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The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has become a major driving force in transforming education worldwide. Similarly, in the last ten years, the usage of ICTs and e-learning in Pakistan has increased. Whereas the latest educational policy of the Government of Pakistan has focused on using ICTs and e-learning in schools and universities. The national professional standards for teachers have also suggested teachers to integrate ICTs in their classrooms and develop e-learning platforms for teaching and learning processes. However, in this study the effectiveness of information and communication and e-learning technologies integration in teaching and learning has been assessed. The context selected for this research study is a public university of Sindh, Pakistan. The research gap, which has been founded through the extensive literature review, indicated that most of the students are not able to utilize ICTs effectively. The first objective of this study is to enable students to gain wider range of knowledge and access Internet for developing a global outlook. Moreover, the second objective of this study is to develop students' capabilities of processing information more effectively and efficiently for teaching and learning.

By nature, this study is quantitative survey-based research study. For this purpose, data has been collected from students and teachers of English, Computer Science and Business Administration departments of targeted university, survey questionnaires have been adopted as a data collection tool. Whereas the random sampling technique is used for the collection of data by using Morgan table of sample size. Additionally, data has been collected from 100 participants, 80 of them were students and 20 were teachers, and data has been analyzed by using SPSS 22.0 software.

The findings of this study have indicated the student's level of interest toward the integration of ICTs and e-learning in science and social science courses. Similarly, the findings specify that through ICT and e-learning materials, students can learn more effectively, which can also facilitate teachers for their teaching process in this modern era of technology. Whereas the issue that has been specified through the findings is that the teachers are not encouraged by the management of the university to implement the ICT in their teaching and learning due to their concerns on the limited resources and lack of competencies.

For the practical implication, the findings of this study will facilitate the teachers and learners for integrating the ICTs and e-learning in their course curriculums and interactive teaching practices as per modern era of technology. Also, this study will help the provincial leader and policymakers by addressing the teachers’ concern to encourage the integration of ICT tools and develop capabilities for interactive classrooms for effective teaching and learning.

This is the first study of its nature that has been conducted in the Pakistani public university in rural setting, and the finding of this study will facilitate and help the institutional and government stakeholders to where and how they can effectively integrate ICTs and e-learning in classrooms for interactive teaching and learning processes in the rural Sindh.

This study investigates the relation between the board of directors' attributes and corporate social performance. The authors examine three board of directors: characteristics, size, independence and gender diversity, and how they interact with industry to affect corporate social performance.

The authors use a multivariate approach to analyze and compare the effects of governance variables on two aspects of corporate social performance, its environmental and social dimensions.

Based on a sample of 983 firm-year observations, our main findings indicate that board independence, size and gender diversity each has a different impact on the environmental and social dimensions of performance, but that industrial sector moderates these effects. In particular, our results show that board member independence is positively associated with the environmental dimension of the performance of all the sample industries, but only has a positive association with the social dimension when the firms are in industries other than those that are environmentally sensitive. For these latter industries, board independence is negatively associated with the social dimension. Board size is positively associated with the environmental dimension for environmentally sensitive industries only and with the social dimension for all the industries examined, with a stronger positive effect on the latter in regard to environmentally sensitive industries.

Women directors appear to raise social and environmental concerns within the board, as evidenced by their positive effect on the firms' social and environmental performance, with a stronger impact on the former.

Regulators can promote changes to the way Canadian companies select directors for the purpose of achieving sustainable performance while investors will be better informed about the impact of some of the board attributes on the environmental and social dimension of performance.

This study provides a portrait of the impact of governance attributes on the environmental and social dimension of performance of Canadian companies. Given the increasing interest in gender diversity in recent years, this study provides new evidence on the benefits of female board members for the two non-financial dimensions of performance.

Entrepreneurship is one of the pillars of economic development and helps to green the economy. This study investigates the factors that affect green entrepreneurship (GE) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia.

Using quantitative modes, this study's findings are based on 334 valid cases from Saudi Arabian SME employees.

Using path analysis, this study’s findings reveal that green entrepreneurial skills (GES), green opportunities (GOs), entrepreneurial motivation (EM), green incentives (GIs), availability of capital (AoC) and green entrepreneurial self-efficacy (GESE) have positive and significant effects on GE. Moreover, GESE mediates GE's relationships with GES, GOs, EM, GIs and AoC.

This study's findings support the development of green business practices in terms of green business planning, training and skills. The research provides opportunities for green businesses. Policymakers and SME authorities would benefit from this study's findings in producing green goods and services.

This study empirically confirms the role of various factors such as GESE and GE among Saudi Arabian SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore fieldwork dilemmas for a Pakhtun researcher, educated in the West, to research family or domestic violence in the unstable, hostile environment of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan.

A gender studies approach is here combined with masculinities studies, and a critical qualitative research methodology is used in this study.

The paper argues that unstable regions dominated by certain forms of masculinity require specific research approaches when conducting research and addressing a topic that is culturally taboo.

The paper suggests how the insider–outsider dynamic plays out for researchers who come from a particular field and return to it under changed circumstances. It also indicates how a taboo topic in a context where direct questioning is not possible might be approached through the use of vignettes.

The paper suggests how the contradictory position of a masculinity, simultaneously bearing traces of the hegemonic and of marginalization, may be negotiated in the field.

Social research on the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan is rarely conducted and reported due to the unrest in this region. The paper thus contributes original insights from fieldwork carried out there. It also contributes to the limited but growing literature on conducting fieldwork in hostile environments.

The authors analyzed the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) facial masculinity and the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD).

The authors conducted research for 2011–2019, covering companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. This study used an ordinary least squares regression, the coarsened exact matching (CEM) and propensity score matching (PSM) procedure in testing the hypothesis.

Based on the results of analysis, it is known that CEO facial masculinity is negatively related to corporate CSR disclosure levels. However, this negative relationship can be mitigated through governance mechanisms: the audit committee.

This paper provides implications in the field of research, especially regarding the biological attributes of CEOs in relation to CSR.

As many previous studies focused on the managerial aspect of the CEO, this study focused on the biological aspect of CEO. To the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to attempt to investigate this issue in an emerging market.

The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the migrant entrepreneur’s social capital and specifically their family social capital in the success of their crowdfunding ventures.

This paper develops an exploratory single case study of the Persu Bag started by a Chinese migrant entrepreneur in the USA, which was documented through in-depth interviews, email communication, social media interactions and secondary documents publicly available. This paper draws on crowdfunding and social capital literature to fulfil the purpose and adopt the perspective of the migrant entrepreneur in the study.

The study shows that the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneur’s family network contributes with their operand and operant resources from both the country of residence and country of origin. Besides having financial capacity, institutional knowledge and experience from both the host and home countries, the family network in both countries make the crowdfunding immigrant entrepreneur’s families more resourceful, providing additional benefits to the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneurs in the development of the campaign and crowdfunded venture.

This study broadens the understanding of the ways migrant entrepreneurs can rely on their family social capital for building financial capacity and starting a crowdfunded venture.

The purpose of this paper is a study designed to utilize Vigna mungo L. (black gram) flour to improve the protein quality of wheat through supplementation. Wheat is utilized as a cereal crop all over the world, but its protein quality is inferior owing to the deficiency of amino acids like lysine.

Black gram seeds were roasted and germinated and then incorporated at 10, 15 and 20 per cent level in wheat flour. The composite flour was evaluated for its chemical composition, physiochemical properties and rheological characteristics, and cookies were developed from the composite flour.

Chemical composition of composite flour revealed significant results (p < 0.05). The level of crude protein increased from 9.69 to 11.79 per cent, while ash and crude fat content enhanced from 0.33 to 1.80 per cent and 1.13 to 2.40 per cent, respectively. There was a significant effect (p < 0.05) on the sedimentation value by the addition of black gram in wheat flour. Water absorption of composite flour was higher than control (52.21 per cent), as maximum value was observed in flour having 15 per cent germinated black gram flour (69.45 per cent). Dough development time also increased from 2.90 min to 4.80 min. The pasting properties revealed significant results for all the parameters. Cookies were developed from composite flour, and sensory evaluation has shown that addition of pulse flour at 15 per cent yields cookies with better hedonic response.

The black gram is a locally grown legume crop, but there is a lack of systematic approach for its chemical composition and product development. Scientists are in urge to explore such economical and assessable food ingredients to cope with the nutritional deficiencies prevailing in the developing societies. In this regard, black gram has been recognized as a rich source of nutrients, so it can be exploited to improve wheat protein quality.

This study investigates economic sustainability through orientation and absorptive capacity.

The researchers developed a conceptual framework based on vigorous literature for this investigation. This study targeted managers from Pakistan's SME sector as respondents and employed cross-sectional data. In total, the authors based this study's findings on 192 valid cases.

The structural equation modeling (SEM) results highlight that innovation orientation (IO), customer orientation (CO), supplier orientation (SO), network orientation (NO) and absorptive capacity (AC) have significant effects on economic sustainability (ES). Moreover, this study's findings show that ES significantly predicts environmental sustainability (ENS). Finally, the results also demonstrate that ES and ENS positively and substantially affect financial performance (FP).

This study's findings help SMEs continue sustainable business practices by avoiding adverse environmental effects and ongoing climate changes. This study's findings contribute also to the manufacture of eco-friendly environmental products to reduce the contamination of the environment. Financial institutions and policymakers would boost SME owners' capacity and the obtainability of financial resources to improve Pakistani SMEs’ sustainable economic and environmental performance.

This study's findings help to enrich environmental and economic sustainability and, more significantly, for developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of short-term loan (STL) vs long-term loan (LTL) on wheat productivity of small farms in Sindh, Pakistan.

The econometric estimation is based on cross-sectional data collected in 2016 from 18 villages in three districts, i.e. Shikarpur, Sukkur and Shaheed Benazirabad, Sindh, Pakistan. The sample data set consist of 180 wheat farmers. The collected data were analyzed through different econometric techniques like Cobb–Douglas production function and Instrumental variables (two-stage least squares) approach.

This study reconfirmed that agricultural credit has a positive and highly significant effect on wheat productivity, while the short-term loan has a stronger effect on wheat productivity than the long-term loan. The reasons behind the phenomenon may be the significantly higher usage of agricultural inputs like seeds of improved variety and fertilizers which can be transformed into the wheat yield in the same year. However, the LTL users have significantly higher investments in land preparation, irrigation and plant protection, which may lead to higher wheat production in the coming years.

In the present study, only those wheat farmers were considered who obtained agricultural loans from formal financial institutions like Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited and Khushhali Bank. However, in the rural areas of Sindh, Pakistan, a considerable proportion of small-scale farmers take credit from informal financial channels. Therefore future researchers should consider the informal credits as well.

This is the first paper to examine the effects of agricultural credit on wheat productivity of small farms in Sindh, Pakistan. This paper will be an important addition to the emerging literature regarding effects of credit studies.

Money laundering (ML) is the process used to convert the proceeds of crimes into lawful form. This global problem promotes social ills, corruption and organized crimes. Various instruments are used to counter individual illicit behavior. However, in low-income countries, these regulations are not common because of weak institutions, poor governance and a lack of awareness about the negative consequences of ML. In these countries, multinational corporations take advantage of poor law and order, lower environmental regulations and corruption and shift their domestic operations into foreign countries.

This study uses a multiple mediator model to investigate the link between foreign direct investment (FDI), environmental degradation measured as CO₂ emissions (CE), exports and ML for 118 countries between 2008 to 2018.

Results indicate that FDI promotes exports and CE, leading to illicit financial flows.

Policymakers should enforce checks on foreign funds flow and adopt illicit flow mitigation measures to minimize ML globally.