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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the listed firms' debt level and performance on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) during a five-year period.

This study uses pooled ordinary least squares regression and fixed- and random-effects models to analyse a cross-sectional sample of 30 Pakistani companies operating in the automobile, cement and sugar sectors during 2013–2017 (N = 150).

The results indicate that both short- and long-term debt have negative and significant impacts on firm performance in profitability. This suggests that agency issues may lead to a high-debt policy, resulting in lower performance. However, both sales growth and firm size have positive effects on the profitability of non-financial sector companies.

This study suggests that when debt financing significantly and negatively influences firm profitability, company owners and managers should focus on finding a satisfactory debt level. However, this study is limited to the automobile, cement and sugar sectors of Pakistan. Future studies could address other sectors, such as textiles, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

This study focusses on enhancing the existing empirical knowledge of debt financing's influence on the PSX's major sectors' profitability.

This study aims to examine the moderator effect of religiosity on the relationship between halal brand awareness and habit towards purchasing decisions of halal products.

The quantitative method is used in this study. Descriptive and statistical (multiple and moderated regression) analyses are employed to test the hypothesis according to the research model. The data is collected using a cross-sectional design from 197 respondents consisting of business owners in North Sumatera, Indonesia.

It is found that both halal brand awareness and habit have a positive and significant effect on the purchasing decision of halal products. Meanwhile, religiosity significantly acts as a moderating variable in the relationship between awareness and purchasing decisions, as well as habit and purchasing decisions.

This study revealed the important factor of religiosity as a moderating factor in purchase decisions of halal products. The government may need to collaborate with Islamic educational institutions to raise awareness of the halal concept and product awareness. It is assumed that individuals who know about the Islamic religion will have a higher degree of awareness of halal products compared to individuals with limited knowledge of Islam; thus, providers of Islamic education play a crucial role in raising the level of awareness of halal products. Schools may serve as catalysts for the dissemination of knowledge of halal products.

Developing halal product markets can be done by enhancing the religiosity level of consumers, one of them through attending formal or informal religious classes.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the objectives of Islamic banking, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the South African context. Diving deep, this study also explores the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used, resulting in 163 respondents participating in this study. The data was collected using an online survey and analysed using a structural equation model based on the partial least squares method.

The results indicate that the construct related to the objectives of Islamic banking influences both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. In addition, customer satisfaction is also found to influence a customer’s loyalty to the Islamic bank.

In South Africa, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind; thus, the results provide context-specific insights into the extant literature on Islamic banking for Muslims residing in a non-Muslim majority country.

Leaders have been facing serious challenges in managing organizations during COVID-19, which has brought the need for implementing sudden technological change across the globe. Hence, it was important to identify effective leadership styles to successfully manage the transformational process during the period. Therefore, the current study aims to explore and compare the effectiveness of transformational and ethical leadership (EL) in terms of achieving organizational goals during COVID-19 in public and private sector organizations in Pakistan.

Comparative research was carried out to find out the effectiveness of transformational and EL during and pre-COVID-19 in public and private sector organizations using the lens of social exchange theory. Data was collected from 214 respondents representing 67.6% of public and 32.4% of private sector organizations of Pakistan at two different points in time. Detailed comparative analyses were conducted in AMOS version 24 to assess the effectiveness of leadership styles before and during COVID-19 times.

On the whole, transformational leadership (TL) was found to have a greater impact on organizational effectiveness (OE) in comparison with EL in both pre-and during COVID-19 situations. Moreover, the effectiveness of TL significantly increased and the same decreased for EL during COVID-19. Additional analyses indicated that TL was effective for the private sector and EL for public sector organizations during COVID-19.

The study has not considered the mediating mechanisms of employee motivation, engagement and performance in the relationship between transformational and EL styles and OE, which can be explored in the future.

These results have important implications for private and public sector organizations and suggest that the adoption of a TL style will generate better results in the private sector and an EL style in public sector organizations to achieve OE in uncertain situations such as COVID-19.

The study shows that leadership with more care and concern for humanity tends to perform better in terms of generating results for OE. Therefore, both transformational and EL are based on individualized consideration for employees and are effective during COVID-19 in private and public sector organizations in Pakistan.

The study has carried out the comparative analyses in three different ways, including leadership styles (transformational and ethical), type of organization (private and public) and time frames (pre and during COVID-19), which is a true contribution of the research in the Pakistani context.

With theoretical underpinnings in the conservation of resources theory, this research aims at understanding the link between workplace ostracism (WPO) and its effects on customers' interests in the context of COVID-19, with the mediation of stress and moderation of self-efficacy (SE).

The study followed a time-lagged design. A sample of 217 frontline employees working in the food sector of southern Punjab, Pakistan, responded to the study questions using the survey method with structured questionnaires. A Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) tool was utilized for data analysis with bootstrapping and PROCESS macro.

The findings show that an important mechanism by which ostracism translates into customer service sabotage (CSS) is the increase in perceived stress levels of the employees. Additionally, SE was found to be an important personal resource that acts as a moderator in the said relationship.

Employees with high SE sense less workplace stress even during a pandemic. Leadership should consider the stress-alleviating effect of SE for lessening the damaging influence of WPO on customers.

The study fills an important empirical gap in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, by showing that due to resource loss perceived by employees while being targeted by ostracism, they may decide to transfer their frustration towards organizational customers by sabotaging their service experience.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the inheritance of a business from the Islamic accounting perspective.

The paper adapts the relevant provisions of conventional accounting standards and practices that conform to Sharīʿah (Islamic law). In addition, the provisions of the Islamic accounting standard for musharakah (AAOIFI’s FAS No. 4) found to be relevant are also adapted.

The study shows that the assets of an inherited business should be measured at their fair values and that liabilities and legacies must be deducted therefrom with the view to arriving at the equity (or residue). The equity is then distributed among the heirs based on the sharing ratio established according to the Noble Qurʾān, the Sunnah (the Prophet’s way) and Muslim jurists’ views. Therefore, the inherited business becomes a family business as each heir is admitted into it. By extension, Islam emphasizes that the business should remain a going concern to generate income to sustain the welfare of the heirs.

The discussion of the paper is limited to the inheritance of a business and its going concern in line with the Sharīʿah.

Special attention should be paid to the inherited business to ensure not only its continuity to generate income for the heirs but also that each heir gets a correct share of the equity of the business as regulated by the Sharīʿah.

This study links Islamic inheritance to the going concern of the business, which from all indications has not been given full consideration by previous studies.

Entrepreneurship is an important paradigm for enhancing the economic well-being of nations. However, despite heated debate about the significant role of entrepreneurial education (EE) in developing favourable entrepreneurial intention (EI), little is known about the role of individuals’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ES), entrepreneurial motivation (EM) and family support (FS), which the authors investigated in this study.

This study has used a quantitative research design to collect data from 334 young people from various Malaysian higher education institutes using a purposive sampling technique and a deductive approach based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

The findings revealed interesting insights into the criticality of young people’s ES, EM and FS in learning methods, techniques and skills to start new enterprises. Moreover, EE was a significant mediator of the relationship between individual self-efficacy, FS, EM and EI.

This study is among the few to contribute to strategic management scholarship by designing a framework based on the idea that EE relies on diverse factors, particularly ES, EM and FS. These factors encourage Malaysian young people to seek the necessary education to develop favourable EI and launch successful businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interrelationship between macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and financial performance of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigates the effect of interest rate, inflation rate, exchange rate and the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, while the firm characteristics were size, leverage and liquidity. The dependent variable financial performance is measured as return on assets (ROA).

The study used the ex post facto research design. The population comprised all quoted manufacturing firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The sample was restricted to companies in the consumer goods sector, selected using non-probability sampling method. The study used multiple linear regression as the method of validating the hypotheses.

The study finds no significant effect for interest rate and exchange rate, but a significant effect for inflation rate and GDP growth rate on ROA. Second, the firm characteristics showed that firm size, leverage and liquidity were significant.

The study has implications for regulators and policy makers in formulating policy decisions. In addition, managers may better understand the interplay between macroeconomic factors, firm characteristics and profitability of firms.

Few studies have addressed the interplay of macroeconomic factors and firm characteristics in determining the profitability of manufacturing firms in the country and developing countries in general.

This paper seeks to provide empirical insight into how industrialization and technology affect environmental quality in Ghana.

Using Ecological Footprint (ECF) as a measure of environmental degradation, the authors employ annual data from World Development Indicators of the World Bank and the Global Footprint Network spanning from 1970 to 2017 and apply the fully modified least squares (FMOLS) technique.

The results reveal that industrialization has a negative significant influence on ECF, suggesting that industrialization contributes to environmental sustainability in Ghana. The authors find that technology is harmful to the environment as it has a positive significant effect on ECF. The study also documents that while education and financial development improve environmental sustainability, fossil fuel consumption exacerbates environmental degradation in Ghana.

The environmental impact of industrialization is still being debated, with very scanty empirical evidence in the African context. Based on a detailed review of the literature, this paper provides an initial attempt to investigate the industrialization–environmental sustainability nexus in Ghana. Besides, whereas most extant studies have employed CO₂ emission as a proxy of environmental degradation, the authors use ECF to gauge the level of environmental degradation which is regarded as a more inclusive metric.