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The purpose of this study is to examine the accuracy of combined models with the individual models in terms of forecasting Euro against US dollar during COVID-19 era. During COVID, the euro shows sharp fluctuation in upward and downward trend; therefore, this study is keen to find out the best-fitted model which forecasts more accurately during the pandemic.

The descriptive design has been adopted in this research. The three univariate models, i.e. autoregressive integrated moving averages (ARIMA), Naïve, exponential smoothing (ES) model, and one multivariate model, i.e. nonlinear autoregressive distributive lags (NARDL), are selected to forecast the exchange rate of Euro against the US dollar during the COVID. The above models are combined via equal weights and var-cor methods to find out the accuracy of forecasting as Poon and Granger (2003) showed that combined models can forecast better than individual models.

NARDL outperforms all remaining individual models, i.e. ARIMA, Naïve and ES. By applying a combination of different models via different techniques, the combination of NARDL and Naïve models outperforms all combination of models by scoring the least mean absolute percentage error value, i.e. 1.588. The combined forecasting of NARDL and Naïve techniques under var-cor method also outperforms the forecasting accuracy of individual models other than NARDL. It means the euro exchange rate against the US dollar which is dependent upon the macroeconomic fundamentals and recent observations of the time series.

The findings could help the FOREX market, hedgers, traders, businessmen, policymakers, economists, financial managers, etc., to minimize the risk indulged in global trade. It also helps to produce more accurate results in different financial models, i.e. capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory, because their findings may not be useful if exchange rate fluctuations do not trace effectively.

The NARDL models have been applied previously in different time series and only limited to the asymmetric or symmetric relationships. This study is using it for the forecasting exchange rate which is almost abandoned in earlier literature. Furthermore, this study combined the NARDL with univariate models to produce the accuracy which itself is a novelty. Moreover, the findings help to enhance the effectiveness of different financial theories as well.

Drawing from social exchange theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behavior, turnover intentions and work performance through mediating role of job embeddedness.

The data were gathered from 252 frontline employees of Pakistan's hotel industry in two-time lags with an interval of two months by using purposive sampling. PLS-SEM was applied for the analysis of data and hypothesis testing.

The study ascertained that job embeddedness is a potent mediator between the nexus of servant leadership and aforementioned work outcomes. The study results portray that servant leadership promotes job embeddedness, OCB, work performance and reduces turnover intentions.

Hotel management can use job embeddedness to boost servant leadership and reduce turnover intentions. In addition, management should also increase servant leadership by organizing training and workshops for their managers, which ultimately improves followers' organizational citizenship behavior and work performance.

Hotel management can use job embeddedness to boost OCB, work performance and reduce turnover intentions. In addition, management should also increase servant leadership by organizing training and workshops for their managers, which ultimately improves followers' citizenship behavior and work performance.

There are numerous calls for research to ascertain as well as sparse literature available whether job embeddedness act as a mediator in the nexus of servant leadership and work outcomes or not. The current study fills these voids and contributes to the literature by empirically examining the mechanism of job embeddedness between servant leadership and the work outcomes.

Organizations are facing pressure to reduce costs of training and enhancing the role of self-development that is self-driven and contextual in nature as a means to supplement employee development. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of individual and situational factors on self-development as well as the moderating role of situational factors. Individual factors are referred to personal characteristics, i.e. learning goal orientation and proactive personality, while situational factors are environmental conditions, including job autonomy and empowering environment.

Data were gathered from 280 middle managers of the banking sector. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was conducted to validate the model.

The study findings revealed a significant direct relationship of individual (learning goal orientation and proactive personality) and situational (empowering environment and job autonomy) factors with self-development. The study also found only a significant moderating effect of empowering environment in relation to learning goal orientation and self-development, correspondingly job autonomy moderates the relationship of proactive personality and self-development.

The study concludes with offering some implication for organization to focus on self-development activities by providing an empowering environment and job autonomy to its employees, which will result to minimize the overall cost of training. Organizations should also identify the individual factors that lead to self-development like proactive personality and learning goal orientation.

This study gives new insight on the predictors of self-development and their interaction. This study may be a pioneer to empirically validate a theoretical model about the interaction of situational factors between individual factors and self-development. Furthermore, it contributes and advances our knowledge by demonstrating how individual and situational factors are influencing middle mangers’ self-development in workplace.

Based on trait activation theory, the purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of informal learning with the moderating effect of supervisor feedback environment (SFE) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Data (n = 388) were gathered from middle managers of Pakistan’s SME sector by following the purposive sampling technique. The proposed model was examined by means of structural equation modeling analysis with AMOS 24.

The study results delineate that middle managers with high-level self-efficacy and motivation to learn more actively participate in informal learning activities. The study also found that the SFE is a strong contextual moderator between the nexus of personal factors and informal learning. In addition, informal learning also has significant and positive effect on work engagement.

Human resource practitioners and organizational leaders of small businesses can use informal learning to improve employees’ skills and knowledge with less cost. For instance, management should use different strategies to enhance the effectiveness of informal learning by providing SFE.

There are numerous recent calls for research to ascertain the interaction of individual, contextual factors and outcomes of informal learning. The study addresses these voids by empirically examining antecedents and outcomes of informal learning simultaneously through the person–situation interaction perspective. It demonstrates that informal learning at the workplace becomes more effective in SFE.

This study aims to investigate and model interrelationships between process parameters, geometrical profile characteristics and mechanical properties of industrially extruded aluminum alloys.

Statistical design of experiments (DOE) was applied to investigate and model the effects of eight factors including extrusion ratio, stem speed, billet-preheat temperature, number of die cavities, quenching media (water/air), time and temperature of artificial aging treatment and profile nominal thickness on four mechanical properties (yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, percent elongation and hardness). Experiments were carried out at an actual extrusion plant using 8-in. diameter billets on an extrusion press with 2,200 ton capacity.

Main factors and factor interactions controlling mechanical properties were identified and discussed qualitatively. Quantitative models with high prediction accuracy (in excess of 95%) were also obtained and discussed.

The obtained results are believed to be of great importance to researchers and industrial practitioners in the aluminum extrusion industry.

All practical and relevant parameters have been used to model all important mechanical properties in a collective manner in one study and within actual industrial setup. This is in contrast to all previous studies where either a partial set of parameters and/or mechanical properties are discussed and mostly under limited laboratory setup.

Using trait activation theory (TAT), this paper aims to empirically assess that work drive (WD) personality characteristics of employees will express better towards intrapreneurial behaviour (IB) outcomes in higher levels of job autonomy (JA) at the workplace.

Using cross-sectional design, a total of 258 engineering employees from the automotive industry of Pakistan were surveyed. The partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) statistical method was used to evaluate the hypothesised theoretical model.

Statistical results revealed a significant and positive relationship between WD and IB. WD personality was also found to be activated with its interplay with JA for personality expression towards IB.

The present study offers a deeper insight into the interplay of organisational and individual factors as determinants of IB of employees. The study's findings suggested the importance of the rightful application of organisational situational cues in person–situation interaction for positive workplace behaviours by employees. Personality assessment of employees and their interplay with situational cues, as per conceptualisation of TAT, can assist the corporations towards enhanced levels of employees' behavioural tendencies towards intrapreneurship.

The application of TAT from the present study's perspective is novel theoretically as the literature on the activation of personality traits towards IB outcomes is non-existent. Also, the assessment of situational cues in JA will open avenues for organisational behaviour researchers to seek more organisational situational moderators for their assessment of various personality–outcome relationships in diverse contexts to activate personality traits.

Based on transformative service research (TSR), the study explores the mechanisms by which a firm's information transparency influences a retail investor's perceived financial well-being (PFW). It proposes a model exploring the mediating roles of the investor's financial risk tolerance (RT) and financial self-efficacy (FSE) in the relationship between a firm's information transparency and the consumer's PFW.

A survey was conducted by including a sample of 310 retail investors from Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) to test the proposed hypotheses. Data analysis was based on a series of multiple regressions, moderation and serial mediation analyses.

The findings show that a firm's information transparency harnesses investors' PFW. Information transparency also positively affects investors' RT toward the firm and their FSE while dealing with financial challenges.

The findings call for a deeper understanding of financial services' interventions and their underlying mechanisms to improve consumer’s financial well-being (FWB). On a methodology level, future studies could apply a mixed-method approach and SEM to explore new avenues for predicting investors' FWB.

Besides validating TSR, the study has several implications for listed firms to adopt more transparent information reporting practices to improve investors' PFW. Accordingly, regulators should take initiatives to compel firms to comply with higher standards of information transparency.

The proposed model explores a concrete mechanism that helps listed firms to strengthen investors' PFW via information transparency.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), informal learning and job involvement. The study delineates two pathways from TL to job involvement. The first is an indirect link through informal learning on job involvement, while the second pathway focuses on the moderating role of self-efficacy on the relationship between TL and informal learning.

Survey data were gathered from 596 employees of small services firms in Pakistan. The proposed hypotheses were examined using structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that TL is indirectly related to job involvement through informal learning. The study also shows that self-efficacy strengthens the relationship between TL and informal learning.

Previous studies have overlooked the potential influence of TL on job involvement through the mechanism of informal learning. The current study addresses this gap by examining informal learning as a mediator between TL and job involvement. Furthermore, the study provides several theoretical and managerial implications for research and practice.

The determination of human behaviours due to individual characteristics (personality traits) or situational factors has long remained inconclusive. Although the literature stream on personality as the determinants of behaviour is voluminous, the interest of researchers is also growing towards organisational situational cues as the determinant of behaviours. According to situation strength theory (SST), behaviours are determined by situations in strong situations and by personality in weak situations. This study aims to propose a theoretical model of intrapreneurial behaviour (IB) emanation from empowering leadership (EL) by extending the epistemology of SST under the influence of organisational strong situations of job autonomy (JA) and perceived organisational support (POS).

Using SST, the present study argues that strong situations play a key role in determining human behaviours, and the same can be viewed deductively to assess IB.

The study attempts to propose whether EL is capable of predicting IB under the strong situation effect of JA and POS while dampening the impact of human personality characteristics.

The current study offers a significant departure from current human resource practices in person-situation dialectics, moving away from personality assessments and toward the creation of cues from strong situations for fostering human behaviour. As a result, personality researchers are being encouraged to conduct a reality check on the extensive personality research conducted in occupational settings. Considering organisational situational cues can impact human resource scope in areas such as talent management, selection, promotion and employment.