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This study endeavours to (a) develop a comprehensive interpretive structural modelling (ISM) toolkit containing sufficient details about the suitability and procedural aspects of each ISM approach and offer points of reference for budding researchers, (b) highlight the compatibility of ISM approaches with other qualitative and quantitative approaches, and (c) chalk-out an agenda for future research.

This study is based on an extensive review of 74 studies where researchers have used one or more ISM approaches. These studies span across the different industry sectors.

There exists a huge void in terms of the methodological synthesis of ISM approaches. ISM approaches are frequently used in sync with other qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, it highlights the need of improving the robustness of the proposed ISM models by sharing the critical details of research process.

Being a review-based work, it could not illustrate the discussed ISM approaches with real data. However, it offers a research agenda for the prospective researchers.

The prerequisites, pitfalls, suitability and the procedural aspects of various ISM approaches contained in this toolkit are equally useful for the academicians as well as practitioners.

In the absence of a synthesized framework, this study contributes a comprehensive ISM toolkit which will help the researchers to choose a suitable ISM approach in a given case.

This paper draws on the affordance perspective, to explore the social media (SM) usage experiences that might render valuable for academic women professionals, for knowledge exchange, networking and success. Owing to the increased SM usage during COVID-19 pandemic, this paper tries to find out that in what ways do SM affordances facilitate the underprivileged group of women professionals to grow in their careers in a masculine, conservative society through knowledge exchange.

By utilizing qualitative study design, the authors collected data from 31 women employed in Pakistani universities, through unstructured questionnaires. The responses were analyzed through Nvivo.

The generated themes suggested that women in Pakistan are aware of SM's potential for knowledge exchange among fellow professionals. They use it to aid them in communication, collaboration and networking. Additionally, they utilize it to share knowledge and build networks that are vital for career progression and success.

The paper concludes with the implications for practitioners that would aid them in boosting career prospects for women academicians through SM usage in a developing country Pakistan; where women's career outlooks are not as promising as for men; or as bright as for women working in the developed economies.

This a unique attempt to explore knowledge exchange dimensions with the help of SM in the context of working women by the deploying the phenomenological approach.

This paper aims to investigate whether the effect of competitive strategies on the performance is significantly different for fully fledged Islamic banks vis-a-vis conventional banks with Islamic window. Specifically, two competitive strategies namely the low-cost strategy and the differentiation strategy were considered. In addition, we examined further the competitive strategies–performance nexus by introducing enterprise risk management as a mediating factor.

This study used structured questionnaires to collect data from 506 respondents (251 from fully fledged Islamic banks and 255 from conventional banks with Islamic window). A disjoint two-stage approach was employed to analyze a hierarchical component model. Construct Level Correction and Measured Latent Marker Variable approaches were employed to assess the common method variance. As a robustness check, two-stage approach was used to explore the curvilinear relationship, and the Gaussian copula approach was adopted to address the endogeneity issue.

The findings show the evidence of complementary partial mediation in the relationships between low-cost strategy, differentiation strategy, and performance through enterprise risk management practices in both types of banks.

Competitive strategies are essential as they send signals to owners, managers, policymakers, and regulatory authorities. On the one hand, fully fledged Islamic banks face dual competition from pure conventional counterparts as well as conventional banks with Islamic window. On the other hand, Islamic window banks also face strong competition from the fully fledged Islamic banks due to their strong Shariah roots. Hence, this competitive pressure on both types of banks calls for more attention to focus on competitive strategies and enterprise risk management practices to accelerate their performance and overcome the bank risk. Moreover, these competitive strategies can be used as a tool to enter into a new market by reducing costs and risks. Besides, banks cannot achieve a competitive advantage without implementing enterprise risk management practices because competitive strategies are significant antecedents of enterprise risk management practices. Therefore, this study recommends both types of banks to focus on enterprise risk management practices to make these strategies successful.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the competitive strategies–performance nexus and the mediating role of enterprise risk management practices in an unexplored area of Islamic banking.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically how the two kinds of strategic orientations including export market orientation (EMO) and technology orientation (TO) predict innovation performance (IP) and export performance (EP), by investigating the mediation effect of IP and the moderation effect of external network (EN).

The statistical population of this research is the food and agricultural products exporting firms which participated in the 26th International Agrofood Exhibition in Tehran, Iran. The sample of 296 managers filled out questionnaires using systematic random sampling methods. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Results demonstrate that the increase of EMO and IP is related to a rise in EP. Furthermore, the research finds that IP is a partial mediator in the link between EMO and EP. Finally, the moderation impact of the external networks in an association between TO and IP is supported by the data.

This study is one of the limited number of studies to consider the mediation impact of innovation performance in the relationship between EMO and EP, and it is actually the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate the moderating impact of EN in the relationship between TO and IP in the context of one developing country.

Governing principles of the world countries' current foreign policies are based on nationalism and in the realization of this aspiration, human rights in other countries are less considered and demands of national interests on other issues are surpassed. Islam, in principle, is opposite to this approach. However, national interests are important in Islam, but Islam does not try to achieve this target by destruction of other countries and rights violations of their peoples. Interests of Islam's government are based on expediency of humankind as a whole and its foreign policy should be arranged in a way to fulfill this target. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the basic principles of foreign policy in Islam based on the Sufi standpoint.

Islam aims to improve humanities based on moralities and spiritualities. Some principles for reaching this goal based on Islamic Sufism standpoints are provided.

In total, 32 principles are introduced.

Comparative researches in other religions' Gnosticism will be helpful.

These principles can be used for applied debates in the field and be ended to new international regulations.

Delicateness, truthfulness, and righteousness of Islamic Sufism, may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this viewpoint, and enable a new set of regulations to be codified.

Political scientists have not touched the topic from a Sufi point of view. This paper brings this approach to a new challenging arena.

The purpose of this study is to make students understand the logic behind and implications of the “Socio-Technical Imbrication Framework” that can help them understand the importance of aligning workforce motivation and capabilities with the modern technology deployed in the organization. Moreover, students will understand the essentiality and criticality of customer satisfaction for the organization.

The technical services operations team at Cotton Web Limited formerly relied on JS Node, e-coordination system, to address customer complaints. There were many bugs in that system as it did not carry along the complaint tracking protocol, was slow in response, fundamentally structured upon manual complaint record keeping that resulted in piling up un-resolved complaints for a longer period of time. The team under the leadership of Mr. Hasan Ali, a competent expert working as GM Research and Data Analytics, undertook detailed analysis of recurring glitches in this system and replaced it with a novel Web-based automated complaint management system at Cotton Web Limited. This entire diagnosis and intervention process took almost three months till completion. The case is written for use in courses in the curriculum of BBA, BBIS, BSIT and BSCS programs at undergraduate level. It is most suitable for the courses in leadership, change management, business process reengineering, soft engineering, team building and business communication.

The case is suitable for teaching at Undergraduate level to the students of BBIS, BBA, BSCS and BSIT students in the last year of their degree programs. Teaching faculty can use case-based methodology for student learning by putting them into a real-life situation faced by an organization and letting them think critically and identify following points for further discussion and clarity: individual or in groups; problem identification through discussion; the stakeholders involved in the company’s situation through presentation or one-pager presentation; case analysis with reaching best solution to prevailing issue at hand through group discussion; reaching a decision or solution with reasonable logic and justification through group discussions; and create further dilemma on the basis of questions unanswered within this case story.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical analysis of the disaster management structure, policies and institutions in Pakistan between 1947 and 2005, and highlights the contemporary challenges in view of the learning from the past.

The paper uses a historic-integrative case study approach to disaster management and risk reduction policy, planning and practice. Qualitative data were collected through purposive sampling and a case study design was adopted. A broad range of actors was recruited as research participants. In total, 22 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in relation to this study in six different districts of Pakistan to achieve insight into the role of different institutions and stakeholders.

Overall, the post-colonial flood-centric policy framework and fragmented responsibilities of different disaster management institutions show the lack of an effective institutional structure for disaster management and mitigation in Pakistan, particularly at the local level. Until the event of the 2005 earthquake, policies heavily relied on attaining immediate and short-term goals of response and relief while ignoring the long-term objectives of strategic planning for prevention and preparedness as well as capacity building and empowerment of local institutions and communities.

The analysis explains, in part, why disaster planning and management needs to be given due attention in the developing countries at different policy scales (from local to national) especially in the face of limited resources, and what measures should be taken to improve effectiveness at different phases of the disaster management cycle.

The paper advances the importance of a historical case study approach to disaster management and mitigation. The empirical work provides original research evidence about the approaches to dealing with disasters in Pakistan and thus enriches existing knowledge of disaster management policy and planning about the country.

The purpose of this paper is to show how individual law is defined in Islam. Individual law includes a set of human rights that the government is bound to vindicate by duty. Islamic law approach is how human beings transcendence, and freedom may be formed wisely.

Spiritual flourishing is the goal of Islamic Sufism. The main topics of individual freedom are discussed here are freedom of opinion, will, religion, speech, meeting, minorities, rule of law, equality before law, rights resulted from implementing justice, ownership and self-determination of destiny and jobs, which are explained through the Islamic Sufism viewpoint.

By comparing individual law in Islamic law with the other law schools, transcendence of the former is more clarified.

Comparative research of the other religions’ gnosticism will develop the paradigm.

The principles highlighted in this study can be used for applied debates in the field to promote individual law for understanding and recompilation.

Delicateness, truthfulness and righteousness of Islamic Sufism may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this rich viewpoint.

Individual law scholars have not touched the topic from this viewpoint. This paper opens new challenging area.

This paper aims to investigate the general rules of diplomacy and the manner of the Islamic government's behavior with other nations and governments from the viewpoint of Sufi mystics. The aim of diplomacy in Islam is not only summarized in getting benefits for her country. The aim of diplomacy in Islam is to develop human transcendence by divine teachings and is superior to just material benefits and privileges exchange. Basically, the Islam's government does not look at the other countries as a source of exploitation but as a brother or neighbor attempting to organize relations. In the current system of international relations in the world, so much attention has been paid to material benefits; but ethics and spiritualities are ignored.

Islamic diplomacy with the aim of improving moralities and spiritualities attempts to create relations with other countries. Some principles for reaching this goal based on Islamic Sufism standpoints are provided.

A total of 23 principles are introduced.

Comparative research in other religions' Gnosticism will be helpful.

These principles can be used for applied debates in the field and be ended to new international regulations.

Delicateness, truthfulness, and righteousness of Islamic Sufism, may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this viewpoint, and a new set of regulations to be codified.

Political scientists have not touched the topic from a Sufi point of view. This paper brings this approach to a new challenging arena for those who are engaged in it.