Search results

This study aims to fabricate multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-mediated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite films using the solution casting approach.

The prepared films were evaluated for diverse structural, surface, optical and electrical attributes using advanced analytical techniques, i.e. electron microscopy for surface morphology, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for tracing chemical functionalities, x-ray diffraction (XRD) for crystal patterns, water contact angle (WCA) analysis for surface wettability and UV visible spectroscopy for optical absorption parameters. The specimens were also investigated for certain rheological, mechanical and electrical properties, where applicable.

The surface morphology results expressed a better dispersion of MWCNTs in the resultant PVA-based nanocomposite film. The XRD analysis exhibited that the nanocomposite film was crystalline. The surface wettability analysis indicated that with the inclusion of MWCNTs, the WCA of the resultant nanocomposite film improved to 89.4° from 44° with the pristine PVA film. The MWCNTs (1.00%, w/w) incorporated PVA-based film exhibited a tensile strength of 54.0 MPa as compared to that of native PVA as 25.3 MPa film. There observed a decreased bandgap (from 5.25 to 5.14 eV) on incorporating the MWCNTs in the PVA-based nanocomposite film.

The MWCNTs’ inclusion in the PVA matrix could enhance the AC conductivity of the resultant nanocomposite film. The prepared nanocomposite film might be useful in designing certain optoelectronic devices.

The results demonstrated the successful MWCNTs mediation in the PVA-based composite films expressed good intercalation of the precursors; this resulted in decreased bandgap, usually, desirable for optoelectronic applications.

Although entrepreneurial behaviour is considered a key element for economic development, yet very less is known about the determinants of factors leading towards entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. In order to bridge this gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of social support and entrepreneurial skills in determining entrepreneurial behaviour of individuals. Developing on the base of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study investigates the relationship between social support, entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial behaviour along with existing constructs of the TPB (i.e. attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and entrepreneurial intention).

Data was collected from 281 respondents using a simple random sampling method, and the variance-based partial least-squares, structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used for testing the proposed conceptual model.

Findings of this study have validated the proposed model, which have an explanatory power of 68.3 per cent. Moreover, findings reveal that social support and entrepreneurial skills have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention of individuals. However, an unanticipated and non-significant relation between subjective norms and entrepreneurial intention is also found.

Due to the limited scope of this study, a multi-group analysis is not possible, which is considered as a limitation of this study. Moreover, due to time constraints, this study is conducted within a specified time-frame; however, a longitudinal study over a period of three to six years can overcome this limitation.

Findings of this study are expected to have substantial implications for policy makers, future researchers and academicians. Outcomes of this study can help to better understand the cognitive phenomenon of nascent entrepreneurs. Moreover, it is expected that this study can serve as a torch-bearer for policy makers to develop better entrepreneurial development programmes, policies and initiatives for promoting self-employment behaviour.

Findings of this study are a unique step forward and offer new insights towards a better understanding of the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour. Moreover, this study extends Ajzen’s (1991) TPB in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing and investigating the impact of two new variables, i.e. social support and entrepreneurial skills in the TPB and by validating the proposed model with PLS-SEM approach, this study makes a sizeable theoretical, methodological and contextual contribution in the overall body of knowledge.

This study aims to identify and prioritize the challenges to adopting blockchain in supply chain management and to make its taxonomic model. Moreover, validate whether these challenging factors exist in the real world and, if they exist, then in what percentage.

This research adopted the fuzzy best-worst method (F-BWM), which integrates fuzzy set theory with the best-worst method to identify and prioritize the prominent challenges of the blockchain-based supply chain by developing a weighted multi-criteria model.

A total of 20 challenges (CH's) were identified. Lack of storage capacity/scalability and lack of data privacy challenges were found as key challenges. The findings of this study will provide a robust framework of the challenges that will assist academic researchers and industry practitioners in considering the most significant category concerning their working area.

Blockchain provides the best solution for tracing and tracking where RFID has not succeeded. It can improve quality management in a supply chain network by improving standards and speeding up operations. For inventory management, blockchain provides transparency of documentation for both parties within no time.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous research has adopted the fuzzy best-worst method to prioritize the identified challenges of blockchain implementation in the supply chain. Moreover, no study provides a taxonomic model for the challenges of implementing a blockchain-based supply chain.

This research aimed to find out both direct and mediating relationships between the fear of COVID-19 (FC) and the usage of digital financial services (UDFS) via mediator financial anxiety (FA). It also attempted to ascertain the moderated effect of education of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners (ESO), i.e. business degree holders (BDH) vs nonbusiness degree holders (NBDH), in the relationship between FC and the UDFS.

This research employed a simple random sampling technique. In total, 387 complete responses were collected from Pakistani SMEs. The complete analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23, AMOS 24, Process Marco 4.1, and Interaction 1.7.

According to the findings, FC leads to UDFS and FA mediates this relationship. Additionally, the findings show that the ESO between FC and UDFS was moderated. However, conditional analysis shows that BDH-SME owners strengthened the moderated relationship between FC and UDFS compared to NBDH-SME owners, who did not show any relationship.

Policymakers might use the study's findings to promote business education, which has been recognized as essential for making sound financial decisions. Finally, because the study is cross-sectional, the authors are unable to draw definitive generalizations.

The key novelty of this research work lies in the inclusion of FA as a mediator and the education of SME owners as a moderator in understanding the relationship between FC and the UDFS. This study illuminated the positive aspects of the COVID-19 epidemic based on the theory of emotional finance, risk avoidance theory and theories of emotion.

Developing on the base of theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between perceived social support (SS) from one’s social network and entrepreneurial intention (EI). Moreover, mediating effect of other constructs of TPB, i.e., attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE), subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) is also examined in this study.

This study involves a variance-based partial least square-structural equation modelling approach for analysing responses from 381 fresh business graduates.

Findings of this study revealed that SS positively influences EI and also that this relationship is fully mediated by ATE, SN and PBC.

Due to limited resources, cross cultural comparison and multi-group analysis were not performed, which are considered as a limitation of this study.

It is expected that the findings of this study can help policy makers, researchers and academicians in better understanding of critical role of SS for understanding the intentions of nascent entrepreneurs.

Further, findings of this study suggest that academicians and policy makers need to take heed towards relatively less explored phenomenon of SS to enhance the attractiveness of entrepreneurial career in fresh business graduates.

This study has proposed a model for assessing impact of SS on EI. By doing so, this study extends TPB in the context of EI. Moreover, findings of this study are a unique step forward, and offer a new insight towards better understanding of the determinants of EI in fresh business graduates.

In the contemporary world, where sustainability at higher education is at the forefront, the ever-changing business ecosystem nurtures a new drift towards economic, environmental and social performance. This study aims to measure the impact of green human resource management (GHRM) practices on sustainability in the higher education of a developing country context through a theoretical aspect of Resource-Based View (RBV).

This study adopted a quantitative approach to propose and test a model based on predictors of sustainability. The survey approach received 190 responses from employees (faculty and non-faculty members) working as a full-time in the 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) of Pakistan. The structural and measurement model was calculated using SmartPLS.

The results show that “green training and development” (GTD) and “top management commitment towards greening workforce (TMCGW)” have a positive relationship with sustainability while green recruitment and selection (GRS) was not supported by sustainability. The mediating effect of TMCGW plays a crucial role between GTD and sustainability. Also, this study contributes through the moderating interaction effect of Gender between GTD and sustainability. Overall the GHRM practices promote employee green behavior and sustainability.

The proposed research model in the current study is a substantial gap in the literature and exploring this connection requires new theoretical frameworks. To bridge this literature gap, this study examined the role of GHRM on sustainability at micro-level (employee perspective) through a theoretical aspect of RBV in the developing country higher education context of Pakistan. Importantly, this study enhances the understanding of the emerging global wave of green mobility and highlights the impact of GHRM practices on sustainability through perception of academic professionals.

The purpose of this research study is to extract and identify named entities from Hadith literature. Named entity recognition (NER) refers to the identification of the named entities in a computer readable text having an annotation of categorization tags for information extraction. NER is an active research area in information management and information retrieval systems. NER serves as a baseline for machines to understand the context of a given content and helps in knowledge extraction. Although NER is considered as a solved task in major languages such as English, in languages such as Urdu, NER is still a challenging task. Moreover, NER depends on the language and domain of study; thus, it is gaining the attention of researchers in different domains.

This paper proposes a knowledge extraction framework using finite-state transducers (FSTs) – KEFST – to extract the named entities. KEFST consists of five steps: content extraction, tokenization, part of speech tagging, multi-word detection and NER. An extensive empirical analysis using the data corpus of Urdu translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari, a widely known hadith book, reveals that the proposed method effectively recognizes the entities to obtain better results.

The significant performance in terms of f-measure, precision and recall validates that the proposed model outperforms the existing methods for NER in the relevant literature.

This research is novel in this regard that no previous work is proposed in the Urdu language to extract named entities using FSTs and no previous work is proposed for Urdu hadith data NER.

This paper aims to develop an original framework of innovation and to explore the complexity of association between individual and collective (team-based) entrepreneurship, and their simultaneous impacts on innovation in context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

An integral theoretical framework is developed to encourage innovation and the hypothetical relations are tested with the help of structural equation modeling (SEM) through AMOS. Data were gathered through survey technique and the questioners were distributed through email among 700 entrepreneurs from SMEs operating in five major industrial cities of Punjab province Pakistan.

The results of SEM analyses confirm that both the individual entrepreneur and the collective efforts of all the business members contribute to innovation in SMEs. Entrepreneur’s personality traits have a direct positive impact on innovation while the centralized decision-making by entrepreneur is not associated with innovation. Centralized decision-making is found to be negatively associated with communication and have insignificant positive association with collaboration. Factors associated with the team-based entrepreneurship like communication and collaboration among members of the SME’s contribute to the entrepreneurial orientation and collective entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial orientation and collective entrepreneurship have direct positive impact on innovation in SMEs.

It is imperative for SMEs to encourage decentralized organizational culture and participative leadership to bring innovation into their products and processes and further to improve their competitive advantage.

To the best of author knowledge, present study is a first attempt that explores the complex association between individual and team-based entrepreneurship and further, empirically investigate the simultaneous impacts of these variables on innovation in context of SMEs.

The rapid shift in the emerging pedagogies of customer behavior has changed the business preferences in the hotel sector. This study prioritizes the hotel's main task to develop customer re-patronage intention. Keeping in line with these factors, this study investigates the impact of customer empowerment on re-patronage intentions through customer value co-creation in the hotel sector of Pakistan. Furthermore, the study examines the moderating impact of sensation-seeking on customers.

A total of 350 potential customers participated in the online survey using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Partial least square structural equation modeling was employed using Smart PLS-3 to test the projected hypotheses.

This study reveals that empowered customers improve their behavior and involvement in value co-creation, which, in turn, increases the prospects of re-patronage intention. Moreover, sensation-seeking moderates between consumer empowerment and customer value co-creation.

Customer-dominant logic and sense-making theory present interesting insights where customer empowerment and value co-creation have a positively significant impact on customer re-patronage intention. Findings also elaborate on a significant mediating role of customer value co-creation activities, which is an interesting call for hotel managers to add thought-sharing ecosystems. The suggested factors add long-lasting results in terms of revenues, performance and global GDP.

It provides guidance for the hotel managers through novel factors that activate the customer to augment an intention to re-patron. Moreover, it provides a direction to add sensation-seeking strategies that strengthen the effects on customer empowerment and value co-creation.

This study has its uniqueness in introducing an environment in hotels where customers are empowered to further actively participate in value co-creation initiatives, along with sensation-seeking acting as a stimulus among them. These factors have greatly impacted the hotel's objectives (i.e. re-patronage intention).

The purpose of study is to examine the dual nature of the branches for the problem of Darcy–Forchheimer porous medium flow of rotating nanofluid on a linearly stretching/shrinking surface under the field of magnetic influence. The dual nature of the branches confronts the uniqueness and existence theorem, moreover, mathematically it is a great achievement. For engineering purposes, this study applied a linear stability test on the multiple branches to determine which solution is physically reliable (stable).

Nanofluid model has been developed with the help of Buongiorno model. The partial differential equations in space coordinates for the law of conservation of mass, momentum and energy have been transformed into ordinary differential equations by introducing the similarity variables. Two numerical techniques, namely, the shooting method in Maple software and the three-stage Lobatto IIIA method in Matlab software, have been used to find multiple branches and to accomplish stability analysis, respectively.

The parametric investigation has been executed to find the multiple branches and explore the effects on skin friction, Sherwood number, Nusselt number, concentration and temperature profiles. The findings exhibited the presence of dual branches only in the case of a shrinking sheet.

The originality of work is a determination of multiple branches and the performance of the stability analysis of the branches. It has also been confirmed that such a study has not yet been considered in the previous literature.