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This paper aims to empirically assess the contribution of Islamic banks toward the financial stability of Pakistan. For this, the authors investigate the relative financial strength of Islamic banks and their contribution toward the financial stability. They also examine the relationship between the competitive conduct of banks and banking system stability.

The authors use quarterly data of ten conventional banks, four full-fledged Islamic banks and six standalone Islamic branches of conventional banks of Pakistan for the period 2006-2012. The z-score has been computed and used as the measure of stability of banks and the random effects estimator applied to quantify the impact of bank-specific variables and macroeconomic indicators on the financial stability. The empirical framework used in the paper enables the authors us to examine the differential effect of each underlying variable on the financial stability across Islamic and conventional banks. To check the robustness of the results, the authors have estimated several models with different specifications.

The regression results indicate that income diversity, profitability ratio, loan to asset ratio, asset size and the market concentration ratio of banks have significant effects on the stability of banks. Comparing Islamic and conventional banks, notable differential effects of the empirical determinants of financial stability for Islamic and conventional banks have been observed. The results suggest that Islamic banks have performed better as compared to conventional banks and contributed more effectively in the stability of financial sector. Overall, the results depict that the contribution of Islamic banks toward the financial stability has been reasonable and prospective.

The empirical results of the paper are very useful not only for banks’ managements but also for the investors, bank customers and policymakers. Specifically, the findings help in enhancing our understanding as to how the bank-specific variables and macroeconomic indicators are related to the financial stability of the banking system. The results also help understand the role of both Islamic and conventional banks in the financial stability. Further, the results suggest that the financial soundness can be enhanced by creating healthy competition in the banking industry. The results about macroeconomic indicators imply that protective measures are required to intensify (mitigate) the positive (negative) effect of gross domestic product (inflation) on banks’ financial stability.

This paper provides an overall comparative analysis of financial stability of both Islamic and conventional banks of Pakistan. First, the paper computes the z-score for each bank included in the sample, and then, it performs the regression analysis to study how bank-specific variables and macroeconomic factors are related to the financial stability of banks. Unlike the previous studies, our empirical framework enables the authors to examine the differential effect of each underlying variable on the financial stability across Islamic and conventional banks.

Today, the use of smart technologies in healthcare systems is experiencing exponential growth, and the future of healthcare is seemingly closely intertwined with such technologies. Thus, any exploration of the factors that influence human health and healthcare systems inevitably touches upon the subject of new technologies. This study aims to design a conceptual model to investigate the elements that affect individuals' openness to accepting and using mobile healthcare applications (mHealth apps) and their reciprocal effects.

After a brief review of the literature, the authors identify the influential factors in the acceptance of smart technologies in healthcare systems and present a conceptual model in this regard. Next, the authors analyze the factors and variables and the extent of their impact by a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The statistical population of this study consists of 421 individuals including the developers, consultants and users (i.e. patients) of mHealth apps. Data analysis was done on the statistical software SPSS v.26, while SEM was carried out using the partial least squares (PLS) method on the modeling software SmartPLS.

The results indicate that user, consultant and developer preferences have a positive and significant impact on time, quality of life, managing chronic conditions and cooperation, and these constructs (system performance) finally have a positive and significant impact on the acceptance of mobile healthcare technologies.

This paper shows that mHealth apps can have a remarkable role in the prevention and treatment of medical conditions, and it is strongly recommended that this technology be utilized in the studied region.

By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, the importance of Gwadar to China and Pakistan is discussed in detail. By applying geoeconomic approach and based on the historical approach, geographical and geopolitical conditions and international development trends of Gwadar port, the authors develop the analytical framework to analyze the Gwadar port and studied its importance in the development of China and Pakistan, as well as the positive influence on the economic growth of both countries.

A geoeconomic study is done to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship, as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations.

The results show that Gwadar Port's development could enhance the economic security of both China and Pakistan. With the opening of Gwadar Port, oil and energy in the Middle East will be imported directly to China through Pakistan's oil pipeline. This is not only oil but also goods from Central Asia, and even Europe and the USA will land from Gwadar Port and enter China through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The development of Gwadar port under the CPEC program could also dramatically increase the capacity of Pakistan's maritime trade while reducing its dependence on the current largest port, Karachi, near the India border.

Geo-economics theory is used to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, location, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations. By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, this study seeks to analyze the Gwadar port development and its implications for both China and Pakistan.

This study examines the impact of digital corporate social responsibility (CSR) on social entrepreneurship, organizational resilience and competitive intelligence during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. It also examines the impact of competitive intelligence on social entrepreneurship and organizational resilience.

Data were collected from telecommunication companies in Jordan with a sample of 223 managers, using Smart-PLS for analysis and testing the research model and hypotheses.

The results reveal a significant impact of digital CSR on social entrepreneurship. They show that digital CSR significantly impacts organizational resilience. The findings also indicate a significant role of digital CSR in competitive intelligence. This study shows that social entrepreneurship significantly impacts organizational resilience. The results also confirm the impact of competitive intelligence on social entrepreneurship. Finally, the results confirm that competitive intelligence significantly impacts organizational resilience.

This study provides valuable academic and practical insights into digital CSR practices, social entrepreneurship and how to support organizational resilience during crises.

Finance continuously evolves as the technological innovation progresses in the society. Numerous prior studies have discussed emerging financial services due to this innovation. However, limited scholarly work has evaluated the trends and state of the art of financial innovation. Therefore, this study aims to review recent literature on financial innovation by using a bibliometric and content-analysis approach.

Documents for this study are sampled from financial innovation, a journal focusing on recent innovations in finance. A total of 354 peer-reviewed articles published in eight years (2015–2022) are first examined and mapped using the bibliometrix package in RStudio software. Furthermore, content analysis was performed to investigate the adopted research methods and types, and produce directions for future studies.

The trend of financial innovation research kept increasing, with China as the leader in publication quantity, affiliation productivity and paper citation acquisition. Topics related to “FinTech,” “Bitcoin” and “Covid-19” have been the most discussed topics by financial innovation researchers. FinTech and Bitcoin studies are expected to grow in emerging countries like China, India and Pakistan. The study also indicates that most financial innovation studies use quantitative research methods and are categorized as empirical papers.

This study contributes to the finance literature by comprehensively evaluating current research on financial innovation using one specific journal in the field. Also, this study examines financial innovation literature using different approaches from previous bibliometric financial innovation studies.

Today, many industries are implementing creative approaches in response to increasing environmental awareness. It is of great importance to answer the question of whether the military sector, one of the most important sectors, can support renewable energy (RE) adaptation. This study aims to examine how military spending affects the supply of RE in 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations as well as the regulatory function of factors such as innovation, international trade and oil prices between 1990 and 2021.

The study examines the effects of military spending, income, green innovation, international trade, oil prices and the human development index on the supply of RE using various econometric approaches, which are the cointegration test, moments quantile regression and robustness test.

The findings demonstrate that all factors, excluding military spending, quite likely affect the expansion of the renewable supply. Military spending negatively influences the RE supply; specifically, a 1% increase in military spending results in a 0.88 reduction in the renewable supply. In addition, whereas income elasticity, trade and human development index in OECD nations are higher in the last quantiles of the regression than in the first quantiles, the influence of military spending and innovation on renewable supply is about the same in all quantiles.

OECD nations must consider the practical implications, which are essential to assess and update the military spending of OECD countries from a green energy perspective to transition to clean energy. Based on the study’s overall findings, the OECD countries should incorporate the advantages of innovation, economic growth and international trade into their clean energy transition strategies to lessen the impact of military spending on renewables.

The study aims to fill a gap in the literature regarding the role of military expenditures in the RE development of an OECD country. In addition, the results of the methodological analysis can be used to guide policymakers on how military spending should be in the field of RE.

The purpose of this study aims to examine the effect of fintech on pre- and post-financing credit risks faced by the Islamic banks.

This research uses primary data for fintech awareness and adoption and secondary data of various financial and economic variables from 2009 to 2021. It uses baseline regression to identify moderation of fintech controlling gross domestic products, size, return on assets and leverage. The findings are confirmed using robustness against key variable bias. It also uses a dynamic panel two-stage generalized method of moments for endogeneity.

The study finds that the fintech awareness and adoption are not the same across all Islamic countries. The Asia Pacific region is far ahead of the other two regions where Indonesia is ahead in terms of fintech awareness and adoption, and Malaysia is ahead in terms of reaping its benefits in credit risk management. Fintech affects prefinancing credit risk significantly more than postfinancing credit risk. Also, the study finds that Islamic banks suffer from the problem of “Adverse selection under Shariah compliance.”

This research invites regulators to introduce fintech in Islamic banks on war footing. Similar studies can be conducted on the role of other risks such as operational and market risks. Fintech will also help in improving the risk profile and stability of Islamic banks against systemic risks and financial crises.

This research has variety of originalities. First, it is the pioneering study that addresses the effect of fintech pre- and post-financing credit risks in Islamic banks. Second, it identifies “Adverse selection under Shariah compliance” for Islamic banks. Third, it helps identify how fintech can be useful in reducing credit risk that will help in reducing capital charge for regulatory capital.

The purpose of this study is to design a wearable medical device as a human care platform and to introduce the design details, key technologies and practical implementation methods of the system.

A multi-channel data acquisition scheme based on PCI-E (rapid interconnection of peripheral components) was proposed. The flexible biosensor is integrated with the flexible data acquisition card with monitoring capability, and the embedded (device that can operate independently) chip STM32F103VET6 is used to realize the simultaneous processing of multi-channel human health parameters. The human health parameters were transferred to the upper computer LabVIEW by intelligent clothing through USB or wireless Bluetooth to complete the transmission and processing of clinical data, which facilitates the analysis of medical data.

The smart clothing provides a mobile medical cloud platform for wearable medical through cloud computing, which can continuously monitor the body's wrist movement, body temperature and perspiration for 24 h. The result shows that each channel is completely accurate to the top computer display, which can meet the expected requirements, and the wearable instant care system can be applied to healthcare.

The smart clothing in this study is based on the monitoring and diagnosis of textiles, and the electronic communication devices can cooperate and interact to form a wearable textile system that provides medical monitoring and prevention services to individuals in the fastest and most accurate way. Each channel of the system is precisely matched to the display screen of the host computer and meets the expected requirements. As a real-time human health protection platform technology, continuous monitoring of human vital signs can complete the application of human motion detection, medical health monitoring and human–computer interaction. Ultimately, such an intelligent garment will become an integral part of our everyday clothing.

This study comprehensively aims to review the key influential and intellectual aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

The study uses the bibliometric and content analysis methods using the VOSviewer software to analyse 52 academic documents derived from the Web of Sciences (WoS) between 2015 and June 2022.

The results demonstrate the influential aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets, including the leading authors, journals, countries and institutions and the intellectual aspects of literature. These aspects are synthesised into four main streams: research between stock indexes; studies between stock indexes, oil and precious metal; works between Sukuk, bond and indexes; and empirical studies review. The authors also propose future research directions in spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

Our study is subject to several limitations. Firstly, the authors only used the WoS database. Secondly, the study only includes papers and reviews written in English from the WoS. This study assists academic scholars, practitioners and regulatory bodies in further exploring the suggested issues in future studies and improving and predicting economic and financial stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no extant empirical studies have been conducted in this area of research interest.

This paper seeks to examine how expectations from business analytics (BA) by members of agile information systems development (ISD) teams affect their perceptions and continuous use of BA in ISD projects.

Data was collected from 153 respondents working in agile ISD projects and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling techniques (PLS-SEM).

Perceived usefulness and technological compatibility are the most salient factors that affect BA continuance intention in agile ISD projects. The proposed model explains 48.4% of the variance for BA continuance intention, 50.6% of the variance in satisfaction, 36.7% of the variance in perceived usefulness and 31.9% of the variance in technological compatibility.

First, this study advances understanding of the factors that affect the continuous use of BA in agile ISD projects; second, it contextualizes the expectation-confirmation model by integrating technological compatibility in the context of agile ISD projects.

This is the first study to investigate BA continuance intention from an employee perspective in the context of agile ISD projects.