Muhammad Kashif, Uda Hashim, Eaqub Ali, Ala'eddin A. Saif, Syed Muhammad Usman Ali and Magnus Willander
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the electrical transport mechanism of the Al‐doped ZnO nanorods at different temperatures by employing impedance spectroscopy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the electrical transport mechanism of the Al‐doped ZnO nanorods at different temperatures by employing impedance spectroscopy.
Design/methodology/approach
Al‐doped ZnO nanorods were grown on silicon substrate using step sol‐gel method. For the seed solution preparation Zinc acetate dihydrate, 2‐methoxyethanol, monoethanolamine and aluminum nitrite nano‐hydrate were used as a solute, solvent, stabilizer and dopant, respectively. Prior to the deposition, P‐type Si (100) wafer was cut into pieces of 1 cm×2 cm. The samples were then cleaned in an ultrasonic bath with acetone, ethanol, and de‐ionized (DI) water for 5 min. The prepared seed solution was coated on silicon substrate using spin coater at spinning speed of 3000 rpm for 30 s and then dried at 250°C for 10 min followed by annealing at 550°C for 1 h. The hydrothermal growth was carried out in a solution of zinc nitrate hexahydrate (0.025M), Hexamethyltetramine (0.025M) in DI water.
Findings
Al‐doped ZnO nanorods were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM), X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and impedance spectroscopy. The impedance measurements were carried out at various temperatures (100°C‐325°C). The impedance results showed that temperature has great influence on the impedance; the impedance value decreased as the temperature increased. This decrement is attributed to the increase of the mobility of the defects, especially the oxygen vacancies. The surface morphology of the samples was measured by SEM and X‐ray diffraction. The SEM images show that the high density of Al‐doped ZnO nanorods covers the silicon substrate, whereas the XRD pattern shows the (002) crystal orientation.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates the electron transport mechanism of Al‐doped ZnO nanorods, at different temperatures, to understand the charge transport model.
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Muhammad Hamid Murtza, Hafiz Muhammad Usman Khizar, Shahzad Ali Gill, Syed Muhammad Javed Iqbal and Saba Javaid
This qualitative study deals with the career longevity phenomenon in the hospitality sector of Pakistan and aimed at exploring the factors which become the reason for continuing…
Abstract
Purpose
This qualitative study deals with the career longevity phenomenon in the hospitality sector of Pakistan and aimed at exploring the factors which become the reason for continuing services in this sector for a longer period despite the prevailing perception of the short-term and unsatisfactory hospitality careers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has taken up an interpretive social constructivism approach to carry out the research. The purposive sampling technique is used to solicit expert insights into the dynamics of the hospitality career. A thematic analysis was employed to identify the common themes, extract the meaning from the discussion patterns of the respondents, and outline viewpoints and ideas of the respondents.
Findings
The findings of the study are discussed at three levels of career, i.e. entry level, development level, and consolidation level. Long careers in the hospitality sector are a product of dedication and commitment to the job, professionalism, variety, complexity of the job, and healthy relationship with coworkers, supervisors, and guests.
Originality/value
The study links the belief of belonging and socialization attributes to the retention of employees in the hospitality sector jobs. Secondly, the study uses a qualitative approach to provide a diverse perspective of employee–industry loyalty rather than employee–organization loyalty. Thirdly, the study brings forth practical implications for personnel managers in the hospitality sector and proposes that the management should systematically stimulate the socialization of the workers to hold the talent despite providing workers with the opportunity to join another sector. Finally, the study informs about research limitations and directions for future research.
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Muhammad Usman, Omaima Alqassimi, Asmaa Mohamed Ahmed Nusairi, Osman Abul and Syed Ali Hussain
This study aims to investigate the potential positive correlation between inclusive leadership and hotel frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer stewardship (CS) behavior, using the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the potential positive correlation between inclusive leadership and hotel frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer stewardship (CS) behavior, using the conservation of resource theory as its foundation. It hypothesizes that role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) acts as a mediating factor in this relationship, with employee conscientiousness serving as a significant moderating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
A time-lagged survey design was used, spanning over three rounds to collect data from 348 hotel FLEs and 42 managers. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling in Mplus version 8.6.
Findings
The study revealed a positive association between inclusive leadership and FLE CS, both directly and indirectly through RBSE. The results also showed that FLE conscientiousness moderated the direct link between inclusive leadership and RBSE, as well as the indirect link between inclusive leadership and FLE CS.
Practical implications
The evidence suggests that inclusive leadership behaviors among hospitality managers may elevate FLE CS behaviors, implying significant benefits for the success of hospitality organizations. Managers should focus on enhancing FLEs’ RBSE to further improve CS behaviors. In addition, by considering FLE conscientiousness, managers can craft targeted strategies to maximize the impact of inclusive leadership on CS behaviors.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the limited body of knowledge on the precursors of CS behavior by explaining both direct and indirect connections with inclusive leadership. Furthermore, it broadens the understanding of the conditions under which leadership most effectively shapes such behaviors.
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Usman Yousaf, Syed Ahmad Ali, Muhammad Ahmed, Bushra Usman and Izba Sameer
Does entrepreneurship education (EE) really enhance participants’ self-efficacy and influence their attitudes towards starting new business? How does this attitudinal influence…
Abstract
Purpose
Does entrepreneurship education (EE) really enhance participants’ self-efficacy and influence their attitudes towards starting new business? How does this attitudinal influence relate to participants’ entrepreneurial intention (EI)? Researchers and entrepreneurs alike have been probing into these questions with a view to capacitate the need of EE. This study aims to understand and operationalize a framework for entrepreneurship development by measuring participants’ intention towards entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study proposed a sequential mediation framework to examine the impact of EE on EI mediated by self-efficacy and attitude towards starting new business. Testing the hypotheses on data collected from 380 individuals, the study provided differentiated support for the theoretical propositions.
Findings
The findings of the study reflect that EE, self-efficacy and attitude towards starting new business contribute in establishing EI of audience. It was concluded that a sequential mediation exists between EE and EI by channelizing through entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy level that transforms an attitude towards starting a new business venture.
Research limitations/implications
The study has both theoretical and practical implications that will enable academicians, managers and practitioners to facilitate entrepreneurship by enhancing their knowledge database, skillset and developing a positive and constructive attitude among potential entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
The study inculcates a cultural lens and differentiates Pakistani context with other developing countries in Asia.
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Syed Alamdar Ali Shah, Raditya Sukmana, Bayu Arie Fianto, Muhammad Ali Ahmad, Indrianawati Usman Usman and Waqar Ahmed Mallah
The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that affect brand satisfaction of a Muslim customer who is making purchases from selling outlets on social media.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that affect brand satisfaction of a Muslim customer who is making purchases from selling outlets on social media.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a new mechanism of sampling for research studies relating to social media which. Further, we used hierarchical regression to analyze the moderation effects of religiosity.
Findings
The authors’ findings suggest that religiosity has moderation effects on the relationship between halal social media and brand satisfaction of a Muslim customer and even higher moderation effects on relationship between customer engagement and brand satisfaction of a Muslim customer.
Research limitations/implications
The respondents of this research are completely unknown as the data has been collected from google-docs link sharing arrangement.
Practical implications
This study identifies factors that need to be focused on winning the brand loyalty of a Muslim customer.
Originality/value
This study provides a new sampling methodology to be used for the purpose of studies related to social media, which has been labeled as “social-media disguised snow ball sampling”. Further, this study is one of the few studies in the area of “halal social media”.
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Muhammad Usman Arshad, Fahad Najeeb Khan, Muhammad Ishfaq, Muhammad Nadir Shabbir and Syed Mehmood Raza Shah
This study aims to explore the firm's specific, opacity and economy-specific variables to explain the variation in South Asian market returns and indicate that how the difference…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the firm's specific, opacity and economy-specific variables to explain the variation in South Asian market returns and indicate that how the difference in adoption of accounting standards refers to the effect of the movement in stock returns.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the scope of the study, factor analysis, fixed effect, Driscoll and Kraay standard errors (DKSE) and Panel Corrected standard error (PCSE) models have been inducted to determine the influence of firm-specific, opacity and economy-specific variables on stock returns. The sample of study comprises 1,885 firms from five countries located in the South Asia region with the period 2005–2018. To ensure the reliability of data, firm-specific data have been collected from DataStream International, while an international country risk guide was used to compile the data for economy-specific variables.
Findings
This study concluded that firm-specific variables showed a consistent and significant association with stock return except for beta, accrual and momentum while earning aggressiveness was the only factor in opacity measure to capture the variation in stock return. The implementation of international accounting standards seemed to be significant and proves to be helpful to enhance the quality of accounting information.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this study comprised the estimation error by avoiding the firm's observations with negative equity in case of earning opacity and majority (more than 50%) of the observation belongs to a single market as India out of final sample which leads to having biasedness in findings.
Practical implications
This study helps the investors to consider the firms with smaller market capitalization and lower book to market ratio and avoid the momentum strategy under firm specific factors. Moreover, earning aggressiveness under opacity domain capture the variation in stock return and must be considered while investing funds.
Originality/value
The influence of adoption of international accounting standards along with firm and economy specific variable in South Asian Equity Markets return was the major contribution. Moreover, the inclusion of DKSE and PCSE models to examine the relevance of the financial and economic informational environment was also considered as a part of major contribution of this study.
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Shahid Ali, Junrui Zhang, Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Kaleem Khan, Farman Ullah Khan and Muhammad Abubakkar Siddique
This study aims to investigate the question concerning whether tournament incentives motivate chief executive officers (CEOs) to be socially responsible.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the question concerning whether tournament incentives motivate chief executive officers (CEOs) to be socially responsible.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from all A-share Chinese companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the period from 2010 to 2015 are used. To draw inferences from the data, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and cluster OLS are used as a baseline methodology. To control for the possible issue of endogeneity, firm-fixed-effects regression, two-stage least squares regression and propensity score matching are used.
Findings
A reliable evidence is found that tournament incentives motivate CEOs to be more socially responsible. Additional analysis reveals that the positive effect of CEO tournament incentives on corporate social responsibility performance (CSRP) is more pronounced in state-owned firms than it is in non-state-owned firms. The study’s findings are consistent with tournament theory and the conventional wisdom hypothesis, which proposes that better incentives lead to competitiveness, which improves financial and social performance.
Practical implications
The study’s findings have implications for companies and regulators who wish to enhance CSRP by giving tournament incentives to top managers. Investment in social responsibility may reduce the conflict between executives and employees and improve the corporate culture.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing literature by providing the first evidence that CEOs’ tournament incentives play a vital role in CSRP. The study’s findings contribute to tournament theory.
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Ashraf Yahya, Syed M. Usman Ali and Muhammad Farhan Khan
Multilevel inverter (MLI) is an established design approach for inverter applications in medium-voltage and high-voltage range of applications. An asymmetric design synthesizes…
Abstract
Purpose
Multilevel inverter (MLI) is an established design approach for inverter applications in medium-voltage and high-voltage range of applications. An asymmetric design synthesizes multiple DC input voltage sources of unequal magnitudes to generate a high-quality staircase sinewave comprising a large number of steps or levels. However, the implications of using sources of unequal magnitudes results in the requirements of a large variety of inverter switches and higher magnitudes of the total blocking voltage (TBV) rating of the inverter, which increase the cost. The purpose of this study is to present a solution based on algorithms for establishing DC source magnitudes and other design parameters.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach used in this study is to develop algorithms that bring an asymmetric cascaded MLI (ACMLI) design close to symmetric design. This approach then reduces the variety of switch ratings and minimizes the TBV of the inverter. Thus, the benefits of both asymmetric design (generation of a large number of voltage levels in the output waveform) and symmetric design (modularity) are achieved. The proposed algorithms can be applied to a number of ACMLI topologies, including classical cascaded H-bridge (CHB). The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is validated by simulation in Matlab-Simulink and experimental setup.
Findings
Two new algorithms are proposed that reduce the number of variety of switches to just three. The variety can further be reduced to two under a specified condition. The algorithms are compared with the existing ones, and the results are promising in minimizing the TBV rating of the inverter, which results in cost reduction as well. For a specific case of four CHBs, the proposed Algorithm-1 produced 27% and Algorithm-2 produced 53% higher levels. Moreover, the presented algorithms produced minimum values of the TBV and resulted in minimum cost of inverter.
Originality/value
The proposed algorithms are novel in structure and have achieved the targeted values of minimized switch variety and reduced TBV ratings. Due to less variety, the inverter achieves a near symmetric design, which enables to attain the added advantages of modularity and reduced difference of power sharing among the DC sources.
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Imran Hameed, Zeeshan Ahmed Bhatti, Muhammad Asif Khan and Sumaiya Syed
This study aims to examine the moderated-mediation effects of employees’ Islamic work ethic (IWE) on their promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors through…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the moderated-mediation effects of employees’ Islamic work ethic (IWE) on their promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors through the integrated frameworks of social identity theory and self-consistency theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Using two-source data collection from employees and supervisors, data were collected from 217 participants working in various companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After initial data screening, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test for the factorial validity of the used measures with AMOS. The hypothesized relationships were tested in the PROCESS macro for SPSS.
Findings
The results of this study supported the integration of social identity theory with self-consistency theory in explaining the indirect effects of employees’ IWE on their promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors through the mediation of moral identity. Furthermore, this study also indicated that the indirect effect was conditional on the employees’ perceptions of perceived voice opportunity, which significantly moderated the relationship between their moral identity and their prohibitive voice. However, no such effect was recorded for promotive voice.
Originality/value
This study is the first that explains how and when employees’ IWE leads them to exhibit promotive and prohibitive voice behaviors through the mediation of moral identity and the moderation of perceived voice opportunity. Thus, this study contributes to the IWE, moral identity and employee voice literature by addressing questions with useful theoretical and managerial implications for employees’ promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors in the workplace.
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Syed Asim Ali Bukhari, Fathyah Hashim, Azlan Bin Amran and Kalim Hyder
Currently, one of the most important dilemmas facing mankind is environmental degradation and natural resource shortage. The adoption of Green Banking practices has been…
Abstract
Purpose
Currently, one of the most important dilemmas facing mankind is environmental degradation and natural resource shortage. The adoption of Green Banking practices has been identified as a solution to the growing environmental problems all over the world. However, an important issue being faced by both the conventional and Islamic banking industry is the creation of stakeholder engagement in Green Banking practices. The purpose of this paper is to propose the use of Islamic principles in developing an emotional attachment between Green Banking practices and the Muslim consumer market to facilitate Green Banking adoption.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the theory of self-congruity, the authors have proposed a framework to analyze the congruity between Islamic principles and Green Banking. The argument is built on secondary data by identifying the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) dimensions of Green Banking and proving its congruence with teachings of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah.
Findings
It is observed that the doctrine of Islam established for mankind 1,400 years ago consists of the same principles that are now being implemented in the shape of Green Banking. The dimensions of Green Banking are in line with Islamic teachings and, thus, can easily be adopted and marketed by banks, especially Islamic banks, targeting the Muslim consumers. The congruence of Green Banking with Islamic principles can play a major role in fostering the growth of this imperative ideology for the Green Muslim consumers. Islamic banks can market green products and services on the basis of religious congruity to the Muslim consumer market and create greater acceptability and loyalty.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed model has not been empirically tested.
Originality/value
Limited research exists in the area of Green Banking adoption, especially in Muslim countries. Up until now, academic research has not been conducted on the congruity between the principles of Islam and Green Banking dimensions. This paper attempts to add to the unsaturated research area of Green Banking adoption by Islamic banks and how Islamic banks can gain a competitive advantage by building on the congruity between Green Banking and Islam.