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Sixteen million adolescents give birth each year, constituting 11% of all births worldwide. Adverse adolescent pregnancy outcomes are well-documented. Available data on adolescent pregnancies have mainly relied on self-reported age and retrospective survey data, which might not capture adolescent births accurately. This paper reports on trends in adolescent pregnancy and associated adverse birth outcomes in Matlab, Bangladesh, using data from the Matlab Heath and Demographic System (HDSS) which precisely documents maternal age.

The study was conducted in the rural subdistrict of Matlab in Bangladesh. HDSS data were used to examine trends in adolescent motherhood (10–19 years) in the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr, b) service areas (ISA) and government service areas (GSA) between 2007 and 2015. A total of 4,996 adolescent mothers were included in the analysis. Chi-square testing and binary logistic regression were used to document adolescent pregnancy trends and the differences in and causes of perinatal death.

The fertility rate was 27 per 1000 adolescent mothers in ISA and 20 per 1000 adolescent mothers in GSA, during the 9 years of the study period. The adjusted odd of an adolescent mother having a perinatal death in ISA, relative to GSA was 0.69. Significant determinants of perinatal death among adolescent mothers included maternal education, paternal education, mother’s age at first birth, asset score and distance from the nearest health facility.

This paper documents the real trend of adolescent pregnancy by capturing the accurate age at pregnancy for the first time in Bangladesh.

This study investigates the determinants of teleworking before and during COVID-19 in Canada. It explores the extent of telework adoption across industrial sectors, as well as the long-term impacts of large-scale adoption of teleworking on urban travel demand and the dwindling demand for commercial real estate in downtowns.

Using data from a survey of business establishments, this study employs data visualization techniques to illustrate how telework adoption evolved during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown. The study also estimates Logit models to explore the determinants of telework before and during the pandemic using a subsample from the Canadian labor force survey.

The study found that telework adoption reached a peak in March and April of 2020 when almost 40% of the workers in Canada were teleworking. Only 12% of employees reported teleworking before the pandemic. The adoption of teleworking was far more pronounced amongst firms that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) extensively. Teleworking appears to be far more frequent among university-educated (knowledge economy) workers.

Knowledge economy and highly educated workers, who switched to teleworking during the pandemic at higher rates than workers with less education, are more frequently employed in offices located in the urban core or downtowns. The drastic decline in commuting to the urban core via public transit and record low occupancy levels in downtown office towers suggests that, even if telework prevailed at levels much lower than those observed during March and April of 2020, landlords holding large portfolios of commercial real estate must prepare to cope with the lower demand for commercial real estate. This is especially significant when commercial leases come up for renewal in the next few years. In addition, governments struggling to address traffic congestion by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on transport and transit infrastructure might want to promote teleworking as a means of reducing travel demands and costly infrastructure expenditures.

Teleworking has partially eroded the boundaries between work and home by enabling millions to continue being productive while working from home. However, teleworking would require new norms and rules to maintain a work-life balance. This change requires workers and employers to cooperate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the extent of telework adoption during COVID-19 in Canada and the determinants of telework adoption, presenting both employee and firm-level perspectives using Canada-wide representative data.

Female leader is a major topic in the male of today that’s hardly getting attention. World today needs women in more positions of leadership. Today’s organizations need effective and agile leaders who understand the complexities of the rapidly changing global environment. This situation requires urgent attention as the world needs female as well as male characteristics to address global issues. Women represent half of the modern world’s abilities and population. They are important for economic and social prosperity for the world. Women carry a viewpoint that respects not only competitiveness but also organizational and team cooperation. Their female ideals are a functioning structure of new, cooperative and open economy. Eventually, the leadership of women will not only boost business, family and culture, but also the environment that will become more prosperous and peaceful as a result. In today’s modern world many researches are conducted on global, social and cultural forces, such as globalization, e-commerce, changing markets, the spread of technology and the need for teamwork, alliances and partnerships, show a high need for women leaders. But what is the role and leadership style of female leaders here? In this context, the purpose of this study is to discuss the leadership styles and what kind of leadership style female managers exhibit in line with the literature. The research showed that female managers have more agile leadership qualities and the authors suggested that female leaders should be brought forward for the opportunity to lead others toward a better future.

This study examines the influence of quality culture (QC) on university performance (UP) within the higher education (HE) context of Saudi Arabia, exploring the mediating roles of transformational (TFL) and transactional leadership (TNL) styles.

The study utilizes a cross-sectional survey approach, collecting data through online surveys from administrators representing public and private universities in Saudi Arabia. Data analysis is conducted using PLS-SEM.

The findings indicate that QC exerts a notable direct influence on UP, along with an indirect effect mediated by TFL and TNL. Additionally, the influences of TFL and TNL on UP are statistically significant. However, the effect of TNL on UP and its role as a mediator in the QC-UP relationship demonstrate partial significance.

This study enriches the theoretical comprehension of quality assurance in HE by incorporating QC as a dynamic capability within Dynamic Capability Theory and TL and TFL as valuable resources within Resource-Based View theory. However, limitations such as a cross-sectional design and reliance on input solely from university administrators must be acknowledged.

The study offers practical insights for policymakers, administrators, and quality managers, emphasizing the economic benefits of robust QC in universities. It highlights QC's impact on policy, curriculum development, and public trust, advocating tailored strategies to improve efficiency and collaboration, crucial for overcoming bureaucratic barriers, especially in public universities.

The originality of this study lies in introducing TFL and TNL as mediators between QC and UP within a university setting.

The key purpose of the current study is investigating the direct impact of information technology (IT) assimilations, flexible IT infrastructure, and supply chain competencies (supply side, demand side) on the supply chain performance of manufacturing firms. Meanwhile, the study has also estimated the mediating role of supply chain agility (SCA). Among 360 selected respondents for the underlying research, only 267 respondents have responded well and returned them back, thereby indicating 74% response rate for the survey. For the inferential analysis, the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling was performed in Smart PLS 3.0. In context to this study, process compliance is the adherence and the execution of supply chain processes, including the processes related to distribution and production of management processes. On the basis of this theoretical background, the demand and supply-side competence are considered as the firms’ internal aspects. As a dynamic capability, the SCA enables firms to influence and respond to the firm’s external environment. Thus, the presence of such competencies allows to react against market developments. The resource-based view theory supports this argument, and states that competencies is an effective resource for developing dynamic capabilities.

This study aims to consider environmental sustainability, a global challenge under the preview of sustainable development goals, highlighting the significance of knowledge economy in attaining sustainable aggregate demand behavior globally. For this purpose, 155 countries that have data available from 1995 to 2021 were selected. The purpose of selecting these countries is to test the global responsibility of the knowledge economy to attain environmental sustainability.

Results are estimated with the help of panel quantile regression. The empirical existence of aggregate demand-based environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) was tested using non-linear tests. Moreover, principal component analysis has been incorporated to construct the knowledge economy index.

U-shaped aggregate demand-based EKC at global level is validated. However, environmental deterioration increases with an additional escalation after US$497.945m in aggregate demand. As a determinant, the knowledge economy is reducing CO₂ emissions. The knowledge economy has played a significant role in global responsibility, shifting the EKC downward and extending the CO₂ reduction phase for every selected country. Further, urbanization, energy intensity, financial development and trade openness significantly deteriorate the environmental quality.

This study contains the empirical existence of aggregate demand-based EKC. The role of the knowledge economy is examined through an index which is calculated by using four pillars of the knowledge economy (technology, innovations, education and institutions). This study is based on a combined panel of all the countries for which the data was available.

This study aims to analyse whether theories and views of classical Islamic scholars are widely adopted as references in Islamic accounting and finance (IAF), Islamic economics (IE) and Islamic business management (IBM) research studies as part of their contribution to solving current economic and financial problems.

The research adopts a qualitative meta-analysis methodology using NVivo 12 with selected data from 474 international journal articles published between 1981 and 2021. The study considers 172 IAF articles, 111 IE articles and 191 IBM articles.

The results of the study show that the use of theories and views of classical Islamic scholars is not widespread among the examined research papers. The findings show that 90% of researchers tend to acquire modern economics, management, psychological and sociological theories instead of classical theories. Both modern and classical theories have been discussed in the studied articles namely agency theory, stakeholders' theory, ḥisbah (accountability), maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah (objectives of Islamic law) and waʿd (unilateral promise). The gaps prevail not only in the taxonomy of terms but also in the choice of paradigm references. It is found that 66% of the 474 journal articles adopt a positivist paradigm, followed by interpretivism (19%), post-structuralism (9%) and critical orientation (6%).

This paper considers only ABS ranking journal articles. Future research may consider other journal articles from different ranking groups such as Scopus or Thomson & Reuters.

The paper sheds light on how Islamic educational institutions can develop strategies for the Integration of Knowledge (IOK) in their curriculum.

This paper helps to shape the Muslims' way of thinking within an Islamic worldview which will lead to an Islamic way of expressing knowledge, skill and behaviour.

This paper contributes to the model of IOK that has been deliberated among Islamic universities, especially those that develop IAF, IE and IBM studies.

Increased trapped heat in the atmosphere leads to global warming and economic activity is the primary culprit. This study proposes the nonlinear impact of economic activity on cooling degree days to develop a climate Kuznets curve (CKC). Further, this study explores the moderating role of higher education and renewable energy in diminishing the climate-altering effects of economic activity.

All the selected BRICS economies range from 1992 to 2020. The CKC analysis uses a distribution and outlier robust panel quantile autoregressive distributed lagged model.

Results confirmed a U-shaped CKC, controlling for population density, renewable energy, tertiary education enrollment and innovation. The moderating role of renewable energy and education can be exploited to tackle the progressively expanding climate challenges. Hence, education and renewable energy intervention can help in reducing CKC-based global warming.

This study highlighted the incorporation of climate change mitigating curriculum in education, so that the upcoming economic agents are well equipped to reduce global warming which must be addressed globally.

This study is instrumental in developing the climate change-based economic activity Kuznets curve and assessing the potential of higher education and renewable energy policy intervention.

This study investigates the trade potential of Afghanistan with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and European Union (EU) by employing an augmented gravity model approach. The model used the latest Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) dataset with the base year 2016, covering data from 2015 to 2021. The results of the study satiate that out of the chosen 15 countries of the EU, the magnitude of Afghanistan's trade potential is high with three EU countries (Germany, France and Spain), whereas in the case of SAARC, Afghanistan's trade potential is the highest with Pakistan, followed by India and Bangladesh. Results show that simple average tariff imposition and partner countries' GDP positively impact Afghanistan's trade value.

In contrast, simple average tariff imposition bilaterally harms the trade volume of the reporting country. Statistically, a 1% tariff rate change decreases Afghanistan's total trade by 0.3%. Moreover, a 1% increase in the GDP of the partner countries will increase Afghanistan's total trade by 0.5%. Furthermore, common language, landlocked and distance significantly impact Afghanistan's total trade. The results suggest that Afghanistan needs to explore the ways and means to improve its trade relations with the countries further and improve its market share. The study proposed that Afghanistan should use trade as an economic development tool to flourish in the region and capture the markets to realise its maximum trade potential. This research recommends that South Asian and EU countries revise the tariff rates and other non-tariff barriers to boost trade and connectivity for a better trade future.

This research aims to inspect the existence of the “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) in the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and urbanization throughout 1972–2018 for Pakistan.

For time series analysis, Phillips and Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root tests are used to confirm the level of integration. For robustness, Kim and Perron (2009)’s structural break unit root test is employed, which identifies the order of integration in the presence of structural break years. Further, combined cointegration analysis is performed to confirm the existence of a long-run association between underlying variables. Furthermore, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis is employed for the robustness of the cointegration approach.

The cointegration analysis confirms the existence of a long-run association among variables. The authors find a positive and significant impact of urbanization, FD and foreign development on environmental degradation in the long run. Similarly, only FDI increases environmental degradation in the short run. In addition, the authors find an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental quality which, further, confirms the presence of EKC in Pakistan.

This research contributes to applied economics in many ways: the combined effect of urbanization, FD, FDI and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission is checked simultaneously. To avoid ambiguity, this study constructs the FD index through the principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, the role of structural breaks has been considered through the analysis. Novel Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration analysis is employed to detect the existence of long-run relationships among underlying variables.