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Despite its potential, warehouse managers still struggle to successfully assimilate autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in their operations. This paper means to identify the moderating factors of AMR assimilation for production warehouses that influence the digital transformation of their intralogistics via AMRs.

Drawing on innovation of assimilation theory (IAT), this study followed an explorative approach using the principles of the case study method in business research. The cases comprised of four AMR end users and six AMR service providers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews.

Four clusters of moderators that affect each stage of AMR assimilation were identified. These clusters include organizational attributes of end users (i.e. production warehouses), service attributes of service providers, technology attributes of AMRs and relational attributes between the AMR service providers and the AMR end users.

The authors extend the IAT framework by identifying various moderating factors between different stages of the AMR assimilation process. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to introduce the perspective of AMR end users in conjunction with AMR service providers to the “Industry 4.0” technology assimilation literature. The study propositions regarding these factors guide future intralogistics and AMR research.

Third-party logistics (3PL) companies have experienced an explosion of volume during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Special tiers have been introduced to provide differentiated levels of service to the customers. However, such changes in an organization reveal and intensify tensions known as paradoxes. The purpose of this research is to identify what paradoxes emerged or have become more salient specifically due to COVID-19 in 3PLs' ground operations and how they are dealt with by ground operation managers.

This is a qualitative study conducted in two phases. Phase one utilizes a questionnaire approach to identify the paradoxes within the 3PLs operating in the USA. Phase two, conducted six months after phase one, follows an in-depth one-on-one interview approach. NVivo 12 is employed to analyze the interview data.

The results show that new paradoxes did in fact emerge due to the COVID-19 and are mostly related to the performing paradox category. Findings from in-depth interviews show that the 3PL managers focus on keeping safety as priority to manage COVID-19 related paradoxes, along with modifying operational plans, improving communication, investing in training, optimizing hub network, introducing modified/new methods and adapting modified human resource policies.

This paper is among the first known to identify paradoxes within the 3PL operations during the COVID-19 and provides insights into how these paradoxes are dealt with at mid-management level. Findings of this study provide foundations for the development of a theoretical framework on handling paradoxes within 3PLs.

Despite its immense potentials as a sustainable and innovative means to solve specific social problems, the basic concept of the social business model (SBM) advanced by Professor Muhammad Yunus remains unclear to many. There exists no literature that objectively compares this model from empowerment and economic growth perspectives with other seemingly similar concepts, such as social enterprise, non-governmental organization (NGO) and corporate social responsibility. Although many NGOs have been showing increasing interest towards the adoption of the SBM to minimize social problems sustainably, lack of conceptual clarity of the model limits the scope of its adoption in addressing social issues. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study is based on a systematic search, analysis and review of literature. It has made use of narrative synthesis of relevant literature on a diverse range of socially oriented models, frameworks and interventions.

This study identified five key aspects of social business, namely: business’s mission and outcomes, characteristics, operation, resource utilization and environmental considerations. Based on these five key aspects one may like to infer that unlike other social interventions, the alignment of SBM is specific to empowerment of disadvantaged people leading to sustainable economic growth. Analyzing a range of social business interventions in a developing country, Bangladesh, through the lens five key aspects demonstrates that social business is the most efficient way to sustainably maximize the social benefits and minimize specific social issues poverty of the people affected.

This study discusses the scopes of adopting SBM for the socially responsible organizations for sustainable empowerment and economic growth in emerging economies.

Customers of Islamic banking industry continue to be skeptical on Sharīʿah compliance of Islamic banks despite receiving fatwa from the competent authorities. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the Sharīʿah risk taken by Islamic banks, so that customers are better informed on the level of Sharīʿah compliance that will help in removing the persistent level of skepticism toward Sharīʿah compliance.

This research has used the scorecard based modeling approach to build the Sharīʿah risk rating model, which consists of 14 factors that capture Sharīʿah risk and are grouped in 5 major areas revolving around regulatory support, quality of Sharīʿah supervision, business structure, product mix and treatment of capital adequacy ratio. The score calculated by applying the model is grouped into 4 tiers reflecting the level Sharīʿah compliance at bank as non-compliant, weak compliance, satisfactory compliance and high level of Sharīʿah compliance. Three case studies were conducted by applying the model to Islamic banks from Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The final Sharīʿah risk scores calculated by the model clearly differentiate the 3 banks on basis of their Sharīʿah risk. The underlying scores also highlighted the areas where banks need to improve to reduce their Sharīʿah risk.

This model can be applied by customers of Islamic banks who are interested in understanding Sharīʿah-related aspects of Islamic banking industry. This model can be applied on standalone basis or as an extension to the conventional counter party risk rating models. This model can benefit management of Islamic banks toward allocation of capital against Sharīʿah risk under Basel III, and regulators can apply the model to measure industry wide risk of Sharīʿah non-compliance.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic content review and bibliometric analysis of the current research trends, core concepts and knowledge mapping on the topic Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF) during Covid-19. Apart from highlighting the contributions of prolific authors, prominent institutions and countries, a comprehensive review of a significant number of documents using co-citation and co-word analysis is carried out for the science mapping.

A data set of 125 papers was collected published in Scopus database during the period December, 2019 and January 5th, 2023. Yearly publications, most-cited papers and authors, active sources, affiliations and countries are highlighted with descriptive analysis. Knowledge structure of the topic was mapped with investigating the social, intellectual and conceptual structures of IBF research. Content analysis is carried out to uncover the underlying research clusters that shape the scientific knowledge structure of studies.

A diverse group of authors and institutions contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the topic. IBF is adopting new paradigms and frameworks to integrate FinTech, crowd funding and Islamic social finance to provide sustainable solutions in both crisis and normal periods. The research on IBF is classified in to three themes: “financial markets in Covid-19,” “modeling risk and market regimes” and “FinTech and Islamic social finance.”

This study collects data only from Scopus database. Future studies must include research articles from other databases such as, Web of Sciences.

This study highlights research gaps in the existing literature and provides directions for future research.

This study aims to examine sustainability reporting through the lens of global reporting initiative (GRI) standards in developing economies, particularly in Pakistan, from the perspective of stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, and system theory.

Qualitative and quantitative analyses on economic, social and environmental areas of sustainability reporting based on the GRI standards are applied across 57 organizations listed on the Pakistan stock exchange over the years 2016–2020.

The results from the content analysis and descriptive statistics show that overall sustainability reporting increased persistently over time and limited organizations disclose economic, social and environmental sustainability based on GRI standards. Moreover, the result from the two-tailed correlation analysis shows positive relations between economic, social and environmental sustainability reporting.

Following the GRI standards, the regulators, government and policymakers need to assess the sustainability reporting based on GRI standards to improve corporate operations' transparency, stakeholder trust and legitimacy. The organizations should move beyond the compliance of regulatory norms and adopt the globally accepted sustainability GRI standards to improve sustainability reporting. The same kind of sustainability reporting is also advised for other countries with similar backgrounds and sustainability challenges.

The integrated sustainability reporting framework based on GRI standards enables the organizations to work as a system of interconnected economic, social and environmental sustainability to resolve the issue of sustainability reporting, ensure the trust of multiple stakeholders and legitimize their business operations in society.

To the best of the authors' knowledge and thorough review of literature, this is the first study that examines the sustainability reporting based on GRI in the developing country of Pakistan to extend the findings of previous studies from conventional sustainability reporting to the globally accepted GRI based sustainability reporting. Using system theory, this study provides an additional contribution to the consideration concerning sustainability reporting based on GRI standards in the context of Pakistan.

Islamic Banking has been in the limelight since the recession of 2008. Although around for a long time, it is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. This case provides an introduction.

EMBA and/or MBA introduction to banking, senior semester undergraduate, specialization in Islamic Banking.

This case is written in the form of an interview with Meezan Bank, one of the leading financial institutions in the Islamic banking sector. It is based on primary as well as secondary data obtained via interviews and documentary analysis.

This is an analytical case and not a decision-making one. The main theme of the case revolves around analysing what Islamic banking is, the challenges that Meezan has faced, the pros and cons of doing business this way and the future issues it can face.

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CSS 7: Management Science.

This study aims to develop a Sharīʿah-compliance rating mechanism for the Islamic financial services industry (IFSI), with a special focus on banking. The banking sector is taken as the area of focus due to its leadership role in the volume of global Sharīʿah-compliant assets.

The objectives of the Islamic financial system (IFS) are selected as the basis for ratings. A range of performance indicators (leading to achievement of the objectives) is grouped into four broader categories and used in the study to allocate scores with a sum total of 100. Special considerations – including the amount of resources required in performing an activity, suitability of prevailing business conditions, the degree of compulsion/discretion in performing a task and linkage with the essence of the IFS – were taken into account in the allocation of scores.

This study groups multiple performance measures into four categories, including portfolio construction (deposits mechanism, participatory and asset-based modes of financing), access to finance (service to the less-privileged and sector screening), reputation (disclosures and stakeholders’ survey) and Sharīʿah governance (Sharīʿah supervision and controls, charitable operations, human resources, product development and organization). The Portfolio, Audit, Reputation and System (PARS) rating system is then developed.

A Sharīʿah-compliance rating system is helpful in measuring the progress towards goal achievement of the IFS and in gaining stakeholders’ trust. It is also important for Sharīʿah boards and regulators in policy formulation, for management in addressing weaknesses and taking corrective measures and potentially for standard-setting bodies.

This study presents a comprehensive quantitative Sharīʿah-compliance rating mechanism, taking into consideration the objectives of the IFS – equitable distribution of wealth and financial stability, in addition to Sharīʿah-compliance in operations. Development of Sharīʿah-compliance quality ratings for Islamic banking is essential to gain customers’ trust; the suggested methodology is thus a contribution to the literature on Islamic finance.

Over the last few decades, microfinance industry is argued to have played a constructive role in alleviating poverty level and providing the underprivileged with access to financial services. Statistics from the World Bank reveal that, currently, only 4% of the underprivileged have been served out of the 3 billion+ potential clients. Such results are due to several claims, particularly the operational and financial challenges faced by microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the constant flux inviting more attentions towards its performance. While explicit attention is given by many researchers towards mobile banking and information and communication technology (ICT) in improving the MFIs’ performance, the study on how social media, as a rapidly growing online phenomenon, can impact on the MFIs’ performance remains scarce. As such, this study aims to investigate this impact based on four dimensional performance indicators: efficiency, financial sustainability, portfolio quality and outreach.

A model is proposed and tested to ascertain the relationship between social media applications and organisational performance. In so doing, web-based questionnaires have been used to collect data from MFI employees in developing countries. Results reveal a significant influence of the social media over the MFIs’ performance, offering valuable insights into both researchers and practitioners in the domain of microfinance, as well as social media—conforming that the adoption of social media as marketing, advertising and communication tools may significantly improve the MFIs’ performance.

The results demonstrate that there is a positive and significant impact of social media use within microfinance on the key indicators of MFIs. They also show that the highest impact of social media usage within the microfinance is on the portfolio quality. In addition, it was found that marketing and advertising; communication and sales and distribution are the main areas where social media is able to support while social networking websites are the most popular platforms employed in MFIs.

This study adds to the existing literature few theoretical and practical aspects. First, this study developed a model for assessing the value of social media as a new phenomenon within this type of organisation. Second, it offers microfinance sponsors, managers and policy makers with a frame of reference to understand what social media platform can be deployed for each purpose. Third, with the identification of the main MFIs’ performance indicators, this research provided a reference of performance measurement guide for microfinance industry when assessing different technological employment.