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It is believed that the core aim of Islamic institution is idiosyncratic from conventional business entities. Considering this presumption, this study aims to reveal the understandings of various stakeholders about objectives of Islamic banks.

The research endeavor is based on the findings of two distinctive studies, where Study 1 was aimed at investigating the communication of objectives through mission statements of Islamic banks and conventional banks with window operations. Here, mission statements were analyzed using content analysis and readability and understandability tests. Study 2, on the other hand, was aimed at investigating the understandings of various stakeholders, both internal (employees) and external (Muslim and non-Muslim customers of both Islamic and conventional banks, employees and management of conventional banks and business students). In total, 370 responses were received and analyzed in this study.

The findings (Study 1) unveil, the fact, that the mission statements of Islamic banks working in Pakistan are not good at communicating the corporate goals clearly. Out of ten banks investigated for Study 1, it is evident that only one bank (HBL, with window operations) was at par with readability threshold standards. Thus, it was imperative to share that mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend. Study 2 adds further by revealing that most of the stakeholders are not clear about the objectives of these banks, while customers of conventional banks do not value the distinctive objectives of Islamic banks.

This study leaves a valuable message for the policy makers and top management of Islamic banks by focusing on the unattended part on their end, i.e. quality of mission statements and stakeholders’ perception about the objectives of their organization, thus highlighting the needs of greater emphasis on the communication flow to stakeholders, as the clarity of business purpose may change the way customers react toward the business and opt for banking – customer relation in future.

This study covers a multi-dimensional investigation of the understanding and communication of objectives of Islamic banks. There is dearth of literature focusing on the aspects of content analysis, mission statement readability and understandability and investigation of stakeholders’ perception in tandem.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of understanding of Muslim students about Istihalah. It compares the understanding of students of various departments about Istihalah and changes in their knowledge after a workshop.

The study is conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a comparison is made between students of three departments: Islamic studies, business studies and food sciences. These departments were selected using purposive sampling. In the second phase, students with a lack of awareness about Istihalah were given a one-day training workshop on the concept of Istihalah. Data were collected through a personally administrated questionnaire.

The results of the first phase revealed that students from business studies and food sciences were not familiar with the concept and application of Istihalah, whereas students from Islamic studies were well-aware of it. The findings of the second phase revealed that after the provision of training (workshop), students were at par with the students of Islamic studies. All the students were further willing to know about Istihalah and its implications in their personal and professional lives.

The main contribution of this study is to highlight the area where information about Islamic concepts should be disseminated and applied.

Riggle et al.’s (2009) and Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) literature surveys are the latest available studies on antecedents and outcomes of perceived organizational support (POS). Riggle et al. work considered studies on outcomes of organizational support (1986-2006), while Rhoades and Eisenberger worked on both antecedents and consequences (1986-2002). There are seven years since no work has been done on the outcomes and almost 12 years since no work has been done on the antecedents of POS. Considering the gap, the paper aims to investigate the antecedents and outcomes of POS.

In total, 170 studies were included in meta-analysis containing at least one of the antecedent or outcomes. Riggle et al. included 167 studies, while Rhoades and Eisenberger study covered 70 studies in their literature survey studies for the period of 1986-2006. This study adds value to the work of Riggle et al., by looking at the studies conducted from January 2007 to September 2013; and Rhoades and Eisenberger by investigating the antecedents of POS from January 2003 to September 2013.

Findings of the study revealed that POS is largely influenced by justice, growth opportunities, supervisor support, and coworker support. While having a profound look at the outcomes it is evident that POS significantly influence employee engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment; while its impact on organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions is moderate.

This research endeavor leaves a valuable message for management as POS is noticed to have profound effects on employee attitudes and behaviors at work.

This study adds value by offering meta-analysis of the antecedents and outcomes of POS for latest available literature (i.e. 2003-2013 for antecedents and 2007-2013 for outcomes).

Riggle et al.’s (2009) research of 20 years literature (1986-2006) is the latest available meta-analysis on perceived organizational support and outcomes. There are seven years since no work has been done to see the changes in the research and its emphasis, which is the main target of this research. This study aimed at five major outcomes: employee engagement, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions.

Hundred and twelve studies were included in meta-analysis containing at least one of the outcomes. Riggle et al. included 167 studies in their investigation from 1986 to 2006. This study adds value to the work of Riggle et al. by looking at the studies conducted from January 2007 to April 2014.

Findings of the study revealed that perceived organizational support had a strong positive impact on employee engagement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, while its impact on organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions is moderate.

This study adds value by offering meta-analysis of the perceived organizational support and its outcomes for latest available literature (i.e. 2007-2014).

Using the social exchange perspective, the aim of this research is to add value to the construct by looking at direct and indirect effects through perceived organizational support (POS) and leader‐member exchange (LMX) of the guanxi network in job involvement, and ultimately the effect of job involvement on in‐role performance.

A questionnaire was used as the medium for data collection. A total of 458 respondents took part in research at two points of time. Respondents were selected using random sampling technique from hotels of western part of Malaysia. Descriptive statistics, CFA, and SEM were used for this purpose.

Findings of the study reveal that individual guanxi network significantly contributes towards social exchange relations (POS and LMX), and employees' job involvement. The individual guanxi network has both direct and indirect effects on job involvement, which confirms that individual guanxi network affects involvement through social exchange relations, i.e. POS and LMX; it also confirms the basic notion of individual guanxi network (social relations with norm of reciprocity).

This study covers only hotel employees working in Western Malaysia. Other sectors can be selected for future research endeavours with a larger sample size.

One obvious implication of this research is that management should utilize the guanxi network of employees, which can result in increasing involvement and improved performance.

The main contributions of the study contain: consideration of LMX as a mediator and explaining the social exchange essence of individual guanxi network.

A balanced scorecard (BSC) is an applied tool for implementing strategic management in various organizations. Implementing strategic management using the BSC approach has not received much attention in pharmacy departments. This study aims to provide a model for the strategic management of pharmacy departments using the BSC framework.

This experimental study was conducted from 2015 to 2018 in a 300-bed hospital and regional healthcare centers affiliated with the Petroleum Industry Health Organization in Tehran province, Iran. After carefully reviewing the organization's mission and vision, the strategic objectives were determined via the internal matrix and the external matrix (IE matrix), and the strengths–weaknesses–opportunities–threats matrix (SWOT matrix) were examined. Then, six BSC measures and interventions were identified, and each was examined from the perspectives of finance, patient satisfaction, internal processes and learning/growth. Finally, the proposed strategy was evaluated.

Results showed significant increases in patient satisfaction and gross profit. The observed increase range, from 0.09 to 0.29, indicates more effective operational management for optimal resource utilization. In addition, the pharmacy department was able to save US $539,137 by implementing prepared protocols for expensive medications. Similarly, the pharmacy department saved $442,899 during the two years of our strategic management plan by implementing the standard mechanism for returning unused medications to the pharmacy department after patients were discharged from various treatment units.

This study is among the first studies to demonstrate the simultaneous development, implementation and evaluation of the proposed strategy using the BSC in a pharmacy department in a public healthcare center. The BSC application improved the optimal use of resources and reduced costs while increasing patient satisfaction. It appears that the application of such an intervention may be as valuable to public pharmacies as it is to other private centers.