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This study aims to explore the impact of oil prices on housing prices using Pakistani annual data from 1973 to 2021.

The Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) tests were used for unit-root testing, whereas the johansen-juselius test was used for cointegration. For the short-run, the error correction model is used and the robustness of the model is checked using the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified OLS (FMOLS). The cumulative sum (CUSUM) and CUSUM of Squares tests were used to check the stability of the model, while parameter instability was confirmed by the Chow breakpoint test. Finally, the impulse response function was used for causality.

According to the findings, rising oil prices, among other things, have an impact on housing prices. Inflation is the single most important factor affecting not only the housing sector but also the entire economy. Lending and exchange rates have a significant impact on housing prices as well. The FMOLS and DOLS results suggest that the OLS results are robust. According to the variance decomposition model, housing prices and oil prices are bidirectionally related. The Government of Pakistan must develop a housing policy on a regular basis to develop the country’s urban housing supply and demand.

It is suggested that in Pakistan, the rising oil prices is a problem for the housing prices as well as many other sectors. The government needs to explore alternative ways of energy generation rather than the heavy reliance on imported oil.

Pakistan has been experiencing rising oil prices and housing prices with the rapid urbanisation and rural–urban migration. The contribution to the literature is that neither attempt (as to the best of the authors’ knowledge) has been made to check the impact of rising oil prices on housing sector development in Pakistan.

This study aims to examine the environmental impact of fossil fuel use in newly industrialized countries (NICs), focusing on the relationship between economic growth, energy consumption and environmental sustainability from 1971 to 2020.

The research uses pool mean group autoregressive distributive lag, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares econometric models to analyze long-run data. These methods enable a detailed assessment of how economic and industrial factors affect environmental pollution.

The study finds that nonrenewable energy consumption is positively linked to environmental pollution, with a 1% increase leading to a 6.25% rise in pollution. Industrialization, urbanization and globalization also significantly increase pollution, with increments of 2.51%, 3.97% and 2.11%, respectively. Conversely, economic growth has a beneficial effect, reducing pollution by 2.59% for every 1% increase in growth.

Policymakers should balance economic growth with environmental sustainability by reducing nonrenewable energy consumption and supporting renewable energy adoption.

This research provides fresh insights into the dynamics between economic growth and environmental pollution in NICs. By using advanced econometric techniques over an extended period, it offers a view of how economic and industrial activities influence environmental outcomes, highlighting the dual role of economic growth in both promoting development and reducing pollution.

Social protection states the public-mandated (strategies and programmes) to address the vulnerability and risk among poor and near-poor households. Social protection must not only help people meet their basic needs but also contribute to the long-term well-being and broader societal goals of equity, social justice and empowerment. The role of social protection in achieving these goals has not been adequately documented. This paper examines the performance of the social protection mechanism from the perspective of the regional structural and institutional performance indicators. Social protection outlay dynamics are synthesized in the structural and institutional conducts.

A world regional comparability is made by considering the panel dataset for the time interval 1995–2020. In empirics, the unconditional and conditional ranks are constructed, and regression analyses are made subject to (1) the fiscal constraint of social protection, (2) structural performance indicators and (3) the institutional performance indicators of the targeted regions across the globe. The fully modified-ordinary least square (FM-OLS) method is used to construct the ranks.

The rank analysis demonstrates that the developed regions (i.e. Europe, Central Asia and North America) have relatively good welfare standards and fiscal capacity for social protection drives compared to the developing/underdeveloped regions (i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). The structural/institutional performance indicators have shown their significance in determining/utilizing their budget for social protection and maintaining welfare standards. Interestingly, most developed regions are relatively reluctant to maintain the structural/institutional performance for the determination/execution of the funds for social protection as compared to the developing and underdeveloped regions.

In policy discourse, this research suggests that governments must make some market operations to enhance their regions’ structural and institutional performance to get better outcomes of social protection spending in the form of attractive welfare standards.

Multiple studies have been done considering the social protection dynamics at nano, micro and macro levels, while this study considered the mega dataset across the globe to analyse the social protection dynamics in consideration of structural and institutional performances.

In this chapter, I uncover the jail diaries of a revolutionary woman of the 20th century Pakistan, Akhtar Baloch. Although feminism in Pakistan has oscillated between liberal and postcolonial camps, through reading Akhtar's diaries, compiled as Prison Narratives (2017), I center Akhtar's own struggles for Sindh, along with the resistance of the women she met in the prison convicted for the murders of their husbands, to better theorize Marxist Feminism in Pakistan that overturns the structures that commodify women through love and revolution. My article will show the commodification of women's bodies; the “sale” of women through marriage as the goal of this commodification; the lovelessness and alienation women experience in commodified marriages; the unexpected fall in love with someone whom it is subversive for the commodified wife to love; the subversion of this unexpected event that leads to the attempted resolution of this tension through murder; the separation of the lovers through the incarceration of the woman by the capitalist-patriarchal state; and finally, the unexpected outcome (albeit the most common one) that the male lover abandons his female lover once she's jailed, but the defiantly brave female lover finds platonic love in jail through close female friendships with other women who are similarly brave in both love and in revolution. Through this exposition, I show that Akhtar's diaries provide a way for us to build on Marxist Feminist theory through a theory of love and revolution from a Sindhi feminist perspective.

The study aims to critically review the Shariah governance framework for Islamic banking prevailing in Pakistan and provide a comparison with Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI).

It analyzes 16 circulars issued by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) since 2002, including three Shariah governance frameworks in 2014, 2015 and 2018. Additionally, the study compares the SBP and AAOIFI Shariah governance standards to evaluate the soundness of the SBP framework against international benchmarks.

Pakistan’s Shariah governance model is centralized, with the SBP’s Shariah board having ultimate authority. The SBP has provided a comprehensive Shariah framework, which includes among others, the criteria for the qualifications and conflict of interests of Shariah members. Both AAOIFI and SBP Shariah governance frameworks have similarities and differences in terms of the tenure of Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) members, reporting line of SSB, number of SSB meetings, minimum experience of SSB members, primary duties of Shariah board, code of ethics and conduct for SSB and management and requirement of publication of SSB report in the annual report of Islamic banks. The frameworks differ in terms of the delegation of SSB powers, assessment and appraisal of SSB effectiveness and outsourcing of Shariah Compliance Department and Internal Shariah Audit Unit.

The study recommends expanding the qualification criteria for Shariah advisors to include additional degrees and qualifications, upholding stringent criteria for conflict of interests and promoting stakeholder consultation through exposure drafts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first of its kind which critically review and compare the Shariah governance framework prevailing in Pakistan.

In this paper, the authors investigated the impact of quality digital banking services delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic on customers' satisfaction and retention intentions.

This study combined constructs drawn from the E-S-QUAL and BSQ models to measure the impact of digital banking services on subscribers of digital banking services in Ghana. The study utilized structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS-SEM) to analyze 395 responses.

Results revealed a significant direct effect between digital banking services satisfaction and customer retention decision. The results also revealed that digital banking services quality dimensions such as ease of use, efficiency, privacy/security and reliability impact customers' satisfaction and retention intentions.

Digital banking service portfolios and their quality dimensions vary among banks. This offers an opportunity for banking institutions and other non-bank financial service providers to be wary of the impact of quality service delivery on customers' decisions. This paper makes significant theoretical contributions and practical implications on the relevance of quality digital banking services in customers' retention strategies for competitive advantage.

This study has underlined the significance of quality digital banking services in developing countries. The study underscored the need for banking and non-bank financial institutions to embrace the much-anticipated quality service demanded by customers and the need for continuous service improvement relative to the growing deployment of financial technologies.

This paper aims to investigate the economic sustainability of new work environments by exploring how interior design strategies can contribute to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, which focuses on decent work and economic growth. SDG 8 aims to foster sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic development, as well as full and productive employment.

The pilot study was conducted at a global automobile brand’s largest facility in Kocaeli/Turkey, where 102 employees participated in stakeholder meetings divided into 18 groups. Additionally, 46 employees were interviewed through focus groups and one-on-one sessions across nine encounters. The collected data were analyzed using deductive thematic analysis, interpreting codes and themes related to spatial politics, timing politics and hybrid working culture in the new work environment.

Identified themes include individually focused tasks, virtual collaboration, agile working, socialization and urban interaction. These themes are then traced through the conceptual design proposal developed by the interior design team and discussed in relation to their alignment with SDG 8.2 (diversify, innovate and upgrade for economic productivity), SDG 8.4 (improve resource efficiency in consumption and production) and SDG 8.8 (protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers).

These three targets (for inclusivity and innovation, for environmentally sustainable and for employee well-being) were selected for their relevance in shaping the physical work environment.

The key finding of this paper is the need for a deeper understanding of economic sustainability in interior design and the contribution of SDG 8 targets on the spatial, temporal and cultural dimensions of new work environments. Brands committed to sustainability must adopt new work models and reimagine their work environments to enhance employee satisfaction and performance, through comprehensive user research and design solutions aligned with SDG 8.

Consistent with the metaphor of narcissists as “emotional vampires” who leave their victims emotionally drained and devoid of energy, this research suggests that certain factors, such as subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and religious beliefs, can reduce the level of narcissistic behavior in organizations. Drawing from the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and self-regulation theory, the current study evaluates the moderating role of Islamic religiosity in the relationship between subjective norms and the intention to behave narcissistically. In addition, this study examines the moderating role of afterlife belief in the relationship between perceived behavioral control and the intention to behave narcissistically.

The research hypotheses were tested using two-wave survey data collected from managers of 103 service organizations (Study 1) and 323 employees of four service organizations (Study 2). This research applies structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the proposed model using SmartPLS 3 software.

Islamic religiosity had a negative moderating role in the relationship between subjective norms and the intention to behave narcissistically (Study 1 and Study 2). In addition, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control had significant positive effects on the intention to engage in narcissistic behavior among managers (Study 1). However, perceived behavioral control had no significant effect on the intention to engage in narcissistic behavior among employees (Study 2).

The current study not only tests the applicability of the TPB to narcissistic behaviors in Islamic organizations, but it also extends the classic TPB framework by including two moderating variables – Islamic religiosity and afterlife belief.