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This study delves into the transformation of UAE-Israel relations, which transitioned from a long-term rivalry to a formal peace agreement in 2020. It aims to uncover the multifaceted elements that influenced both nations’ pursuit of bilateral negotiations, with a special emphasis on the role of unofficial collaboration.

Employing a case study approach, the research traces the evolution of the UAE-Israel ties, mapping their progression from covert collaborations to public accords. This exploration is set against a backdrop of political, economic, and societal factors that have historically characterized the broader Israel-Arab conflict. Real-world dynamics and theoretical constructs are analyzed in tandem to derive comprehensive insights.

Key drivers for the transformation of UAE-Israel relations included the threat from Iran, internal disturbances, economic stresses, and the strategic advantages of discreet diplomacy. Exogenous catalysts like the Covid-19 pandemic and Israel's annexation plans in 2019-2020 played pivotal roles, capitalizing on pre-existing covert collaborations and shared regional interests. Constructive strategies, notably inducements, effectively reshaped their adversarial relationship. The resultant U.S.-mediated agreement conferred strategic, security, economic, and diplomatic benefits to both parties. Importantly, the potency of conengagement conflict management strategy, especially when bolstered by exogenous factors and growing mutual interest, emerged as a game-changer in terminating longstanding rivalries.

This study offers a unique perspective on Israel-UAE relations, emphasizing the significance of covert engagements, inducements, and the innovative conengagement strategy in conflict resolution. By examining a relationship devoid of direct armed conflict, the research underscores the interplay of economic, political, and societal factors in reshaping rivalries. This case study serves as a testament to the potential for transformative change in enduring disputes when the right conditions and strategies align, supplementing conventional perspectives and offering valuable implications for policy and mediation initiatives in the Middle East.

This study aims to measure the absolute impact of corporate citizenship actions on the operable elements of the public image by developing an adequate and parsimonious instrument.

Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used, where initially a literature review is systematized, then related statements are created, examined and confirmed. Altogether, 296 responses have been tested at discrete points, allowing for a temporal split-up of observations, where the first 148 forms have been used for exploratory factor analysis and the remaining 148 for confirmatory factor analysis.

The results of exploratory factor analysis revealed that the proposed instrument contains 13 items under three components: corporate citizenship and public affiliation; corporate citizenship and public allegiance; and corporate citizenship and public accomplishment. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis findings attest to the completeness, robustness and fitness of the same.

This experiment would serve as an inducement that would bridge the theoretical and empirical gap between corporate citizenship and public image by imparting an extensive perspective.

Perhaps on account of the lack of an inclusive instrument, the holistic view of corporate citizenship has secured quite less empirical attention so far, particularly from the perception of that group of stakeholders who manifest wholeness. This study, thus by making a ground-breaking methodological endeavor with the conceptually established construct of public image, would abet in shaping a new class of “wholistic”, i.e. whole and holistic corporations.

Assessing the research performance of researchers offers inducement toward excellence in research. This study aims to analyze the research productivity of the most prolific authors of Pakistan considering their trends toward publications, citations and collaboration.

Top 100 authors from the top 10 Pakistani universities from Web of Science over the 10 years with the rigorous data cleaning process were selected. Scientometric analysis techniques were carried out to evaluate the research profile of these authors.

The findings revealed that majority of the productive authors were male working in the position of Professor in the physical sciences area. The publications and citations gradually increase with time. They preferred to collaborate for their publications, while first authorship publications were found less in number. Moreover, the propensity to collaborate at the international level increases double-fold from the first five years to the next five years period. In addition, the position of the authors was explored among different performance metrics. The finding exhibits variation in the ranking of authors among them. The impact of numbers of authors, funding status, publication of articles, presence of collaboration and international collaboration on the dependent variable and citation count was insignificant. However, the publication of review papers has a significant impact on the citation counts.

Findings have significant implications for policymakers to make maximum opportunities for researchers to strengthen linkages for collaboration and increase the funding prospects.

Studies on this topic are scarce, and therefore, this study provides useful recommendations to researchers and institutes to improve research productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and evaluate the current legal position on the admissibility and exclusion of illegally obtained evidence in money laundering cases.

A thorough exploratory analytical analysis signifies that such illegally obtained evidence from money laundering offences is admissible, provided it does not undermine the administration of justice or the right to a fair trial.

By virtue of the lack of written or codified rules governing the admissibility and exclusion of illegally obtained evidence in cases involving money laundering, the rule of admissibility remains the primary foundational principle for the governance of the admissibility and exclusion of illegally obtained evidence in money laundering cases.

The Malaysian Criminal Justice System has historically relied on the long-standing admissibility principles to admit and exclude illegally obtained evidence. For decades, courts have used their discretion to admit illegally obtained evidence based on the relevancy test, and they have further demonstrated to use the same discretion to exclude gravely prejudicial evidence. Evidence obtained illegally but if relevant to the matter in issue is deemed admissible. Evidence derived from an act associated with unlawful activities or a predicate offence in money laundering may be obtained illegally, which may influence the prosecution case and conversely, defend the accused’s rights to a fair trial.

This study aims to explore the mediating role of employee work engagement in the relationship between training and creativity in the education sector in India.

The sample for this study consisted of 260 faculty members from 11 public universities in the Punjab region. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilized to test the hypotheses.

The results of the study revealed that training has a significant direct and indirect effect on employee creativity through employee work engagement. The findings suggest that training can stimulate work engagement, highlighting the importance of fostering employee engagement for enhancing creativity.

While the method used in this study may not facilitate direct generalizations, it offers valuable insights into prevalent discursive strategies found in numerous contemporary public organizations.

The findings offer insights for designing targeted training interventions to enhance work engagement and foster creativity among faculty members in the education sector.

This study contributes to the existing literature by addressing a gap in research on the interaction between training, work engagement and creativity. As there have been limited studies on this topic in the education sector in India, this research provides novel insights and extends the understanding of how these variables are related.

News items like “A whopping 2 lakh gullible investors were cheated…….” amply illustrate the extent of problems and hardships caused by financial frauds related to Ponzi schemes, collective investment schemes (CIS), unregulated deposit schemes, etc. In India, over the years, many Ponzi and unregulated investment schemes have taken place, causing huge economic and financial loss to Indian economy. This paper aims to examine why investment such schemes like Ponzi schemes and CIS become popular, how such schemes got operated in different periods and what could be done to safeguard the interests of investors.

The analysis is done based on secondary data and research work of various researchers, organisation and institutions, which are available in the public domain.

This paper has tried to analyse various characteristics of such fraudulent schemes, like their modus operandi, promotional activity, background of promoters and legal process involved in recouping financial loss of millions of investors. This paper also examines the demand-side factors that are responsible for popularity of those schemes in India. Noting the regulatory changes and other initiative taken by regulatory authorities to control the supply of unregulated investment schemes, this paper indicates potential actions, which could be undertaken to make people aware about the risks and issues related with such fraudulent schemes.

This paper gives an overview about various aspects of unregulated investment schemes, which have duped numerous people at different point of time. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research work is original and has not been published in any other journal.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the regulatory barriers to achieving sustainable buildings in Kosovo. The present paper focuses on regulatory barriers viewed from the perspective of construction industry experts in achieving sustainable buildings.

The present study uses a qualitative research method and semi-structured interviews as a research instrument. The present study interviews around 20 experts in construction and property management, property development, spatial planning and energy management.

The study finds that Kosovo building laws and regulations provide for the materials assessment criteria, but the materials assessment criteria are only for mechanic strength. The study further finds that the sustainability concept is not included and incorporated in Kosovo's urban planning laws and regulations. The study also finds that despite specific clauses mentioning energy performance certificates in the Law on Energy Performance of Buildings in Kosovo, energy performance certificates appears to be not enforced and the nature of the barrier is more organizational rather than regulatory. Finally, the study finds that Kosovo laws are silent as far as green labeling of building materials is concerned.

The implication of the present finding is that policymakers in Kosovo not only should include clear sustainable materials assessment criteria in the law, but also enforce those criteria through testing and inspection mechanisms included in the law and implemented in practice through funding and organizational support. Nonetheless, policymakers in Kosovo should contemplate amending the urban planning laws in Kosovo and include both the term of sustainability at the planning level and conformity guidelines for sustainable design that can be done at the administrative directive level. Further, the clauses in the law do not suffice if the clauses are not accompanied by specific systemic and organizational support in the issuance of energy performance certificates. Policymakers in Kosovo should be proactive in designing clauses that specify green labeling standards for materials; however, these labeling standards should not adversely affect the cost of construction and reduce the demand for real estate.

The study is the first qualitative study about the perception of construction professionals in Kosovo, regarding the regulatory barriers of sustainable buildings in Kosovo.

This study investigated the mediating role of job satisfaction and the moderating role of career growth opportunity in the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and public employees' turnover intention.

The authors recruited 587 public employees from Yunnan Province, China to test moderation and mediation hypotheses. The authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis to determine the discriminant and convergent validity of the measures of PSM, turnover intention, job satisfaction and career growth opportunity. Finally, the authors carried out bootstrapping to ascertain direct, indirect and conditional indirect effects.

PSM had a negative effect on public employees' turnover intention, but this relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. Career growth opportunity moderated the association between job satisfaction and turnover intention. In particular, the indirect effect of PSM on turnover intention through job satisfaction weakened under high career growth opportunities.

The results highlighted the significance of PSM and career growth opportunity in shaping public employees' work-related attitudes and behaviors. Public organizations should consider PSM a key criterion in recruitment and selection and pay more attention to the significance of intervening in career growth to satisfy public employees' psychological needs related to individual career development.

This study contributes to the literature on the disputed link between PSM and turnover intention and uncovered the underlying mechanism through which PSM affects public employees' turnover intention by proposing job satisfaction and career growth opportunity as a mediator and moderator, respectively.

Smallholder farmers in Tanzania were investigated in this paper to determine the dimensions and influence of psychological contracts on smallholder farmers' decisions to participate in the market.

Data were collected through structured questionnaires, of which a cross-sectional design was conducted in central Tanzania, the Dodoma region in which 467 smallholder farmers were surveyed. First, a preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted by involving psychological contracts and market participation items derived from previous studies. This was followed by the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to verify the items obtained in the EFA. The regression analysis was then performed to test the causal effects of psychological contracts on market participation among smallholder farmers.

The path analysis revealed that transactional, relational, and ideological contracts have a positive and statistically significant impact on the participation of smallholder farmers in the market. Therefore, smallholder farmers have own set of expectations for participating in the marketplace. As a result, smallholder farmers' relationships with market participation decisions can be strengthened.

This study covered only smallholder farmers. However, future studies can include large-scale farmers, because psychological contracts and market participation difficulties also apply to them. This may increase the generalizability of the findings.

Past studies have not extensively covered the psychological contracts in smallholder farming, especially in market participation. Based on prior empirical and theoretical research from other disciplines, the findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the psychological contract framework and the significance of multiple psychological obligations between smallholder farmers and market management.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of anti-corruption disclosures by construction firms in Asia-Pacific countries.

The sample comprises construction companies from seven Asia-Pacific countries from 2015 to 2019. The authors hand-collected data on anti-corruption disclosures by using content analysis.

This study provides empirical evidence that government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors increase companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. Meanwhile, this study finds that uncertainty avoidance does not affect companies’ anti-corruption disclosures.

This study has a number of implications. First, government and professional accountant organizations need to improve accountants’ knowledge and competence through education, training and continuous professional development. Second, public accounting firms need to ensure the quality of their auditors, particularly in the technical competence in financial and nonfinancial reporting. Finally, universities must improve and update their curriculum regarding nonfinancial reporting issues.

This study is among the first to examine anti-corruption disclosure practices in the most corrupted settings, i.e. the construction industry in Asia-Pacific countries. It uses the isomorphism perspective to explain the influence of government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors on anti-corruption disclosure transparency. The number of prior studies investigating this association is very limited. Moreover, disclosures of anti-corruption information are complex and sensitive; thus, coercive, normative and mimetic pressures are required to achieve higher transparency and sustainability.