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This paper aims to highlight four features of value co-creation among actors in a business-to-business environment. Service-dominant (S-D) logic of marketing is used as a theoretical lens to view at the process of value co-creation.

Using an interpretive methodological approach, the authors collected empirical material from a single case based in New Zealand. The case was based on the collaboration, interaction and relationship between vendor and client during an information and communication technology (ICT) systems integration project. The unit of analysis was “points of value creation.” Empirical material came from observation, in-depth interviews and documents such as meeting notes and email logs. Interpretation highlighted four features of the value co-creation process: motivators, outcomes, disadvantages and management. Moreover, personal and network aspects of value co-creation process emerged.

The findings of this study capture benefits, as well as conflicts and frustrations, in a value co-creation process. Furthermore, it provides future research motivations for researchers currently working to develop S-D logic of marketing.

It is suggested that there is relatively little direction on how value co-creation process should be undertaken in different contexts such as retail, education, health care and ICT. There is a need to understand the dynamics and specification of value co-creation process, as the literature is scarce in this field.

It is believed that the core aim of Islamic institution is idiosyncratic from conventional business entities. Considering this presumption, this study aims to reveal the understandings of various stakeholders about objectives of Islamic banks.

The research endeavor is based on the findings of two distinctive studies, where Study 1 was aimed at investigating the communication of objectives through mission statements of Islamic banks and conventional banks with window operations. Here, mission statements were analyzed using content analysis and readability and understandability tests. Study 2, on the other hand, was aimed at investigating the understandings of various stakeholders, both internal (employees) and external (Muslim and non-Muslim customers of both Islamic and conventional banks, employees and management of conventional banks and business students). In total, 370 responses were received and analyzed in this study.

The findings (Study 1) unveil, the fact, that the mission statements of Islamic banks working in Pakistan are not good at communicating the corporate goals clearly. Out of ten banks investigated for Study 1, it is evident that only one bank (HBL, with window operations) was at par with readability threshold standards. Thus, it was imperative to share that mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend. Study 2 adds further by revealing that most of the stakeholders are not clear about the objectives of these banks, while customers of conventional banks do not value the distinctive objectives of Islamic banks.

This study leaves a valuable message for the policy makers and top management of Islamic banks by focusing on the unattended part on their end, i.e. quality of mission statements and stakeholders’ perception about the objectives of their organization, thus highlighting the needs of greater emphasis on the communication flow to stakeholders, as the clarity of business purpose may change the way customers react toward the business and opt for banking – customer relation in future.

This study covers a multi-dimensional investigation of the understanding and communication of objectives of Islamic banks. There is dearth of literature focusing on the aspects of content analysis, mission statement readability and understandability and investigation of stakeholders’ perception in tandem.

A mission statement is an important tool for organizational communication, as it speaks to all stakeholders. It should be readable and comprehensible. The main objective of this article is to determine the readability of mission statements from selected Islamic banks.

This study was conducted using simple counting techniques (total words, total sentences and number of words per sentence) and readability analyses. The mission statements from 169 Islamic banks were taken from their respective web sites between March and April 2012.

The findings reveal that the mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend and require 17 years of formal education before they can be fully understood.

Future studies should consider a comparative analysis that looks at how the origins of a bank can affect mission statements as well as examining different division of the financial sector such as insurance companies and other financial institutions.

The findings of this study revealed that banks have a great deal of work to do on their mission statements in order to make them readable and understandable to a wide range of stakeholders.

This article is first of its kind as it focuses on an area that has not been investigated by earlier researchers.

This study aims to present a unique hybrid metaheuristic approach to solving the nonlinear analysis of hall currents and electric double layer (EDL) effects in multiphase wavy flow by merging the firefly algorithm (FA) and the water cycle algorithm (WCA).

Nonlinear Hall currents and EDL effects in multiphase wavy flow are originally described by partial differential equations, which are then translated into an ordinary differential equation model. The hybrid FA-WCA technique is used to take on the optimization challenge and find the best possible design weights for artificial neural networks. The fitness function is efficiently optimized by this hybrid approach, allowing the optimal design weights to be determined.

The proposed strategy is shown to be effective by taking into account multiple variables to arrive at a single answer. The numerical results obtained from the proposed method exhibit good agreement with the reference solution within finite intervals, showcasing the accuracy of the approach used in this study. Furthermore, a comparison is made between the presented results and the reference numerical solutions of the Hall Currents and electroosmotic effects in multiphase wavy flow problem.

This comparative analysis includes various performance indices, providing a statistical assessment of the precision, efficiency and reliability of the proposed approach. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a new work which has not been explored in existing literature and will add new directions to the field of fluid flows to predict most accurate results.

The study aims to investigate the barriers in implementing social distancing at the workplace as an aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Study design consists of a review of literature, data collection and analysis. It encompasses identification, verification and analysis of the relationships among the barriers. Data have been collected from a panel of experts on matrix-type questionnaires from workplaces. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) augmented with “Matrice d' Impacts Croise's Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (Cross Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification)” (MICMAC) for structural analysis.

The literature has identified twenty major barriers to implementing social distancing at the workplace. The research findings reveal/show that the barrier “matter of disrespect” occupies the bottom level in the ISM model. Therefore, it is the most critical barrier; whereas, employees with disabilities and “herding culture” are crucial as they occupy the next lowest level, therefore, are crucial. Moreover, there are ten barriers positioned in the middle of the model having moderate-severe effects, and seven falls on the top level of the model having relatively less severe effects. Results of MICMAC affirm and avow the results of ISM.

The study will have profound theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders since it provides lot of new useful and valuable information, gives relational insights and determines priorities subject to usual limitations of survey research.

It is an original attempt to make some sense of practicability of social distancing for stakeholders including policymakers, frontline health workers and public at large.

Information literacy (IL) is crucial in academia, encompassing the ability to effectively find, assess, ethically use and disseminate information. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of IL on students’ research competency at Noakhali Science and Technology University (NSTU), Bangladesh. The research also aimed to understand the current trends in conducting students’ research at NSTU, to what extent they got research support from supervisors, and highlight the necessity of a research literacy course as a prerequisite before going to the real world.

This study used a mixed-method strategy. As part of quantitative data collection, the population was the research level students (honors final year and masters level), and an estimated 225 respondents of NSTU were surveyed using a convenience sampling technique. Qualitative data was accumulated through interviews with faculty members of 2 institutes and 31 departments at NSTU (a representative from each department) and an interview with the university librarian. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS software and qualitative data using thematic codes as well as text.

Results showed that students are aware of diverse information and research literacy aspects. Although almost all the departments contain research methodology-related courses, the contents vary; due to time limitations, it is hard to provide hands-on training to thesis students in every stage of research, from research idea formulation, research design, data analysis, interpretation and ethical use of information to dissemination of research output. This study found a positive correlation between students’ IL with research competency. As there is no prerequisite course in the university curriculum before conducting practical research, therefore, this study proposed a course “Information and Research Literacy” to support novice researchers.

The importance of IL in higher education and its influence on research activities is gaining attention. This research output might be crucial for university authorities to initiate training programs for thesis students to impart IL training. This research would be a worthwhile contribution to the research output of tertiary academic institutions.

IL in academia is not a new area of research. However, research attempts to show the relation between IL effects on students’ research competency are new in nature.

This study aims to explore the evolving field of physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) through an analysis of 996 records retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database from 2019 to 2022.

WoS database was analyzed for PINNs using an inhouse python code. The author’s collaborations, most contributing institutes, countries and journals were identified. The trends and application categories were also analyzed.

The papers were classified into seven key domains: Fluid Dynamics and computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Mechanics and Material Science; Electromagnetism and Wave Propagation; Biomedical Engineering and Biophysics; Quantum Mechanics and Physics; Renewable Energy and Power Systems; and Astrophysics and Cosmology. Fluid Dynamics and CFD emerged as the primary focus, accounting for 69.3% of total publications and witnessing exponential growth from 22 papers in 2019 to 366 in 2022. Mechanics and Material Science followed, with an impressive growth trajectory from 3 to 65 papers within the same period. The study also underscored the rising interest in PINNs across diverse fields such as Biomedical Engineering and Biophysics, and Renewable Energy and Power Systems. Furthermore, the focus of the most active countries within each application category was examined, revealing, for instance, the USA’s significant contribution to Fluid Dynamics and CFD with 319 papers and to Mechanics and Material Science with 66 papers.

This analysis illuminates the rapidly expanding role of PINNs in tackling complex scientific problems and highlights its potential for future research across diverse domains.

The purpose of this study is to numerically examine the mixed convection of CuO-water nanofluid due to a rotating inner hot circular cylinder in a 3D cubic enclosure with phase change material (PCM) attached to its vertical surface. Heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics were examined for various values of pertinent parameters.

Finite element method was used in the numerical simulation. Influence of various pertinent parameters such as Rayleigh number (between 10$^5$ and 10$^6$), Hartmann number (between 0 and 100), angular rotational speed of the cylinder (between −50 and 50), solid nanoparticle volume fraction (between 0 and 0.04) and PCM parameters (height-between 0.2H and 0.8H, thermal conductivity ratio- between 0.1 and 10) on the convective heat transfer characteristics are numerically studied.

It was observed that local heat transfer variations along the hot surface differ significantly for the cases with and without magnetic field where three distinct hot spots of peak Nusselt number are established when magnetic field is imposed. The average Nusselt number enhancement with the nanofluid at the highest particle volume fraction is 52.85 per cent at Hartmann number of 100, whereas its value is 39.76 per cent for the case in the absence of magnetic field. When the inner cylinder rotates, flow and thermal fields are affected within the cavity. The local heat transfer variations spread over the hot surface with cylinder rotation and 16.43 per cent of reduction in the average heat transfer is obtained with counter-clockwise rotation at 100 rad/sec. An enhancement in the PCM height and a reduction in the thermal conductivity of the PCM result in average heat transfer deterioration for the 3D cavity. The amount of the reduction is 43 per cent when the PCM height is increased from 0.2H to 0.8H, whereas 19.10 per cent enhancement in the heat transfer is achieved when thermal conductivity ratio (PCM) to the base fluid is increased from 0.1 to 10.

Such configurations can be designed for convection control, and in our case, various methods are available. Some of the investigated methods can be used in applications where magnetic field already exists. Convection control study in 3D cavity gives more realistic results as compared to 2D configurations, and results of the current investigation may be used for the design, optimization and flow control of many thermal applications involving magnetic field effects.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between pollutant emissions, financial development and IFRS in developed and developing countries between 1998 and 2022.

Data were obtained from World Development Indicators and World Governance Indicators of the World Bank.

Using FGLS and GMM estimators, the results provide evidence that financial development has a significant positive impact on a variety of pollutant emissions. However, this positive impact is moderated by IFRS for the overall sample and country income groups.

Governments and regulatory organizations should support companies’ investments in clean energy and technologies to slow down environmental degradation. Tax credits and subsidies may be helpful to achieve this goal. Also, governments may encourage companies to cooperate with universities and research institutions to develop environment-friendly production and distribution methods to reduce pollution. Although stakeholders may obtain information about environmental issues in financial statements that are prepared in accordance with IFRS, there is a need for standardization of their contents.

Greenhouse gases are major contributors to climate change and global warming. In addition to private costs borne by producers, the production and consumption of products have social costs arising from pollution that affects air, water, and soil. Pollution adversely affects people's physiological and psychological health, which decreases labor productivity, thereby leading to a decrease in economic growth.

According to the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines the impact of IFRS on the relationship between financial development and pollutant emissions.