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This study aims to explore the constructs of spirituality (SP) and entrepreneurial performance (EP) and their measurements to identify their connections. Attending to the needs of entrepreneurs to face the current global crisis, this research establishes a framework that integrates SP to enhance EP.

This study focuses on a comprehensive literature review and a comparison between constructs to come across with the proposal of a conceptual framework.

For SP, spiritual well-being was found as a good measure which, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has never been used in entrepreneurship. EP has been typically measured by economic indicators, but recently, noneconomic benefits and effects on stakeholders have also been considered, so an integrated approach is proposed. The main contribution is a framework called holistic entrepreneurial inventory (HEI), which integrates the main elements of the constructs in a matrix showing their interconnection. It is accompanied by a scorecard for entrepreneurs to identify strengths and weaknesses in SP and EP.

This is a theoretical research and proposal; further empirical research could help confirm the present conceptual findings.

To help entrepreneurs identify the areas where they would like to improve, understanding the connection between SP and EP, which are dynamic states in constant change.

EP has been mainly focused on exogenous causes. The HEI scorecard may give entrepreneurs a different perspective from the innermost part of their being.

This study aims to evaluate the presence of abnormal returns due to stock splits or reverse stock splits in the Brazilian capital market context.

The event study technique was used on data from 518 events that occurred in a 30-year period (1987–2016), comprising 167 stock splits and 351 reverse stock splits.

The results revealed the occurrence of abnormal returns around the time the shares began trading stock splits or reverse stock splits at a statistical significance level of 5%. The main conclusion is that stock split and reverse stock split operations represent opportunities for extraordinary gains and may serve as a reference for investment strategies in the Brazilian stock market.

This study innovates by including reverse stock splits, as the existing literature focuses on stock splits, and by testing two distinct “zero” dates that of the ordinary general meeting that approved the share alteration and the “ex” date of the alteration, when the shares were effectively traded, reverse split or split.

This study aims to investigate the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the link between board independence, board diversity and dividend payouts underpinning the agency theory perspective. As boards are ultimately responsible for decision-making, it includes CSR, dividend payouts and other strategic decisions.

Board independence and board diversity (female director, female independent director) are used as explanatory variables, CSR scores as a mediator and dividend payout explained variables. The relevant data were collected from 159 listed firms of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from 2013 to 2019, consisting of 1,113 year-firm observations. For empirical estimation, the study used the Tobit regression analysis and Sobel test to check the significance of the mediation to confirm the hypothesis.

The results confirm that independence and diversity on the board are positively related to dividend payouts. Further, CSR partially mediates the link between independence and diversity on board-dividend payouts, which confirms the argument that firms with involvement in CSR practices are also associated with dividend payouts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is novel to address whether CSR mediates the link of the board’s independence and diversity and dividend payouts in Pakistan’s setting. The results of this study have restricted generalizability due to the specific nature of the sample characteristics; future researchers can extend the research scope.

Theoretically practically, the results imply that CSR spending also enhances the distribution to firms' shareholders, thus becoming attractive to investors. This study enriches the literature on board attributes-dividend policy nexus, which strengthens through CSR practices and is relevant to practice in line with sustainable development in an emerging context.

CSR practices are an understudied but significant factor that links stakeholders' beliefs about firms' decision-making strategies, enhancing dividend announcements. In doing so, this study's findings contribute to the literature, regulators, shareholders and investor at various levels.

Among the various applications involving the use of microwave energy, its growing utility within the mining industry is particularly noteworthy. Conventional grinding processes are often overburdened by energy inefficiencies that are directly related to machine wear, pollution and rising project costs. In this work, we numerically investigate the effects of microwave pretreatment through a series of compression tests as a means to help mitigate these energy inefficiencies.

We investigate the effects of microwave pretreatment on various rock samples, as quantified by uniaxial compression tests. In particular, we assign sample heterogeneity based on a Gaussian statistical distribution and invoke a damage model for elemental tensile and compressive stresses based on the maximum tensile stress and the Mohr–Coulomb theories, respectively. We further couple the electromagnetic, thermal and solid displacement relations using finite element modeling.

(1) Increased power intensity during microwave pretreatment results in decreased axial compressive stress. (2) Leveraging statistics to induce variable compressive and tensile strength can greatly facilitate sample heterogeneity and prove necessary for damage modeling. (3) There exists a nonlinear trend to the reduction in smax with increasing power levels, implying an optimum energy output efficiency to create the maximum degradation-power cost relationship.

Previous research in this area has been largely limited to two-dimensional thermo-electric models. The onset of high-performance computing has allowed for the development of high-fidelity, three-dimensional models with coupled equations for electromagnetics, heat transfer and solid mechanics.

The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008 had far-reaching consequences for the global economy, triggering widespread economic turmoil. We use the event-study method to investigate whether investors priced the effect of significant events before the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in European and Asia-Pacific banks. Abnormal returns on the event days range from −4.32% to 5.03% in Europe and −5.13% to 6.57% in Asia-Pacific countries. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 15, 2008, abnormal returns averaged the lowest at −4.32% in Europe and −5.13% in Asia-Pacific countries. The significant abnormal returns show that Lehman Brothers' collapse was a turning point, and investors paid attention to the precrisis events as warning signs of the oncoming crisis.

In response to growing concerns over the negative consequences of Internet addiction on adolescents’ mental health, coupled with conflicting results in this literature stream, this meta-analysis sought to (1) examine the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents, (2) examine the moderating role of Internet freedom across countries, and (3) examine the mediating role of excessive daytime sleepiness.

In total, 52 studies were analyzed using robust variance estimation and meta-analytic structural equation modeling.

There was a significant and moderate association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, Internet freedom did not explain heterogeneity in this literature stream before and after controlling for study quality and the percentage of female participants. In support of the displacement hypothesis, this study found that Internet addiction contributes to depressive symptoms through excessive daytime sleepiness (proportion mediated = 17.48%). As the evidence suggests, excessive daytime sleepiness displaces a host of activities beneficial for maintaining mental health. The results were subjected to a battery of robustness checks and the conclusions remain unchanged.

The results underscore the negative consequences of Internet addiction in adolescents. Addressing this issue would involve interventions that promote sleep hygiene and greater offline engagement with peers to alleviate depressive symptoms.

This study utilizes robust meta-analytic techniques to provide the most comprehensive examination of the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents. The implications intersect with the shared interests of social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers.

This chapter investigates the cost of public debt for firms using a comprehensive sample consisting of 17,368 industrial bond issues from 1970 to 2011. The empirical evidence shows that yield spreads for seasoned bond issues are significantly lower than those for initial bond issues. This seasoning effect is robust across different sample periods, subsamples, and model specifications. On average, the yield spreads for seasoned bond issues are around 50 bps lower than those for initial bond issues. This difference cannot be explained by other bond and firm characteristics. The seasoning effect is more pronounced for firms with higher levels of uncertainty, lower information disclosure quality, and longer time intervals between the first and subsequent issues. Our empirical findings provide supportive evidence for the extant theories that aim to rationalize the information role in determining the cost of capital.

Faculty play a unique role in universities performing duties along the three fronts of teaching, research and service. While it might be teaching that contributes most to the bottom line of a small university, it is often research by which faculty merit is judged. This study explores the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment (affective, normative and continuance) as mediated by job satisfaction among faculty members.

A sample of 133 faculty members at a US-accredited university in Lebanon served as the basis for this study. The faculty members completed a survey covering scales on role ambiguity, role conflict, commitment and job satisfaction in addition to demographic variables.

We find that a decrease in role ambiguity strengthens affective and normative commitment but weakens continuance commitment. Structural equation modeling indicates that job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between role ambiguity and affective commitment, while not mediating the relationship between role ambiguity and normative and continuance commitments. Similar findings hold for job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between role conflict and commitment.

Based on statistical modeling, this work (1) puts forth a revised scale for organizational commitment tailored to academia and (2) provides guidance to higher education institutions in terms of the differential impacts on faculty commitment that stem from reducing role-ambiguity versus role-conflict. Managerial recommendations focus on improving normative and affective commitment through the design of policies to reduce role conflict among faculty.