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The present study aimed at analyzing the hypothesized relationship between human resource (HR) flexibility and firm performance with the mediating effect of firm innovation and the moderating role of firm-level power distance orientation.

The proposed hypotheses were tested with the two-wave data collected from 209 registered information technology (IT) firms operating in Pakistan. The SMART-PLS examined the model’s hypothesized moderated, mediated and moderated-mediation relationships.

The results confirmed significant relationships between HR flexibility, firm innovation and performance while showing that the link between HR flexibility and firm performance is mediated by firm innovation. The results demonstrated that the firm-level power distance orientation negatively affected the HR flexibility–firm innovation link. These findings provide implications on how HR flexibility leverages firm innovation and performance. However, a power distance orientation in firms may diminish the positive effect of HR flexibility.

HR practitioners and top management can leverage these findings to design and implement policies that promote HR flexibility within IT firms for superior innovation and performance.

Our study offers valuable insights into the contribution of HR flexibility to firm innovation and performance. Specifically, the findings indicate that power distance orientation negatively affects the relationships between HR flexibility, firm innovation and performance. Therefore, HR practitioners and top management can leverage these findings to design and implement policies that promote HR flexibility within IT firms for superior innovation and performance.

Based on the principles of the social capital theory (SCT), this study aimed to generate hypotheses and evaluate a mediated moderated model that examined the impact of social capital on online brand community happiness (OBCH).

Using 215 online questionnaires from users of private online brand communities (OBCs) , researchers examined the hypothesized connections between variables. The SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 26.0 were applied to fulfill the purpose.

For the goodness of model fit, the authors have applied cut off criteria for fit indexes given by Hu and Bentler (1999) and model-fit measures indicators, i.e. CMIN/DF 1.397, CFI 0.958, SRMR 0.045, RMSEA 0.043 and PCLOSE 0.866, which meet the minimum acceptable criteria. Based on the results, social capital significantly affects psychological well-being (PWB), which, consequently, leads toward increased happiness among OBCs. Furthermore, membership duration moderates the relationship between PWB and OBCs.

The authors have utilized a cross-sectional research design, and it limits the researcher’s ability to generalize the findings. These findings imply how social capital leverages PWB and OBCH. Moreover, the presence of membership duration helps to understand that members who spend more time in the community are happier in the OBCs.

In this age of social media, it provides valuable guidance to the administrators of private Facebook groups dedicated to specific brands, enhancing the definition and development of OBC operations and community interactions.

This research takes a broader look at social capital’s impact on happiness among private OBCs. The current research contributes to the existing body of work by emphasizing the role of PWB in generating happiness. The study is novel in examining the mediating moderating model of PWB and membership duration to explore deep insights for social media platforms.

This study aims to assess the quality of care among adult oncology patients in tertiary care hospitals in Karachi by using an international standard of quality of care and to identify domains where improvement is needed.

This is a cross-sectional study carried out at two tertiary care hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan, belonging to private and public sector, respectively, between February and April 2018. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a modified questionnaire having five-point Likert scale questions regarding satisfaction of patients with doctors, nursing staff, information provided and the hospital standards. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis, and the results were expressed using mean, frequencies, percentages and p-values.

The authors approached 415 patients, out of which 389 patients agreed to participate in the study. For both hospitals, the lowest mean scores were for sections pertaining to satisfaction with psychosocial support and information provided. The mean satisfaction score of patients from the private hospital were found to be significantly higher as compared to patients from the public hospital for all domains of patient care (p-value < 0.01 using t-test for two independent samples). The data showed an increasing trend of “satisfied” responses as the household income increased.

A comparative study should be conducted with the aim of pinpointing the differences in areas in which there is a significant difference in positive satisfaction levels between private and public sectors. Similar research could also be expanded adding other variables that affect quality of care such as doctor's approach to their patients, time given during each consultation and patient's understanding of doctor's knowledge. Further studies can be done to bridge the gaps between what a doctor views as standard care and what the patient knows will help them receive a more holistic approach to care.

Assessing the quality of care helps determine gaps in care and allocating health resources accordingly. In clinical practice, emphasis needs to be given on increased duration and improved quality of patient counselling to improve the low satisfaction levels of patients regarding the psychosocial support. Addressing patients' concerns should be made part of clinical teaching from an undergraduate level. As far as patient access to doctors of the specific speciality is concerned, hospital managements should adopt systems to ensure continuum of care and come up with mechanisms to bridge the discrepancy between a patient's needs and doctor availability.

After being identified as a major deficiency, training doctors in the sensitivities of the population and demographics, especially with respect to socio-economic statuses, can aid in enhancing patient satisfaction to the treatment. Implementation of patient-centred care leads to greater satisfaction with care, which, in turn, increases a patient's self efficacy in managing important aspects of their care and improves health care-related quality of life.

Cancer patients have long-term exposure to the hospital environment. A patient's satisfaction with the quality of care is an important determinant in patient compliance to the treatment protocol and required hospital visits. There is a dearth of research on the outpatient quality of care in the oncology departments in Karachi. This study provides an overview of the quality of care available to cancer patients in Karachi both in public and private sectors. The results of our study identify the gaps in the quality of care being provided to the patients in a developing country like Pakistan, which can be used to improve the quality of care, leading to better patient outcomes.

Although past research has looked into myriad consequences of workplace incivility, little attention has been paid to the effects of supervisor incivility (SI) on employees’ sense of vitality and their discretionary work effort (DWE). Moreover, the mechanisms that drive the harmful effects of SI remain largely unknown. The current study seeks to address these gaps in the literature. In particular, this study aims to examine how SI culminates in decreased DWE.

Adopting a cross-sectional survey design, data for this study were gathered from 151 employees of two large companies in the financial services sector of Pakistan. A number of analysis techniques (e.g. confirmatory factor analysis and bootstrapping) were used to analyze the data.

As predicted, SI was found to be negatively associated both with subordinates’ sense of vitality and DWE while vitality was found to be positively associated with DWE. Findings also indicated that one way in which SI negatively affects subordinates’ DWE is by decreasing their sense of vitality.

This study offers several useful implications for management practice in relation to preventing SI and mitigating its effects and bolstering employees’ sense of vitality.

To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first to unpack the relationship dynamics of SI, vitality and DWE, and to introduce a mechanism by which SI translates into reduced DWE.

Scholars and practitioners acknowledge that digital leadership can help organizations gain a competitive advantage. This article focuses on the characteristics, styles and skills needed for effective digital leadership. It looks at the role of digital leaders in innovating business models and introducing organizational change required for a successful digital transformation.

This paper is based on a comprehensive literature review of digital transformation, digital leadership, business model innovation, and organizational culture. It draws on institutional theory (INT) the neo-institutional theory (NIT). It draws from Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar publications. A proposition and a conceptual framework are developed based on evaluating and synthesizing the literature.

We find that specific leader characteristics (agility, participative, innovativeness and openness), styles (democratic and transformational) and skills (cognitive, social, technological and digital) enable successful business model innovation and organizational change, all of which allow successful digital transformation of firms.

The literature on digital transformation has not been well integrated with the leadership literature. This is particularly true in terms of the role digital leaders play in the successful digital transformation of firms. The conceptual framework and a way forward proposed in this paper introduce future research directions on the topic.

This study examines the long-term and causal relationship among foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, trade openness and economic growth from India.

This study has used annual time series data from the period 1985–2018 and applied the Johansen cointegration and vector autoregression (VAR) model.

The results of Johansen's cointegration confirm no long-term relationship among all the above three variables. Further, the results of VAR Granger causality indicate that FDI causes economic growth and economic growth causes FDI, which confirms the bi-directional causality. In contrast, this study found that there is no bi-directional causality between trade openness and economic growth.

Through this study, the government could take the decisions related to foreign investment after adopting more trade openness because the study results revealed that if India follows more trade openness, then how FDI will flow (upward and downward). With impulse analysis, researchers, government and policymakers take the decision-related FDI inflows for the forthcoming ten years after 2018.

This study has found the most exciting results from the impulse functions of FDI inflows, trade openness and economic growth, which showed the situation of these three variables as increase and decrease in the forthcoming ten years.

This study aims to explain the relationship of employee voice and turnover intention with the mediating role of top management team (TMT) conflicts. Moreover, this study also aims to find the moderating influence of union instrumentality among employee voice and TMT conflicts.

The study was conducted by using a quantitative approach and data was collected from 300 employees of the manufacturing sector of Pakistan through questionnaires. Data were analyzed by applying different statistical tools and tests through SPSS-21 and AMOS.

Results demonstrate that employee voice has a significant negative impact on employee turnover intention; TMT conflicts significantly mediate employee voice and intention to quit. However, union instrumentality is only initiated to moderate the relationship between employee voice and cognitive conflict.

This research focuses on the manufacturing sector and data have been collected from manufacturing firms situated in Gujranwala, Pakistan only. Moreover, the sample size of the study is also small. Therefore, the current study is an addition to the knowledge and understanding of the studied variables.

This study is of great use for managerial level employees because the adequate implication of employee voice can reduce turnover intention.

This study aims to add value to the existing exit-voice theory and discuss the internal organizational factors that generate quitting intentions. Moreover, it provides insights about union instrumentality and its significant role as a moderator and the significant mediating role between employee voice and intention to quit paving new ways for future researchers.

The purpose of this study is to find out the role of positive personality traits such as honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience (HEXACO) in the development of empowering leadership, and also determine the impact that mastery goal orientation and work engagement play in linking the effects of an empowering leader on the creative performance of their followers.

The quantitative research design is used along with a deductive approach to achieve the objectives of the study. Data from 337 employees in the telecom sector was collected through self-administered questionnaires using the purposive sampling method. SEM-AMOS methods were used to conduct the analysis, and regression analysis was used to test the formulated hypotheses.

The study’s findings indicated that each component of HEXACO (honesty-humility beta values = 0.086, p < 0.05, emotionality values as β = 0.275, p < 0.001, extroverts β = 0.217, p < 0.001, consciousness β = 0.277, p < 0.001 and agreeableness β = 0.063) played a significant role in fostering empowered leadership. The results also suggested that there is a sequential mediation of mastery goal orientation and work engagement in the relationship between empowering leadership and creative performance.

This study is unique since it covers the antecedents and outcomes of empowering leadership. For antecedents, the study used the HEXACO personality model with all its elements to identify its role in the development of empowering leadership. Moreover, the study also used mastery goal orientation and work engagement as sequential mediators to check the impact of empowering leadership on the creative performance of employees.

This study expanded previous studies on the relationship between POP (Perceptions of Organizational Politics) and OC (Organizational Commitment); and it examined the mediating effect of OCM (Organizational Concern Motive) and the moderated mediating effect of PS (Political Skills). Based on the uncertainty management and expectancy theories, the mediating role of OCM was assumed; also, the moderated mediating effect of PS was assumed, because of the effect of the POP on members' motives would vary depending on each individual's ability to respond.

To collect the required data for analyzing the research model of this study, a questionnaire was conducted on employees of South Korean companies and institutions. To verify the hypothesis of this study, the measurement and hypothesized models were analyzed sequentially.

The results of this study indicated that the OCM mediates the relationship between POP and OC. Furthermore, the mediating effect of OCM is moderated by PS. Specifically the negative effect of the POP on the OCM was mitigated in the group with proficient PS.

To mitigate the negative effects of POP, this study suggests that managers should provide fair evaluation and reward based on performance, and consider PS as an important factor in employee selection and education/training.

This study is original in that it presents the mechanisms of both variables in terms of an individual's motive towards the organization. Furthermore, this study is valuable in that it suggests ways to mitigate the negative effects of POP through PS.