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Theoretically, both democ/ratic legitimacy and government capacity are necessary for successful crisis management, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors argue that there are important variations for pandemic management in the developed and democratic world. However, are these equally needed in the developing world where democracy and capacity are present in varying degrees and in some countries with a vast deficit? This article analyzes how legitimacy and capacity affect citizens' satisfaction with the pandemic management in South Asia.

The study is based on a survey of 3,423 randomly selected respondents from Facebook users in South Asia. The survey data are presented and discussed along with information derived from secondary sources to put the data in the broader context of the South Asian countries. The authors apply ordinary linear regression for statistical analysis.

The findings suggest that citizens are content with the performance of government institutions in COVID-19 management. They emphasize material well-being, such as relief provisions and financial incentives during the crisis period. They are, however, less concerned about the legitimacy dimension, although democracy in South Asia is flawed with excessive restrictions on public freedom during the pandemic. The contradictory findings may be due to the public orientation towards authoritarian culture and their preference for strongman rule in crisis management.

The governments in South Asia may systematically use army and police forces to manage crises as people are more satisfied with their performance during COVID-19 management.

This is the first time data across South Asia have been collected and analyzed about crisis management.

Eddy currents are inevitable in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. These currents are mainly induced by gradient fields. This study aims to propose a fast analytical method to calculate eddy currents induced by frequently switching gradient fields in a traditional C-shape MRI system.

Fourier decomposition and magnetic vector potentials were used to calculate the eddy currents. Calculations with the proposed analytical method revealed the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of eddy currents.

Calculation and Maxwell simulation results were consistent. The agreement between calculation and simulation results indicates that increasingly sophisticated structures could be developed. The calculated results could guide the design of improved gradient coils.

Eddy currents induced by gradient current are decomposed into currents induced by each time-harmonic component, and then adding them together to obtain complete contribution of the eddy current. The analytical method was used to characterize the properties of symmetric and asymmetric eddy currents induced by gradient coils in MRI systems. The analytical method can be used to improve the gradient shield during the design of the gradient coil in the MRI system.

The influence of website quality on online compulsive buying behavior (OCBB) in the context of online shopping based on the usage of a credit card (UCC) and online impulsive buying behavior (OIBB) was investigated in this study.

The authors used a research model to examine the relationships between the study components as per the prescription. For this investigation, the authors used an online survey form to obtain primary data from 350 respondents on social media. A covariance-based structural equation modeling approach was used to evaluate the structural research model and data.

The findings reveal that the quality of online shopping websites positively affects consumers' UCC and OIBB, and these in turn positively influence their OCBB.

The study emphasized impacting elements on consumer behavior and gave advice for future research based on the results. Using several dimensions of website quality, this study bridges the knowledge gap between UCC, OIBB and OCBB.

Based on UCC and OIBB, the authors developed a new model to investigate the link between website quality and OCBB. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is the first experimental result that assesses the impact of website quality on OCBB.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of financial inclusion on the enhancement of paddy farmers’ technical efficiency (TE). The impact was evaluated rigorously from different dimensions which could be useful in the policy discussion for enhancing efficiency in utilizing productive resources.

A cross-sectional data of randomly selected 120 paddy farmers from Khulna district in the Southwest region of Bangladesh were collected for this study. Initially, a stochastic production frontier approach was used for estimating farmers’ TE. Thereafter, ordinary least squares and quantile regression models were applied for unveiling the existing relationship between TE and various dimensions of financial inclusion after controlling all other socio-economic characteristics.

The study findings revealed that farmers were around 86 percent technically efficient and amongst them, credit takers were more efficient than non-credit takers. A non-monotonic relationship between TE and amount of credit was observed where TE was maximized at amount around 20,000 Bangladeshi Taka (USD255), a medium credit in terms of its amount. In addition, credit literacy was identified as a significant factor for improving TE. Though difference in the choice of sources for accessing credit had little impact on mean TE, its effect was found significantly higher for low scored technically efficient farmers compared to high scored farmers.

The policy toward widening the coverage of financial inclusion would be more effective than providing larger amount of credit to a limited number of farmers for improving their TE.

Such an in-depth assessment of the impact of financial inclusion on TE is probably the first effort in the Khulna district of Bangladesh.

This study aims to examine the key determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of all listed banks that operate their function in an emerging market, Pakistan.

This study applied the principles of systems-oriented theories such as legitimacy, stakeholder and agency theory. The hypothesis is linking the bank’s social disclosure and its determinants are developed. The relevant data was gathered from the bank’s annual reports and Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2018. Further, governance attributes and performance measures are used as the predictor variable and the CSR score as the predicted variable. This study applied panel data analysis on the sampled banks to examine the proposed hypothesis for empirical estimation.

This study’s inclusive results confirm that the hypothesized determinants of board size, foreign directors on board and female directors on board positively impact the CSR disclosure potential. Board size significantly explains the CSR disclosure in all bank samples. The determined performance measures, profitability and liquidity show a significant positive relationship with CSR disclosure except for few exceptions.

This study’s results lack generalizability due to its unique setting; future researchers can extend the research scope in national–international settings and a regional context.

This study enriches the literature on CSR disclosure determinants and is relevant to practice in an emerging context. It can be helpful from a policy perspective; institutions (bodies) that regulate banks should recognize the governance and performance aspects essential to enhancing CSR disclosure and enhancing the bank’s performance hence value.

This research offers empirical evidence that sheds light on the key governance attributes and performance measures that partially affect CSR disclosure and its extent. In doing so, this study’s findings contribute to the literature significantly, along with regulators, shareholders, deposit holders, individual–institutional investors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on customers’ intention to invest in Islamic Banks. This study specifically examines an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data collected from 217 customers of an Islamic bank in Indonesia using an online survey.

This study highlights the central and dual roles of perceived risk as both the independent and the intervening variable that mediates the relationship between product knowledge and Muslim customer intention to invest in an Islamic bank’s term deposits.

This study only investigates term deposits as one type of investment in Islamic banks. This study contributes to the literature by examining the role of product knowledge, perceived quality, perceived risk and perceived value on Muslim customer intention to invest in Islamic term deposits.

The results of this study highlight the requirement for Islamic banks to educate customers to improve the depositors’ product knowledge because Muslim customers’ risk and value perception and intention are strongly influenced by product knowledge.

The investigation of perceived risk is particularly relevant for Islamic financial products because of the inherent nature of risk sharing in Islamic finance. This study investigates the role of product knowledge in influencing the Muslim customers’ perception of risk, quality, value and their intention to invest in Islamic bank term deposits. Ideally, the profit loss sharing concept (PLS) should be applied; however, in this context, revenue sharing is applied because of Indonesia’s central bank regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to review some of the key studies that are published in the last three decades on banking service quality with particular attention to the Middle Eastern countries, and provide some future research directions.

Literature review.

The review generated 11 research questions related to Islamic and conventional banking services in the Middle Eastern countries.

This paper reviews leading, current studies on conventional and Islamic banking in the Middle East, and provides future research directions for scholars and practitioners alike. Future research should address each of the research questions as identified in this paper with empirical data/evidence.

This paper reviews leading, current studies on conventional and Islamic banking in the Middle East and provides future directions of research for scholars and practitioners alike. Future research should address each of the research questions the authors identify with empirical data and scientific evidence.

This paper would be useful for guiding the development and resolution of researchers’ and practitioners’ research questions and could help to strengthen the banking industry in Middle Eastern countries.

The present research aims to investigate the impact of “COVID-19 phobia” factors (psychological, social, economic and psychosomatic) on career anxiety and perceived distress. Further, this research assesses whether career anxiety and perceived distress foster or diminish students' employability confidence.

“Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM)” has been used to analyze the data.

The results depict that factors (psychological, economic and psychosomatic) are positively and significantly associated with career anxiety and perceived distress. However, social factors indicate an adverse impact on perceived distress. Further, career anxiety and perceived distress positively influence employability confidence, but the associations are not highly impactful.

This research elucidates an unexplored phenomenon in the context of a developing country that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) phobia scale (i.e. psychological, social, economic and psychosomatic) result in career anxiety and distress. Moreover, no studies highlighted the direct impact of career anxiety and perceived distress on employability confidence.

This study aims to investigate the external knowledge search behaviors in terms of search breadth and search depth in family firms and the resultant product innovation in Indian context. The authors theorize the mediating role of absorptive capacity (potential and realized absorptive capacity) between knowledge sourcing from external sources and product innovation. Further, the authors examine the moderating role of crucial internal social capital of the family firm in enhancing the use of external knowledge for firm innovation activities.

The study uses a quantitative research design taking single informant for collection of data from 151 family small and medium enterprises in automotive sector in India. The authors use structural equation modeling to test hypothesized relationships.

The findings indicate that both search breadth and search depth of family firms are positively associated with product innovation in family firms. The authors also find evidence for partial mediating role of potential and realized absorptive capacity in the relationship between search breadth and innovation and search depth and innovation. The results show how family firms learning taking place while scanning external knowledge sources in terms of external absorptive capacity routines. Finally, the authors find that family firm internal social capital positively moderate the relationship between search breadth and depth, and product innovation.

Family firms need to innovate to remain relevant in the long-run and as such development of superior capabilities is of great significance to them. Family firm managers must be open to external knowledge as such knowledge help them improve the firm level of innovation through absorptive capacity. Further, family firms must realize and act upon the importance of their social capital for the integration and utilization of acquired knowledge.

This paper is amongst a few papers that take dynamic capability views of innovation in family firms wherein the authors theorize how external search breadth and depth lead to the development of potential and realized absorptive capacity in family firms. The importance of family firm internal social capital as a strong integrating and knowledge sharing mechanism that helps family firms transform external knowledge into innovation is also highlighted.

This paper aims to numerically analyze the effect of non-gray gas radiation on mixed convection in a horizontal circular duct with isothermal partial heating from the sidewall. The influence of heater location on heat transfer, fluid flow and entropy generation is given and discussed in this study.

The numerical computation of heat transfer and fluid flow has been developed by the commercial finite element software COMSOL Multiphysics. Radiation code is developed based on the T₁₀ Ray-Tracing method, and the radiative properties of the medium are computed based on the statistical narrow band correlated-k model.

The obtained results depicted that the radiation considerably contributes to the temperature homogenization of the gas. The findings highlight the impact of the heater location on swirling flow. It is also shown that the laterally heating process provides better energy efficiency than heating from the top of the enclosure.

This study is performed to improve heat transfer and to minimize entropy generation. Therefore, it is conceivable to improve the model design of industrial applications.