes this study's findings more reliable and significant.

The present study examines the knowledge, attitude and practice towards the reduction of COVID-19 spread among entrepreneurs of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Sciences and Technology (FUUAST), Karachi Pakistan.

The authors employed cross-sectional data to infer the results. The data are collected through an online survey questionnaire. To target the respondents; a convenience sampling technique is adopted. In total, 222 usable answers proceed with final results. The structural equation model (SEM) is applied for the data analysis.

The study outcomes found a significant and positive role of knowledge about COVID-19, attitudes towards a stay at home and practices against COVID-19 in reducing the spread of the pandemic.

The study provides coherent knowledge about the factors that fight against the pandemic's further spread. The findings would provide the guidelines to policymakers to think about such factors and boost them enormously. Further, the results would contribute to the literature of COVID-19.

This study is original, which empirically confirmed the effect of knowledge about COVID-19, attitudes towards a stay at home and practices against COVID-19 in an academic institute.

The purpose of this paper is to determine empirically the effect of customer perceived ethicality (CPE) on customer loyalty (CL) and further the authors ascertained if customer trust (CT), customer affective commitment (CAC) and customer perceived quality (CPQ) acted as mediating mechanisms linking CPE and CL. This study also tested the influence of CL on customer word of mouth (CWOM).

In this study, data were collected from 390 customers of banks in Pakistan through a self-administered questionnaire and tested through partial least squares (PLS) with smart PLS 3.2.7 version.

Research findings provided evidence for the positive relationship between CPE and CL and mediating effects of CT, CAC and CPQ for the CPE–CL linkage. Furthermore, a positive and significant relationship between CL and CWOM was experienced.

This study can help banks to determine the importance of CT, CAC and CPQ, as they can facilitate translating CPE into CL. Furthermore, managers need to effectively communicate about their ethical activities and encourage their customers to share their experiences.

First, this paper has considered the effect of CPE on customer loyalty under research area of corporate service brands. Second, it examines the mediating role of three factors (CT, CAC and CPQ) between CPE and customer loyalty in the banking industry.

Purpose: This study investigates internal/own shock in the domestic market and three external volatility spillovers from India, the UK, and the USA to the Sri Lanka stock market.

Need for the Study: The external market’s internal/own shocks and volatility spillovers influence portfolio choices in domestic stock market returns. Hence, it is required to investigate the internal shock in the domestic market and the external volatility spillovers from other countries.

Methodology: This study employs a quantitative method using ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) model. All Share Price Index (ASPI) is the proxy for the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) stock return. It uses daily time-series data from 1^st April 2010 to 21^st June 2023.

Findings: The findings revealed that internal/own and external shocks substantially impact the stock price volatility in CSE. Significant volatility clusters and persistence with extended memory in ASPI confirm internal/own shock in the market. Furthermore, CSE receives significant volatility shock from the USA, confirming external shock. This study’s findings highlight the importance of considering internal and external shocks in portfolio decision-making.

Practical Implications: Understanding the influence of internal shocks helps investors manage their portfolios and adapt to market volatility. Recognising significant volatility spillovers from external markets, especially the USA, informs diversification strategies. From a policy standpoint, the study emphasises the need for robust regulations and risk management measures to address shocks in domestic and global markets. This study adds value to the literature by assessing the sources of volatility shocks in the CSE, employing the ARMA-GARCH, a sophisticated econometrics model, to capture stock returns volatility, enhancing understanding of the CSE’s volatility dynamics.

This paper examines the Pakistani state's shift from the accommodation to exclusion of the heterodox Ahmadiyya community, a self-defined minority sect of Islam. In 1953, the Pakistani state rejected demands by a religious movement that Ahmadis be legally declared non-Muslim. In 1974 however, the same demand was accepted. This paper argues that this shift in the state's policy toward Ahmadis was contingent on the distinct political fields in which the two religious movements were embedded. Specifically, it points to conjunctures among two processes that defined state–religious movement relations: intrastate struggles for political power, and the framing strategies of religious movements vis-à-vis core symbolic issues rife in the political field. Consequently, the exclusion of Ahmadis resulted from the transformation of the political field itself, characterized by the increasing hegemony of political discourses referencing Islam, shift toward electoral politics, and the refashioning of the religious movement through positing the “Ahmadi issue” as a national question pertaining to democratic norms.

This paper aims to show the direct and indirect effects of mindfulness on the employees’ commitment in the employees who perform monotonous work. Moreover, it also shows the role of basic psychological needs proposed by self-determination theory (SDT), on the relationship between mindfulness and commitment.

This paper has used a time-lagged approach. Data has been collected from the nurses in public sector hospitals through a survey strategy. Structural equation modeling has been used to validate the measure and to test the hypotheses.

The results of thi study reveal that there is a positive relationship between mindfulness and employee affective organizational commitment. This study also shows that in the existence of a high level of autonomy, mindfulness does have more effect on commitment. Moreover, this study also shows that this relationship is mediated by employee boredom. However, this mediation is not moderated by the satisfaction of the need for autonomy.

This study serves as a guide for frontline managers in situations where they want their subordinates who perform monotonous and boring work to remain committed to the organization. This study also emphasizes the recruitment of employees who may show more trait mindfulness.

This study enriches the literature in the field of organizational behavior by showing how basic psychological needs proposed by SDT collaborate with mindfulness in producing employees’ positive attitudes.

This study aims to examine the impact of ethical leadership style on the subjective well-being of health-care workers by examining the sequential mediating effects of perceived organizational support and perceived ethical-philanthropic corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Data were collected from frontline health-care workers (i.e. doctors and nurses). Further, to cope with the response burden during the acute wave of the coronavirus pandemic, this study used split-questionnaire design for data collection.

This study’s findings fully support the hypothesized framework of the study, illustrating that ethical leadership positively influenced the subjective well-being of health-care workers. Moreover, this study found that the ethical leadership and well-being relationship is sequentially mediated by perceived organizational support and perceived ethical-philanthropic CSR.

This study possesses practical implications for health-care institutions to encompass the agenda of developing ethically appropriate conduct in their administration and become genuinely concerned about health-care workers and society as well.

By highlighting the role of ethical leadership in participating in ethical and philanthropic CSR activities, this study possesses social implications for the well-being of health-care workers and society at large.

A positive and strong chain of perceptions about organizational support accorded to employees specifically and society at large emerges as an important sequential mediating mechanism that helps ethical leaders in hospital administration in building subjective well-being in their followers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique contributions and perspectives of South Asian Marxists to global Marxism. Three contributions we find particularly significant are (1) South Asian Marxists' approach to thinking about questions of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, (2) the treatment of agrarian and feudal continuities in Marxist theories from South Asia and (3) unique South Asian contributions to theorizing caste from a Marxist perspective.