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Previous studies have shown how the nature of businesses and the strategies pursued by their owners are affected by the personality traits of their owners. These personality traits can be formed in the early stages of life due to experiences and the surrounding context, where religion is a particularly important aspect of this context. This study aims to explore how religion affects entrepreneurial activities through the personality traits created.

This study uses interviews with 43 Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland to examine the role played by religion. This ensures that the national institutional context is kept consistent but also allows an in-depth examination of relationships, which are likely to be interlinked and recursive.

The traits created influence the nature of the entrepreneurial activities undertaken with the potential to harm and support the entrepreneurial endeavours. It is the combination of personality traits that are formed which have the greatest effect. As such, it is found that Muslim entrepreneurs display less openness and creativity associated with new ideas, but this does not reflect risk aversion rather hard work in itself is valued, and patience combined with an external locus of control mean entrepreneurial behaviours are not altered to boost poorly performing business activities.

For Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland, their traits explain why growth may not be a foremost consideration of these entrepreneurs rather they may value hard work and meeting the ideals of formal and informal institutions associated with religion. For those seeking to support minority groups through the promotion of entrepreneurship, either they must seek to overcome these ingrained traits or alter support to complement the different objectives held by Muslim entrepreneurs.

In the presence of informal sector in the country, designing an energy policy and the pursuit of higher economic growth become challenging for emerging economies. These economies are usually resource starved, and the presence of underground economy leads to faulty estimates of energy demand. The authors explore the energy–growth nexus in the presence of underground economy for Pakistan, an emerging economy host to large informal sector and facing recurring energy crises.

The authors evaluate the impact of underground economy on energy demand in the presence of explanatory variables, including official gross domestic product (GDP), foreign direct investment and financial development. The authors first assess the influence of official economy on the consumption of energy. The authors investigate how energy consumption is influenced solely by underground economy. Finally, the authors evaluate the impact of true GDP on the energy consumption. The authors employ combined cointegration method of Bayer and Hanck (2013) and then apply vector error correction model.

The results reveal that official GDP, underground economy and true GDP positively and significantly affect energy consumption in both short and long run. Similarly, financial development as well as foreign direct investment enhance energy consumption. The authors find unidirectional causality between energy consumption and official GDP variables (OGDP → EC), underground economy (UE → EC) and true GDP variables (TGDP → EC) in the long run. The authors observe bidirectional causality in the short run between energy consumption and official GDP (OGDP ↔ EC) and true GDP (TGDP ↔ EC).

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study examines the causal relationship of energy consumption and underground economy. Overall, the findings assist policymakers to consider and implement different energy-related policies considering the significant role of underground economy for energy consumption in Pakistan.

Stock market performance is paramount to every country, as it signifies economic growth, business performance, wealth maximization, savings deployment and consumer confidence. This study investigates the disparities in the market performance of listed firms in Romania. This study also examines whether the COVID-19 crisis affected market performance.

The data were collected from 69 firms listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) from 2018 to 2022, belonging to 11 sectors. This study used several methods to achieve its objectives. Difference tests were considered to analyze the performance of Romanian companies before and during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as across sectors. Regression analysis was also conducted to estimate the effect of the COVID-19 crisis and classification type on Romanian companies' performance. Additional analyses were performed to verify the findings of the present study.

The study’s findings indicate a clear difference in market performance between the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The COVID-19 pandemic had an adverse and significant impact on market performance. However, after the market contraction in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the stock market outperformed the pre-pandemic capitalization levels and the regional and global indices evolution. Furthermore, there was a difference in market performance across sectors. In particular, the communication services sector has specifically demonstrated accelerated growth.

This research examines the variation in the market performance of companies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and across different sectors. It also provides evidence of the potential impact of COVID-19 on firms' market performance. This research contributes to a better understanding of how sectors perform during times of crisis.

The paper aims to examine the effect of justice perceptions of performance appraisal (JPPA) practices (i.e. distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice) on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and affective commitment (AC) and the effect of AC on OCB. Further, it investigates the mediating role of AC in the relationship between JPPA practices and OCB. Moreover, this study examines the moderating effect of job level on the relationship between JPPA practices and OCB.

The data were collected using a self-reported structured questionnaire. A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed among the employees of 50 information technology (IT) companies in India, and 503 samples were obtained. The conceptual framework was tested using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method, and the moderating effect was tested using process macro.

The findings of this study reveal that the JPPA practices positively affect OCB and AC and AC affects OCB. Further, AC partially mediates this relationship between JPPA practices and OCB. Furthermore, the direct effect of JPPA practices on OCB happens to be strengthened when the job level decreases, thus confirming the moderating role of job level.

The findings of this study augment the social exchange theory (SET) by suggesting that individuals perceiving justice or fairness in performance appraisal practices are likely to have a greater AC that ultimately engages employees in OCB.

This study will be helpful for human resource practitioners in IT companies who are responsible for the fairness of performance appraisal practices and expect their employees to be emotionally attached to the organization and engaged in OCB.

The study adds to the body of knowledge of how justice in performance appraisal practices links to OCB through AC and moderates by job level in an emerging economy in Asia.