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The purpose of this paper is to examine the optimal leverage ratio, speed of adjustment, and which factors contribute to achieving the target of selected telecom companies in a partial adjustment framework from 2008 to 2017. Further is to analyze the likelihood of bankruptcy of sample companies by Altman Z-Score model and to suggest which theory of capitals structure is better in explaining leverage strategies and judicious mix of debt and equity structure of the selected telecom companies.

This paper chooses a partial adjustment model and uses the generalized method of moments technique to identify the variables that influence the target leverage ratio and the factors that influence the speed at which the target leverage is adjusted. Second, the Altman Z-score model is used in this paper to research the financial status of telecom companies using financial instruments and techniques.

For Indian telecom firms, firm-specific variables such as profitability, NDTS and Z-score lead to greater debt adjustment towards optimal level target leverage. The paper also highlights new paradigms in the Indian telecom sector, stating that top market leaders such as Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Vodafone and R.com, among others, should focus on debt reduction and interest payments, as well as implement new strategies to solve the crisis and change financial policies.

It mainly focuses on firm-specific variables because the firm-specific variables affect the leverage framework. The country-specific variables are not taken into the study. These results may be unique to telecom companies due to some peculiarities existing in the telecom sector in India. Although other sectors, both national and international level, can be taken into consideration.

This paper has ramifications for corporate executives, investors and policymakers in India, for example, in terms of considering different transition costs while changing a telecom company’s financing decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper of its kind to look at both financial and econometric tools to assess financial performance using the Altman Z-Score model, as well as decide leverage strategies and the pace with which they can be adjusted to target leverage in the context of Indian telecom companies.

Agriculture is one of the oldest socio-economic activities. It involves growing valuable plants and animals for human existence. Sustainable agriculture should be understood in light of the global sustainable development movement, which emphasizes balancing environment, society and economics. With the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent war between Russia and Ukraine, sustainable agriculture can help eliminate food insecurity caused by food shortages and agricultural sector disruptions. Recently, investors, practitioners, academicians, researchers, regulators and financiers are increasingly interested in using Islamic financing products and qualified Shari'ah-compliance contracts to promote sustainable agriculture. Many Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states still rely on agriculture for socioeconomic growth. These countries are major contributors to Islamic financial growth. This study assesses Islamic finance’s role in promoting sustainable agriculture in selected OIC countries. The researchers use qualitative methods and meta-analysis data to determine the constraints and benefits of implementing Islamic financial products for sustainable agriculture. This study suggests that OIC state governments should promote sustainable agriculture. OIC member states have different achievements relating to their sustainable agriculture. Based on socio-economic factors, agriculture policies or plans, leadership and political will, Islamic finance products and Shari'ah-compliance contracts are found underutilized in meeting sustainable agriculture and sector stakeholders’ needs. A solid Islamic financial framework for sustainable agriculture, good governance and improved agriculture policy are needed.

The study investigates the link between structural transformation and sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study adopts the traditional ordinary least square method and the Driscoll and Kraay covariance matrix estimator to address every form of cross-sectional and temporal dependence in panel data.

The study finds the structural transformation of the SSA economy will engender sustainable development. Specifically, the study finds that knowledge exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on sustainable development in SSA. Similarly, we found that technology (mobile cellular subscription and fixed telephone line subscription) promotes sustainable development. The results also show that all the economic transformation promotes sustainable development in SSA. Further, we also found that economic development and physical capital are important drivers of sustainable development in SSA. However, trade openness does not contribute to sustainable development in SSA. This might be because the combined scale effect in trade outweighs the combined technology and composition effects in SSA. This suggests the technology component in total trade activities in SSA does not promote sustainable development. The study recommends that governments across SSA should invest more in ICT and mobile cellular infrastructure or create an enabling environment that encourages digitization and the development of financial technology in the manufacturing, mining, construction, agriculture and services sectors to enhance green and quality growth for sustainable development in SSA.

The study uncovers the role of structural transformation in promoting sustainable development in SSA.

This study aims to investigate the effect of brand authenticity on consumer brand loyalty in the Pakistani frozen food industry sector in the light of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory.

The quantitative approach utilized a survey questionnaire to acquire customers’ perceptions. A simple random technique was used to collect data. About 255 questionnaires were analysed, and the response rate was 72.86%. The measurement and structural model were constructed through Smart PLS-4 and fsQCA.

The findings indicated that brand authenticity positively affects brand loyalty in the Pakistani frozen food industry. Results further proved that brand involvement has a full mediation effect, fsQCA supports the same results, and customer satisfaction has a partial mediation effect. These findings offer valuable insights into the frozen food industry in Pakistan and other countries, allowing them to create successful tactics to engage customers and foster brand loyalty. The findings reveal the complexity and ever-changing nature of how consumers assess brand authenticity in the frozen food industry.

These findings also have implications for the frozen food business’s marketing and brand positioning strategies, particularly its utilization of brand authenticity to attract and retain consumers.

This is the first paper in the frozen food sector from the perspective of brand authenticity.

This research seeks to unpack a relevant, hitherto overlooked connection between employees' perception that family incivility is undermining their work and their displays of submissive behavior. The authors predict and test a mediating role of employees' work alienation beliefs and a moderating role of their ego resilience in this connection.

The research hypotheses were tested with survey data collected in three rounds, separated by three weeks each, among employees who work in the education sector in Pakistan. The statistical analyses relied on the PROCESS macro, which supports the simultaneous estimation of the direct, mediation and moderated mediation effects that underpin the proposed theoretical framework.

An important reason that victims of disrespectful treatment at home fail to fight for their rights at work is that they develop parallel beliefs of being disconnected from work. This intermediary role of work alienation beliefs is less prominent though when employees can rely on their personal resource of ego resilience.

For human resource (HR) managers, this research offers a critical explanation, related to a sense of being estranged from work, for why family-induced work hardships might cause employees to exhibit subservient behaviors at work. It further reveals how this process can be contained if employees have the capability to adapt flexibly to different situations.

This study contributes to extant research by explicating how and when family-induced work hardships might escalate into work responses that mirror employees' experiences at home.

With a basis in social identity and equity theories, this study investigates the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational injustice and their knowledge hiding, along with the mediating role of organizational dis-identification and the potential moderating role of benevolence.

The hypotheses were tested with three-wave survey data collected from employees in Pakistani organizations.

The experience of organizational injustice enhances knowledge hiding because employees psychologically disconnect from their organization. This mediation by organizational dis-identification is buffered by benevolence or tolerance for inequity, which reduces employees' likelihood of reacting negatively to the unfavourable experience of injustice.

For practitioners, this study identifies organizational dis-identification as a key mechanism through which employees' perceptions of organizational injustice spur their propensity to conceal knowledge, and it reveals how this process might be mitigated by a sense of obligation to contribute or “give” to organizational well-being.

This study establishes a more complete understanding of the connection between employees' perceptions of organizational injustice and their knowledge hiding, with particular attention devoted to hitherto unspecified factors that explain or influence this process.

This study seeks to unpack the relationship between employees' exposure to workplace bullying and their turnover intentions, with a particular focus on the possible mediating role of perceived organizational politics and moderating role of creativity.

The hypotheses are tested with multi-source, multi-wave data collected from employees and their peers in various organizations.

Workplace bullying spurs turnover intentions because employees believe they operate in strongly politicized organizational environments. This mediating role of perceived organizational politics is mitigated to the extent that employees can draw from their creative skills though.

For managers, this study pinpoints a critical reason – employees perceive that they operate in an organizational climate that endorses dysfunctional politics – by which bullying behaviors stimulate desires to leave the organization. It also reveals how this process might be contained by spurring employees' creativity.

This study provides novel insights into the process that underlies the connection between workplace bullying and quitting intentions by revealing the hitherto overlooked roles of employees' beliefs about dysfunctional politics and their own creativity levels.

With a basis in affective events theory, this study aims to investigate the mediating role of anger in the relationship between employees’ exposure to workplace bullying and their engagement in deviant behaviours, as well as the invigorating role of their neuroticism in this process.

Three-wave, time-lagged data were collected from employees and their peers in a sample of Pakistani organizations.

Workplace bullying spurs interpersonal and organizational deviance because it prompts feelings of anger in employees. This mechanism is more prominent among employees with high levels of neuroticism.

This study reveals that the experience of anger is a key feature by which bullying behaviours steer employees towards counterproductive work behaviours, and this harmful process is more likely to escalate when employees’ personality makes them more vulnerable to emotional distress.

The purpose of this paper is to find out what are the factors responsible for making urban young consumers loyal to a particular brand.

The researcher used the convenience sampling method, and 206 respondents provided their responses from Kolkata. The study used exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis with the help of AMOS software to find out the result, and the responses were collected from young urban customers only.

The study reveals that service quality is the most influencing factor, and it has a significant and positive effect on satisfaction. The result also reveals that satisfaction does have a direct impact on brand loyalty.

The study has been conducted in Kolkata, and the perception has been gathered from the young consumers only. In this domain, so far, no studies have been conducted in West Bengal or in India. This study provides a glimpse of the behavior of young urban consumers on brand loyalty.

With a theoretical anchoring in the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study investigates how employees' exposure to abusive supervision ultimately might lead to enhanced supervisor ratings of their job performance because employees react with defensive silence. Employees' neuroticism also might catalyze this process.

Multi-source, three-wave data were collected from employees and their supervisors in the power-distant, collectivistic country of Pakistan.

Beliefs about the presence of verbally abusive leaders, somewhat ironically, mitigate the risk of diminished supervisor-rated performance evaluations to the extent that those beliefs prompt employees to engage in self-protective behaviors to avoid confrontations with the abusive leaders. This mediating role of defensive silence is invigorated to the extent that employees' personalities make them more sensitive to stressful work situations.

For practitioners, this study identifies self-protective silence as a key, potentially worrisome mechanism that employees in power-distant, collectivistic countries may use to avoid negative performance ratings by leaders they perceive as abusive, and it reveals how this process tends to vary across different employees.

This research cites a critical, unexplored factor through which verbally abused employees can avoid negative performance evaluations, by engaging in defensive silence, not only as a potentially detrimental solution but also as an effective short-term solution. It further clarifies that this process is more likely to occur among neurotic employees.