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The twenty‐first century harbors intense global competition where the playing field and the rules of the game have changed. There is an urgent need for Pakistani businesses to change the way they operate. This paper introduces the total quality management (TQM) concept and argues that its implementation is the critical need of the hour for the survival of our industries both locally and internationally. The paper is divided into four segments: the first discusses the changed environment in which businesses are operating; the second gives a brief introduction to the TQM philosophy and discusses TQM systems and tools; the third discusses the effect of TQM on productivity and explains what is meant by “effective productivity”; and the fourth presents some of the benefits that were realized by international and local firms implementing TQM.

Pakistan is one of the most climate change and natural disaster-affected countries in the globe, where the lives and livelihoods of people are repeatedly affected due to these natural disasters. Over the past few decades, the country has been impacted by numerous devastating floods, droughts, and storms. As a result, households face enormous complications, particularly those dwelling in disaster-prone areas. Therefore, this study intends to explore the status of household vulnerability and resilience practices of hazard-prone communities in Pakistan from existing literature. This study has identified the 17 most relevant documents. It argues that household vulnerability is increasing consistently with the increasing rate of disaster intensity. Frequent flooding, landslide, erosion, and crop loss are the leading causes of household vulnerability. This study reveals five types of household vulnerability components which look into several livelihood vulnerability indicators of Pakistani households. Moreover, the study unfolds that the main causes of disaster vulnerability are widespread crop loss, a lack of water, loss of soil fertility, and low socioeconomic situations. The major vulnerability components of dwellers are exposure (increasing summer duration, the rapid increase of population house build-up in the riparian areas, and increasing occurrence of hailstorms), sensitivity, low access to education facilities, human loss, diseases infestation, food insecurity, and social conflict), and less adaptive capacity (social networks, migration, poor emergency services, multiple income sources, and less access to the health facility). To address the household vulnerability, this study has also identified four key aspects of resilience, like social resilience, economic resilience, institutional resilience, and physical resilience. The findings will effectively help to understand the dynamics of household vulnerability and resilience and its measurement and management strategy from developed indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of agribusiness firms in India, China and Pakistan, as well as the challenges they face in doing business.

This study is based on the World Bank’s Enterprises Survey (WBES) data. The survey was carried out through a questionnaire survey from the owner and top managers of 716, 247 and 174 agribusiness from India, Pakistan and China, respectively. This enterprises survey has comprised the information regarding the wide range of firms’ characteristics and 16 parameters of business obstacles. Simple statistical tools such as chi-square and analysis of variance have been used to analyze the data.

Chi-square test shows the statistically significance difference in firms’ characteristics across agribusiness firms of India, China and Pakistan. Chinese firms are better in terms of having an international quality certification, own websites and getting credit. In Pakistan, access to land for agribusiness is an obstacle while for India and China, it is easy to acquire land for agribusiness purposes. In Pakistan, tax rate and political stability is a moderate obstacle while in India and China, it is a minor obstacle in agribusiness. Labor regulation does not perceive any considerable obstacle in doing business in India and Pakistan.

This study provides an understanding of differences in the agribusiness environment in emerging economies such as India, Pakistan and China based on WBES data. This study can be helpful for agribusiness managers and government policymakers for promoting agriculture-based entrepreneurship.

It is the first attempt to compare the profile of agribusiness firms in growing Asian economies such as India, Pakistan and China, as well as perceived business hurdles, using a comprehensive enterprises survey data of World Bank.

Increased demand and the pressure to reduce health-care costs have led to longer waiting time for patients to make appointments and during the day of hospital visits. The purpose of this study is to identify opportunities to reduce waiting time using lean techniques and discrete-event simulation (DES).

A five-step procedure is proposed to facilitate the effective utilization of lean and DES to improve the performance of the Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Outpatient Clinic at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. While lean techniques were applied to reduce the potential sources of waste by aligning processes, a DES model was developed to validate the proposed solutions and plan patient arrivals under dynamic conditions and different scenarios.

Aligning processes resulted in an efficient patient flow reducing both waiting times. DES played a complementary role in verifying lean solutions under dynamic conditions, helping to plan the patient arrivals and striking a balance between the waiting times. The proposed solutions offered flexibility to improve the clinic capacity from the current 176 patients up to 479 (without violating the 30 min waiting time policy) or to reduce the patient waiting time during the visit from the current 33 min to 4.5 min (without violating the capacity goal of 333 patients).

Proposing and validating lean solutions require reliable data to be collected from the clinic and such a process could be laborious as data collection require patient and resource tracing without interfering with the regular functions of the clinic.

The work enables health-care managers to conveniently conduct a trade-off analysis and choose a suitable inter-arrival time – for every physician – that would satisfy their objectives between resource utilization (clinic capacity) and average patient waiting time.

Successful implementation of lean requires a supportive and cooperative culture from all stakeholders involved.

This study presents an original and detailed application of lean techniques with DES to reduce patient waiting times. The adopted approach in this study could be generalized to other health-care settings with similar objectives.

The purpose of the study is to examine the obstacle in doing business and determinants of credit adoption by the textile enterprises in India.

The study is based on World Bank’s Enterprises Survey, there are 571 enterprises involved in textile business. The enterprises survey has response on wide range of business obstacles which are categorized under three broad categories, namely, access to resource, business regulations and market externalities. Chi-square test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) have been used to examine the significant difference among firm’s profile and perceived business obstacles across the firm size. Furthermore, binary logistic regression model has been applied to explore the determinants of credit adoption by textile enterprises.

A statistically significant difference has been found in size of firms and legal status nature of establishment, gender of top manager, main product market and credit adoption from financial institutions. Majority of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are sole proprietorship firm while large enterprises are limited partnership firms. Similarly, large enterprises have relatively more female as a top manager and international market for their product. ANOVA reveals equal degree of obstacles in doing textile business across the firm size. The logistic regression coefficient and marginal effects reveal that firm size, main market,gender of owner, number of establishment in the firms positive and significantly affects the credit adoption by 3 textile enterprises.

The study has some policy implications for various stakeholders such as textile business managers and promoters, government, investors and bankers for entrepreneurship development in textile sector. The study suggests that the government should incentivize small- and medium-sized businesses to increase their exports. The results show that despite government efforts to finance SMEs, fewer SMEs are receiving both short- and long-term credit. To help SMEs in the textile industry overcome financial difficulties and expand their main product market to both domestic and international levels, a soft loan should be provided based on the characteristics of textile enterprises.

The present study suggests the evidence-based understanding of textile business environment. The value and uniqueness of this study is to explore an ease of business textile sector using comprehensive enterprises survey data of World Bank.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical framework for community participation in post-disaster resettlement.

The proposed framework has been tested in two model villages (MVs) of Punjab, Pakistan. Primary data were collected through household surveys, focus group discussions and expert interviews. A survey with 67 households was conducted for obtaining qualitative data regarding community participation in post-disaster resettlement.

The first MV (Ittehad MV) was resettled by the local NGO, and the second (Basti Meera Mullan) by the provincial government. Results indicate that community participation significantly varied in selected MVs. NGOs have achieved positive realizations due to effective community involvement in resettlement efforts, whereas the governmental approach lacked in proactive community participation.

This framework can be used for other disasters, by refining and incorporating disaster relevant components. This research will be highly useful for disaster managers, private developers and NGOs engaged in resettling disaster-affected population.

The proposed framework can help disaster-affected communities to resettle according to their terms. This can only be attained if affected communities will proactively participate in resettlement planning process.

This original framework is exclusively designed to attain sustainability for post-disaster settlement through community participation.

Compact and wideband antennas are the need of modern wireless systems that preferably work with compact, low-profile and easy-to-install devices that provide a wider coverage of operating frequencies. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel compact and ultrawideband (UWB) microstrip patch antenna intended for high frequency wireless applications.

A square microstrip patch antenna was initially modeled on finite element method-based electromagnetic simulation tool high frequency structure simulator. It was then loaded with a rectangular slit and Koch snowflake-shaped fractal notches for bandwidth enhancement. The fabricated prototype was tested by using vector network analyzer from Agilent Technologies, N5247A, Santa Clara, California, United States (US).

The designed Koch fractal patch antenna is highly compact with dimensions of 10 × 10 mm only and possesses UWB characteristics with multiple resonances in the operating band. The −10 dB measured impedance bandwidth was observed to be approximately 13.65 GHz in the frequency range (23.20–36.85 GHz).

Owing to its simple and compact structure, positive and substantial gain values, high radiation efficiency and stable radiation patterns throughout the frequency band of interest, the proposed antenna is a suitable candidate for high frequency wireless applications in the K (18–27 GHz) and Ka (26.5–40 GHz) microwave bands.

The main issue is whether customers prefer convenience over Shariah compliance or the opposite when they decide their Islamic banking needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore why customers adopt Islamic banking products and services: Shariah compliance or convenience?

Using convenience sampling, 310 respondents’ data were collected through online survey. For testing the fit and hypotheses of the proposed model, AMOS 25 software and Smart-PLS 4.0 software have been used.

Attitude, Islamic value and convenience have significant determinants of Islamic banking products and services. Shariah compliance has no direct or indirect influence on neither intention nor actual behaviour to adopt Islamic banking services. Furthermore, gender has no such differential effect on the adoption.

Managers and marketers of Islamic banks may benefit from the findings of this study, which demonstrate fresh insights regarding the factors which help in strategy formulations to promote Islamic banking services.

The growth of Islamic banks, branches and windows is remarkable in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries in the world. This paper postulates the behavioural finance studies in Islamic banking and finance research stream by extending the theory of planned behaviour of Ajzen (1985) as all the three new constructs (Islamic value, convenienc and Shariah compliance) are statistically fit for further studies. However, only Islamic value and convenience are the two significant factors which drive customers to take decision in the proposed model. This study gives insights to the bankers and authority about the consumer behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to identify and rank total quality management (TQM) enablers and information technology (IT) resources to provide a reliable and valid measurement instrument for evaluation in Indian information and communications technology (ICT) organizations.

Based on a literature review of TQM enablers and IT resources, 17 factors are identified, of which, 9 are TQM enablers and 8 are IT resources. The empirical data, retrieved from 801 ICT organizations, is tested by descriptive analysis and factor analysis (FA). FA is used to ensure that items in each scale sufficiently reflect the scope of each factor.

This paper has developed an instrument that can be used to evaluate items to implement TQM enablers and IT resources. The instrument identifies 17 reliable and valid factors, out of which 16 are input factors, while 1 is an outcome factor.

This instrument will provide a practical understanding to enable the monitoring of TQM enabler and IT resource activities in ICT organizations. Along with this, these instruments will help to build models related to constructs that will further achievement of customer satisfaction (CS).

This paper presents an instrument which validates the different items of TQM enablers and IT resources. It also shows the relationship between the two in terms of CS.

Manufacturing industries are facing dynamic challenges in today’s highly competitive world. In the recent past, integrating Industry 4.0 with the lean six sigma improvement methodologies has emerged as a popular approach for organizational excellence. The research aims to explore and analyze critical success factors of lean six sigma integrated Industry 4.0 (LSSI).

This research study explores and analyzes the critical success factors (CSFs) of LSSI. A three-phase study framework is employed. At first, the CSFs are identified through an extensive literature review and validated through experts’ feedback. Then, in the second phase, the initial list of CSFs is finalized using the fuzzy DELPHI technique. In the third phase, the cause-effect relationship among CFSs is established using the fuzzy DEMATEL technique.

A dyadic relationship among cause-and-effect category CSFs is established. Under the cause category, top management commitment toward integrating LSSI, systematic methodology for LSSI and organizational culture for adopting changes while adopting LSSI are found to be topmost CSFs. Also, under the effect category, organizational readiness toward LSSI and adaptability and agility are found to be the uppermost CSFs.

The study offers a framework to understand the significant CSFs for LSSI implementation. Insights from the study will help industry managers and practitioners to implement LSSI and achieve organizational excellence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, CSFs of LSSI are not much explored in the past by researchers. Findings will be of great value for professionals in developing long-term operations strategies.