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This study aims to test the Malthusian and Kremer theories by exploring the relationship between population and economic growth in a low middle-income economy of India.

The autoregressive distributed lag approach is employed based on the nature of time-series data to achieve the study objectives. In this study, regressand is economic growth measured by real GDP, and the regressors are population growth rate, investment, life expectancy and inflation rate from 1980 to 2018.

Empirical results confirm the applicability of Kremer’s theory. In this theory, population growth has a significant and positive impact on economic growth in the short and long run. Moreover, investment and life expectancy variables have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, whereas inflation rate has a negative association with economic growth. Empirical results support the population-growth-driven economic growth hypothesis, which indicates that population growth stimulates economic growth and development.

Empirical findings in this study provide guides for management authorities in formulating the right and relatable policies on population growth whilst promoting economic growth and social welfare.

Achieving a desirable level of economic growth is the prime objective of every country. The role of the population in the process of economic growth and development cannot be overlooked. Malthus' and Kremer's views are opposite. Extant literature exhibits that scant research has been carried out on this significant topic in developing countries. Therefore, empirically investigating the effect of population on the growth performance of India as a developing country is necessary and will significantly contribute to the literature.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2019-0496

This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance (CG) in the earnings management (EM) of affiliated companies in family business groups (FBGs) listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), using principal–principal agency theory.

The sample of 327 nonfinancial firms of the PSX, consisting of 187 group-affiliated firms and 140 nonaffiliated firms has been used in this study for the period of 2010 to 2019. The study uses different regression models for analysis, with robustness tests of various alternative measures of EM and FBG affiliation. In addition, endogeneity is controlled with the propensity score matching method.

The findings show that EM is less prevalent in affiliated firms compared to nonaffiliated companies. The results show a negative and significant relationship between FBGs affiliated firms and EM. Moreover, the results also show a positive relationship between EM and the interaction term of the CG index and group affiliation. It refers to the fact that effective governance cannot reduce EM in affiliated companies of FBGs as well as in the nonfinancial companies of the PSX. In addition, the quality of CG is higher in affiliated companies compared to its counterpart in nonaffiliated firms. The findings support the principal–principal agency theory that CG cannot mitigate the expropriating behavior of controlling shareholders against minority shareholders by reducing EM in emerging markets due to the ownership concentration phenomenon.

This research study has implications for small investors, government agencies and regulators. The findings of the study show that CG code should make it mandatory for companies to reveal information about their complex ownership structure and ownership information about affiliated companies and directors. Furthermore, it is suggested to revisit the code of CG in the Pakistani context of principal–principal conflict instead of the agent–principal explanation of agency theory based on Anglo–Saxon countries.

This research study has contributed to the CG and FBG literature in relation to EM in idiosyncratic settings of Pakistan. One of the prime contributions of the paper is the development of a comprehensive CG index. This research study used detailed, manually collected novel data on affiliated firms of FBGs in Pakistan.

This paper aims to examine the relationships between the perceptions of library and information science (LIS) professionals about organizational culture (OC) and lifelong learning (LLL) in the university libraries of Pakistan.

The study uses a positivist paradigm and quantitative research method to examine the relationships between OC and the dimensions of LLL among the LIS professionals in the university libraries of Pakistan. Using a stratified sampling technique, data were collected, through a structured questionnaire, from a sample of 226 LIS professionals (out of N = 545) working in 97 university libraries of the country.

The results of the study found that the respondents’ perceptions about OC had positively correlated with their LLL in the study context. All the dimensions of OC predicted respondents’ LLL practices in the study context.

This study has practical implications for library leadership and LIS professionals to determine how the university libraries are likely to behave with LLL practices to accomplish the target goals.

The results of this study can be used as supporting source and rationale for university libraries to develop strategic plans and policies for implementing LLL practices among LIS professionals of academic libraries.

The published literature shows the absence of any credible research carried out to know the influence of OC on LLL of LIS professionals.

This study investigates the relationship among economic growth, energy usage, urbanization, trade openness, carbon emission, ecological footprint, and ecological carbon footprint with the sample of G-7 countries over the period 1991–2017. The Continuously-Updated and Fully-Modified (CUP-FM) estimator method applied to the panel series is utilized. As a result of empirical analysis, an increase in the real per capita GDP increases the ecological footprint by 0.844%. Also, there are positive impacts that are detrimental to the environment among the environmental quality and explanatory variables for each established model. The findings indicate that a relationship exists among the variables in the long run, and at the same time, carbon emission as an indicator of pollution should be noticed as well as the ecological footprint and ecological carbon footprint. It is observed that a positive relationship exists among the variables such as economic growth, energy usage, and environmental pollution indicator. In this context, G-7 countries indicate that, upon taking their developed economic structures and global pollution levels into account, the Environment Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis becomes valid, and that the U-shaped behavior is valid for the total ecological footprint. It is been seen that, besides economic growth and energy usage, other explanatory variables contribute to environmental degradation in trade openness. In compliance with these results, in terms of the sustainability of economic development, G-7 countries should pay attention to economic activities that would impair the environmental quality and control them with regulations.

Companies are increasing the amount of their voluntary disclosures to inform stakeholders about organisational performance. Despite criticism that these are simply “public relations” exercises, there has been little formal evaluation of stakeholder reporting, especially in Australia. In addition, the important aspect of stakeholder reciprocity, where not only stakeholder satisfaction but also their contribution to the organisation is evaluated and reported, has not been examined. This study aims to examine both of these issues.

The study was conducted using the non‐financial performance indicators of Australia's top five banks, as available in both annual reports and web sites, to examine the nature of stakeholder reporting and the extent to which stakeholder reciprocity is disclosed.

The results of the study indicate that there is neither consistency in the reporting of key performance indicators, nor is there consistency in reporting across both stakeholder satisfaction and stakeholder contribution. Stakeholder satisfaction dominates and little effort has been directed to evaluate and report on stakeholder contribution. The study also indicates that, other than shareholders, the top five Australian banks have identified customers and employees as their primary key stakeholders.

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the importance of stakeholder dialogue for the enhancement of stakeholder relationships, stakeholder reciprocity and the extent to which it is disclosed is an area that has been insufficiently examined. Thus, the originality and value of the study lie in its examination of corporate disclosures of stakeholder reciprocity.

The purpose of this paper is to discover university librarians' perceptions regarding importance of various elements of CM, and self‐assessment about the status of CM in university libraries of Pakistan.

To achieve the objectives of the study, the survey method was used with self‐completion questionnaires to collect data from throughout Pakistan. The questionnaire was sent to central libraries of 40 major accredited universities of Pakistan and 30 responses were obtained.

It was found that the university librarians are still not fully conversant with the changing scenario of CM in both theoretical and practical terms. It also appeared that the university librarians were not satisfied with the overall status of managing a collection in the majority of cases.

The paper is the first study on the overall status of collection management in Pakistan. It will invoke among professionals the need to learn and apply modern practices of collection management.

This study aims to analyse the existing literature on the utilisation of financial technology (FinTech) in the Islamic social finance (ISF) sector, focusing on tools, applications and benefits. From this study, it is to provide insights for literature or for practitioners on how FinTech can be used in ISF, such as using blockchain (tools) in waqf (application) that can help to enhance transparency and trust (benefits) with donors. It is important to explore new available tools or applications in ISF markets so that such effort can benefit the industry in promoting its growth.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was carried out using Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES) which has been based on quality evaluation criteria, beginning with 41,945 entries in Scopus, 25,386 entries in the Web of Science and 1,590 entries in the Google Scholar databases and ending with 35 articles from data abstraction and analysis, all of which focus on tools, applications and benefits of FinTech in ISF sector.

This review yielded three primary themes and eleven sub-themes addressing FinTech, namely applications (four sub-themes: crowdfunding, blockchain, banking service and peer-to-peer (P2P), tools (three sub-themes: waqf, zakat and sadaqah), as well as benefits (four sub-themes: transparency, innovation, inclusiveness and efficiency).

This study emphasises on innovative application of FinTech used in ISF industry which focuses on applications, tools and benefits of FinTech to the industry. However, the findings indicate that there is plenty of room for future investigation. The current work outlines several methodological issues and concerns as well as provides recommendations for future research. Various challenges associated with FinTech applications include inadequate regulations, complex permit application procedures, misuse of FinTech for terrorist financing, the existence of fraudulent FinTech companies and consumer disputes in the FinTech sector concerning ISF. There are few in-depth studies on the possible use of FinTech models in ISF, compared to studies focusing on upcoming challenges. This study also highlights the methodological limitations in previous research efforts, which can be used to improve future studies in this area. To offer a more comprehensive analysis, additional search keywords and engines that have not been included in this study could be used in future investigations with different methodologies.

For practitioners, the paper has significant managerial consequences. The analysis provides insights into real-life opportunities, limits and solutions for improving performance management by looking at FinTech applications from a larger and more diverse perspective. The practitioners, especially the State Islamic Religious Council, can recognise the benefits of using FinTech technology in ISF (waqf, zakat and sadaqah), namely under their jurisdiction.

This systematic literature assessment identifies critical knowledge gaps that must be addressed such as the applications of FinTech that are still ambiguous, with certain applications not completely embraced in the ISF industry. This study uses SLR technique to categorise literature, identify gaps in current studies and provide recommendations for the research issue (Paul and Criado, 2020), instead of using the other previous methodology such as content analysis or qualitative review. Hence, FinTech is considered an innovative or new approach in ISF industry.

The existence of intense competition in turbulent markets confirms the importance of using ethical employee practices in knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB) to ensure organisational growth. This is especially applicable in developing countries' markets where this intensive competition usually results in organisations following illicit practices. This paper aims to examine the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (i.e. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and KSB using Islamic work ethics (IWE) as the moderator.

A quantitative research method using a survey instrument collected 182 responses from employees in the Pakistani telecommunication industry. The partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the collected data.

The results found that IWE has a positive impact on KSB and a positive moderating impact on the relationship between the Big Five personality traits except neuroticism and KSB. Also, openness to experience and agreeableness positively impacted KSB.

This paper contributes to the field of human resource (HR) management by helping managers in the hiring process or developing employee's personalities. Additionally, policymakers are encouraged to create Islamic values platforms to increase KSB amongst employees.

This study indicates the importance of IWE in boosting the impact of personality on KSB and provides insights into IWE's role in enhancing an organisation's competitive advantages in turbulent markets.

In addition to quantitative analysis, the purpose of this paper is to measure the quality of articles published in foreign LIS journals by Pakistani authors based on their Impact Factor (IF) scores reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of 2010; also to discuss the significance and implications of this study for the current and potential authors in Pakistan and other developing countries.

The data for this study were collected from two sets of sources: first, online sources of Google Scholar, LISA, LISTA, an online 50‐year cumulative index of Pakistani LIS literature, and web pages of several authors; and second, printed indexes and bibliographies. The data collected were manually entered into MS Excel for tabulation and created nine tables, which formed the basis of discussion in the paper.

The contribution of Pakistani authors to foreign LIS journals is reasonable in number and below average in quality, according to the JCR IF scores. The authorship patterns show that there is a shift from single‐authorship to collaborative authorship. The contribution of academics is several times higher than that of library practitioners. Likewise the non‐resident Pakistani authors' share in the global LIS literature is much larger as compared to their counterparts living in Pakistan.

This is the first study that evaluates the quality of Pakistani LIS literature using the more popular journal ranking method, JCR IF. The results of this study are expected to have a positive impact on Pakistani authors as they start preparing articles according to the quality requirements of JCR‐ranked journals in the future.

Textile, listed as one of the highly environmentally sensitive goods, its trade is susceptible to be influenced by the implementation of stringent environmental policies. This paper aims to investigate the long-run relationship between revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and Environmental Policy Stringency Index (EPSI) for textile exports of G20 countries in panel data setup.

Apart from trend analysis, the authors have employed Pedroni and Westerlund panel cointegration method and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) method to study the long-run relationship between RCA and EPSI in presence of cross-sectional dependence.

A strong link between trade and environmental stringency is observed for textile in the present study. For G20 countries, slight evidence of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis has also been witnessed in the study. Correspondingly, the results reveal the presence of long-run association between the variables under study, implying that stringent environmental policies reduce RCA for some countries, whereas some countries witness the Porter hypothesis.

The results imply that policy formulation should not aim at limiting the efforts of connecting RCA to environmental stringency but to set trade policies in a wider framework, considering environmental concerns, as these are inseparable subjects. However, this study also provides relevant real-world implications that can support further research.

The present study has important implications for textile exporters such as green innovations. The Porter hypothesis can be a beneficial tool for G20 exporters in enhancing their export performance, especially for the ones dealing in environmentally sensitive goods. This study offers relevant policy implications and provides directions for future research on global trade and environment nexus.

This study deals in a debatable area of research that evaluates the interlinkages between environmental stringency and global trade flows in the G20 countries. An important observation of the study is the asymmetrical nature of policy stringency across different countries and its impact on trade. The unavailability of updated data is the limitation of the present study.