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This study aims to examine the impact of chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) personal characteristics on firms’ risk taking and the moderating role of family ownership on this relationship.

This study used 2,647 firm-year observations of non-financial firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 2013–2021. To test the hypotheses, the authors used ordinary least squares regression and, to resolve the possible endogeneity problem, the authors used system generalized method of moments technique.

Drawing insights first from upper echelons theory, the authors report that CEOs with business, economics, finance and/or management educational background and female CEOs reduce firms’ risk-taking behaviour. Further, using insights from social and organizational identity theoretical perspectives, the results indicate that due to strong family affiliation and organizational identity, family owners exhibit risk aversion behaviour and moderate this relationship.

This study provides novel evidence of risk averse behaviour of CEOs with business, economics, finance and/or management educational background and female CEOs along with moderating impact of family ownership on this relationship in an emerging economy. Overall, the results extend empirical support for upper echelons and social identity theories in an emerging market context.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of sustainability marketing on brand loyalty of brands that advertise their sustainable development agenda goals. The study highlights the mediating effect of brand love having cognitive antecedents of brand authenticity, popularity and congruence with private and social self of the consumer.

A mall intercept survey was used to collect data from consumers who use brands that embrace sustainable marketing strategies. Only those brands were selected which are popular as well as advertise sustainable practices in their brand communication (mainstream and social media). The data was self-administered by trained research assistants, who gathered data from a sample of 350 respondents.

The findings revealed that the popularity and authenticity of a brand play an essential role in developing brand love and later influences brand loyalty behavior. A larger effect is seen on brand love when there is congruence of private and social self with the brand. The brand has even a stronger relationship with brand loyalty when moderated by sustainability marketing.

Brand love has the potential for long-term influences, only if sustainability marketing is used as a backbone. Brand managers should target an authenticity-seeking segment of consumers, who once convinced can lead to repeat business and brand loyalty and reduce dissonance. As sustainability marketing provides multiple benefits, genuine branding strategies should be devised that amalgamate into a single message spun around sustainability concerns and connecting the ethos of authenticity, popularity and self-expression. Future research may take into consideration more categories than this study on clothing, and consumer goods, adopting a mixed-methods approach. Moreover, a range of potential antecedents of brand love can be determined along with potential outcomes when aligned with external efforts such as sustainability, corporate social responsibility and international investment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the moderating role of sustainability marketing on the relationship between brand love and brand loyalty and the mediating role of brand love between brand authenticity, popularity, social/private-self-expression and brand loyalty. It is also the first study documenting how sustainability marketing reinforces the brand loyalty for popular brands in developing countries like Pakistan. This study fills a research gap as it expands the existing literature on sustainability marketing and brand love that is generally focused on brand dimensions and not the brand communications and thus has not reached similar results.

This study aims to investigate the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the link between board independence, board diversity and dividend payouts underpinning the agency theory perspective. As boards are ultimately responsible for decision-making, it includes CSR, dividend payouts and other strategic decisions.

Board independence and board diversity (female director, female independent director) are used as explanatory variables, CSR scores as a mediator and dividend payout explained variables. The relevant data were collected from 159 listed firms of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from 2013 to 2019, consisting of 1,113 year-firm observations. For empirical estimation, the study used the Tobit regression analysis and Sobel test to check the significance of the mediation to confirm the hypothesis.

The results confirm that independence and diversity on the board are positively related to dividend payouts. Further, CSR partially mediates the link between independence and diversity on board-dividend payouts, which confirms the argument that firms with involvement in CSR practices are also associated with dividend payouts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is novel to address whether CSR mediates the link of the board’s independence and diversity and dividend payouts in Pakistan’s setting. The results of this study have restricted generalizability due to the specific nature of the sample characteristics; future researchers can extend the research scope.

Theoretically practically, the results imply that CSR spending also enhances the distribution to firms' shareholders, thus becoming attractive to investors. This study enriches the literature on board attributes-dividend policy nexus, which strengthens through CSR practices and is relevant to practice in line with sustainable development in an emerging context.

CSR practices are an understudied but significant factor that links stakeholders' beliefs about firms' decision-making strategies, enhancing dividend announcements. In doing so, this study's findings contribute to the literature, regulators, shareholders and investor at various levels.

This study examined how economic freedom and its related components, such as open markets, regulatory efficiency, rule of law and the size of government, affect bank risk behavior, focusing on the Japanese context.

The study employs a two-step GMM framework on the annual data of Japanese banks ranging from 2005 to 2020 to empirically test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we also use the ordinary least square method to ensure the robustness of our mainline findings.

The finding suggests that economic freedom increases the banks' risk-taking, thus making them fragile. The results also highlight that out of the four main subcomponents of economic freedom, regulatory efficiency and government size increase bank risk-taking, while the rule of law and open markets decrease banks' risk-taking. Additionally, we examine how the banks' specific characteristics affect the results by creating a subsample based on capitalization and liquidity ratios. Overall, the results are consistent with the baseline findings. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative proxy measures of risk.

The study's findings have several implications for regulators and policymakers. The results suggest that regulators and policymakers should reconsider their strategies for economic freedom to ensure that they promote stability in the banking system and reduce banks' risk-taking inclinations.

Although previous studies have examined the impact of economic freedom on bank stability and risk-taking, this study is the first to do so in the Japanese context, contributing to the literature by providing new insights and empirical evidence.

Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

Islamic Insurance (Takaful) played a dynamic role in Islamic Social Finance (ISF). The popularity of the Takaful concept is being increased with each passing day. To describe the process, it is important to understand past areas of research, research differences, areas of unknown Takaful research, as well as the existing data. However, the purpose of the paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the development of qualitative research by carefully examining the nature of science and aspects of social relations in ISF.

Field, concerns with analysing and measuring the scholarly literature, quantitative characteristics of sciences and scientific technologies are known as scient metrics. This research includes queries such as “Islamic Insurance”, “Takaful” and “Shariah Insurance” as a reference in “Article title, Abstract and Keywords” based on Scopus from 2002 to 2022. This analysis was conducted in February 2022. The Bibliometrics, R-Studio, VOSviewer and Excel software are used to analyse the collected data and apply the bibliometric analysis.

The gist of the results and findings is that there are clear research gaps in the existing literature on Takaful. The available research on this subject does cover historical background, concept and models of Takaful and customer satisfaction towards Takaful model. Very important areas such as use of technology for bringing innovation in Takaful products and Shariah issues in existing practice and their solutions were not found in the present literature on Takaful.

This is the comprehensive research article to examine current literature on Takaful with bibliometric analysis. Results and potential areas of this research could be much helpful for scholars and researchers to create more dynamic improvements in the scientific development of Takaful in ISF.

Virtual professional learning communities provide digital platforms for teachers across the globe to join learning networks and engage in continuous and unrestricted learning. This study aimed to explore the impact of contextual factors on establishing virtual professional learning communities in Maldivian schools.

This quantitative study used a sample of 420 Maldivian in-service teachers chosen using two-stage cluster sampling and a stratified random sampling method.

The findings revealed that all three contextual factors – micro-, meso- and macro-contextual – positively and significantly influenced the virtual professional learning communities.

These findings recommend an integrated framework with micro-, meso- and macro-contextual factors as valuable instruments for educational leaders striving to establish virtual Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

This study is among the first to examine the association of contextual factors of schools with the establishment of virtual PLCs in a country such as the Maldives, with geographically dispersed islands and limited resources.

This paper aims to study the interlinkages between cryptocurrency and the stock market by characterizing their connectedness and the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on their relations.

The author employs a quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) to identify the connectedness of nine indicators from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021, in an effort to examine the relationships between cryptocurrency and stock markets.

The results demonstrate that the pandemic shocks appear to have influences on the system-wide dynamic connectedness. Dynamic net total directional connectedness implies that Bitcoin (BTC) is a net short-duration shock transmitter during the sample. BTC is a long-duration net receiver of shocks during the 2018–2020 period and turns into a long-duration net transmitter of shocks in late 2021. Ethereum is a net shock transmitter in both durations. Binance turns into a net short-duration shock transmitter during the COVID-19 outbreak before receiving net shocks in 2021. The stock market in different areas plays various roles in the short run and long run. During the COVID-19 pandemic shock, pairwise connectedness reveals that cryptocurrencies can explain the volatility of the stock markets with the most severe impact at the beginning of 2020.

Insightful knowledge about key antecedents of contagion among these markets also help policymakers design adequate policies to reduce these markets' vulnerabilities and minimize the spread of risk or uncertainty across these markets.

The author is the first to investigate the interlinkages between the cryptocurrency and the stock market and assess the influences of uncertain events like the COVID-19 health crisis on the dynamic interlinkages between these two markets.

本學術論文擬透過找出加密貨幣與股票市場兩者相互關聯之特徵,來探討這個聯繫;文章亦擬探究2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行對這相互關聯的影響。

作者以分量向量自我迴歸法、來找出2018年1月1日至2021年12月31日期間九個指標的關聯,藉此探討加密貨幣與股票市場之間的關係。

研究結果顯示,全球大流行的驚愕,似對全系統動態關聯產生了影響。動態總淨值定向關聯暗示了就我們的樣本而言,比特幣是一個純短期衝擊發送器。比特幣在2018年至 2020年期間是一個衝擊的長期純接收器,並進而於2021年年底成為一個衝擊的長期純發送器。以太坊則為短期以及長期之純衝擊發送器。幣安在2019冠狀病毒病爆發期間,在2021年接收純衝擊前、成為一個純短期衝擊發送器。位於不同地區的股票市場,無論在短期抑或長期而言均扮演各種不同的角色。在2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行的驚愕期間,成對的關聯顯示了加密貨幣可以以2020年年初最嚴重的影響去解釋和說明股票市場的波動。

研究結果使我們能深入認識有關的市場之間不同情緒和看法的蔓延所帶來的影響的主要先例,這些知識、亦能幫助決策者制定適當的政策,以減少有關的市場的弱點,並把這些市場間的風險和不確定性的散播減到最低。

作者是首位研究加密貨幣與股票市場之間的相互關聯的學者,亦是首位學者、去評估像2019冠狀病毒病健康危機的不確定事件,會如何影響有關的兩個市場之間的動態相互關聯。

The purpose of this study is to compare violent and non-violent extremists in terms of their age when they first perpetrate an extremist act, and to understand how this relates to other factors underlying extremist behaviours. While the end goal of many extremists may be functionally similar, the pathways into extremism vary, and the literature has demonstrated that a “one-size-fits-all” explanation does not exist. Motivational drivers are complex and dynamic; therefore, attempting to identify a terrorist “profile” has limited applied efficacy.

This study applied a temporal approach (“crime script analysis” or CSA) to identify, map and compare the sequential stages (or “scenes”) in the life histories of violent and non-violent extremists who have committed acts of extremism across different age groups. Crime scripts comprising mainly qualitative data for 40 male extremists (20 violent, 20 non-violent “cases”) were developed, and CSA was conducted according to the age at which they committed their first extremist offence.

Results demonstrated key temporal, developmental differences between the pathways of extremists who commit their first offence at different ages. One key difference was that for both the violent and non-violent extremists, those under 30 used the internet as a main means of joining networks and spreading information, whereas the over 30s made more personal, community links.

This research can aid identification of potential environmental triggers and potential increased susceptibility to triggers across certain age groups.

This study aims to investigate the comparative importance of factors influencing the customer shift behavior from conventional to Islamic banking for consumer finance in Pakistan.

First, a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature was conducted to identify a broad range of factors related to customer shift behavior. Through an expert sampling, 14 essential factors were chosen for further investigation. Second, a questionnaire was developed using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). This questionnaire was then distributed among customers who had previously been using conventional banking services but had made a shift toward Islamic banking. The purpose of this questionnaire was to gather data and insights regarding their motivations and decision-making process behind the shift, and a sample 215 customers are taken in the study.

The results of AHP depicts that the religiosity is a most important factor influencing customers to shift from conventional to Islamic banking, and the second most important factor is pricing. The other subsequent important factors are reputation of the bank, marketing and promotion, service quality, behavior of banks staff, Shariah compliance, management, convenience, fastness and charges/fees. Whereas documentation, ambiance and recommendation are found least important factors to patronize Islamic banking.

The study recommends Islamic banks to create awareness, concentrating on religious factor to have a greater impact on growth of Islamic banking and shrinking of conventional banking. Further, it suggests Islamic banks to apply Shariah-recommended approach of doing business, to help community in best possible way and to launch differentiated marketing techniques to attract customers. It also proposes regulatory authorities to provide facilitation to Islamic banking business by providing level playing field similar to conventional banking, tax equality and conversion of public financing from conventional banking to Islamic banking.

The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive analysis of factors influencing consumer shift behavior from conventional to Islamic banking in the context of consumer finance in Pakistan. By using the AHP, the study provides a structured approach to understanding the relative importance of these factors. This is the uniqueness of the paper that it applies the AHP for the analysis. Furthermore, the study offers practical implications for Islamic banks and regulatory authorities to effectively address and capitalize on this consumer shift trend.