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The principal aim of this study is to examine the relationship between financial development and income inequality in India using the financial Kuznets curve (FKC) hypothesis.

This study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the Toda–-Yamamoto causality test to investigate the long-run and short-run relationship and causality between financial development and income inequality. In addition, this study employs a principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a comprehensive financial development index.

The study found a long-run relationship between financial development and income inequality in India for the period under consideration. Trade is found to improve the income distribution, while inflation worsens income distribution. Moreover, the empirical results revealed a feedback causality between financial development and income inequality. The study results confirm an inverted U-shaped relationship between financial sector development indicators and income inequality, thus validating the FKC hypothesis for the Indian economy.

The study draws attention of the government and policymakers, urging them to focus on building a strong financial sector by improving its efficiency. This, in turn, will lead to enhanced financial stability and a reduction in income inequality. They should prioritise the development of high-quality and sustainable financial products and services to ensure the robust growth of the financial sector.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the latest of its kind to empirically test the financial development on income inequality and the FKC hypothesis simultaneously for the Indian economy using financial proxy variables from financial institutions (FIs) and financial markets (FMs) for the measurement of financial depth.

Standard economic theory predicts that any increase in public spending is accompanied by a rise in inflation in an economy. This paper presents empirical proof that prices do not always rise with an increase in public expenditure but only up to a certain threshold level. The primary aim of this paper is to unearth the government size-inflation nexus in India for the period from 1971 to 2019.

The logistic STAR (smooth transition autoregression) model is employed to unravel the government size-inflation nexus for the Indian economy from a non-linear perspective.

The finding of our study confirm the non-linear relationship between the size of the government and inflation in India. The estimated threshold level for government size is precisely found to be 9.27%. The size of the government exerts a negative influence on inflation until it reaches the optimal or threshold level. Any further increase in the size of government beyond this threshold level would result in a rise in inflation.

The findings have implications for the conduct of fiscal policy. Policymakers can increase government spending in a regime of small government size without having any inflationary impacts by generating revenues from taxes and other sources instead of relying much on the central bank. In the regime of a large-sized government, adhering strictly to the discipline in the conduct of fiscal and monetary policies would help curb inflation and enhance growth synchronously, hence alleviating any loss of welfare.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is an attempt to revisit the government size-inflation nexus in India from a non-linear perspective using the Smooth Transition Autoregression (STAR) model for the first time.

This paper aims to examine the effects of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment of Islamic stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study uses a panel data set that covers 398 listed Islamic stocks from seven major Asia Pacific countries over the period of five years from 2017 to 2021, yielding 1,990 observations. Specifically, this paper investigates the said association by combining the real options theory regarding investment and the panel data-based econometric method that captures the dynamic relationship, the generalized method of moments estimators.

The findings show that the relationship between the oil price volatility and corporate investment of Islamic stocks is significant and nonlinear in nature, suggesting the presence of both the growth options and the waiting options. Overall, the results reveal that corporate investment of Islamic stocks is hindered during the unprecedented corona crash, when oil price increases at exponential rates.

The findings suggest that considering the information caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for investment decisions of Islamic stocks. Therefore, policymakers and regulators should incorporate the impact of oil price uncertainties caused by unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic on firm’s investment expansion and diversification strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the relationship between the investment of Islamic stocks and the oil price uncertainty under compound options theory in top Asian oil-importing countries.

This study examines the impact of inclusive leadership on two important work outcomes, i.e., employee performance and well-being. In order to better understand the above relationships, this study theorizes that employee psychological capital is a mediating mechanism and family motivation is a moderating mechanism.

The authors collected 370 responses in three different time waves with an interval of one week. All the constructs of the study were rated by employees except for the supervisor’s family motivation, which was rated by their supervisors. Given the predictive nature of the study, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis.

The authors' findings confirm the mediating role of employee psychological capital in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee performance and in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee well-being. The moderating effects of supervisor family motivation in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee performance were also significant; however, the authors did not find empirical support for the moderating effects of family motivation in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee well-being.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the present study extends the authors' understanding of the unique ways in which inclusive leadership improves employee performance and benefits their well-being.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of family motivation (FM) on promotive voice behavior (VBPm) and knowledge hiding (KH). The study uses moral disengagement (MD) role as a mediator to see how FM shapes moral engagement leading to participate in promotive voice and knowledge sharing.

The hypothesized model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The authors used convenience sampling and collected data in two phases. The authors have a final sample of 257 faculty members for analysis, with an overall response rate of 42.8%.

Study findings reveal a negative relationship between FM with MD and a positive relationship with VBPm. The relationship between FM and (KHKH results did not show the expected effects. At the same time, mediation of MD between FM and voice behavior and FM and (KHKH show the expected results.

The study finds that family factors have practical consequences for companies in recognizing the value of familial elements in cultivating employee voice and engagement behaviors. Since family is a powerful motivation to work, it provides valuable insights for HRM strategies and organizational studies to encourage employee voice and moral engagement in the workplace. The study is one of the few studies investigating the impact of FM on promotive voice and KH and enhancing the knowledge of mediating role of MD.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a model and note the ranking of the trust factors of messages about organic food in social networks.

The research was divided into four phases. The first employed the literature review about Trust, Trust of products, Trust of organic foods and Trust in the social networks. This review was prepared as some hypothesis about the trust of messages about organic food in the social network. The second employed a focused interview to supplement the mentioned hypothesis to 31 factors that affect the trust of messages about organic food in social networks. In the third phase, 300 forms were used to collect information from Iranian consumers for exploratory factor analysis. Finally, neural networks were used to determine the ranking of the mentioned factors.

The results show 31 factors that affect the trust of messages about organic food in social networks. The results of this study showed that Iranian and international organic foods producers may be able to spread messages of trust about their products in social networks by attending to these 31 factors. This study also explored a model constructed using EFA that showed that six factors have a positive effect on the level of trust of messages about organic food in social networks.

This research effectively helps organic food producers to better understand the trust factors and ways to improve that trust in cyberspace marketing plans and to increase their sales.

For the first time, this research seeks a model for the factors affecting consumer trust in organic foods in social networks, and in the next step, it ranks these factors with artificial neural networks.

Using Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions as the study site, this study aims to empirically substantiate, under the theoretical underpinnings of job enrichment theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) and Maslow's (1943) theory of the hierarchy of needs, the impact of flexible work practices (FWPs), on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, with the mediating lens of work life enrichment.

Field data were collected at five higher education institutions located in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Pakistan, using the convenience sampling technique and analyzed under the quantitative research paradigm.

This study substantiates with an empirical evidence that flexible work practices (FWPs) have a significant positive impact on both employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness. Markedly, the study findings reveal that the said impact is significantly stronger than that of sabbaticals. Furthermore, the study reveals that the positive relationship is mediated by work life enrichment, signaling its significance in understanding FWP's such impact on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness.

The study findings provide significant implications for academia, practitioners, and policymakers, in evidence-based recommendations for higher education institutions to design and implement FWPs that are effective in enhancing employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, and, in turn, leading to improved organizational performance.

This research study provides a novel contribution to the existing literature by exploring the combined impact of flexible work practices on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness in the peculiar context of Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions. Additionally, the study's focus on the mediating role of work life enrichment further adds to its novelty.

This study aims to investigate how abusive supervisor affects knowledge hiding (KH). Specifically, this study investigates employee silence as a mediating mechanism between abusive supervision and employees’ KH. Further, psychological ownership is examined as a buffer between abusive supervision and employee silence.

KH has become a major issue for both manufacturing and service sectors. Therefore, this study collected data from 322 employees working in manufacturing and service sectors through “Google Forms” during COVID-19. The respondents were contacted through LinkedIn platform between January and July 2021.

This study noted that when employees working in high-power distance cultures perceive their leaders/supervisors as abusive, they avoid confrontation and engage in silent behavior, which positively affects their KH behavior. However, employees with a high level of psychological ownership are less likely to respond to their abusive supervisors through silence because such employees feel a greater sense of belongingness and prefer to benefit their organization.

This study used a cross-sectional design that restricts causality. However, the findings of this study suggest management to focus on leadership style to minimize KH at the workplace.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the underlying mechanism (employee silence) and boundary condition (psychological ownership) to explain the association between abusive supervision and KH.

The aim of this chapter is to contribute toward the phenomena of women entrepreneurship from an emerging economy perspective through a dynamic capability's perspective. The challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in a nonsupportive entrepreneurial ecosystem reshaped by digitization will contribute to the burgeoning women entrepreneurship literature. In order to survive in a challenging entrepreneurial ecosystem, women entrepreneurs need dynamic capabilities to face the challenges of a modern digital world. This chapter problematizes the challenges of the digital world and its role in modern day businesses.

Pakistan's present war against extremists has many folds and sheds. The country's initial participation in the Afghan War in 1979 later gave birth to different extremist trends in the country. State patronage of the extremist Wahabi Islamists during the Afghan jihad opened another conflict in Pakistan, and things became more complicated. The combination of external and internal factors gave birth to the worst kind of conflict, which now has not only become dangerous for the country's own existence but also a major threat for global peace. The Afghan jihad initially started as a war against Soviet occupation and later became the hub of global jihad-war against infidels.

This chapter analyzes how external factors promoted internal contradictions in Pakistan due to which the country became not only an exporter of jihadis for the world but also the worst kind of sectarian conflicts, including. Shia–Sunni, Deobandi–Wahabi clashes, entered into in the past two decades. Such a strong link exists with Pakistan's official support to global jihad. Draft sectarian groups now head to head with their opponents have killed thousands of members of rival sectors, have strong support from external sympathizers, and have spread in the country. The well planned terrorist activities of these groups reflect the fact that support to these groups in the past is now leading to a severe crisis in Pakistan. The nexuses of these indigenous extremists like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen with external terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan of Tahir Yuldasher Chechen Guerilla War has led to several bloody clashes in the country and outside.