Search results

Entrepreneurs belonging to ethnic minority groups have emerged as a significant and more powerful element within the private sector, having considerable economic and social impact. Nevertheless, prior empirical research has indicated that each geographical area has distinct social and cultural obstacles that impact entrepreneurs in varying ways. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine the difficulties and barriers faced by women entrepreneurs from diverse ethnic origins in the United Kingdom, a developed region, while managing their firms.

In this research, the cross-concepts of intersectional theory were used as the study’s analytical framework. The research methodology involved conducting semi-structured face-to-face interviews with a group of 30 Nepali women entrepreneurs residing in the United Kingdom. A qualitative approach was employed, and thematic analysis was used to extract meaningful findings.

The study’s outcomes underscore the emergence of social stereotypes as a salient factor affecting Nepali female entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the research identifies challenges and barriers, which fall into several cross-concept categories: those related to self-efficacy; family; social and cultural factors; business-related issues; access to financial resources; and ethnicity and work-based categorization. The findings might also have broader implications, benefiting ethnic female entrepreneurs in general, as well as ethnic communities and governmental and non-governmental organizations. Insights gained from the study can inform the development of tailored training and educational programs aimed at supporting and nurturing the entrepreneurial aspirations of ethnic women.

To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, there is a dearth of empirical investigations that probe the challenges and barriers faced by Nepali women who have embarked on entrepreneurial endeavours in the UK. This study contributes to the limited literature knowledge on ethnic women entrepreneurs, by linking ethnicity, class and gender/sexual orientation, as well as business, family, personal and financial constructs. By adopting the cross-concept of intersectional theory, this study further contributes to the knowledge of the discriminatory realities of Nepali women entrepreneurs as they grapple with the complex experiences of running a business. By doing this, our study can contribute further to the knowledge of gender and entrepreneurship from the ethnic background of UK enterprises.

Considering the speedy growth of Islamic finance and limited research work on Muslim behavior regarding Islamic Banking, this study aims to investigate to comprehend the stimulus of religiosity on customer’s behavior.

A conceptual model is developed on existing literature. The key dimensions of religiosity in the model include practice, knowledge, experience and consequences to capture the whole religiosity of customers. Model of the study investigates the impact of customer’s religiosity on their behavior in decision-making about selection of Islamic bank. Analysis of the study is based on the sample of 370 customers of Islamic banks from District Nowshera Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The data for the study collected through random sampling by a comprehensive survey questionnaire. Binary logistic model is used to test the data for statistical analysis.

The key findings of the study suggest that religiosity influence customer behavior positively in decision-making regarding Islamic finance. Service standards of Islamic banking has also significant impact on customer perception, while the financial education of the customers has insignificant impact on customer behavior.

This study mainly focused on the curiosity of the customer religious commitment, so religiosity is a vast phenomenon; there are deep sections in each dimension of religiosity, so further study is suggested for the comprehensive capture of each dimension of religiosity.

The results of the study have a great importance for the managers of Islamic finance industry to identify and detect the potential customers and divide the target market of banking industry on the base of religiosity. Furthermore, the study may bring significant managerial suggestions for marketing planners and can help them in market segmentation strategies.

The study examined the association between Muslim religiosity and Islamic banking customer’s selection behavior. This study spread the understanding of religiosity and its impact on Islamic banking customer’s behavior. Furthermore, the study is valuable to discover the level to which religiosity determines the inclinations of customers. This study helps marketing practitioners and researchers to grow their knowledge about customer’s motives in terms of religious commitment.

This paper aims to develop bilayer woven fabrics with different picking sequences with enhanced comfort without any change in the constituent materials.

Six bilayer woven fabrics were produced on Dobby loom with 3/1 twill weave using micro-polyester yarn. Three different picking sequences, i.e. single pick insertion (SPI), double pick insertion (DPI) and three pick insertion (3PI), were used in both face and back layers. The effect of picking sequence on air permeability (AP), volume porosity, thermal resistance and overall moisture management capability (OMMC) of the samples were analyzed.

The results showed that 3PI–3PI picking sequence gives the highest OMMC, AP and thermal resistance in bilayer woven fabrics and the least results exhibited by SPI–SPI picking sequence.

This research uses a bilayer woven system that develops channels and trapes the air causing higher thermal resistance; therefore, applicable for winter sports clothing rather than for summer wear. Developed bilayer woven fabrics can be used in winter sportswear to improve the comfort of the wearer and reduce fatigue during activity.

Authors have developed bilayer fabrics by changing the picking sequences, i.e. SPI, DPI and 3PI of weft yarns in both layers and compared their thermo-physiological comfort properties.

This study aims to analyze the challenges in financing the healthcare system of Pakistan and develop a comprehensive health financing strategy aimed at achieving universal health coverage (UHC).

The paper utilizes World Health Organization (WHO) framework on health financing to build the argument. It uses qualitative research design involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including Federal Board of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission, development partners, academia and health ministries at federal and provincial levels, as well as social health insurance entities.

The research findings highlight several critical issues within Pakistan’s healthcare system: Firstly, health spending is inadequate to provide financial protection to 24 million people. Secondly, the available health funding is allocated in clusters and caters primarily to specific groups, which exacerbates inequities in healthcare provision. Thirdly, the existence of multiple purchasing agents who operate concurrently to buy health services results in duplication and wastage of resources. Fourthly, the public financial management system, intended to support the swift distribution of public funds to health facilities, is not aligned with the requirements of the health system. Lastly, the devolved health setup has led to governance issues in managing the health sector.

This study fills a significant gap in the literature on health financing within Pakistan and proposes a unique empirical approach using WHO’s framework in a decentralized healthcare context. It also provides actionable recommendations for policymakers to develop strategies that improve the effectiveness of public financial management and health service delivery.

The link between SME performance, growth and development is well established; however, the characteristics of SMEs that allow firms to be successful in the long run in an underdeveloped country context, i.e. Pakistan, are still unclear. This paper aims to bridge this gap by identifying the SMEs’ characteristics that set them apart from their rivals and become successful.

This study uses Storey’s development framework to identify the SMEs’ characteristics. Data is gathered using the case study method from SMEs with a metropolitan context in Pakistan. A narrative methodological framework was used during the data gathering and analysing stages.

Findings of this study indicate that the prosperity of SMEs in Pakistan is dependent on a combination of characteristics, including entrepreneurial characteristics of owner–managers, knowledge of business operating models, social networks and relationship building and innovation in business style. Additionally, other factors such as governance structure, strategic planning of market diversification and export characteristics also influence the prosperity of an SME. These findings may have several important implications for key stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, SMEs and policymakers in the government.

This research provides evidence about factors that can help an SME to become successful in uncertain situations surrounding a business environment. Theoretically, the contribution of this research is that it demonstrates that entrepreneurial characteristics and the effective leadership style of owner–managers can help SMEs achieve prosperity in external unforeseeable situations.

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the absence of pharmaceutical agents meant that policy institutions had to intervene by providing nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). To satisfy this need, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued policy guidelines, such as NPIs, and the government of Pakistan released its own policy document that included social distancing (SD) as a containment measure. This study explores the policy actors and their role in implementing SD as an NPI in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study adopted the constructs of Normalization Process Theory (NPT) to explore the implementation of SD as a complex and novel healthcare intervention under a qualitative study design. Data were collected through document analysis and interviews, and analysed under framework analysis protocols.

The intervention actors (IAs), including healthcare providers, district management agents, and staff from other departments, were active in implementation in the local context. It was observed that healthcare providers integrated SD into their professional lives through a higher level of collective action and reflexive monitoring. However, the results suggest that more coherence and cognitive participation are required for integration.

This novel research offers original and exclusive scenario narratives that satisfy the recent calls of the neo-implementation paradigm, and provides suggestions for managing the implementation impediments during the pandemic. The paper fills the implementation literature gap by exploring the normalisation process and designing a contextual framework for developing countries to implement guidelines for pandemics and healthcare crises.

This paper aims to examine the factors influencing the adoption of social media marketing by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. By investigating the drivers and challenges/barriers affecting the adoption of social media marketing tools among SMEs, this study provides practical guidance to SMEs seeking to utilize social media platforms for marketing purposes in a developing context such as Pakistan.

Utilizing the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework as a theoretical framework, qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews with representatives of SMEs in Pakistan, followed by thematic analysis of the data.

The research identifies several key factors influencing the adoption of social media marketing by Pakistani SMEs. These factors include doubts regarding the benefits of social media, alignment with regulatory requirements, challenges related to tracking social media performance, resistance from senior management (older employees), the positive influence of competitive pressure and the Covid-19 pandemic, political instability and increased government taxes on digital services. Stakeholders such as marketing professionals, academics, policymakers, government authorities and SME owners and managers can benefit from these findings.

This research contributes to the academic literature on the adoption of social media marketing by SMEs, especially within emerging economies. It enriches theoretical understanding of adoption processes and factors, filling gaps in existing knowledge and laying a foundation for future research in this domain. Using the TOE framework, the study reveals that when all factors are adequately considered, SMEs can transition from traditional marketing methods and embrace social media as a digital marketing strategy to enhance performance, profitability, and gain a competitive advantage over their rivals.

This study investigates the interrelationships between competitions in different banking markets and shadow banking for the Chinese banking industry over the period 2003–2017. The current study also examines the determinants of competition in different banking markets and the factors influencing the size of shadow banking.

Bank competition is measured by the Boone indicator, while the relationship between bank competition and shadow banking is examined through a three-stage least square estimator.

The findings suggest that a larger volume of shadow banking leads to a decline in the level of competition in the deposit market, loan market and noninterest income market, while an increase in the level of competition in the loan market, deposit market and noninterest income market leads to an expansion of shadow banking. The authors find that higher bank risk and higher developed of stock market reduce the competitive condition in the loan market, and the competition in the deposit market will be enhanced by higher levels of banking sector development and higher levels of inflation, but bank diversification will reduce the level of competition in the deposit market. The authors further find that higher bank profitability and higher stock market development reduce bank competition in the noninterest income market. Finally, the results show that larger bank size and higher development of stock market reduce the size of shadow banking in China, but higher economic growth increases the size of shadow banking.

This is the first piece of research investigating the relationship between bank competition and shadow banking. This will also be the first piece of research examining the determinants of competition in different banking markets and also the factors influencing the size of shadowing banking in China.

In times of crisis and volatility, especially in the Covid-19 scenario, project organisations are facing multifaceted threats. Project organisations are inclining towards flatter organisational structures. Employees are demanding more decision-making authority due to the changing working scenario. Despite the advancement in project management, a hard skill side, project organisations are still struggling to achieve successful projects. The project manager's leadership, employee self-leadership and soft skills are presented as the solution to these aggravated problems. This article attempts to determine whether a transformational leadership style can influence project success, directly and indirectly through employee self-leadership.

The author raises the hypothesis, supported by social cognitive theory, that transformational leadership impacts project success directly and indirectly through self-leadership. Data were collected from 289 project team members in the IT sector, and the proposed relationships were assessed through Partial least squares structural equation modelling PLS-SEM.

Results show that a project manager's transformational leadership behaviour and employee self-leadership positively impact project success. Additionally, self-leadership mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and project success. Lastly, empowerment demonstrated significant moderation for self-leadership and project success, and for transformational leadership and project success.

In this study, one obvious methodological limitation is a cross-sectional design. Future research can be performed while adopting a longitudinal research design. Another conceptual limitation of the model is that the authors did not include all transformational leadership dimensions, which can be considered for future studies while replicating this research model. Another future front can be by examining other leadership styles. Another research limitation may be the single source data collection, a future study may be conducted by several sources for data collection to adequately test both of the leadership styles at different hierarchies and for project success.

The paper contributes to the literature by finding that, in crises, a project manager's transformational leadership style enhances project success. In practice, project managers are needed to adopt transformational behaviour and encourage employee self-leadership and empowerment.

This paper aims to derive the time-varying relative export competitiveness (REC) of the Nigerian cocoa sector against Nigeria’s share of world agricultural exports (REC_WA) and world merchandise exports (REC_WM) from 1995 to 2018. By concentrating on different factors such as demand and supply capacity, price factors and exchange rate, the authors examine the determinants of REC.

The authors calculated three different REC indexes. The authors also developed the relative symmetric export competitiveness index for comparative advantage calculation and avoiding the possible bias. The determinants of REC for Nigerian cocoa were captured using the short-run regression (SRR) model.

The study showed that Nigeria’s cocoa exports are still competitive despite experiencing some declining stages. Based on the SRR model, higher per capita income had a positive effect on the REC, while higher domestic prices significantly reduced the REC of cocoa. Further, the African Growth Opportunity Act agreement adversely affected the REC of cocoa.

This study provides a foundation for future research and enhances the literature on agricultural trade. This research makes a few contributions both from a scientific and a policy perspective. First, it is the first study on the REC analysis for the Nigerian cocoa industry. Second, a wide range of comparisons of REC among the world’s largest cocoa exporters was provided following implications of the various economic policies and local policy strategies. Third, the latest 24-year data sets were covered.