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This study aims to develop a conceptual model of positive employee experience using sentiment analysis within algorithm-based human resource (HR) strategies. Its goal is to enhance HR professionals’ understanding of employee experiences and enable data-driven decision-making to create a positive work environment, thereby contributing to the originality of HR research.

The study conducts sentiment analysis – a text mining technique – to assess employee reviews and extract distinct positive experience factors. The employed data-driven methodology serves to fortify the reliability and objectivity of the analysis, ultimately resulting in a more refined depiction of the conveyed sentiment.

Utilizing sentiment analysis, the authors identified 135 keywords that signify positive employee experiences. These keywords were then categorized into four clusters aligned with factors influencing employee experience: work, relationships, organizational system and organizational culture, employing an inductive approach. The framework outlines the process of nurturing positive employee experiences throughout the employee life cycle, incorporating insights from the affective events theory and cognitive appraisal theory.

Data-driven insights empower HR professionals to enhance employee satisfaction, engagement and productivity. HR managers implementing AI-assisted HR ecosystems need digital and data science skills. Additionally, these insights can offer practical support in accentuating diversity and ethical considerations within the organizational culture. Candid employee data can enhance leadership and support diversity in organizational culture. Managers play a crucial communication role, ensuring flexible access to personalized HR solutions.

Applying sentiment analysis through opinion mining allows for the collection of unstructured data, reflecting authentic employee perceptions. This innovative approach expedites issue identification and targeted actions, enhancing employee satisfaction. Textual reviews, integral to employee feedback, offer comprehensive insights. Additionally, considering subjectivity and review length in online employee reviews adds value to understanding experiences (Zhao et al., 2019). This study surpasses prior research by directly identifying key factors of employee experience through the analysis of actual employee review texts, addressing a gap in understanding beyond previous attempts.

The main aim of this paper is to explore the influence mechanisms of perceived organizational politics (POP) on employee performance (EP). Drawing on the job demands-resources theory (JD-R), this paper investigates opportunistic silence (OS) as a mediating factor and job level as a moderating effect in the POP-OS-performance relationship.

This study’s data were collected from 203 employees working in Indian high-power distance organizations (HPDOs), such as the military, police and security forces. Mediation and moderation analysis were conducted using PLS-SEM, and the moderated mediation index was calculated using Hayes PROCESS Macro.

The results indicate that OS fully mediates the POP-performance relationship – specifically, POP as a job demand activates OS, which acts as an energy/resource depleting mechanism and further deteriorates task performance. Interestingly, the overall negative influence of POP and OS on EP was stronger for employees at lower job levels than those at senior job levels.

This paper offers a unique set of findings that enrich the understanding of factors responsible for employees’ performance in the highly political environments of HPDOs. By using the lens of JD-R theory, this paper draws attention towards the tendency of employees to indulge in self-serving behaviours like OS in politically charged contexts which is detrimental to their performance and may also undermine overall organization’s productivity. Furthermore, this paper also highlights the conditional effects exerted by job level in the unique nexus of POP, OS and EP.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which a sample of US-based higher education institution’s (HEI’s) climate targets and associated climate action planning efforts align with the definitions of and practices associated with science-based targets (SBTs) that are typically used to organize corporate climate efforts. This analysis will be used to explore similarities and tease out differences between how US-based HEIs and corporations approach sustainable target setting and organize sustainable action.

The degree of intersection between a sample of HEI climate action plans from Ivy Plus (Ivy+) schools and the current SBT initiative (SBTi) general corporate protocol was assessed by using an objective-oriented evaluative approach.

While there were some areas of overlap between HEI’s climate action planning and SBTi’s general corporate protocol – for instance, the setting of both short- and long-term targets and large-scale investments in renewable energy – significant areas of difference in sampled HEIs included scant quantitative Scope 3 targets, the use offsets to meet short-term targets and a low absolute annual reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

This paper unites diverse areas of literature on SBTs, corporate sustainability target setting and sustainability in higher education. It provides an overview of the potential benefits and disadvantages of HEIs adopting SBTs and provides recommendations for the development of sector-specific SBTi guidelines.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained tremendous importance after several corporate scandals, financial crises and the rise of the hyper-competitive world. Firms must address multiple stakeholders’ interests to increase firm value. This study aims to investigate the effect of CSR on firm value. This study also examines the mediating role of enterprise risk management (ERM) and the moderating influence of corporate governance (CG) in this CSR-firm value relationship.

The sample of the study comprises 119 Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) listed firms and the study covers the period from 2010 to 2021. The corporate social responsibility performance has been quantified across five dimensions. These aspects are product, environment, employee relations, diversity and community. Four proxies i.e. strategy, operation, reporting and compliance, have been used to measure ERM. The governance quality of the sample companies was evaluated using the governance index, which included 29 governance provisions. The authors used the dynamic panel data technique (system-GMM) is used to achieve the objectives of the study. Furthermore, a firm’s engagement in CSR activities can also be measured through a multinational financial approach to check the robustness of the result.

Based on the regression analysis, the authors discovered that CSR was positively connected with firm value, validating the stakeholder view of CSR. Furthermore, following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) mediation technique, the findings confirm that ERM mediates this association. These results are robust by using the bootstrapping tests by Preacher and Hayes (2004). Furthermore, the result shows that corporate governance (CG) is positively connected with firm performance, and this relationship is strengthened in the presence of an effective governance system in the organization.

This study provides useful insights to regulators, investors and policymakers to consider CSR as a value-enhancing factor and encourage the development of enterprise risk management and compliance with CG mechanisms to improve firm value.

The presented analysis strengthens the existing CSR–firm value relationship by analyzing the mediating and moderating roles of ERM and CG, which have not yet been tested, particularly in the context of Pakistan.

To plan the future university campus, campus executives need decision-making support from theory and practice. Matching the static campus (supply) with the dynamic (demand) - while safeguarding spatial quality and sustainability - requires management information from similar organizations. This study presents an evidence-based briefing approach to support decision-makers of individual universities with management information when making decisions for their future campus.

For the proposed evidence-based briefing approach, the continuous Designing an Accommodation Strategy (DAS) framework is used in a mixed-method research design to evaluate the past to plan for the future. Five campus themes and three campus models (solid, liquid, and gas) are introduced to describe the development and diversification of university campuses and their impact across different university building types. Based on this theoretical framework, first, qualitative interview data are analyzed to understand which standards campus managers expect; second, a quantitative project database is used to demonstrate what is actually realized.

The findings demonstrate that remote working and online education will become more common. Academic workplaces and learning environments are more adaptive to changes than laboratory spaces. The analyses reveal different effective space use strategies to meet the current demand: they include space-efficient mixed-use buildings, and mono-functional generic educational and office spaces. These results show that operationalized evidence-based briefing can help design the future campus.

The study adds knowledge during a critical (post-COVID) period when decision-makers need evidence from others to adapt their campus management strategies to hybrid and sustainable ambitions.

The education services sector faces ever-changing global market dynamics with creative disruptions. Building knowledge brands can push the higher education sector beyond its geographical boundaries into the global arena. This study aims to identify key constructs, their theoretical background and dimensions that aid in building a global knowledge brand. The authors' research focuses on adapting and validating scales for global knowledge and education services brands from well-established academic literature.

The authors have adopted a mixed methodology approach and a systematic literature review. Authors interviewed 18 subject matter experts as part of content and face validity to arrive at select constructs, dimensions and items. Quantitative methods with random sampling were adopted as the primary methodology. Initially, the survey was administered to 390 students to test preliminary results. The survey was also administered to 5,112 students at a later part of this study. Valid responses stood at 3,244 with a 63% response rate. Further, the authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the reliability and validity of scales. This study analyzed composite reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity to finalize items for scales. The authors also validated the hypotheses based on the discriminant validity assessment scores.

Authors' key research findings are that academic stimulus, campus infrastructure and student intent play a significant role in campus culture and events design and experience at campus. Authors were able to bring out 16 key constructs and 55 critical dimensions vital to global education services brand building. This study also adapted and validated 99 items that meet construct validity and composite reliability criteria. This study also highlights that constructs such as student intent, academic stimulus, campus infrastructure scalability, selection mechanism, pedagogical content knowledge, brand identity, events experience and campus culture play a vital role in global brand recognition.

The authors' work is fairly generalizable to education services and the higher education sector. However, this study must be extrapolated and empirically validated in other industry sectors. The research implications of this study are that it aided the authors in building theoretical background for student brand loyalty theory, student expectation theory and study loyalty theory. This study adds to the body of knowledge by contributing to theoretical concepts on students, knowledge culture, events, infrastructure and branding. Researchers can adopt the scales proposed in this study to build research models in higher education branding. This study acts as a catalyst for building theories in education services areas. Researchers can delve deep into proposed research aspects of campus infrastructure, knowledge infrastructure, campus knowledge culture, events design and events experience.

This study aids educators and brand managers to develop global education services and optimize their effort and budget. Administrators in the education services sector must focus on practical aspects of student perception, campus infrastructure, culture and events experience. Practically administrators can reorient their efforts based on this study to achieve global brand recognition.

This study highlights that students are not customers but are co-creators of value in the education sector. This study provides scales and dimensions needed to build co-creation frameworks and models.

Most research in higher education branding has not covered wider aspects of global brand building. Existing theories proposed in higher education and education services articles cover only narrower aspects of campus infrastructure, culture, events design and branding. This study presents a comprehensive list of critical factors that play a vital role in global knowledge brand building. This study highlights the constructs and scales integral to building a global education services brand.

The role played by corporate governance mechanisms on corporate deleveraging policies has not been clarified. Empirical evidence is confined to developed economies, even with conflicting and inconclusive results. This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance mechanisms, such as ownership structure, board composition and CEO dominance, in explaining corporate deleveraging policies.

Using a sample of listed Pakistani firms between 2010 and 2022, this study resorts to binary response models to examine the effects of governance mechanisms on firms’ decision to go debt-free.

A greater ownership concentration, institutional ownership and family ownership increase the propensity for zero leverage. Board gender diversity decreases the propensity for deleveraging policies, which seems to indicate that the presence of females reinforces the monitoring function of the board. Finally, lower managerial ownership or CEO dominance decreases the propensity toward zero leverage (interest convergence hypothesis), but higher managerial ownership or CEO dominance increases the propensity toward zero leverage (managerial entrenchment hypothesis).

Risk-averse managers who prefer to control a firm using little or no debt will find it easier to implement these financing policies in firms with greater ownership concentration and where institutional holders have a substantial stake. For shareholders, this study suggests that investing in firms with females on board reduces the risk of corporate deleveraging policies being adopted for entrenched reasons.

The presence of females on board seems to decrease the propensity of managers to adopt opportunistic actions and may also contribute to enhancing human welfare and society in developing countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study considering the effect of board diversity on zero leverage. Another singularity is that this study exhibits a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and corporate deleveraging policy.

This study examines the moderating role of female directors on the relationship between the firms’ characteristics and tax avoidance in an emerging economy.

This study employs the second-generation unit root test and the generalised method of moments (GMM) techniques. The Kao residual cointegration test corroborates a long-run cointegration among variables.

Female directors demonstrate mixed and unusual findings. No significant impact of female directors on tax avoidance is found. In addition, the presence of female directors does not show any negative or significant moderating impacts on the relationship between leverage, firm age, board size and tax avoidance. However, having more female directors can negatively and significantly moderate the relationship between more profitable firms, larger firms and tax avoidance. These findings show that the board of directors could use the presence of female directors to maximise their opportunistic behaviour, such as to avoid tax.

Research limitations – The study is limited by considering only 62 listed firms. The scope could be extended to include non-listed firms.

Research implications – There is increasing pressure for female directors on boards from diverse stakeholders, such as the European Commission, national governments, politicians, employer lobby groups, shareholders, and Fortune and Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) rankings. This study provides input to decision-makers putting gender quota laws into practice. Our findings can help policy-makers adopt regulatory reforms to control tax avoidance practices and enhance organisational legitimacy. Policymakers can change their policy to include female directors up to the threshold suggested by the critical mass theory.

This is the first attempt in Bangladesh to explore the role of female directors in the relationship between the firms' characteristics and tax avoidance. The current study has significant ramifications for bringing gender diversity into practice as a component of good corporate governance.

Sustainability is essential to the ongoing operations of banks, though it is much less clear how Islamic corporate governance (ICG) promotes economic sustainability (ES) and thereby prevents bankruptcy. To explore the unexplored, this study aims to examine the efficacy of ICG in preventing bankruptcy and enhancing the ES of Islamic banks operating in Pakistan.

The current study measures ES through Altman's Z-score to analyze the level of the industry's stability and consequently examines the effect of ICG on the ES of Islamic banks in Pakistan for the post-financial-crises period. Using the country-level data, this study utilized a fixed-effect model and two-stage least squares (2SLS) techniques on balanced panel data spanning from 2009 to 2020 to provide empirical evidence.

The empirical results unveiled that board size and meetings have a significant positive influence on the ES while managerial ownership demonstrated an unfavorable effect on ES. Interestingly, the insignificant effect of women directors became significant with the inclusion of controlled variables. Overall, the findings indicate that ICG is an efficient tool for promoting ES in Islamic banks and preventing them from the negative effects of emerging crises.

The findings provide concrete insights for policymakers, regulators and other concerned stakeholders to execute a sturdy corporate governance system that not only oversees the economic, social and ethical aspects but also provides measures to alleviate the impacts of potential risks like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Examining the role of ICG in alleviating bankruptcy risk is an informative and useful endeavor for all social actors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first efforts to provide evidence-based insights on the role of ICG in preventing bankruptcy and offers a potential research direction for ES.

This paper aims to identify the factors that influence students' mental health, particularly in the context of MBA students passing through an emotional phase of the placement season.

A conceptual model through literature has been proposed. To test the proposed model of this study, a survey was conducted among the students of three MBA institutes of national reputation in India. The study's hypotheses were investigated using partial least squares-structural equations modeling and analysis of variance. To corroborate the findings of the survey data, a qualitative study in the form of open-ended interviews with five students was conducted.

The study revealed that female students, non-engineering graduates and students from non-family business backgrounds undergo stress, anxiety and depression higher than their classmates. Cumulative grade point average and bank loans do not significantly affect students' stress, anxiety and depression during the placement season. It was found that the increase in the levels of mindfulness scores led to a significant negative impact on stress, anxiety and depression among the students.

There is a gap in the literature that addresses the mental health of MBA students during campus job placements and the role of mindfulness in mitigating stress, anxiety and depression in these students. This research attempts to fill these research gaps.