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Virtual communities of practice (VCoP) are becoming increasingly popular as professional networking. These communities support and shape professional development, especially in countries with limited opportunities and constrain like time and distance. This study throws light on the role of VCoP and its impact on the continuous professional development (CPD) of librarians in Pakistan.

This study is carried out with qualitative research methods to understand effects of VCoP on CPD. With a thematic content analysis on the email conversations of a library and information science (LIS) Yahoo mailing group “plagpk”, the impact of virtual communities (VCs) on librarians' professional development in Pakistan over the past 20 years was analyzed.

This study demonstrates that VCs contribute to professional learning, problem-solving, knowledge creation, professional awareness and identity creation in the LIS field. Further, this study contributes a model to explain the formal and informal professional development for individuals and groups through VCoP engagement.

It is hoped that this study will help the librarian community create, get involved in the VCoP for personal, professional development consciously and create an impact in the profession. The finding of this study is generalizable to any social sciences or humanities professionals VCoPs.

This is one of the first studies in the LIS field to analysis the impact of VCs on the professional development of the librarians.

The purpose of this study is to provide quantitative information on the growth of Islamic finance literature. The study focused on publishing trends, countries producing research on Islamic finance, key authors, major contributing organizations, authorship patterns, keywords and articles with the highest citations.

Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyse the growth and publishing trends in Islamic finance literature. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to extract bibliometric data covering the period 1939–2019 for Islamic finance literature.

The study finds that Islamic finance research has gained remarkable momentum in the literature. However, such growth is largely manifested in Malaysia because of a conducive atmosphere for this type of research. Interestingly, the study finds that the three most productive journals are located in the UK and Malaysia, while Professor M. Kabir Hassan from the University of New Orleans, the USA appears to head the list of authors with 23 publications on Islamic finance.

This study provides up-to-date literature on the current state of Islamic finance in the world; as a result, it supports the development of policies by the Islamic finance industry. The findings of the study also serve as a reference point for Islamic finance training and educational institutions.

Islamic finance is an emerging financial discipline; as such, there is a need for more awareness of this financial system in the world. Muslim-majority countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan and Bahrain, have to include Islamic finance in their curriculum and establish research institutions and research journals. In addition, Arabic language journals should be indexed in WoS and/or Scopus to provide a high-quality publication platform. This study provides a more comprehensive bibliometric analysis on the growth of Islamic finance literature (1939–2019) in the WoS database; most of the prior studies have covered relatively few areas of focus and a lower range of years in some cases.

This study aims to examine the quantitative research productivity of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) globally by using the bibliometric approach. The method was applied to articles indexed in the Scopus database to analyze the publication patterns, trends and research productivity of the selected papers.

Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyze research productivity of IFRS from 2003 to 2020. The method was applied to articles indexed in the Scopus database to analyze the publication patterns and research productivity of the selected papers.

This study finds that a good number of articles have been published on IFRS, the top five countries are the USA, UK, Australia, Germany and Canada. This clearly shows that developed markets have the highest number of publications on IFRS. This could be as a result of the early adoption of IFRS by those economies and owing to the interest of researchers in those markets. Most of the studies are quantitative in nature; this study indicates that publication on accounting standards is popular as the number of citations is significant; most of the articles have two or more authors and were published in top-ranking journals.

This study provides up-to-date literature on the global research productivity of IFRS; as a result, it supports the development of policies by the users of this accounting standards. The findings of this study also serve as a reference point for firms and regulators around the world. Given the thoroughness of the methodology of this study, the results make it easier to effectively identify the direction of research on the implementation of IFRS in organizations.

This study provides a more comprehensive bibliometric analysis on the growth of IFRS literature (2003–2020) in the Scopus database; most of the prior studies have covered relatively few areas of focus as well as a fewer number of high impact factor journals. The relevance of this finding is in uncovering different areas of IFRS research productivity globally.

This study aims to investigate the research productivity of library and information science (LIS) authors affiliated with the 22 countries of the Arab League. It also identifies the top countries, organizations, authors, journals, natures of collaboration, and frequently used keywords in LIS research in the Arab world.

Bibliometric methods were used to evaluate the research performance of the authors affiliated with library organizations in the Arab region. The Elsevier Scopus database was selected for data retrieval. A comprehensive search strategy was adopted to retrieve 863 publications contributed by LIS authors affiliated with the Arab countries. VOS viewer, Biblioshiny, BiblioAnalyitics, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel were used for data visualization and analysis.

This paper presents the dynamics and the state of the LIS research in the Arab region published between 1951 and 2021. The results of the study have highlighted an upward trend in the growth of the publications, especially in the past four years. The largest number of studies were published in the year 2020. The country-wise analysis ranked Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as the top LIS research producing countries with five and four researchers, respectively. The Kuwait University, the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University were the three most productive organizations. Academic libraries, social media, bibliometrics, information-seeking behavior, information literacy and knowledge management were identified as the major areas of interest for the researchers. Internet and open access were topics that had gained recent popularity, while the digital library, research data management, green librarianship, link data, cloud computing, library leadership, library automation and artificial intelligence were identified as areas requiring further attention. Furthermore, the single-author pattern was found to be the most preferred pattern.

The findings of this study would help prospective researchers in choosing the neglected areas of research that require further investigation. They would also help policymakers in identifying factors that need more attention and allocation of research funds.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive bibliometric study that presents a holistic picture of the LIS research in the Arab region.

This study is based on an assessment survey of continuing education (CE) needs for ICT of library and information science (LIS) professionals. The particular purpose of this study was to seek answers to the following questions: What are the ICT‐focused educational backgrounds, as well as personal and professional characteristics, of LIS practitioners in Pakistan? What are the preferences of LIS professionals for ICT training including methods of CE, providers, incentives, suitable days/time, methods of announcement, payment, and language? What skills or techniques do LIS professionals need to learn?

A questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 200 professionals working in all types of libraries and information organisations in various cities of Pakistan.

LIS professionals showed their preferences in the areas requested and a series of recommendations are provided based on the findings from the survey.

The results of this study are of use to the CE providers (i.e. library schools and professional associations etc.) and will help prepare LIS professionals for leadership in the new age, not only in Pakistan but also in other developing countries.

The global economy is plagued by an unprecedented shock that has devastated economic growth under the coronavirus pandemic. The prolonged movement control orders, social distancing, and lockdowns have triggered the global economic downturn, disrupted the demand and supply chains, reduced the pool of workforce, and caused many jobs loss. This paper aims to analyze the global economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic, and its current and future implications.

Based on contingency theory, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the current situation on the global economic cost of the COVID-19 outbreak and gives insights from an organizational perspective.

This paper found that the world has witnessed far-ranging economic consequences due to the coronavirus pandemic in four aspects: (i) decline in personal consumption; (ii) decline in the investments and stock prices in capital market; (iii) decline in government spending in developmental projects and increase in new borrowing; and (iv) decline of exports of goods to international markets.

The novelty lies in investigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on micro and macroeconomic levels — the components of GDP, consumer behavior, business investments, government spending, and global exports. The paper suggests the need for urgent actions by the world leaders to oversee, anticipate, and manage the risks and cushion the economic consequences. It concludes that the flexibility and adaptability of leaders, effectiveness, workforce protection, efficient use of modern technology, including automation and artificial intelligence, would enhance the resilience of supply chains which will support organizations to sustain in this critical time.

This paper explores the new normal activities and strategic responses of the service industry towards the challenges created by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak and other constructs and validates the measurement scale for socio-economic and technological new normal activities following lockdown and social distancing practices.

First, structured interviews with 28 participants helped us generate items and develop survey instruments for cross-sectional data collection in the second phase. So, the authors received 256 complete responses from the top and middle management of the services industry. Exploratory factor analysis helped us explore the factors and reliability of the items. Confirmatory factor analysis aided us in generating and confirming the factorial structure of the constructs.

Results indicated that amid COVID-19's pandemic, new normal activities are emerging in which organizations are deploying crisis strategies to safeguard their business and stakeholders. Organizations are re-opening swiftly, focusing on digital transformation, developing digital platforms for ease in working and improved consumer services, to name a few operational changes.

Discussion on empirical analysis revolves around the guidelines to service industry's managers and top management to improve shortcomings in combating the challenges they face in their operations.

Prior studies have provided substantial insights on the COVID-19 pandemic, but relatively little research exists on new normal activities in the supply chain network of the service industry. Among other reasons for such less empirical evidence on new normal activities is the unavailability of a comprehensive tool for measuring the socio-economic and technological new normal activities. This paper is a contribution to bridging this knowledge gap.

This paper reports an empirical examination of the societal, financial and technology-related challenges amid the ongoing pandemic (COVID-19) in the service supply chain network.

A combination of qualitative approach (for items generation pertinent to the constructs involved) and quantitative approach (self-administered questionnaires from the top and middle management of the sampled companies) was used for data collection. In total, 272 complete responses were received and analyzed through structural equation modeling.

The results provided empirical evidence that social and physical distancing, travel restrictions, work from home and lockdown practices have two conflicting effects: On one hand, these practices have contributed to the reduction of economic activities, including the low economic outlook, low productivity, high unemployment, poverty, fall in customer demands, dissatisfaction and mental health, that ultimately impacts rise financial and societal issues. On the other hand, the results revealed an insignificant influence of COVID-19 on creating technology-related challenges in the service sector. It shows that the organizations are doing well in combating the technology-related challenges amidst the current pandemic.

Findings of the inquiry recommend implications for the services industry to harmonize a comprehensive strategy and revisit the global norms in sustainable supply chain management activities that have been the backdrop in their operations for a long time.

Findings of the inquiry recommend implications for the services industry to harmonize a comprehensive strategy and revisit the global norms in supply chain management activities that have been the backdrop in their operations for a long time.

Prior studies in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak and its implications have given more attention to the exploratory and theoretical discussion than to empirical evidence. This paper contributes to filling this knowledge gap by empirically exploring the societal, financial and technology-related challenges created by COVID-19. The analysis in this paper covers three dimensions of the PEST model, namely economic, societal and technological factors. This study also helps in laying out a platform for investigating the PEST (political, economic, social and technological) model for guiding the services industry in strategic decision-making in a new era due to COVID-19.

This paper aims to explore the intermediary roles that public policies play in stimulating government agencies, businesses and civil society to engage in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda.

Issues related to decision-making of public policies are increasingly complex. Therefore, analytical hierarchy process has been used to prioritize public policy practices for CSR in the UAE. Data were collected from experts working in businesses and civil society organizations.

Findings suggest that businesses and the civil society confirm the importance of standardization and law enforcement public policy practices in issues related to CSR in developing countries. The endorsing style of public policies was the least important approach to encouraging CSR implementation in the UAE.

Results are derived from a limited amount of empirical data only in one country; therefore, these cannot be generalized. Future research from other countries is needed.

Outcomes from this study will help the government enhance its role as mediator among all agents and help with designing public policies that encourage adoption of CSR by business firms while maintaining competitiveness in the economy.

A framework consisting of five public policy categories – mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and empowering roles – and 29 sub-policy practices is introduced. This study provides an important technique for analyzing the importance of public policies in promoting CSR. It offers insights into a population that shapes a CSR agenda.