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This study aims to investigate the impact of dividend policy on a firm’s participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related activities in the context of Pakistani firms. Furthermore, the role of the board governance mechanism in dividend policy-CSR is investigated.

The study’s sample consists of 115 nonfinancial Pakistan Stock Exchange-listed firms from 2010 to 2021. A multidimensional financial method is used to assess the firm’s CSR engagement, and dividend policy is assessed using the dividend payout ratio and dividend yield. The authors used the fixed effect model and the random effect model to fulfill the study’s objectives. Furthermore, the system-generalized method of moment estimation technique is used to test the robustness of the result. In addition, the authors perform reverse causality analysis and investigate the effect of financial constraints on the dividend policy–CSR relationship.

The authors find that dividend policy has a significant positive impact on CSR. The authors also find that dividend policy is significantly positively associated with components of CSR, i.e. donation, employee welfare and research and development. Furthermore, the authors find that the board governance mechanism strengthens this positive relationship between dividend policy and CSR.

The government and authorities must mandate or at least encourage enterprises to pay dividends as doing so not only keeps shareholders happy but also encourages firms to make CSR initiatives to balance stakeholders. Furthermore, the regulator should take steps to strengthen the board governance structure as it strengthens the positive dividend policy–CSR relationship.

Although little previous research has focused on the CSR-dividend policy link, the authors believe that this is the first study to look at the influence of dividend policy on CSR and the moderating impact of board governance mechanisms in an emerging country, namely, Pakistan.

This research aims to inspect the existence of the “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) in the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and urbanization throughout 1972–2018 for Pakistan.

For time series analysis, Phillips and Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root tests are used to confirm the level of integration. For robustness, Kim and Perron (2009)’s structural break unit root test is employed, which identifies the order of integration in the presence of structural break years. Further, combined cointegration analysis is performed to confirm the existence of a long-run association between underlying variables. Furthermore, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis is employed for the robustness of the cointegration approach.

The cointegration analysis confirms the existence of a long-run association among variables. The authors find a positive and significant impact of urbanization, FD and foreign development on environmental degradation in the long run. Similarly, only FDI increases environmental degradation in the short run. In addition, the authors find an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental quality which, further, confirms the presence of EKC in Pakistan.

This research contributes to applied economics in many ways: the combined effect of urbanization, FD, FDI and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission is checked simultaneously. To avoid ambiguity, this study constructs the FD index through the principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, the role of structural breaks has been considered through the analysis. Novel Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration analysis is employed to detect the existence of long-run relationships among underlying variables.

The current analysis aims to explore the role of cash holdings in the nexus of national governance and capital investment (CIN).

To achieve this aim, the authors sample the nonfinancial enterprises from 5 Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) economies and employ system generalized method of moments(GMM) models as an estimation technique.

The empirical analysis infers that national governance has a positive relationship with CIN and a negative relationship with cash holdings. The cash holdings negatively determine CIN. However, the cash holdings show a positive relationship with CIN in the presence of the national governance index (NGI).

The important policy layout of the current analysis is that corporate managers should reduce cash holdings during better governance situations. Alternatively, corporate managers can disentangle the negative impact of bad country governance conditions on CIN by holding more cash.

The study is innovative as it explores mediating impact of cash holdings in the NGI-CIN nexus.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. Specifically, the study aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge integration, examining how knowledge integration within an organization influences project outcomes. In addition, the study seeks to explore the moderating role of top management knowledge values, examining how the values and beliefs of top management influence the relationship between sustainable leadership and project performance.

A three-wave survey of 392 employees working in construction sector projects in Pakistan used both hierarchical regression analysis and Hayes’ PROCESS macro method to evaluate the hypotheses.

The study results show that sustainable leadership positively relates to sustainable project performance and knowledge integration mediating this relationship. In addition, the top management knowledge value moderates the indirect effect of sustainable leadership on sustainable project performance via knowledge integration.

Although the model was tested using three-wave data, it is important to note that the data were obtained from a single source. Therefore, it is possible that common method bias may have influenced the results, and this cannot be disregarded.

Organizations seek to prioritize sustainability and integrate sustainability considerations into their project management processes. Organizations can achieve improved sustainable project performance by investing in sustainable leadership development, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and learning, prioritizing top management support for sustainable performance and integrating sustainable considerations into project management processes.

The study’s grounding on organizational learning theory adds an original and valuable perspective to the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. This investigation is original, as it combines sustainable leadership, knowledge integration and the moderating role of top management knowledge value to understand their impact on sustainable project performance. This unique approach contributes to the literature by providing new insights into these relationships and mechanisms in the construction industry.

This study aims to examine the research productivity of Pakistan Agricultural Research Council’s (PARC’s) researchers published during 2001–2020 by using scientometric indicators. The study explored the growth and collaborative trends along with authorship and institutional collaborative patterns at the national and international levels.

The study was conducted in four phases. Firstly, a search strategy was designed to retrieve reliable data sets. During the second phase, data from PARC research was retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). In the third phase, the data were combined, and duplications were removed. Finally, the data were analysed using RStudio and VOSviewer.

The study identified 2,868 research publications from 16 communication channels spanning over the period of 2001–2020. The growth rate varied during the study period and the year 2020 was the most productive year of the organization. Most of the research was produced in multi-authorship and five authors were dominant. Pakistan Journal of Botany was the most preferred and cited source. Moreover, PARC research collaboration with Pakistani researchers was more than their international counterparts.

Like other research, this research has some limitations. For example, this research is based on secondary data extracted from WoS and Scopus databases, world-renowned online academic. However, researchers should keep in mind while interpreting the results of this study. Secondly, the research publications published by PARC researchers during 2001–2020 were considered. Finally, this research considered English language literature only.

The study’s key theoretical contribution is its strategy for merging WoS and Scopus in RStudio, while its findings could assist agriculture research stakeholders in identifying new areas of research, awards, promotions and identification of research gaps.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to use scientometric indicators to evaluate PARC’s research productivity. This detailed analysis provides a deeper understanding of PARC’s contribution to agriculture research and its potential implications.

This study aims to map the “Desktop Research” (DR) output in Pakistan, as part of the growing field of research globally. It also ascertains the productive institutions and prolific authors along with their collaboration patterns.

Bibliometric techniques were used to quantitatively analyze the DR published in Pakistan. The publications from 1981 to 2021 were retrieved from Scopus. A total of 1,802 publications were retrieved and used for analysis.

Results indicated an unpredictable increase in DR output from approximately 100 to 400 records during the past five years. The year 2020 was most productive in DR research showing the excess use of secondary data by researchers in COVID-19. The focus of researchers towards DR was consistently rising. Medical journals were found to publish DR extensively. Majority of the publications were contributed by collaborative work and researchers of the USA were found as the most collaborative with Pakistani authors. Publications of single category journals, open access journals and international collaboration get more citations.

The results of the analysis rely only on a single database, Scopus, for retrieving the publication data.

The study has practical implications for the policymakers and higher education development organizations to introduce the DR as a course in academic schools.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to review DR in the context of Pakistan through bibliometric analysis. This comprehensive overview provides a better understanding of the development of the field and possible practice implications.

The aim of this study is to investigate how green supply chain management (GSCM) practices mediate the effect of Industry 4.0 technologies on operational and green innovation performances.

To explore the study, data were collected from 225 different manufacturing industries in Pakistan. Gathered data were used to test the hypotheses using SmartPLS 3 software by using structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that operational and green innovation performances are directly affected by the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies and GSCM practices. Furthermore, the GSCM practices positively affect operational and green innovation performances. The study also investigated that the GSCM practices partially mediate the effect of Industry 4.0 on operational and green innovation performances.

This study has some limitations, the data of this study were majorly collected from large enterprises of Pakistani firms and related to the manufacturing sector only. So, there is a huge need for attention toward small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Very few researchers are focusing on SMEs, so future research can be on SMEs. It can be suggested that the relationship between digital technologies and green innovation performance can be tested through a quantitative procedure. Moreover, the effect of GSCM's aspects can be estimated on manageable execution.

Through the mediating relationship of GSCM practices, this research has made a unique contribution by investigating the influence of Industry 4.0 on operational and green innovation performances. To the author's knowledge, no research has been undertaken in this area.

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.

The purpose of this study is to develop a new framework to measure waqif preference of waqf-based qardhul hassan financing in Malaysia.

Using a maqāṣid approach, this study’s data were drawn from 286 valid usable questionnaires to examine the effects of consumer, family, ummah and humanity factors on the preference.

The study found that the said factors sourced from Attia’s maqāṣid al-Shariah were instrumental in determining waqif preference to donate in waqf-based qardhul hassan financing.

Like others, this study’s findings are limited in terms of their generalisations and applications. The theory, context and variables used should be expanded in future works.

The results obtained are useful as a yardstick to enable the offered waqf-based qardhul hassan financing for improved mutual well-being among different classes of the wealth of societal groups in Malaysia. Furthermore, the results provide valuable insights into the direction for practitioners mainly managers involved in introducing waqf-based qardhul hassan financing as a new Islamic social financial instrument for poor and needy folks, at best.

This study is novel in terms of the proposed conceptual framework, where the waqif perspective comes into play.

The purpose of this paper is to look into millennials’ acceptance of Qard al-hasan using the Islamic theory of consumer behaviour (iTCB) in Malaysia.

For this study, convenience sampling was used and 203 usable questionnaires were received from the respondents who are millennials and university students. The questionnaire link was distributed via social media platforms to the millennials.

The findings of this study reveal that there exists a strong and positive relationship between the role of iman and Maqasid consumer index in determining the millennial acceptance of Qard al-hasan. On the contrary, Islamic altruism does not turn out to be the factor of Qard al-hasan acceptance. Resultantly, these results suggest that millennials in Malaysia accept Qard al-hasan and based on those educational institutions may consider offering zero-interest benevolent loans to alleviate the financial burden of unprivileged students.

Although this study provides positive results, a minimum of two research constraints may direct future efforts in this area. This study initially focuses on a specific ecosystem of Islamic financial products in Malaysia, with a particular emphasis on Qard al-hasan. As a result, subsequent research ought to strive to encompass a larger perspective on Qard al-hasan. Secondly, this research uses a theory that is still in the applicability phase, which has led to some productive discussions for further improvements.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the few studies conducted on an empirical basis using the iTCB in the milieu of Qard al-hasan in Malaysia.