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The qualitative study was conducted to examine work-family (W-F) balance practices in the collectivist culture of Pakistan. Keeping in view the context of Pakistan, three W-F practices, flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support, were studied by applying the theory of W-F balance.

In total, 16 In-depth interviews from the bank operating in three different cities in Sindh, Pakistan.

Data analysis showed that providing economic benefits and short working hours can achieve W-F balance. Nevertheless, the provision of flexibility in terms of short working hours is more important than economic benefits in balancing both domains of life. Secondly, the provision of childcare arrangements helps to balance work and home life. This practice favors females more compared to males. Thirdly, supervisor and co-worker support is most important in creating W-F balance than family support.

It is crucial to understand the W-F balance practices in developing countries; the bank should encourage policies related to flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support in Pakistan. In addition, banks should take the initiative to develop a way that facilitates the employees' social support, which should consequently help to achieve the W-F balance.

It is crucial to understand the W-F balance practices in developing countries; the bank should encourage policies related to flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support in Pakistan. Banks should take an initiative to develop a way that facilitates the employees' social support which should consequently help to achieve the W-F balance.

This research has a tremendous impact on society due to current changes in South Asian countries including Pakistan constitute a socio-cultural transition that directly affects working and family life.

Given the importance of W-F balance in recent times, the authors identified and extended the W-F balance practices in the collectivist culture of Pakistan. This study is novel and contributes to the W-F balance literature by considering most primary W-F balance practices that employees require.

Women entrepreneurs are considered here as a backbone of economic growth and development. This research is conducted to explain the role of microfinance banks in women's financial, socioeconomic, and political empowerment. The sample was gathered from the customers of microfinance banks operating in the specific areas of Sukkur, Pano Aqil, and Khairpur districts of Sindh province. Women perception about the microfinance bank was found to be positive as they give positive feedback about the banks. According to the findings, limited knowledge about business and financial matters make it highly challenging for women entrepreneurs to start and run business smoothly. However, most of the women are living separate with their husbands, and due to more children, women enjoy freedom of mobility.

Women Entrepreneurship has received increasing attention over the past decade. In particular, a new area dealing with women entrepreneurs in the developing societies. The aim of this study is how is women entrepreneurship in developing economies? More specifically, we are excavating various questions at the individual and institutional level. The results of this study contribute to understanding the importance of the context on women entrepreneurs’ activities. Additionally, it systematically provides a comprehensive framework at multilevel analyses to cover all aspects of women entrepreneurship in developing countries. Ultimately, knowing women entrepreneurship in developing countries helps policymakers provide a firm ground for self-employment of women.

This paper aims to review the critical challenges and factors influencing the successful adoption of electronic learning (e-learning) systems in higher educational institutions before and during the current propagation of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This study undertook a literature review concerning the in-depth revision of previous studies published in 2020 and 2021. A total of 100 out of 170 selected research papers were adopted to identify and recognise the factors restricting the application of e-learning systems.

The findings determine and illuminate the most challenging factors that impact the successful application of online learning, particularly during the wide propagation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The review of the literature provides evidence that technological, organisational and behavioural issues constitute significant drivers that frontier the facilitation of the e-learning process in higher educational institutions.

The current paper suggests a guide for managers and scholars in educational institutions and acts as a roadmap for practitioners and academics in the educational field and policymakers as this research spotlights the significant factors challenging the e-learning process before and during the pandemic crisis.

The provided in-depth literature review in this research will support the researchers and system designers with a comprehensive review and recent studies conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic considering the factors limiting the e-learning process. This paper formulates a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge that will assist the stakeholders in the higher educational institutions' context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2022-0085.

Financial shenanigans are the omissions or actions undertaken with the purpose of misrepresenting an organisation's financial statements. Many examples now exist of such behaviour emerging in the context of a desire to deceive the users of financial reports. In this context, research has illustrated how investors can find themselves impacted by such behaviour, with incorrect decision-making around investment decisions being a major issue. However, auditors' perspectives, of obvious importance in such scenarios, given these individuals' role in attesting to the veracity of financial disclosures, have not been investigated. The aim of this study is to address this gap by seeking the experiences of auditors in the developing nation of Pakistan, an environment in which the significant impact of financial improprieties is well-documented.

Interviews with 50 Pakistani-based auditors were conducted to gather perceptions about the nature and prevalence of financial shenanigans. The questions posed were structured to address issues relating to both the drivers of and methods used to operationalise financial malfeasance.

The views expressed by the participants suggest that this type of malpractice is common, with a variety of forms employed and a level of audacity and shamelessness is striking. The results indicate the absence of the three institutional pillars conventionally associated with motivating organisational attempts to legitimise behaviour and maintain social contracts. When considered alongside recent findings that the audit profession in Pakistan may not always play an effective monitoring role, we argue that the evidence suggests the existence of motivations for legitimising strategies are not yet fully understood.

This contention helps address recent calls for investigation of issues around legitimising tendencies where theoretical understanding is incomplete. A full understanding of the embedded practices will provide capital providers with the opportunity to make more informed decisions regarding their investments in Pakistani firms by highlighting the financial shenanigans involved, including the sheer audacity apparently associated with the observed behaviour.

Earnings management and auditing have not been studied widely in Pakistan despite the abundant and persistent nature of corporate scandals across the nation for many decades. Whilst implementation (and enforcement) of some accounting and auditing standards have taken place recently, the financial collapses continue, and understanding regarding the on-going fraud is urgently needed. The extent and shameless nature of the perceived behaviour are striking, suggesting that those closest to financial reporting in Pakistan see fraudulent financial reporting as being close to, if not yet fully representative of, normal practice.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of talent management (TM) practices on employee performance (EP) among academic staff of Malaysian private universities (MPU) through employee engagement (EE).

This paper used both descriptive and quantitative approaches, while the research unit of analysis consists of MPU academic staff. A simple random and stratified sampling approach was utilized in this study while, the research sample consists of 314 MPU academic staff. A questionnaire was used to collect data from the target population, while partial least squares–structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the study hypotheses through a bootstrapping approach.

This paper results demonstrated that TM practices (succession planning practice, promotion practice and performance appraisal practice) have a significant effect on EP, while EE mediates the relationship between TM practices and EP in MPU.

This paper encourages university management to adopt and invest in TM practices for effective EE to achieve and sustain EP.

This paper has made a significant contribution to knowledge and to the operationalization of EE, EP and TM practices literature, which could help to develop theory, model, practice and research in areas of work performance.

The halal industry has been growing in recent years, seeing an increasing demand for halal products from both Muslim and non-Muslim consumers and acknowledging that halal is a universal concept accepted by both Muslim and non-Muslim societies. Service-related providers, such as logistics, could influence the demand for halal products by consumers. This paper aims to investigate the factors that influence consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for halal logistics among young non-Muslim adults.

A set of survey questions were distributed to young non-Muslim adults and 280 questionnaires were analysed.

The results indicate that three independent variables had a direct relationship and significant influence on the WTP for halal logistics among non-Muslim consumers. These variables are concern on halal, knowledge about halal and perception of halal logistics. Meanwhile, the awareness of halal logistics significantly influenced the consumers' WTP for halal logistics, provided that it was mediated by the perception of halal logistics.

Given the gap in research on halal logistics and WTP, this paper presents a consolidated examination of this subject, particularly the WTP of young non-Muslim adults. Furthermore, by including the perception of halal logistics as a mediator, this study leverages the halal logistics knowledge to a new level, thus deepening the understanding of this topic and contributing additional knowledge. This study also presents some opportunities for future empirical research.

The discourse on the governance and environment nexus has been an important research agenda. However, the debate on the role of institutional quality (IQ) in environmental degradation is continuous. Unlike others, this study aims to examine the asymmetric effect of IQ on the ecological footprint (EF) from 1984 to 2019 in Pakistan.

The nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag model is used to empirically investigate the linkage of IQ and EF.

Reported results revealed that positive shocks are negatively affecting EF and negative shocks are positively affecting EF. Findings suggest that a better IQ is substantially reducing EF, whereas energy consumption and economic growth are increasing EF.

This study is original and provided important information about the performance of institutions regarding the environmental concerns in Pakistan. Moreover, this study has robust policy implications.