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This article aims to highlight the stigmatization attached to the unemployment of educated youth in rural regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

The study explicates the subjective experiences of the youth as being unemployed and societal attitudes toward them through an in-depth qualitative approach. A total of 30 unemployed male individuals were interviewed through an interview guide.

The study reveals that unemployed individuals are stigmatized and discriminately treated. They experience the difference in social support from their family and friends during unemployment, which is a discouraging aspect. This finding is in contrast to the existing literature on the subject in which family and friends are described as a major source of social support. As the study is conducted in the rural context, it is observed that local factors coupled with the joint family system have intensified negative attitudes toward the unemployed youth. Subsequently, the negative societal treatment serves as a factor for psychological challenges in their lives.

This article serves the need of exploring the experiences of unemployed individuals precisely in the Pakistani context.

This paper examines the Pakistani state's shift from the accommodation to exclusion of the heterodox Ahmadiyya community, a self-defined minority sect of Islam. In 1953, the Pakistani state rejected demands by a religious movement that Ahmadis be legally declared non-Muslim. In 1974 however, the same demand was accepted. This paper argues that this shift in the state's policy toward Ahmadis was contingent on the distinct political fields in which the two religious movements were embedded. Specifically, it points to conjunctures among two processes that defined state–religious movement relations: intrastate struggles for political power, and the framing strategies of religious movements vis-à-vis core symbolic issues rife in the political field. Consequently, the exclusion of Ahmadis resulted from the transformation of the political field itself, characterized by the increasing hegemony of political discourses referencing Islam, shift toward electoral politics, and the refashioning of the religious movement through positing the “Ahmadi issue” as a national question pertaining to democratic norms.

I am honored to present Volume 23 of Political Power and Social Theory. I do so amid tumultuous times. It is now spring 2012. Fiscal uncertainty and economic stagnation freeze the globe, racial division continues to plague political discourse in the United States (witness the case of Trayvon Martin), new social movements like Occupy proliferate and resurface while war, revolution, and political instability unsettle the Middle East. The essays in this volume do not directly address these specific issues but they do offer informed research and theoretical reflection on the larger themes the more specific issues invoke. Robin Archer's thoughts on revolution “Free Riding on Revolution” invites reflection in the wake of the revolutions that still grip the world's attention and perhaps, too, on the Occupy movement. Manali Desai's essay on the origins of neoliberalism in India offers some historical context to rising criticisms of neoliberalism around the world while also revealing the importance of national political parties in the formulation of globally circulating policies. Nitsan Chorev's essay on the World Health Organization illuminates how health programs are challenged and reformulated in response to political pressure from different parts of the world; an important observation given that international organizations face the prospect of dwindling revenues amid the current economic crisis.

This study aims to examine the determinants of the female representations on Chinese listed firm’s boards. This study also investigates the effect of gender diversity on corporate social responsibility activities.

The Tobit regression model is used because the data is censored and using ordinary least square regression can give spurious results. For robust check, the authors also used Heckman’s (1979) two-stage self-selection model to remove the sample self-selection bias.

The authors find that the female representations on the corporate board are positively associated with firm age, firm performance, corporate governance, family ownership, institutional ownership and managerial ownership while negatively related to firm size and state ownership. This study also incorporates predictors of the critical mass of women on the Chinese listed firm’s board. The study also tests the female-led hypothesis and concludes that the female representation increases in firms with female chief executive officer (CEO) or female chairpersons. The Chinese listed firms with gender-diverse board are socially responsible.

The importance of diversity in corporate boards has been demonstrated in light of the agency theory and the resource dependence framework. The results contribute to the previous literature by documenting the determinants of female representations on board, robust by alternative measures of gender diversity, firm size, corporate governance and estimation techniques.

The economic significance of gender diversity stirred the firms to increase female representation. The policymakers can understand the reasons for female underrepresentation in Chinese boards and can reform the regulation to enhance governance quality, non-state ownership and risk aversion among the listed firms.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the key predictor of the world’s largest emerging economy, specifically the study focuses on the firm specific determinants, different governance attributes, ownership structure and firm risk measures. This study also seeks to answer if the presence of a female in the Chairperson or CEO position encourages the firms to hire more female directors or not?

The purpose of this paper is to draw on organizational psychology, innovation and knowledge management literatures to investigate the impact of a nurse’s person-organization (P-O) fit on his/her innovative work behavior (IWB). Furthermore, in order to understand the psychological mechanisms surrounding this relationship, the authors examine the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of knowledge sharing behavior.

Data were collected from 441 nurses and 73 doctors through structured questionnaires from four public sector hospitals in Thailand.

Results of the study indicate that nurse’s P-O fit is positively related to both self (nurse) and doctor’s ratings of innovative behaviors and that psychological empowerment mediates this relationship. These results imply that a nurse’s perception of value congruence impacts his/her perception about feeling of empowerment, which in turn helps in engaging him/her into acts of innovativeness more often. The results also show that the relationship between P-O fit and IWB is stronger among nurses who frequently share their best practices and mistakes with co-workers.

Employee involvement in innovative work is of crucial importance for organization’s competitiveness, especially in the nursing profession. The compatibility between personal and organizational values is a vital ingredient of our personal, social and professional worlds. Although research has identified some antecedents of nurses’ IWB, it is unclear how P-O fit influence nurses’ IWB. Nurses with stronger value congruence when empowered psychologically may respond more effectively to display IWBs in current dynamic and challenging public health care work environments.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how leader–member exchange relates to subordinate’s innovative work behavior through core self-evaluation (CSE), domain knowledge and creative process engagement. On the basis of an interactional approach, this study hypothesized that there is an interaction between leader–member exchange, CSE and domain knowledge that affects innovative work behavior, such that leader–member exchange has the strongest positive relationship with innovative work behavior when subordinates have high levels of CSE and domain knowledge; and creative process engagement mediates the effect that this three-way interaction between leader–member exchange, CSE and domain knowledge has on innovative work behavior.

Data were collected from 323 employees and their immediate supervisors (121) from automotive industry. First, subordinates completed measures of their leader–member exchange, CSE and domain knowledge. Then, the supervisors of these employees assessed their subordinates’ innovative work behavior.

The results showed that leader–member exchange, CSE and domain knowledge interacted to affect employee innovative work behavior in such a way that when CSE and domain knowledge were both high, leader–member exchange had the strongest positive relationship with innovative work behavior and creative process engagement mediated this relationship.

This study is the first of its kind to empirically examine the interactional perspective of leader–member exchange on innovative work behavior through domain knowledge, CSE and creative process engagement. Theoretical and practical implications and future area of research are discussed at the end.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of flaxseed (L. usitatissimum [Linn]) on blood pressure, redox status markers and acetylcholinesterase enzyme activity in ouabain-induced hypertension in normal Wistar rats.

Male Wistar rats weighing 250 ± 7 g (n = 24) fed with an experimental diet containing 20 per cent casein were divided into three groups (n = 8) and received a daily subcutaneous injection of either 0.9 per cent saline solution (T group) or 10 µg/kg/day of ouabain diluted in saline solution-treated Oub-Lu or not with 1 per cent of flaxseed (L. usitatissimum) mixed in the diet for 21 days.

The results showed that treatment with flaxseed had a significant effect (p < 0.05) in decreasing systolic, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure and the heart rate in hypertensive rats. Total and non-HDL cholesterol levels were reduced by –26 and –35 per cent; p = 0.04, respectively. Concentrations of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances were significantly decreased by –85 and –42 per cent (p = 0.001 and p = 0.04), respectively in the plasma and heart. Nitric oxide levels were increased in the aorta (+ 63 per cent; p = 0.001). Moreover, in the heart and aorta, a significant increase was noted in the thiol contents (+81 and +69 per cent; p = 0.001, respectively), glutathione peroxidase (+50 per cent; p = 0.03 and p = 0.01, respectively) and acetylcholinesterase activities (75 and +19 per cent, respectively; p = 0.001 and p = 0.04).

These results suggest hypotensive, cardiomoderating and antioxidant effects of flaxseed in ouabain-induced hypertension in the rat. In addition, it promotes a significant increase of the acetylcholinesterase activity in tissues.

Establishing an effective educational system is directly tied to academic leadership, a multifaceted concept that differs from one environment to another. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of digital leadership (DL) aspects in the enhancement of technical knowledge sharing (KS) and dealing with emotional intelligence (EI) among the teaching faculty of higher education institutions (HEIs).

Following a quantitative and cross-sectional research design, convenient sampling is employed for data collection via a self-administered questionnaire from 320 faculty members of private HEIs in Pakistan.

Structural equation model (SEM) is used for path analysis. The results reveal a positive and significant effect of DL, aspects like visionary leadership (VL), digital citizenship (DC), systematic improvement (SI), on knowledge sharing (KS), and emotional intelligence (EI).

This study has highlighted the significance of DL in private HEIs. The findings of the study imply that institutional heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) can successfully manage the knowledge assets that they have and those of their staff members, ensure the successful adoption of technology and foster product and process innovation that improves organizational performance and integrates successful strategies into the educational system by demonstrating DL aspects. The research also analyzes institutional heads' present leadership strategies to enhance response to technological change and innovations, which are considered fundamental pillars of organizational success. Ultimately, this will extend the literature on adopting DL techniques towards digital transformation in the education system.

This study empirically confirms the role of DL aspects such as VL, DC, and SI towards KS and EI. Most of the research demonstrates the direct impact of DL on EI, whereas the aspects of DL are not directly related to KS and EI. Studies have also shown how DL enhances its role in incorporating leadership in organizations, industries, and education, mainly in Western countries. This research addresses the gap in understanding the direct effects of DL aspects on KS and EI in non-Western countries, particularly within the education sector.

This paper aims to demonstrate the turnover intentions (TIs) among the academic faculty of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan through their motivation and commitment toward the concerned institution. It inspects the relationship of dimensions of motivation including an absence of motivation (AM), extrinsic motivation (ExM) and intrinsic motivation (InM) with the dimensions of commitment including affective commitment (AC), continuous commitment (CC) and normative commitment (NC) and finally the academic's TIs.

The paper used the self-determination theory (SDT), the theory of organizational commitment (OC) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) for its proposed model. A sample of 500 academics, working under higher education commission recognized public and private universities in Punjab Pakistan. A structural equation modeling (SEM) conducted for analysis using an algorithm, bootstrapping and blindfolding techniques.

The outcomes of the research are attention-grabbing, as no direct relationship has been observed between the dimensions of motivation and TIs except InM. The dimensions of commitments are mediating the relationship between motivation and TIs with high significance value. The results reveal a significant adverse effect on TIs through two dimensions of commitment.

As it is the case of a developing country like Pakistan therefore the finding cannot generalize to developed countries.

The findings of this research may lead the policymakers and practitioners of HEIs and controlling body to retain their competent teachers.

This research can help the private sector to develop strategies about the retention of their competent teachers within the institutions that not just value the institution but also will be much beneficial for the students and society.

This paper is identifying how motivation is related to TIs and the role of commitment in it at HEIs. Still, no research has been conducted considering this avenue of SDT, OC and TPB