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The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Islamic microfinance services (IMFS) on women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh.

The study is based on a multi-stage sampling technique. The primary data are collected through a face-to-face survey of 389 women respondents who have received IMFS from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited. Cronbach’s alpha test is conducted to test the reliability and internal consistency of collected data. Paired-sample tests, logit regression and proportion hypothesis tests are conducted to measure the impact of IMFS on women’s empowerment. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to interpret the data.

The study reveals that IMFS have led to structural transformation in the occupation dynamics of the respondents’ families from agriculture to retail businesses. IMFS have had a significant positive impact on household income, savings and expenditure; have improved standard of living and human capital formation; and have enhanced all three dimensions of empowerment, namely, economic empowerment (ECEM), socio-cultural empowerment (SCEM) and familial empowerment (FLEM). Of them, ECEM and SCEM have positively contributed toward overall women’s empowerment, while FLEM has a negative but insignificant impact on overall empowerment. The respondents’ perception also supports the finding that IMFS have benefited rural women and empowered them.

The study is based on primary data. It leads to an inquiry as to whether women are dominant in familial affairs. If so, it may reduce the state of happiness and overall women’s empowerment. There is a clear gap in the existing literature about this inquiry.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the association between corporate governance mechanisms and the performance of listed banks in Bangladesh.

Dynamic panel data of two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) estimators are used to analyze the influence of corporate governance characteristics on the performance of banks operating in Bangladesh over a period of eleven years from 2008 to 2018.

By employing the two-step SGMM, the authors find statistical evidence to conclude that board size has a positive impact on banks' accounting performance. However, it does not influence the market performance of banks operating in Bangladesh. The authors’ results also suggest that outside independent directors, managerial ownership and females' participation on the board are not linked with the performance of the listed banks in Bangladesh. It signifies that the mere presence of outside directors and female directors in the board does not guarantee the enhancement of banks' performance and the minimization of agency conflict between shareholders and management. The persistent characteristic of bank performance is one of the crucial findings of this paper.

This research has some limitations as the study's findings may not be generalized to other countries or industries because the current study considered only the small sample size based on the availability of the data and focused only on the banks listed in the DSE. Moreover, this study may not represent the whole financial industry because it includes all listed and non-listed banks and non-bank financial institutions. Hence, the findings may not be applicable to the other industries operating in different business ecosystems.

The findings of this analysis have some managerial implications. This study provides managers empirical evidence regarding the influence of corporate governance elements on banks' performance, and they can now identify the factors that should emphasize enhancing the bank performance. The findings demonstrate that policymakers, regulatory bodies and bank management should pay more attention to the banks' overall corporate governance structures, especially in the case of appointing independent and female directors to challenge the executive power and to prevent the repetition of financial irregularities and loan scams in the banking industry of Bangladesh. Furthermore, the regulatory authorities should ensure the banks follow the corporate governance guidelines precisely for building a resilient banking industry to attain sustainable development goals in the long run.

This paper is the first empirical in-depth analysis applying the most recent data that examines the effect of bank governance elements on the performance of all the banks listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange to the best of our knowledge.

The cost of pharmaceutical supply chain due to drug waste is one of the current major issues in health care. Drug waste associated with intravenous (IV) fluid form of medication is one of the crucial issues for many pharmacies. The purpose of this paper is to apply a cross-docking model to minimize the IV delivery lead time to reduce drug waste by scheduling staff in a local hospital’s inpatient pharmacy.

A mixed integer linear programming model is applied to the IV delivery system of a hospital. The parameters are selected based on the observations made in the inpatient pharmacy.

The result implies that cross-docking approach can be effectively applied to IV delivery system. In fact, the cross-docking optimization model employed in this case study reduces the IV delivery completion time of the inpatient pharmacy by 41 percent.

The scope of this research is limited to the activities performed after IV preparation.

The application of cross-docking system in staff scheduling will be beneficial for health care organizations that aim to minimize medication waste.

The prime value of this study lies in the introduction of a cross-docking concept in an internal hospital ordering process. Cross-docking models are widely used in general supply chain systems; however, their application for specific activities inside hospitals is the novelty of this study, which can fill the research gap in terms of drug waste management within the inpatient pharmacy.

This study examines the impact of institutional quality (INQ) and human capital creation (HCC) on economic growth (EG) linkage in Bangladesh using an ARDL approach.

This study uses time-series annual data over the period 1990–2019. It formulates an INQ index based on international country risk guide (ICRG) data, employs public education outlay and expenditure on health data each as a portion of real gross domestic product (GDP) to measure HCC, while an increase in real GDP is used as a proxy for EG. It employs the ARDL technique and Toda–Yamamoto (T-Y) causality check to realize the study.

The ARDL analysis divulges that the variables have a long-run association; INQ affects long-run EG positively; expenditure on health stimulates EG rate in the long run, but does not impact the latter in the short-run; whilst government spending on education impacts long-term EG rate negatively but positively in the short-term. The T-Y causality test results reveal a feedback relationship between INQ and EG, and one-way causation from health expenditure to EG rate, and education outlay to EG rate and authenticate the ARDL estimation results.

The study is original. The novelty of the study is to employ an INQ index using the ICRG data on 12 different components which are converted into a single index through principal component analysis.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2021-0732

A wetland is a place of tourist attraction, and tourism values play a key role in economic development. Among various services provided by a wetland, recreational services are increasingly valuable in the tourism sector. This paper aims to unfold the potential recreational values of the Dal Lake in Jammu and Kashmir, India.

The study uses individual travel cost methods (TCMs) and assesses its impact on regional development in terms of income and employment generation. A sample of 200 tourists is selected through an on-site survey on Dal Lake, and the demand for recreational visits and its value is estimated by employing the truncated Poisson regression model (TPRM) and un-truncated Poisson regression model (UTPRM). The consumers' surplus is estimated and tourists' benefit to visiting the wetland is explored.

On average, estimated consumers' surplus per visitor is Rs 6,250 (US$96.15) and Rs 25,000 (US$384.61) from respective models. The annual total recreational value of the lake is accounted for Rs 1713m (US$ 26m). This high consumer surplus (CS) and recreational values of the lake indicate large demand for its recreational facilities.

The study is based on primary data and thus, is original. The paper has implications for the policymakers to formulate sustainable management plans for the proper use of Dal Lake and tourism development.

This study aims to examine the influence of socioeconomic development on inflation in South Asia using the foreign exchange rate and money supply as control variables.

The study uses annual panel data for five South Asian economies, namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the period 1990–2018, applies cointegrating regression techniques, namely, the panel dynamic ordinary least square (OLS) and fully modified OLS estimators to examine the long-run relations and conducts the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test to detect the direction of causality among variables.

The cointegrating regression estimations have documented that the socioeconomic development proxied by the human development index (HDI) has no significant impact on inflation. Although economic development represented by gross domestic product (GDP) growth causes inflation, socioeconomic development represented by HDI has no impact on inflation and has demonstrated as a better macroeconomic indicator, and thus creates no inflationary pressure in the economy. The foreign exchange rate has a positive impact on inflation. The broad money supply has the usual positive effect on domestic inflation that endorses the monetarist view about prices. The Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test has confirmed several unidirectional causalities: inflation causes HDI, money supply causes both inflation and HDI and the foreign exchange rate causes HDI.

The study has practical implications for policymakers in South Asia, to improve HDI, particularly GDP per capita, education and health-care facilities to realize continuous socioeconomic development, which will take care of inflation. Moreover, these counties may follow a conservative monetary policy to control inflationary pressure in their economies.

The study is original and claims to be the first to examine the impact of socioeconomic development on inflation. The findings have socioeconomic values regarding controlling inflation in South Asia.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the most important factors that affect the capital structure of commercial banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This study uses annual data of 11 Saudi commercial, national banks listed on the tadawul Saudi stock exchange for the period 2010–2017. Data was collected from the banks financial statements, tadawul annual publications and Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. By constructing a balanced panel, this study uses pooled ordinary least squares regression along with fixed effects and random effects to examine the relationship between the bank’s book leverage as the dependent variable and bank-specific explanatory variables that include profitability, tangibility, earnings volatility, growth opportunities and bank size, while controlling for macroeconomic conditions.

The findings of this study suggest that banks in Saudi Arabia are highly leveraged, endorsing the fact that the nature of banks’ business is different from non-banking firms. Earnings volatility, growth and bank size show positive and significant relations with book leverage. Profitability and tangibility are negatively related to the book leverage. Empirically, the explanatory variables profitability, earnings volatility, tangibility, growth and bank size have material effects on the capital structure decisions of Saudi commercial banks. In summary, the determinants of capital structure for Saudi banks are the same as those of non-financial firms but are distinctive in nature.

An extensive study on all the banks operating in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is suggested.

The findings have practical implications for bank managers, which will help them to identify the bank-specific factors affecting the capital structure and choose the values enhancing optimal capital structure. The results of this study can assist regulatory agencies to formulate an effective regulatory framework. Moreover, the findings lay a foundation for the development of financial sector under the umbrella of the Vision 2030 program in the Kingdom.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the factors affecting the capital structure choices of commercial banks operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the findings of the study would prove useful in detailed studies of capital structure in the GCC countries as well.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, the verification of applicability of reasoned action theory to analyze consumer behavior in Algerian context; and second, the identification and analysis of factors influencing purchasing behavior in green food sector.

The authors proposed a model based on reasoned action theory that combines two types of variables, the green marketing type and personal type, in order to predict purchasing behavior of green food. The authors have established a structural equations modeling, with a path analysis on a sample of 304 Algerian consumers from Algiers town.

The model was confirmed and the results showed how green marketing and personal factors influence the green food purchasing behavior in direct and indirect way, in presence of the mediating variables’ attitude toward green food and intention to buy green food.

There is no database or any information concerning green consumption in Algerian context. There is a lack of information about green production in food field. The choice of reasoned action theory as a theory explaining the decision-making process leading to purchasing act is based on fact that the Algerian field of food sector is virgin of this type of analysis, so the authors thought it is appropriate to apply the reasoned action theory as a first initiative in this field. Also, a more recent and more innovative psychological theory should be applied in the future studies.

The study will give researchers interested in Algerian context a better understanding of consumer behavior, especially in green product case, and will open new paths for future research in the same field by the application of another psychological theory that is more recent and innovative; the study can open research paths for other fields as well, such as consumer behavior toward green cosmetic products in Algeria.

The implications of this research can assist marketers for better positioning in green food market using the results indicated in research. The better understanding of factors influencing consumer purchasing behavior will encourage contractors to invest in this field in Algiers town context.

The study was established in a context where consumer market data of green food are non-existent, so the research represents an orientation to green food marketers toward a better positioning in relation to influence factors of their market target.

Although e-learning has already been accepted globally as an effective medium of delivery of quality education and ensure optimum student participation, Bangladeshi higher educational institutions are still at a very early stage of adopting such technologies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically examine the suitability of implementing effective e-learning through learning management system (LMS) at the tertiary educational institutions in Bangladesh, and how both students and teachers experience and respond to this new learning platform. Following mixed-methods techniques, data for this study were collected from students and respective course teachers of a private university in Bangladesh by administering questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The findings of this paper reveal that e-learning has been well accepted by most of the students as they are found routinely spending time on the LMS on a regular basis for watching lecture videos, viewing course information, reading postings of the fellow students in the forum. However, there are constraints as well, since the learning materials are poorly designed that do not allow much interaction between students and lecturers. There are also some technical problems such as poor internet connection which restrict access to e-learning platforms. To harness the optimum benefit of e-learning, this paper recommends a concerted effort by all stakeholders, such as students, lecturers, administrators and policy makers so that each of their priorities and expectations are reflected in the designing and implementing e-learning platforms.

This paper is based on the qualitative evaluation of Education 3.0 platform. Primary data were collected from the students using a well-structured survey questionnaire, and the findings of the survey have subsequently been cross-referred and supplemented by non-participatory observations with semi-structured interviews which allowed a better in-depth understanding of the issue at hand.

The findings of the study suggest that a majority of the students are found to be highly enthusiastic about the online courses. They are eager to participate and interact in the online platforms, which are somehow limited in the traditional classroom settings. However, there are several institutional, administrative and technical limitations of implementing e-learning in Bangladesh. It is recommended that better orientation of the users, quality content distribution though user-friendly systems and enhanced asynchronous interaction between the lecturers and students are the key pre-requisites to harness the optimum benefit from e-learning technologies in Bangladesh.

The data have been analyzed and discussed using qualitative framework which allows an in-depth understanding of the opportunities and challenges of the use of e-learning technologies at the higher educational institutions in Bangladesh.