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This paper aimed to examine the sources of information and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The COVID-19 pandemic affected at a large level of all social institutions including the healthcare system of the countries.

The study was conducted in Pakistan by using an online survey technique. The rationale to opt for this method was based on the country’s lockdown situations, social distancing and the care of the respondents. A total of 847 individuals from different parts of the Punjab province participated in the study. An attitudinal scale was administered, which consisted of statements to measure (dis)agreement among the individuals on current situations of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ethical considerations and confidentiality of the respondents were opted by describing the purpose of research on the first page of the questionnaire.

The study findings revealed that peer group, signs and symptoms of COVID-19 pandemic and causes and consequences of COVID-19 pandemic had favourable positive effects on the use of PPE by individuals through the mediation of fear of infection during COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the study findings were interpreted as per the effects of current situations of COVID-19 on the sources of information and the use of PPE by individuals.

This study focused on an important gap in the research on COVID-19 pandemic in the country in terms of mass media, health practitioners, peer group, fear of infection and use of PPE.

This study aims to identify and prioritize the challenges to adopting blockchain in supply chain management and to make its taxonomic model. Moreover, validate whether these challenging factors exist in the real world and, if they exist, then in what percentage.

This research adopted the fuzzy best-worst method (F-BWM), which integrates fuzzy set theory with the best-worst method to identify and prioritize the prominent challenges of the blockchain-based supply chain by developing a weighted multi-criteria model.

A total of 20 challenges (CH's) were identified. Lack of storage capacity/scalability and lack of data privacy challenges were found as key challenges. The findings of this study will provide a robust framework of the challenges that will assist academic researchers and industry practitioners in considering the most significant category concerning their working area.

Blockchain provides the best solution for tracing and tracking where RFID has not succeeded. It can improve quality management in a supply chain network by improving standards and speeding up operations. For inventory management, blockchain provides transparency of documentation for both parties within no time.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous research has adopted the fuzzy best-worst method to prioritize the identified challenges of blockchain implementation in the supply chain. Moreover, no study provides a taxonomic model for the challenges of implementing a blockchain-based supply chain.

This study aims to fabricate multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-mediated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite films using the solution casting approach.

The prepared films were evaluated for diverse structural, surface, optical and electrical attributes using advanced analytical techniques, i.e. electron microscopy for surface morphology, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for tracing chemical functionalities, x-ray diffraction (XRD) for crystal patterns, water contact angle (WCA) analysis for surface wettability and UV visible spectroscopy for optical absorption parameters. The specimens were also investigated for certain rheological, mechanical and electrical properties, where applicable.

The surface morphology results expressed a better dispersion of MWCNTs in the resultant PVA-based nanocomposite film. The XRD analysis exhibited that the nanocomposite film was crystalline. The surface wettability analysis indicated that with the inclusion of MWCNTs, the WCA of the resultant nanocomposite film improved to 89.4° from 44° with the pristine PVA film. The MWCNTs (1.00%, w/w) incorporated PVA-based film exhibited a tensile strength of 54.0 MPa as compared to that of native PVA as 25.3 MPa film. There observed a decreased bandgap (from 5.25 to 5.14 eV) on incorporating the MWCNTs in the PVA-based nanocomposite film.

The MWCNTs’ inclusion in the PVA matrix could enhance the AC conductivity of the resultant nanocomposite film. The prepared nanocomposite film might be useful in designing certain optoelectronic devices.

The results demonstrated the successful MWCNTs mediation in the PVA-based composite films expressed good intercalation of the precursors; this resulted in decreased bandgap, usually, desirable for optoelectronic applications.

This paper aimed to examine the psycho-social aspects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Pakistan. The study was conducted in Pakistan by using an online survey technique. The rationale to opt for this method was mainly based on the country's lock-down situations, social distancing and for the care of respondents.

A total of 1,536 individuals participated from different parts of the country. An attitudinal scale was administered consisting of statements to measure (dis)agreement of the individuals facing the current situations of COVID-19. The ethical considerations and confidentiality of the respondents were opted by describing the purpose of research on the first page of the questionnaire.

The study findings showed that the cost of personal protective equipment (PPE), social isolation and loss of intimacy have favourable positive effects on the psychological problems of individuals through the mediation of fake news and misinformation during COVID-19. Furthermore, the study findings were interpreted as per the effects of current situations of epidemic, i.e. COVID-19 on the psycho-social life of individuals.

This paper is purely limited to the quantitative approach including variables, i.e. COVID-19, risk of infection, social distancing, cost of PPE, social isolation, fake news and psychological problems.

The present research will enhance the awareness and knowledge regarding psychological problems faced by the individuals during COVID-19. It will be a significant addition to the existing body of knowledge in the field of health and well-being. It will also provide guidelines to students, research scholars, policymakers and academicians to develop policies in future to improve the health of people during epidemics such as COVID-19 and similar nature of outbreak in the future.

This paper focused on an important gap in the research on COVID-19 in the country in the context of COVID-19, risk of infection, social distancing, cost of PPE, social isolation, fake news and psychological problems.

This study aims to examine the associations between socioeconomic status, types of rigging (pre- polling-day and post-), politics and voting behavior, vote casting and perceptions of rigging in Pakistan’s most recent elections, and attitudes toward electoral integrity.

Data were collected from students at three different universities. In all, 748 units of analysis (488 male and 260 female) recorded their responses by means of a self-structured questionnaire. Linear regression was applied to measure the associations between variables, and the reliability and validity of the scales were tested.

A significant relationship was found between pre-poll rigging, post-poll rigging, politics and voting behavior, socioeconomic characteristics (i.e. age, education, father’s education, background or place of residence and monthly household incomes), the perception of rigging in the last elections and attitudes toward electoral integrity.

Pakistan’s history has been blemished by electoral malpractices during both de facto and de jure regimes. Attention has formerly been paid to either polling-day or post-election rigging. The relationship of electoral integrity with different factors explored in this study have usually been ignored or overlooked. The findings of this study would help policy-makers, youth experts and academicians to reorient their behaviors to strengthen political stability, the rule of law and the continuation of democracy via their participation in the system.

To the researchers’ best knowledge, there has not been a single peer-reviewed study of Pakistan which has explored the associations between the variables examined for this study. The main academic challenge the researchers faced was to find a standardized and contextualized scale or tool to explore how different types of vote-rigging affected attitudes toward electoral integrity. Thus, the structured scales for types of rigging and electoral integrity developed here would be useful for future studies in the field of electoral integrity in democratic countries.

In the contemporary world, where sustainability at higher education is at the forefront, the ever-changing business ecosystem nurtures a new drift towards economic, environmental and social performance. This study aims to measure the impact of green human resource management (GHRM) practices on sustainability in the higher education of a developing country context through a theoretical aspect of Resource-Based View (RBV).

This study adopted a quantitative approach to propose and test a model based on predictors of sustainability. The survey approach received 190 responses from employees (faculty and non-faculty members) working as a full-time in the 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) of Pakistan. The structural and measurement model was calculated using SmartPLS.

The results show that “green training and development” (GTD) and “top management commitment towards greening workforce (TMCGW)” have a positive relationship with sustainability while green recruitment and selection (GRS) was not supported by sustainability. The mediating effect of TMCGW plays a crucial role between GTD and sustainability. Also, this study contributes through the moderating interaction effect of Gender between GTD and sustainability. Overall the GHRM practices promote employee green behavior and sustainability.

The proposed research model in the current study is a substantial gap in the literature and exploring this connection requires new theoretical frameworks. To bridge this literature gap, this study examined the role of GHRM on sustainability at micro-level (employee perspective) through a theoretical aspect of RBV in the developing country higher education context of Pakistan. Importantly, this study enhances the understanding of the emerging global wave of green mobility and highlights the impact of GHRM practices on sustainability through perception of academic professionals.

This particular study examined the government bond price variations in order to determine the presence of excess volatility both at country and panel group level of BRICS countries context.

The study applied the autoregressive GARCH panel model approach proposed by Fakhry and Richter (2015) to evaluate the presence of excess volatility and then examined the diversification benefits. Further, the use of discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) has added the advantage to observe volatility across bonds along with potential diversification benefits by retaining information from the time and frequency domain perspective for both the maturities.

The main finding indicates that the excess volatility is present in BRICS countries at individual level i.e. in the case of Russia, India and China. However, the 10-year bond showing a less volatility compared to 5-year bond with the possibility of reaping out the benefits of diversification with international portfolio of sovereign bonds.

The main implication of the research is related to the non-perseverance of EMH as far sovereign bonds of BRICS countries are concerned as the results indicate presence of excess volatility in the 5-year and 10-year bond markets. However, the implicit behavior of 5-year bond could benefit the active fund managers and investors by taking an advantage of a reducing systemic risk through short-medium term investments.

This study contributes not only to the existing studies of similar nature by examining the excess volatility in bond markets but also taking account of co-moment of distinct maturities to confirm possible international diversification benefits for BRICS countries context.

The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the factors that can positively influence the implementation of a blockchain-based supply chain via an integrated framework. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has focused on prioritizing these factors.

First, this study conducts a multivocal literature review, and a total of 48 success factors (SFs) are identified and mapped into 11 categories. Second, the identified success factors and their categories are further validated by industry practitioners using a questionnaire survey approach. Finally, this study applies an analytical hierarchy process to prioritize the identified SFs and their categories and to assess their importance for successful blockchain implementation in the supply chain management process.

The “Accessibility” category has the highest importance, and the “Overall efficiency” category has the second highest rank. As far as the success factors are concerned, “Trackability” and “Traceability” are considered to be the prime success factors of a blockchain-based supply chain. The taxonomy of the categories and their success factors provide an outline for supply chain organizations to establish a strategy to implement blockchain technology.

This technology can be practically applied in a sustainable supply chain. Another vital application of this blockchain technology is in banking and finance because of the blockchain's immutable data recording property.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no previous study focused on building a taxonomic model that allows supply chain organizations to compare this paper's model with existing models and outline the necessary actions to improve supply chain activities. The questionnaire-based survey developed to validate the success factors in real-world practices and the factors' prioritization can help academic researchers and industrial practitioners to set their strategic goals accordingly.

Although entrepreneurial behaviour is considered a key element for economic development, yet very less is known about the determinants of factors leading towards entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. In order to bridge this gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of social support and entrepreneurial skills in determining entrepreneurial behaviour of individuals. Developing on the base of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study investigates the relationship between social support, entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial behaviour along with existing constructs of the TPB (i.e. attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and entrepreneurial intention).

Data was collected from 281 respondents using a simple random sampling method, and the variance-based partial least-squares, structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used for testing the proposed conceptual model.

Findings of this study have validated the proposed model, which have an explanatory power of 68.3 per cent. Moreover, findings reveal that social support and entrepreneurial skills have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention of individuals. However, an unanticipated and non-significant relation between subjective norms and entrepreneurial intention is also found.

Due to the limited scope of this study, a multi-group analysis is not possible, which is considered as a limitation of this study. Moreover, due to time constraints, this study is conducted within a specified time-frame; however, a longitudinal study over a period of three to six years can overcome this limitation.

Findings of this study are expected to have substantial implications for policy makers, future researchers and academicians. Outcomes of this study can help to better understand the cognitive phenomenon of nascent entrepreneurs. Moreover, it is expected that this study can serve as a torch-bearer for policy makers to develop better entrepreneurial development programmes, policies and initiatives for promoting self-employment behaviour.

Findings of this study are a unique step forward and offer new insights towards a better understanding of the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour. Moreover, this study extends Ajzen’s (1991) TPB in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing and investigating the impact of two new variables, i.e. social support and entrepreneurial skills in the TPB and by validating the proposed model with PLS-SEM approach, this study makes a sizeable theoretical, methodological and contextual contribution in the overall body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to concentrate on measuring and evaluating the performance efficiency of electrical machinery manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey. The industry-based efficiency evaluation provides management with information including the relatively best practice firms in the observation sets and locates the relatively inefficient firms by comparing with the frontiers.

In this study, an evaluation model, based on previous literature and recent industry SWOT analysis, is proposed to carry out efficiency analysis for electrical machinery manufacturing SMEs and output-oriented CCR data envelopment analysis methodology is used to find out frontier SMEs. The proposed efficiency measurement model is used for 93 SMEs from electrical machinery manufacturing sector.

Rely on the model results, efficiency score of the firms are compared and enhancements required for becoming an efficient unit are denoted. This study is based on previous research model that was carried out for ten different industries. The results indicated that 39 out of 93 companies efficiently performed in general perspective. The analysis also resulted that firms have significant resource excesses and shortages on outputs.

The distinguished way of this study is to evaluate Turkish electrical machinery manufacturing companies’ resources relying on performance efficiency model that compromises of strategic competitive priorities and also the model provides enhancement opportunities to SMEs for being more competitive in the sector. The characteristics features of the firms are offered with respect to demographic, financial and quality perspectives.