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The philosophy of the conservation resource theory, this paper aims to evaluate the relationship between humble leadership on project success by integrating the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the interacting effect of top management support on the direct relationship (humble leadership and project success), as well as indirect relationships through psychological empowerment.

Time lag data were gained from 337 persons working in the project-based organization across the information technology industry. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used in this study.

By using the structural equation modelling method, the confirmatory factor analysis verified the uniqueness of the variable used in this research. The outcomes exhibited that humble leadership raised project success both directly and indirectly through mediation (psychological empowerment). Furthermore, Top management support was expected to have a moderating effect on the direct but not on the indirect relationship (via psychological empowerment).

This study demonstrates how top management support is essential for the project manager and project team members for the successful execution of the project. Particularly, minimal empirical research examines the interacting effect of top management support on humble leadership and employee psychological empowerment.

This study examines the impact of debt maturity structure on stock price crash risk (SPCR) in Asian economies and the moderating effect of firm age on this relationship.

The study utilized annual data from 432 nonfinancial firms publicly listed in six Asian countries: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan and India. The observation period covers 14 years, from 2007 to 2020. The sample was categorized into three groups: the entire sample and one group each for developing and developed Asian economies. A generalized least squares panel regression method was employed to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest that long-term debt has a significant negative influence on SPCR in Asian economies, indicating that firms with high long-term debt experience lower future SPCR. Moreover, firm age negatively moderates this relationship, implying that older firms may experience a more pronounced reduction in SPCR due to high long-term debt. Finally, firms in developed Asian economies with high long-term debt are more effective in mitigating the risk of a significant drop in their stock prices than firms in developing Asian economies.

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first of such efforts to investigate the relationship between debt maturity structure and crash risk in Asia. Additionally, it reveals that long-term debt influences SPCR directly and indirectly in Asia through the moderating role of firm age. Lastly, it is likely one of the first studies by a research team in Asia to compare the nonfinancial markets of developed and developing Asian countries.

This study examines the influence of investor protection on stock price crash risk (SPCR) in Asian economies.

This study used yearly data from 432 nonfinancial companies publicly listed firms in six countries (i.e., China, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore) from 2007 to 2020 to investigate the relationship between investor protection and the risk of stock price crashes. The hypothesis was tested using a generalized least square panel regression.

The results suggest that investor protection significantly affects SPCR in Asian economies. Furthermore, the findings show that the stocks of firms whose investors received the best protection were less prone to crash in developed Asian economies. However, in developing Asian economies, the stocks of firms whose investors received the best protection were more prone to crashes.

It provides awareness and understanding of how the level of investor protection affects SPCR, which could be useful for decision-makers and professionals across a spectrum of financial and non-financial institutions, such as portfolio managers and traders in commercial banks, investment banks and mutual funds. This knowledge enables informed decision-making and the formulation of effective policies to manage stock market volatility.

This study appears to be the first of its kind to focus on the link between investor protection and SPCR within the specific context of developed and developing Asian economies.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with mediating role of differentiation strategy in Pakistan.

A theoretical framework has been developed to base the hypotheses, as also to determine the exact approach in this study. To establish the influence of EO on the performance of SME, a five-point Likert scale questionnaire has been used to collect data from middle and senior managers who operate in SMEs in the manufacturing sectors. The sample illustrates 166 incumbents, comprising 68.07 per cent from middle management and 31.93 per cent from senior management operating in manufacturing sector of SMEs, by means of a stratified random sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Amos graphics software. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.

EO, as a whole, presents a significant positive effect on the performance of SMEs. Moreover, differentiation strategy partially mediated the relationship between EO and performance of SMEs. Two dimensions of EO, proactiveness and risk-taking propensity, strongly increased firm performance while innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, autonomy and competitive energy did not cause any significant change. The findings differ from the current view of western enterprises that innovativeness (INO) played a major role by increasing performance of SMEs. The results transpired that innovativeness (INO) tends to reduce performance of SMEs, but the p-value did not reach a high significance value.

The main limitation of this empirical study is comparatively a small size of the sample. The analysis of power suggests that a larger sample could have provided more reliable and extensive results. Regardless of that, the analysis of reliability, using the Cronbach's alpha, exhibited the consistency of outcomes in providing an accurate portrait of the EO influences on the performance of SME.

The study verifies that two dimensions of EO have considerable effects on the performance of SMEs, while the others have not, whereas, the EO, as whole, has significant positive effect on performance of SMEs. These findings should be helpful for researchers looking for appropriate performance measures, and for entrepreneurs aiming at getting support for their decisions and evaluating their performance.

The current study appears to be first of its kind focusing on the link between EOs, as whole, and its dimensions, to performance of SMEs and differentiation strategies within the specific context of Pakistan.

This study aims to explore and clarify the mechanism by which cognitive heuristics influence strategic decision-making during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in an emerging economy.

Data collection was conducted through a survey completed by 213 top-level managers from firms located in the twin cities of Pakistan. A convenient, purposively sampling technique and snowball method were used for data collection. To examine the relationship between cognitive heuristics and strategic decision-making, hypotheses were tested by using correlation and regression analysis.

The article provides further insights into the relationship between cognitive heuristics and strategic decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that cognitive heuristics (under-confidence, self-attribution and disposition effect) have a markedly negative influence on the strategic decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging economy.

The article encourages strategic decision-makers to avoid relying on cognitive heuristics or their feelings when making strategic decisions. It provides awareness and understanding of cognitive heuristics in strategic decision-making, which could be very useful for business actors such as managers and entire organizations. The findings of this study will help academicians, researchers and policymakers of emerging countries. Academicians can formulate new behavioural models that can depict the solutions to dealing with an uncertain situation like COVID-19. Policymakers and strategic decision-making teams can develop crisis management strategies based on concepts from behavioral strategy to better deal with similar circumstances in the future, such as COVID-19.

The paper’s novelty is that the authors have explored the mechanism by which cognitive heuristics influence strategic decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging economy. It adds to the literature in strategic management, explicitly probing the impact of cognitive heuristics on strategic decision-making; this field is in its initial stage, even in developed countries, while little work has been done in emerging countries.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2021-0636.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the most used library software in Lahore using a checklist and seek librarians' opinions about them. It also aims to seek librarians' opinions about the most desired and needed features of Integrated Library Software (ILS).

The paper is based on questionnaire survey, interview, document analysis and personal communication. The questionnaire survey was conducted within automated libraries of Lahore, while interviews were conducted with selected librarians from Lahore. Collected data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to reach conclusions.

A variety of software is being used by the libraries of Lahore. Nor is there available, any standard tool or directory for the selection and evaluation of the software. Evaluation of the software against a checklist reveals the better functionality of Library Information Management System and Library Automation and Management Program than INMAGIC and WINISIS, but librarians were found to be more satisfied with INMAGIC. All the respondents agreed that before selecting any ILS, librarys' actual and perceived needs, available resources and funds should be kept in mind. They also proposed many features of ILS.

The questionnaire survey is limited to the automated libraries of Lahore and focuses on the comparison and evaluation of the most used software only, while selected librarians with good IT skills were chosen for seeking opinions about the most desired ILS features.

The survey results can be helpful to foreign and local vendors of ILS, librarians, higher authorities and other developing countries in selecting and maintaining required software.

It is the first comprehensive study conducted on ILS not only in Lahore, but in Pakistan.

The paper seeks to reveal the current status of software used in the libraries of Lahore, to explore the satisfaction level of the software users, and to find out their problems and suggestions.

The paper reports a survey of automated libraries of Lahore comprising academic (university, college, and school libraries), public and special libraries. Opinions were acquired from the whole population. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, and conclusions were drawn along with recommendations.

Most libraries purchased or developed software without any exchange of experience with each other. A variety of software was being used by the libraries of Lahore. No standard tool or directory was available for the selection and evaluation of software, nor was comprehensive literature written and published in a Pakistani scenario discussing the technical and practical aspects of library software. The Pakistani literature available on the topic is not up to date.

The research is limited to the automated libraries of Lahore and focuses on the comparison of software and determining librarians' opinions.

The comparative analysis of software used in various libraries of Lahore made in this study and the opinions of the software users studied will be helpful for foreign and local vendors of library software. It will also provide guidelines for libraries in developing countries, which are planning to automate their services, in selecting and maintaining software that is most suitable to their needs.

No comprehensive survey has been conducted at national or local level to reveal the current status of the software and related problems faced by Pakistani libraries. The current study, although focussing only on libraries in the city of Lahore, can be extrapolated to the country as a whole and should prove useful as an indication of how issues with library software can arise and be handled.

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) technology envisions a network in which sensors continuously operate on and obtained critical physical and physiological readings. Sensors deployed in WBANs have restricted resources such as battery energy, computing power and bandwidth. We can utilize these resources efficiently. By devising a mechanism that is energy efficient with following characteristics, i.e. computational complexity is less, routing overhead is minimized, and throughput will be maximum. A lot of work has been done in this area but still WBAN faces some challenges like mobility, network lifetime, transmission range, heterogeneous environment, and limited resources. In the present years well, contemplative studies have been made through a large body to reach some holistic points pertaining to the energy consumption in WBAN. Thus we/put forward appropriate algorithm for energy efficiency which can vividly corroborate the advances in this specific domain. We have also focused on various aspects and phases of the studies like study computational complexity, routing overhead and throughput type of characteristics. There is still a room for improvement to get the desired energy optimization in WBAN. The network performance mainly relies upon the algorithm used for optimization process. In this work, we intended to develop an energy optimization algorithm for energy consumption in WBAN which is based on evolutionary algorithms for inter-BAN communications using cluster-based routing protocol.

In this paper we propose a meta heuristics algorithm Goa to solve the optimization problem in WBAN. Grasshopper is an insect. Generally, this insect is viewed individually and creating large swarm in nature. Figure 5 shows the individual grasshoppers' primitive patterns in swarm. Figure 7 depicts the pseudo code of Goa. In Goa, experiments are done to view the behavior of grasshoppers in swarm. How they gradually move towards the stationary and mobile target. Through experimentation it is conceived that swarm gradually converge towards their target. Another interesting pattern related to convergence of grasshopper is that it slowly towards its target. This shows that grasshopper does not trapped in local optima. In starting iterations of exploration process Goa, search globally and in last iterations it searches local optima. Goa makes the exploration and exploitation process balanced while solving challenging optimization problems.

Energy efficiency is achieved in the optimization process of cluster formation process. As the use of proposed algorithm Goa creates the optimal number of clusters. Shorter cluster lifetime means more times clustering procedure is called. It increases the network computational cost and the communication overhead. Experimentation results show that proposed Goa algorithm performs well. We compare the results of Goa with existing optimization Algorithms ACO and MFO. Results are generated using MATLAB.

A lot of work has done for the sake of energy optimization in WBAN. Many algorithms are proposed in past for energy optimization of WBAN. All of them have some strengths and weaknesses. In this paper we propose a nature inspired algorithm Goa. We use the Goa algorithm for the sake of energy optimization in WBAN.

Grounded in upper echelon (UE) theory, this study aims to examine the role of managerial competencies (business experience, financial literacy and digital literacy) in sustainable development strategy, with resource management as a mediator.

The empirical data collection is conducted through a survey completed by 297 top management teams of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Pakistan. Structural equation modelling in Smart PLS is used to substantiate the hypotheses.

The findings reveal that financially and digitally literate managers significantly contribute to the sustainable development strategies of SMEs. However, experienced managers do not focus significantly on sustainable development strategies. Resource management partially mediates the nexus between financial literacy and sustainable development strategy, as well as between digital literacy and sustainable development strategy. In contrast, resource management does not mediate the nexus between business experience and sustainable development strategy.

This study recommends that SMEs should prioritize managers with digital and financial literacy over those with experience. SMEs led by a management team with digital and financial literacy are more effective in resource management for sustainable development practices, whereas experienced managers may not significantly prioritize managing resources for sustainability.

While research based on the UE theory significantly contributes to the body of knowledge on sustainable development, the role of managerial competencies, particularly business experience, financial literacy and digital literacy, in sustainable development strategy via resource management is neglected. This research fills this gap in the context of UE theory and thereby enriches the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in a developing country (Pakistan). The literature reports that entrepreneurship education does not enhance the level of ESE of the students. In the same vein, it is strongly emphasized that self-efficacy is the basic element in the entrepreneur’s undertakings. However, limited research has been conducted on the subject and the factors that impact ESE in the context of developing economies.

A quantitative approach was adopted, and data were collected from the 564 target respondents of different private and public universities of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the association between the variables of the conceptual model.

This study found a positive and significant impact of the predictors, entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial experiences, instrumental readiness and risk propensity on ESE among the students.

The findings of the study will help in developing self-efficacy for entrepreneurship in young potential entrepreneurs. They will also assist higher education management in developing and designing entrepreneurship academic curriculum and programs for the achievement of program learning outcomes. In addition, the findings will contribute to the literature of entrepreneurship and self-efficacy factors in the context of the developing country.

The results of the study confirm empirically tested factors that have a positive impact on ESE in a developing country setting.