Search results

This study investigates the association between debt overhang and carbon emissions (both direct and indirect emissions) using a sample of US publicly listed firms.

The study applies generalized least squares (GLS) regression analyses to a sample of 2,043 US firm-year observations over a period of 14 years from 2007 to 2020. The methods include contemporaneous effect, lagged effect, alternative measures of carbon emissions and debt overhang, intensive versus non-intensive analysis, channel analysis, firm fixed effects, change analysis, controlling for credit rating analysis, propensity score matching approach, instrumental variable analysis with industry and year fixed effect.

This study's findings reveal that the debt overhang problem increases carbon emissions. This finding holds when the authors use alternative measures of carbon emissions and debt overhang. The authors find that carbon abatement investment is a channel that is negatively impacted by debt overhang, which in turn increases carbon emissions. This study's results are robust for several endogeneity tests, including firm fixed effects, change analysis, propensity score matching approach and two-stage least squares (2SLS) instrumental variable analysis.

The outcome of this research has policy implications for several stakeholders, including investors, firms, market participants and regulators. This study's findings offer insights for investors and firms, helping them allocate resources effectively and make financing decisions aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Regulators and policymakers can also use the findings to formulate policies that promote alternative sustainable finance practices.

The outcome of this research is likely to help firms develop their understanding of the debt overhang problem and undertake strategies that yield a significant amount of funding to invest in reducing carbon emissions.

Pakistan is one of the most climate change and natural disaster-affected countries in the globe, where the lives and livelihoods of people are repeatedly affected due to these natural disasters. Over the past few decades, the country has been impacted by numerous devastating floods, droughts, and storms. As a result, households face enormous complications, particularly those dwelling in disaster-prone areas. Therefore, this study intends to explore the status of household vulnerability and resilience practices of hazard-prone communities in Pakistan from existing literature. This study has identified the 17 most relevant documents. It argues that household vulnerability is increasing consistently with the increasing rate of disaster intensity. Frequent flooding, landslide, erosion, and crop loss are the leading causes of household vulnerability. This study reveals five types of household vulnerability components which look into several livelihood vulnerability indicators of Pakistani households. Moreover, the study unfolds that the main causes of disaster vulnerability are widespread crop loss, a lack of water, loss of soil fertility, and low socioeconomic situations. The major vulnerability components of dwellers are exposure (increasing summer duration, the rapid increase of population house build-up in the riparian areas, and increasing occurrence of hailstorms), sensitivity, low access to education facilities, human loss, diseases infestation, food insecurity, and social conflict), and less adaptive capacity (social networks, migration, poor emergency services, multiple income sources, and less access to the health facility). To address the household vulnerability, this study has also identified four key aspects of resilience, like social resilience, economic resilience, institutional resilience, and physical resilience. The findings will effectively help to understand the dynamics of household vulnerability and resilience and its measurement and management strategy from developed indicators.

This paper draws on the affordance perspective, to explore the social media (SM) usage experiences that might render valuable for academic women professionals, for knowledge exchange, networking and success. Owing to the increased SM usage during COVID-19 pandemic, this paper tries to find out that in what ways do SM affordances facilitate the underprivileged group of women professionals to grow in their careers in a masculine, conservative society through knowledge exchange.

By utilizing qualitative study design, the authors collected data from 31 women employed in Pakistani universities, through unstructured questionnaires. The responses were analyzed through Nvivo.

The generated themes suggested that women in Pakistan are aware of SM's potential for knowledge exchange among fellow professionals. They use it to aid them in communication, collaboration and networking. Additionally, they utilize it to share knowledge and build networks that are vital for career progression and success.

The paper concludes with the implications for practitioners that would aid them in boosting career prospects for women academicians through SM usage in a developing country Pakistan; where women's career outlooks are not as promising as for men; or as bright as for women working in the developed economies.

This a unique attempt to explore knowledge exchange dimensions with the help of SM in the context of working women by the deploying the phenomenological approach.

This study aims to consider factors that play an important role in adopting the halal food standard (HFS) among food manufacturers in Pakistan and to investigate the role of the traceability system in the compliance of the halal assurance system (HAS).

Present study included data from a survey by 134 professionals/food technologists from the food industry, and partial least square-structural equation modeling was applied.

The results indicate that consumer pressure, industry competition, marketing functions, operational improvement and the organization’s commitment have a significant impact on HFS adoption, while government regulations have an insignificant impact. The results also indicate that the HFS’s adoption and lack of a traceability system significantly impact HAS.

The current study’s findings are inconclusive. Hence, future researchers are suggested to further explore the studied phenomena, especially in other research settings.

For policymakers, the findings of this study offer valuable information as it not only benefits the industry but will also assist in providing better and safer halal food products to consumers.

This study highlights the importance of the adoption of HFS and compliance with HAS in a scenario where demand for Halal is increasing globally. Moreover, the findings of this study offer valuable information in motivating firms to implement HFS.

This study aims to propose a model to elevate the financial empowerment of Muslim women by rejuvenating the practice of Mahr in society and facilitating the affordability of men to pay that Mahr amount.

The approach of this study is to offer a model through the interest-free savings-based finance concept. The model comprises four stages; each stage of the model is mathematically formulated and graphically explained to ensure clarity and coherence. To further investigate the issue, the authors use a convenient sampling method to ask a small sample size of respondents (women) from different countries about their financial contribution and empowerment in the family.

This model enables women to turn their exclusive financial right into a source of earning without borrowing from any source or paying interest on the principal amount. Besides, it encourages accelerating men’s obligation to pay the Mahr to the women immediately during the marriage ceremony by facilitating men’s affordability. Almost 45% of respondents state that a woman’s financial contribution exalts her decision-making power and strengthens her financial position in the family.

The authors attempt to revitalize Mahr practice in Muslim society to accelerate the process of receiving a woman’s exclusive financial right and empower a family as a whole through the Mahr model.

Considering the model’s uniqueness, the developed and proposed Mahr model in this research is novel; to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted and developed such a model using the Mahr concept.

This study aims to investigate the tendency that Malaysian consumers will choose the recombinant collagen-like protein (RCLP) from bacteria as an alternative source of collagen in their consumption and the determinants of the consumer acceptance.

Quantitative approach is adopted in the study. Descriptive analysis and logistic regression are used to analyze primary data collected from a survey.

The likelihood of consumers choosing RCLP as an alternative source of collagen is higher among elderly and females. The choice is significantly influenced by the idea that the collagen should support maqasid al-syariah, approved by national Islamic body, should clear on the ingredients used and could boost local economic activities in the future.

An ethical halal policy should be outlined as the guiding principles to the potential producers of RCLP.

An alternative source of collagen using bacteria as proposed is not yet being introduced in Malaysian industry, and the analysis on probability that consumers will accept this new sourced collagen product is using primary data from survey.

In recent years, technological advancement has played a crucial role in the growth of emerging economies. However, as with any novel technological development, there are often concerns and hesitations surrounding its implementation. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing blockchain adoption and usage. Thereby evaluating its impact on supply chain performance.

This is a deductive research based on the modified form unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, which is a persuasive model that has been used in numerous studies on the acceptance and usage of information technology systems. For this study, valid data was collected from 129 management-level supply chain professionals and policymakers working in diverse manufacturing industries. The collected data was used for testing hypotheses by deploying the structural equation modeling technique.

The findings of this study reveal that facilitating conditions and technology readiness highly are key influencers for organizations to implement this disruptive technology. Moreover, blockchain adoption and usage can significantly enhance supply chain performance.

Blockchain technology is a novel and promising disruptive technology that industries are looking forward to adopting and using. For the policymakers and supply chain strategists working in a developing country, this study offers a comprehensive viewpoint on the swift acceptance and usage of blockchain technology to facilitate supply chain operations.

In this study, the removal of a series of acid dyes by hybrid polymer adsorbent was investigated. Textile industry wastewater is mainly consisted of suspended solid particles and organic compounds with complex and nondecomposable structures. Treatment of such wastewaters has received much attention by researchers because of high water consumption and the presence of various chemical compounds, especially dyes. The use of polymers has recently attracted much attention for the treatment of textile wastewaters. According to the literature, hybrid polymers are highly capable of adsorbing dyes. In this research work, polyacrylamide/iron sulfate (PAM-FeSO₄) hybrid polymer was successfully synthesized through solution polymerization of acrylamide with ammonium persulfate and sodium thiosulfate and gradual addition of iron sulfate. The hybrid polymeric adsorbent was then used for removing acidic dyes with different chemical structures.

The effects of various experimental conditions and parameters, such as initial concentrations of dye and adsorbent, on the adsorption capacity of the adsorbent were investigated. The dye concentration was measured by an UV–vis spectrophotometer. The adsorption equilibrium was studied by plotting adsorption isotherms. The experimental data was fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms.

The adsorption experiments indicated that the PAM-FeSO₄ hybrid polymer has a high adsorption capacity (117.64 mg g⁻¹ for the Orange ІІ and 80.64 mg g⁻¹ for the Sunset Yellow [SY]) when 80 mg of adsorbent was immersed in the dye solution (1 g L⁻¹) with a pH of 11 at 25°C. The analysis of the equilibrium isotherms using the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms indicated that the Langmuir model fit well to the experimental data.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is original. The removal of acid dyes such as Sunset Yellow and Methyl Orange using PAM-FeSO₄ hybrid polymer as flocculant was done for the first time.

Environmental performance (EnPerf) needs to be critically studied so organizations can understand enhancing it. The purpose of this study is mainly to examine and explain the influence of beliefs and values of the human resources regarding religiosity (REL) and workplace spirituality (WS) on shaping an environmentally friendly work culture comprising environmental ethics (EE) and environmental passion (EP), to enhance EnPerf.

A survey methodology was used, and 316 responses were collected from the employees working in industries on the top list of polluting the environment using purposive sampling. Structural equation modeling was deployed to test the hypotheses.

This research is conducted to identify specific relationships of variables with the environment. It was discovered that WS affected EP and EE, positively affecting EnPerf.

This study guides organizations and their management to adopt WS, EE and EP, as these all increase EnPerf in the organization.

Not much work has been conducted on the environmental culture based on REL and WS, using the ability-motivation-opportunity theory. This research analyzes employees’ intrinsic factors, such as REL and WS, to develop EP and EE. Thus helping to comprehend how they can use to enhance EnPerf, which is the current priority for the organizations.