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The purpose of this paper is of twofold: first, to empirically examine the short-run and long-run impact of macroeconomic variables such as industrial production, foreign direct investment (FDI), trade balance (TB), exchange rate, interest rate (IR) and consumer price index (CPI) on stock prices (SP) of KSE-100 index; and second, to examine whether this relationship changes as a result of the financial crisis.

This study uses an autoregressive distributed lag model by using the full sample period data from 1997Q3 to 2018Q2 and the post-crisis period data from 2008Q3 to 2018Q2. Moreover, it uses variance decomposition analysis to examine the importance of each variable in explaining SP.

The findings of the full sample period indicate that in the long run, TB, exchange rate and IR negatively affect SP whereas CPI and industrial production positively affect SP. However, the post-crisis period data indicate that only CPI positively affects the SP in the long run. Finally, variance decomposition analysis indicates 30 percent variance in SP is explained by its own shock.

The study findings suggest that macroeconomic variables have a significant role and can be considered important for taking investment and/or policy decisions. Especially, Governments and other regulators may need to take measures to increase the TB since it can help to increase the performance of the Pakistani stock market. Furthermore, investors may consider that findings change when the financial crisis has been taken into consideration.

This study uses two additional variables, namely FDI and TB by using the robust technique in the context of emerging countries like Pakistan. Furthermore, it takes into account the impact of the financial crisis on the underlying variables.

This study examines the short-run and long-run impact of macroeconomic variables such as industrial production index, inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, foreign direct investment and trade balance, on KSE 100 index and sectorial stock indices under bearish, bullish and normal states of the stock market prices. Moreover, we take into account the effect of three crises observed from 2005 to 2009.

This study uses quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) model for examining the short-run and long-run effect across various quantiles of the dependent variables and compare its' results standard autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model.

ARDL estimates indicate that, in the long-run, industrial production index, trade balance and foreign direct investment significantly affect stock prices. These findings remain same when three crises have been taken into consideration. In addition, estimates from QARDL model indicate that, in the short-run, the effect of exchange rate, interest rate, consumer price index and foreign direct investment, varies across bearish, bullish and normal states of the overall stock prices. Moreover, the short-run findings for Auto Assembler, Cement, Commercial Banks sector are consistent with overall stock indices, whereas other sectors, such as, Oil and Gas and Power Generation and distribution are asymmetrically affected by all macroeconomic variables. In the long-run, the effect of all macro-variables varies across different states of the stock markets except industrial production index for Auto Assembler sector, Oil and Gas sector and composite index of KSE 100 index.

We take into account the effect of three crises observed from 2005 to 2009 and also examine the macroeconomic effect across bullish, bearish and normal states of the sectorial stock indices and composite index of Pakistan stock exchange. Finally, we use novel approach, called QARDL model, which has several advantages over other techniques.

Recent literature has shifted to examining whether exchange rate volatility symmetrically or asymmetrically affects the trade flows. This study aims to extend the existing literature by examining the effects of extremely large to extremely small changes in exchange rate volatility series on the US imports from Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa.

For examining the effects of extreme changes, multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (MTNARDL) model is used and the exchange rate volatility series is divided into quintiles and deciles. It helps to examine the effects of each quintile/decile of exchange rate volatility series on the US imports.

Findings indicate that the effects of extremely large changes in the exchange rate volatility series significantly differ from the effects of extremely small changes in the exchange rate volatility series on the US imports.

The findings of this study are very important. These findings help to consider the effect of extreme changes before devising policies related to trade flows.

This study mainly focuses on US imports from Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. In addition, this study extends the existing literature by using a novel methodology called MTNARDL model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether macroeconomic variables have a symmetric or asymmetric effect on stock prices (SP) of Karachi Stock Exchange 100 index in the context of Pakistan. It also examines whether the asymmetric impact of macroeconomic variables on SP has been affected by tail events such as the global financial crisis.

This study uses linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models for the full sample period as well as in pre- and post-crisis periods. The whole sample period covers the data from June 2004 to June 2016 which include 145 observations in total. The pre-crisis period covers data from June 2004 to December 2007 and the post-crisis period covers the data from January 2009 to June 2016 where these periods include 43 and 90 observations, respectively.

The findings suggest that the relationship between macroeconomic variables and SP is asymmetric in the short run whereas this effect is symmetric in the long run when the whole sample period is selected. However, when pre- and post-crisis periods are selected this effect becomes asymmetric in the long run as well; that is, positive and negative shocks in macroeconomic variables do not affect the SP in the same way.

Investors, governments and other stakeholders are advised to consider the asymmetric behavior of macroeconomic variables and SP while making an investment or other decisions. They may consider the financial crisis as well since the asymmetric behavior of the underlying variables change as a result of the financial crisis.

This study extends previous studies by examining the asymmetric effect of macroeconomic variables and also contributes to the existing literature by discussing how this relationship changes as a result of the financial crisis.

This research examines the impact of lockdown stringency measures and COVID-19 cases on food and healthcare prices in six Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey (BRICST) countries. This research is conducted in these countries since previous studies failed to examine the effect of COVID-19 reported cases on food and healthcare prices.

To achieve the objectives of this study, food and healthcare services were regressed against CVC and lockdown stringency measures using the dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (DARDL) model. For this purpose, we used daily data for BRICST countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey.

The empirical evidence indicates that, in the long run, COVID-19 cases significantly and positively affect both food and healthcare prices in India, South Africa and China. In contrast, in the short run, COVID-19 positively affects food and healthcare prices in all countries except Russia and Turkey. Similarly, in the long run, the government stringency index (GSI) and Containment and Health Index (CHI) significantly affect health prices in India and South Africa. In contrast, GSI and CHI significantly affect healthcare prices in South Africa only in the short run. Finally, GSI and CHI significantly affect the food prices in the long run in India, South Africa and China and in the short run in South Africa only.

The widespread impact of the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) has made the world panic. COVID-19 affected all spheres of life, including food supplies and healthcare services. However, most of the empirical research failed to examine the impact of COVID-19 cases on food and healthcare prices which is the main focus of this study. Moreover, in the given context, the authors use a recently developed model that the previous studies failed to use.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting word-of-mouth (WOM) towards Islamic Banking (IB) in Jordan through understanding the roles of service quality and perceived value.

A self-administered survey was hand-delivered to the targeted sample of Islamic banks customers in Jordan. The authors delivered 400 questionnaires to customers from which 352 were deemed valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess the research constructs validity and composite reliability. Structural path analysis was also used to test the research model and hypothesised relationships between the variables.

Service quality has a positive and significant effect on perceived value and WOM towards IB. Convenience has a positive and significant effect on perceived value. Finally, perceived value has a positive and significant effect on WOM towards IB. Service quality exerted the strongest effect on perceived value and WOM. Also, 38 per cent of variation in perceived value was caused by religious motives, service quality and convenience path, whereas 34 per cent of variation in WOM towards IB was caused by perceived value, service quality and convenience path.

Future research needs to investigate other factors that may affect customers’ WOM concerning IB such as perceived bank image, trust and subjective norms. Future research should investigate other dimensions of perceived value such as social, psychological, emotional, sacrifice value and product values and how they affect WOM. From an international marketing standpoint, comparative studies between Jordanian and non-Jordanian Islamic customers are potential areas of future research for international marketing strategies and cross-cultural consumer behaviour analysis.

The paper identifies the determinants of WOM towards IB. Managers should focus on executing service quality strategies customised towards IB. Convenience is a major driver of perceived value and, then, WOM towards IB. Managers need to focus on key marketing messages that enhance religious motives in customers’ minds and hearts; however, attracting new customers and retaining the current ones depend on the perceived benefits in the areas of service quality, convenience and several value aspects.

This study is the first of its kind to test a model of WOM determinants in IB in Jordan. The study is thought to have made a reasonable contribution to consumer behaviour literature and, specifically, for decision-making process through developing and testing a model of WOM determinants towards IB. The study offers CEOs and marketing managers of Islamic banks new insights into the determinants of WOM and how they contribute to consumers’ decision-making process and attitudes to achieve the intended behavioural outcomes towards IB, which were not available at their hands before. These empirical findings are crucial inputs for marketing strategy formulation and implementation.

Highly committed, motivated and engaged employees assure organizational success and competitiveness. The study aims to examine the association between human resource development (HRD) practices and employee engagement with organizational commitment as a mediating variable.

Data were collected from 760 employees of 13 star-rated hotels comprising 5 (five-star) and 8 (four-star). The data supported the hypothesized relationships. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the proposed model and hypotheses. Construct validity and reliability were established through confirmatory factor analysis.

The results indicate that HRD practices and affective commitment are significantly associated. HRD practices and continuance commitment were shown to be non-significantly associated. HRD practices and normative commitment were shown to be non-significantly associated. Employee engagement and organizational commitment are significantly associated. The results further show that organizational commitment mediates the association between HRD practices and employee engagement.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research's hotel industry focus and cross sectional data.

The study's findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and policymakers of the hotel industry in the adoption, design and implementation of proactive HRD interventions to keep highly engaged and committed employees for organizational competitiveness and sustainability.

By evidencing empirically that organizational commitment mediates the nexus between HRD practices and employee engagement, the study extends the literature.

Procurement professionals widely use purchasing portfolio models to tailor purchasing strategies to different product groups’ needs. However, the application of these approaches in hospitals and the impact of a pandemic shock remain largely unknown. This paper aims to assess hospital purchasers’ procurement strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of factor-market rivalry (FMR) on strategies and the effectiveness of purchasing portfolio categorizations in this situation.

This qualitative study of hospital purchasing in the Netherlands is supported by secondary data from official government publications. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 hospital purchasers at large hospitals. An interpretative approach is used to analyze the interviews and present the results.

The findings reveal that product scarcity forces purchasers to treat them as (temporary) bottleneck items at the hospital level. The strategies adopted largely aligned with expected behavior based on Kraljic’s commodity management model. Adding the FMR perspective to the model helped to further cluster crisis strategies into meaningful categories. Besides inventory management, increasing supply, reducing demand and increasing resource coordination were the other common strategies. An important finding is that purchasers and governments serve as gatekeepers in channeling FMR, thereby reducing potential harmful competition between and within hospitals.

The devastating experience of the COVID-19 pandemic is unveiling critical weaknesses of public health-care provision in times of crisis. This study assesses the strategies hospital purchasers apply to counteract shortages in the supply chain. The findings of this study emphasize the importance of gatekeepers in times of crisis and present strategies purchasers can take to assure the supply of resources.

No research has been conducted on purchasing portfolio models and FMR implications for hospitals during pandemics. Therefore, the authors offer several insights: increasing the supply risk creates temporary bottleneck strategies, letting purchasers adopt a short-term perspective and emphasizing the high mobility of commodities in the Kraljic commodity matrix. Additionally, despite more collaboration uncovered in other studies regarding COVID-19, strong rivalry arose at the beginning of the pandemic, leading to increased competition and less collaboration. Given such increased FMR, procurement managers and governments become important gatekeepers to balance resource allocation during pandemics both within and between hospitals.