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This study aims to identify how the involvement of female university students in volunteer organisations is contributing to their self-empowerment in Bangladesh.

A cross-sectional study with a qualitative approach was conducted. A total of 20 in-depth interviews with female student volunteers, two focus group discussions with student members of the volunteer organisation and ten key informant interviews with academics, gender experts and high-level representatives of civil society organisations were conducted. The data were collected from eight purposively selected universities in Dhaka. The data were collected between 1 January 2023 and 23 March 2023.

The inter-organisational environment appears to be supportive and welcoming, despite the fact that some male colleagues belittle women with insulting comments. Female students are predominantly involved in public presentation activities and their advice is rarely considered. To reach a top position, they have to show more commitment than their male colleagues. Subjective prejudices discourage women from taking on positions of responsibility. Participation in voluntary organisations strengthens the self-confidence, critical thinking, networking and social capital of female students, making it easier for them to gain employment. These factors contribute to the empowerment of female students.

This study is an excellent empirical document that establishes a link between the empowerment of female students and their participation in voluntary activities. The recommendations of this study pave the way for future research in different countries on how volunteering helps young people, especially female students, to shape their future by taking on social responsibility alongside their academic activities.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of some internal features that influence the efficiency of non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) in Bangladesh.

The study selected the top 15 Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE)-listed NBFIs according to purposive sampling. The study period was from 2016 to 2020. Secondary data were collected from annual reports. The cost-to-income ratio was a dependent variable that was used as a proxy of operational efficiency. The ordinary least square regression technique was applied to measure the impact of firm-specific factors on efficiency.

Results showed that number of employees, branch number, firm size and deposit ratio have a significant effect on efficiency at 5% level. The number of branches and employees showed a negative impact, whereas firm size and deposit ratio showed a positive effect on the firms' efficiency. The deposit ratio is negatively related because deposit interest expenses were more than offset by interest income generation through the conversion of deposits into loans.

The study has practical and policy implications on NBFIs' managers, employees, shareholders, depositors, clients, regulatory authorities and government as efficiency enhancement would bring financial soundness.

This study shed light on some firm-specific factors that can be changed to increase operational efficiency or reduce the cost-to-income ratio. The novelty of the study is that it identified some significant associations between firm-specific factors and the operational efficiency of NBFIs.

Human resources (HR) management has encountered unforeseen obstacles and issues in recruiting, retaining, training and developing workforces under the “new normal” due to pandemic circumstances followed by the Russo–Ukrainian War and global economic turmoil. As the world is now well-equipped with technological advancements and internet-based connectivity, many pandemic disruptions have been avoided through rapid adaptation of technological systems. Despite the constructive outcomes of this contemporary approach to learning and development (L&D), this study explores the further depths of massive open online courses (MOOC) platform adoption in human resource development initiatives during pandemic times.

A qualitative research approach was adopted to understand the employee and HR perspective on the changes in L&D approaches in organizations. To gather the primary data, respondents were divided into two clusters; different sets of questionnaires were developed for interview sessions.

Results suggest that employee L&D was much more improvised with distance or online learning, including organizational e-learning systems and MOOC platforms. To accomplish their HR development goals, organizations went through significant transformations during the Coronavirus pandemic; organizational attempts to initiate online training and MOOC-based learning fostered positive results in employee capacity development, process improvement, employee engagement and motivation.

This research will assist organizations in developing interactive training methods as an effective replacement for traditional training. Additionally, it will assist readers, practitioners and HR specialists in understanding how MOOCs are changing the L&D ecosystem.

The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the Financial Compensation Funds being accumulated by Islamic Banks of Bangladesh in credit-based transactions. In this connection, due to the evolved liquidity crisis amidst the COVID-19, industry opinions are observed that suggest including the compensations or the donation funds directly into the bank's income account. But the Sharīʿah does not permit it. Such alternative proposals of using compensation or donation fund during crises are scrutinized under Sharīʿah principles to come to a logical conclusion.

The approach followed in the study is textual and discourse analysis through descriptions of ideal Sharīʿah-compliant methods for handling late payment of credit and comparison with the industry practices.

It is observed that there are conceptual gaps in the industry as is reflected in the Islamic Banking Guideline of Bangladesh. The funds collected from the debtor due to late payment are named as compensation (Ta‘wīḍ) whereas the nature of the transaction is a donation (Tabarru'). The misconception can lead to various Sharīʿah non-compliant activities later with the funds. The proposals brought out in the industry to use such compensation/donation funds during a crisis are a consequence of this. The proposals of using such funds for banks' purposes in any situation are not supported by Sharīʿah principles and are against the Islamic banking philosophy.

The study is very relevant to the current crisis of COVID-19 in the domestic Islamic Banking Industry and also instrumental for the future guidance to stick to the Sharīʿah principles in managing compensation or donation funds by the Islamic Banks.

The purpose of this study is to explore the changing buying behavior of young Bangladeshi consumers in this pandemic situation toward online orientation. The major determinants of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and consumer value theory are used to explore their impact on buying attitudes toward behavior.

In this study, a model has been conceptualized to examine the influence of hedonic and utilitarian motivational values along with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on actual buying behavior under pandemic conditions. A structured questionnaire has been prepared for an online survey, and data have been collected from 395 online shoppers. The structural equation modeling technique has been applied to analyze the data using SPSS and SmartPLS 3 software.

The results of this study support that perceived enjoyment and utilitarian attributes (price, convenience and health aspects) positively affect online buying attitudes along with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Finally, online buying behavior is significantly influenced by the positive attitude of consumers.

The findings of this study may contribute to developing marketing strategies that may attract buyers toward a new business orientation with prosperous supreme features in the future. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the existing behavioral patterns of consumers and opened a new opportunity for marketers.

Young consumers are a larger section, and deep knowledge about youngsters may direct marketers toward appropriate use of marketing tools and strategies in the future.

This study integrated the TAM with hedonic and utilitarian motivational predictors to measure their impact on consumers' online buying behavior.

The purpose of this study is observing the disclosure pattern of integrated reporting (IR) and investigating its relationship with a firm's operational, financial and market growth performance measured in the form of return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and market-to-book value ratio respectively in the voluntary disclosure regime of Bangladesh.

This research is quantitative, based on a pooled-OLS regression analysis of 20 firms listed under ten different nonfinancial industries of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) for three financial years from 2015–2016 to 2017–2018, with 60 firm-year observations. A manual content analysis based on a structured integrated reporting disclosure index (IRDIN) measures the extent of disclosure in the corporate annual reports. The practical model consists of the dependent variable IRDIN and the independent variables ROA, ROE and market-to-book value ratio. The natural logarithm of total assets and financial leverage are the two controlling variables used in the model.

The findings deduced from the empirical results indicate that the IRDIN is positively and significantly related to all three performance variables. Content analysis shows an increasing pattern of disclosure of the constructed index elements by the sample firms.

A Small sample size may deter the generalization of the research findings in other voluntary disclosure regimes. Self-constructed IRDIN index scores may be affected by subjective judgment while assessing the annual reports.

Capital market regulators can gain valuable insights regarding the suitability of implementing IR in Bangladesh as the results show a positive relationship of firm performance with the adoption of this revolutionary paradigm in corporate reporting.

This study adds value to the existing limited literature of IR disclosure and firm performance in Bangladesh by incorporating content analysis and regression analysis to understand how firms respond to the demand of value creation by the stakeholders in a voluntary disclosure regime. This study captures sample firms from all the nonfinancial industries of Bangladesh with a unique IR index, which is the first of its kind.

Malnutrition is one of the serious public health problems especially for children and pregnant women in developing countries such as Bangladesh. This study aims to identify the risk factors associated with child nutrition for both male and female children in Bangladesh.

This study was conducted among 23,099 mothers or caretakers of children under five years of age from a nationally representative survey named Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2019. This study used chi-square test statistic for bivariate analysis and multinomial logistic regression was used to evaluate the adjusted effects of those covariates on child nutritional status.

The prevalence of severely malnourished, nourishment was higher for males than females (5.3% vs 5.1%, 77.4% vs 76.8%) while moderately malnourished were higher for females (18.1% vs 17.4%). The findings from the multinomial model insinuated that the mother’s education level, wealth index, region, early child development, mother’s functional difficulties, child disability, reading children's books and diarrhea had a highly significant effect on moderate and severe malnutrition for male children. For the female children model, factors such as mother’s education level, wealth index, fever, child disability, rural, diarrhea, early child development and reading less than three books were significant for moderate and severe malnutrition.

There is a solution to any kind of problem and malnutrition is not an exceptional health problem. So, to overcome this problem, policymakers should take effective measures to improve maternal education level, wealth status, child health.

This paper aims to the precise critical interpretation of gender roles portrayed in the three selected TV advertisements shown in Bangladesh.

The analysis begins with the theoretical framework of gender roles analysis here in this paper: Goffman’s gender stereotypes hypothesis which is used to identify and analyse the thematic features present in the ads. After critically examining the hypothesis, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s systemic functional analysis framework is used to analyse the semiotic feature to interpret the signs and symbols. After that, Fairclough’s stylistic analysis of discourse analysis is used to find out these features in the advertisements to search the cultural, political implications. Finally, the paper uses Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and it is Cultural-Ecofeminist Analysis of Francois d’Eaubonne.

This paper tries to connect with the above-mentioned frameworks from a contextual point of view to predict the future progression of the gender representations and their implications in the coming years to check whether the changes in gender roles are reflected in the society or not.

Both in houses and workplaces, women empowerment, more female entrepreneurs in the working forces will bring out a change in the minds of people about the stereotypes and make more women inclusive and the women-friendly environment in Bangladesh and South Asian Countries.

The Rohingyas are forcefully displaced from Myanmar and sheltered in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh. They have outnumbered the local people indicating a critical condition of their living situation after the year 2017 influx. The aim of this paper is to present how coexistence has impacted social cohesion and reconciliation among different groups of Rohingyas and host communities.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 903 households through a multistage stratified random sampling. Social cohesion and reconciliation (SCORE) index was measured as a multifaceted theoretical construct based on the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

The findings of this study are inclined toward the miracle of social cohesion and reconciliation between the Rohingya and host communities. Also, it is revealed that youth, males and Rohingyas who came before the year 2017 influx are more cohesive. In the host or local community, people having lower income, less education and involvement with the informal sector are revealed as less cohesive.

This study suggests vocational training as a short-term, cash-for-work as a mid-term and repatriation, proper identity, and protection services as long-term strategic plans to make the two communities more cohesive.

This study focuses on the SCORE indexes with a quantitative format, applying a second-order factor model.

The purpose of this study is to review the empirical studies that have focused on the adoption, benefits and contingencies of strategic management accounting (SMA) practices and the effects of adoption on firm performance.

The study has highlighted empirical studies conducted on SMA practices in the context of both developed [1] and developing economies. In reviewing the literature, the study focuses on the findings of developed economy separately from that of developing economy to get more insight into the differences in the practices of the two set of economies. Based on the review, avenues for future research studies are outlined.

The review of extant literature reveals that several SMA techniques such as competitor accounting, strategic pricing, benchmarking and customer accounting have been highly or moderately adopted in several developed countries while majority of other techniques remained at the bottom line of the adoption status. However, the review demonstrates substantial differences in the SMA practices between the two set of economies in terms of the level of adoption, contingent factors and the effects of adoption.

The study attempts to focus on empirical studies that have concentrated exclusively on SMA practices. The adoption status, benefits derived, contingent factors affecting the adoption decision and the effect of adopting a package of SMA techniques on several aspects of firm performance are presented in the context of both developed and developing economies.