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Lower Indus Basin (LIB) region is the food basket of Pakistan, and climatic variation in response to global warming might severely affect the crop production and, thus, food security and ultimately to the economy of the country.

The authors analyzed the previous climatic factors data series of LIB region to investigate the past and present climatic trends and to predict the future changes. Climatic changes were monitored by studying temperature, rainfall and relative humidity (RH) dynamics at two locations (Lahore and Multan) of the LIB region, Pakistan, by using data from 1953 to 2006. The data were divided into two equal halves (1953-1979 and 1980-2006) and statistically compared for the aforementioned weather parameters.

The results suggested that mean minimum temperature (MMT) and overall mean temperature in winter were significantly increased, whereas few summer months had also experienced the reduction in both temperatures. However, few minor changes were also observed for the mean maximum temperature at both locations. The rainfall amount did not vary significantly at both locations, with the exception for the months of February and June at Lahore location, which experienced relatively higher rainfall in latter period (1980-2006). However, morning and evening RH was significantly increased at Multan throughout the year and for some selected months (February-March and May-July) at Lahore. However, the comparison of climatic data of both temporal halves suggested either dryer weather during winter months because of increase in MMT and/or increase in area under irrigated agriculture, resulting in more evaporation at both locations. Similarly, the data also indicated the early monsoon rainfall patterns in summer and late western depression rainfall spell during winter, which played key role to affect the crop yield because of irregular rain events.

The current manuscript would be very useful for the disaster management authorities and agriculture sector to predict the future irregular trends of climate change in Pakistan. Moreover, current findings can be important tool toward the management of climatic changes issues (i.e. floods and dryer spells) and to formulate the future strategies for the improved crop growth in arid and/or semi-arid developing nations such as Pakistan.

The current manuscript, for the very first time, provided detailed insights into key climatic factors changes for past seven decades, into the severely climate change-affected areas of the world. Furthermore, agricultural sector is likely to be severely affected because of minor seasonal change in temperature and moisture, and have a strong food security impact, which can be reflected with current data set to cope with both ecological and economic impacts of climate change in Pakistan. The current findings would be useful to manage the climate change-related issues in Pakistan, including the social, environmental and economic.

Spatio-temporal variations in precipitation pattern of district Sargodha is one of the most significant researchable questions because of the massive reliance on rainfall for agricultural practice in the study area. The pattern of current rainfall in the study area is unexpectedly changed. The purpose of the present study is to examine the changing precipitation pattern and to link it with climate change.

The study was conducted by using rainfall data of the past 30 years collected from 8 meteorological stations around the study area. The averages of rainfall on monthly basis were temporally arranged, and the fluctuation trends were studied using GIS and statistics. The temporal data of rainfall were compared and contrasted with the precipitation normals of the study area from 1981to 2010. The rainfall deviation in the present study was calculated. The spatial pattern of rainfall was plotted by interpolating the eight points of Punjab around the study area for the first two decades, whereas the past decade was analysed by incorporating five more points of Tehsils in the existing eight. The spatial and statistical representation of data were examined by compare and contrast with the previous findings.

The rainfall in the study area showed remarkable changes in magnitude and spatiality. The rainfall in the district is on the rise, whereas the spatial pattern of rainfall is becoming more complex and anomalous in character. This paper provides convincing evidence about the impact of climate change on the magnitude and spatial patterns of precipitation in the study area.

It will be helpful for understanding the shifts in the rainfall pattern in future as well as for the preparation of response to the issue of climate change and its impacts.

The current manuscript, for the very first time, provided detailed insights about the precipitation pattern shifting during the last 30 years in district Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan. Furthermore, agricultural sector would likely get severally affected because of seasonal changes in climatic factors like rainfall and have strong food security implications. The current findings will be useful to manage the climate change-related issues in Pakistan and helpful for the policy makers to design a coping strategy for climate change impacts.

Health promotion strategies often attempt to change people’s behavior through targeting their risk perceptions. These perceptions may, however, be moderated by other factors. This study therefore aimed at investigating the trustworthiness and consistency of risk information, as well as respondent perceptions of the adequacy of amount received among a representative sample of former smokers, and how this information is related to gender, age, education level and whether using nicotine or not.

The respondents are part of a seven-year follow-up of former smokers in Sweden. Initially, 1400 respondents were contacted, whereof 705 (response rate 50%) answered a Web-survey. The majority (85 %) was still nicotine-free but some made use of nicotine in different forms. The data analysis includes descriptive statistics and logistic regressions.

Most respondents trusted risk information whether offered by the public authorities or came from other sources such as media, and generally perceived that there was an adequate amount. However, there were some differences between the products, where quite a few distrusted information on Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRTs) and some perceived the information on snus and NRTs as contradictory and too little.

Knowledge about how former smokers perceive information regarding negative aspects of cigarette use may facilitate more effective risk communication with current smokers, and it may also be important for communicating information about other nicotine products to those who are trying to or who already have quit smoking.

This study aims to explore the moderating role of cynicism about change in the positive relationship between authentic leadership and employee commitment to change.

This study used an exploratory research design with deductive approach to invite responses of doctors, nurses and para medical staff of public sector district hospitals, set to be privatized, on structured close-ended questionnaires. Data gathered from four hospitals chosen because they were undergoing restructuring that facilitated the testing of our propositions were analyzed through structural equation modeling using AMOS. A total of 271 usable responses (response rate of 65 per cent) were analyzed. Interaction and simple slope tests were applied to test moderating effects.

Results indicate that authentic leadership is positively related to commitment to change. Cynicism about change moderated this positive relationship such that a high level of authentic leadership has a stronger impact on commitment to change when cynicism is low rather than when cynicism is high.

Results show that in Pakistani hospitals undergoing restructuring, leaders who use authentic leadership will have followers who are more committed to enacting the planned changes, but this effect is magnified if followers are not cynical about the change. Thus, regulators of public sector hospitals may benefit from this study by developing authenticity in hospital leaders to mitigate cynicism about and enhance their commitment to change.

This study is the first which has explored relationships among cynicism about change, authentic leadership and commitment to change in a privatization context of Pakistan. Findings should be tested in other cultural contexts to determine generalizability.

Entrepreneurship, agriculture, small business management and strategic planning.

This case is most relevant to undergraduates.

This case is about Azad Ahmed who will soon graduate from his business school. He has the option of either landing in a high-paying job or joining his family business. Azad has the task of thinking for his family's future and turning the family business around. The case gives information on the condition of the agriculture sector in Pakistan, issues that the sector is facing, its non-traditional alternatives and the bright future it holds for the farmers who want to enter into agribusiness to capture international markets. The case also talks about how ownership structure of a family farm changes as the family expands further and baton is passed on to the future generations.

The case should get the students to define the term “family business” and weigh the perks and risks of working in a family business; recognize the importance of agriculture and farming in the Pakistani context; evaluate the dynamics of family expectations with respect to collectivistic society; identify the ownership transition stages and transition elements such as trigger points; define the term “agriprenuers”; and set up a business plan for agribusiness.

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Perception of organizational politics is one of the key factors of the organization's performance. Based on the principles of Game Theory, this study aims to examine the impact of management's and employee's politics within an organization on the psychological and organizational stress levels of workers, followed by their task and contextual performance.

Following the non-probability convenience sampling technique, the data was collected from the managerial and non-managerial staff of public, private and semi-government services organizations in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Abbottabad and Karachi cities in Pakistan.

The structural analyses indicate that organizational politics is a major cause of stress among workers and has a significant positive impact on the psychological and organizational stress of workers. Moreover, both organizational politics and job stress hinder workers' performance.

The findings of the current research provide valuable insights into the management of firms about the destructive role of politics with a special focus on psychological and organizational stress, followed by job and contextual performance, particularly in the context of Pakistan. It also proposes strategies to counter this issue, improving worker's performance. Furthermore, the findings also suggest whether management or employees are more involved in organizational politics.

The primary objectives of this paper are to examine the mediating effect of team learning (TL) in the relationship between shared leadership (SL) and team performance (TP), to investigate the important contingencies-moderating role of workplace bullying in the relationship between SL and TL and to investigate the moderating role of job insecurity in the relationship between TL and TP in health-care organizations.

Based on the social learning theory, this study used the aggregation approach to collect data, by using a structured questionnaire and the purposive sampling technique, from 223 respondents (60 leaders and 174 team members) of 60 sales teams from the top 10 pharmaceutical companies. A structural equation modeling on SmartPLS 3.2.9. was then used for analyzing the data collected.

The results indicate that SL significantly affects TP and that TL partially mediates this relationship. Workplace bullying has a significant impact as it reduces the effect of SL on TL and has a significant impact on TL. On the other hand, job insecurity has positively influenced TL and TP.

One of the first studies in the Pakistan health-care producer context used social learning theory to develop a contingency model based on important contingencies (workplace bullying and job insecurity). The study contributes to the existing literature on team leadership, highlighting how leadership can be translated into team performance.

The purpose of the study is to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry during the rise of worldwide pandemic crises using Twitter analysis. The study is based on 57,794 English-language tweets mined from Twitter from 1 April 2020 to 15 October 2020. Based on thematic and sentiment analysis, the study found that overall sentiments expressed on Twitter were negative. This chapter contributes to existing knowledge about the COVID-19 crisis and broadens the respondents’ understanding of the potential impacts of the crisis on the most vulnerable tourism and hospitality industry. This research emphasises the sustainable revival of the hospitality industry.

Underpinned by social cognitive and ecological systems theories, this research explored higher education students' entrepreneurial intentions (EI). It begins by exploring how various factors, including entrepreneurship education (EE), entrepreneurial motivation (EM) and entrepreneurial environment (EENV), contribute to the evolution of EI of students. Second, it examines the role of EM as an underlying mechanism between EE-EI and EENV-EI. Finally, this research explores how EENV moderates the EM and EI relationship.

The data were gathered from 366 college students pursuing higher education around India using a convenience sample technique. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to SmartPLSv.3.3.9 software to analyze the data.

A direct relationship was found between EE, EENV and EM with EI. Moreover, this research found a partial mediation of EM between EENV-EI and EE-EI paths. Also, the results show that EENV strengthens the link between EM and EI links.

This study offers valuable insights that can guide government agencies and higher education institutions (HEIs) in reshaping the landscape of entrepreneurial education at the university level. This transformation encompasses the integration of work-based learning experiences as a conduit for equipping students with tangible skills and exposing them to the realities of entrepreneurship in the real world.

This research considerably contributes to the current literature on entrepreneurship at HEIs by merging social cognitive and ecological systems theories. This research is a pioneering input to examine the underlying mechanism of entrepreneurial motivation between EENV, EE and EI.

In the light of the case and the accompanying case questions, the students should understand:1. The theoretical underpinnings of the brand positioning and brand repositioning.2. Critical evaluation of marketing communication material in the light of theoretical underpinnings.3. The nuances of operating in emerging markets in technology-driven sectors.4. The intricate link between the business goals and communication goals5. The application of the attention-interest-desire-action model and the brand media wheel when translating business strategies into communication strategies.

It was in June 2016, when Asad Haroon, the young head of brands at Ufone, a Pakistani originated telecom operating company, was posed with a challenge of dwindling subscriber identity module card sales, deteriorating average revenue per user and an exponential increase in customer churn. The telecom industry itself was in a flux due to various factors such as changes in the regulatory frameworks and technological shifts.Asad felt that the reason for the brand’s decline might be the lack of synergy between the business strategy and the brand’s communication strategy.Asad knew that he would have to make some unpopular choices and review his brand’s communication strategy which had not yet proved to create a harmony between communication goals and business goals. However, he was unsure about how and if at all he should go about changing a marketing legacy and the brand’s positioning which had reigned the minds of his peers and his customers for so long.

This case is aimed toward undergraduate students enrolled in courses of principles of marketing, marketing communications and corporate media strategy.

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CSS 8: Marketing