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Quality academic achievement is based on the development of good reading skills. Generally, reading is important for students to cope up with the evolving world of knowledge. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have vastly influenced the reading practices of students. The younger generation of the information age spends most of their time in front of screens. Due to these drastic changes in the fabric of reading, generation Z is more likely to adopt e-reading. Therefore, an empirical investigation was carried out to explore the reading habits of generation Z students. For the study, a survey-based quantitative research design was applied. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. The population included the students of two schools - one semi-government and one private higher secondary school of the Lahore district. The sample was selected purposively. Findings revealed that generation Z students prefer to read in paper form and in the English language. On average they read for up to four hours daily, preferably at home and mostly for academic purposes. They prefer print format, however, the advantages associated with e-reading motivate them to use electronic contents. One of the noteworthy findings is that libraries (academic/public) were their least preferred place for reading and obtaining reading material. The findings of the study would help parents, educators, and publishers to take necessary measures for promoting reading habits among students. The research findings would serve as a guideline for educationists to plan education policies according to the need and preferences of the future generation and for libraries to develop user-centered library services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to assess the extent of financial literacy and the impact of access to and use of ICTs (information and communication technologies) on household financial decisions, such as savings, retirement planning, household budgeting, and engagement in financial markets. This study analyzes survey data collected from 409 households belonging to the low- and middle-income brackets across four cities in Pakistan. By employing probit model, it finds that a higher level of (advanced) financial literacy is associated with an increased likelihood of improved savings and household budgeting. However, the overall financial literacy score (basic plus advanced) is associated only with savings decision. Additionally, the results reveal that the ICTs adoption plays a role in influencing decisions related to financial market participation and savings. The results also show that financial literacy, along with ICTs, positively influences financial market participation and retirement decisions. Nevertheless, results suggest mixed impacts of financial literacy and ICTs on financial decisions which lends partial support to the study hypotheses. In conclusion, our results underscore the importance of financial literacy alongside ICT adoption to promote financial market participation and improve household financial management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public sector organizations are adopting Artificial Intelligence to gain efficiency, improve service quality and enhance policy-making capabilities. However, the growth of technology adoption in Pakistan's public sector organisations is slow because of several challenges the country faces. This paper focuses on the challenges that Pakistan's public sector organisations face in implementing AI and aims to highlight the initiatives in light of "Vision 2025," and "Digital Pakistan Policy 2018." In a nutshell, technological challenges like cost, budgets, technology adoption, research and development, cost-benefit analysis, collaborations, bureaucratic structures, and ICT readiness are the issues that are faced by public sector organisations. Policy-making in digitalisation and overcoming the adoption challenge is a big challenge for public sector organizations. This paper has identified some of the challenges in public sector organisations where further research and policy-making can help overcome challenges for public offices in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as data analysis to gain a better understanding of the existing perception on the education system. 45,278 tweets were downloaded and processed. Using a lexicon-based approach, examining the most frequently used words, and estimating similarities between terms, we detected that a predominantly negative perception of the education system exists in most of the analysed countries. A positive perception is identified in certain low-income nations. Men exhibit a more positive sentiment than women as well as a higher subjectivity in some countries. The countries that exhibit the most positive perceptions India, Canada, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and Kenya are also those that manifest the highest subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various aspects of innovation management have been discussed in literature over the past few decades. Most of the innovation management frameworks have been formulated by undertaking studies in the developed world and lack the industry/culture specific focus. In this paper, we revisit the generic innovation management studies to develop an innovation management framework for highlighting the factors affecting innovation specifically at the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector of Pakistan. A detailed literature review has been conducted to identify the factors included in the past innovation management models. To identify the factors specific for Pakistan, senior-level professionals, working at the Pakistani ICT organizations were interviewed based on a survey. A comparative analysis of the innovation management frameworks for Pakistan against those previously found in literature revealed interesting similarities and differences. Based on the study findings, an innovation management framework is developed that highlights the present factors which are important for innovation in the ICT sector for Pakistan. This framework can be used by Pakistan and other underdeveloped countries for improving their innovation in ICT sectors in particular and other sectors in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an immense role in reappraise and transform human life around the globe. In this digital era, not only men but women are also contributing potentially to the ICT field to end poverty, improve education, and a create decent job market. Hence, it is necessary to encourage women to pursue their careers in the ICT field for the development of the country. Consequently, it is mandatory to evaluate women's contributions to the ICT field. Thus, in this research, women's empowerment in the ICT field was analyzed based on women's designation, and qualification, a field of interest in all ICT institutes of Pakistan. For this purpose, data of women faculty of 124 ICT institutes of Pakistan was collected from online available resources of ICT institutes using web scraping technique. In total, the dataset was consisting of 1515 entries that were mined from different ICT institutes in Pakistan. The attributes included in this dataset were female names, designation, qualifications, area of Interest, department, university, and province. The paper is presenting the first step for performing the gender-based bibliometric analysis. This study is quite beneficial for evaluating Pakistani women's performance in ICT by analyzing their qualifications, designation, and department. It is concluded that most women faculty work in the Computer Science i.e., sub-field of ICT, and women are more interested in Data Science, Image processing, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning research areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the continuous discourse about the potential detrimental effects of global technology usage in the workplace and analyses the adverse outcomes associated with the indispensable use of technology at work. In the future, societies will develop a growing interest in technology and its associated instruments, such as cellphones. This study reveals a growing trend among supervisors, specifically boss phubbing, which refers to the degree to which supervisors are distracted by their smartphones when they are with their subordinates. The study also investigates the effects of boss phubbing on presenteeism and work alienation, with organisational pride acting as a mediator. The quantitative study used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling on 360 participants to examine phubbing and its effects. Andersen and Garbing's (1988) two-step method was used to identify causal links and evaluate the model. The findings revealed that supervisor phubbing led to a drop in organizational pride, resulting in an increase in presenteeism and work alienation. In addition, Phubbing has a clear impact on presenteeism and work alienation, as evidenced by the outcomes of the study. The study suggests to Implement phubbing education, mobile policy, and "smartphone safe" zones to improve productivity and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the intricate landscape of organizational behavior, this study untangles HPWS dynamics in terms of commitment, satisfaction, readiness for change and performance. A rigorous quantitative method was used in this research that relied on data drawn from 290 HR professionals and middle to lower-management employees of different industries such as Pharma, IT, Retail and Banking. Our results tell a complex story that shows how HPWS affects Effective Commitment and Job Satisfaction. Interestingly, Effective Commitment proves to be the mediator which influences the HPWS-Readiness for Change relationship. As organizational landscapes continue to change, the study not only fills some of the gaps that we have in present-day research but also can be considered as a standard for upcoming research. The study provides a strategic perspective for managers, policymakers and HR practitioners as the resulting study depicts how HPWS arranges an orchestra of organizational success which alludes to fine-tuning in creating commitment, satisfaction, and adaptive readiness dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the largest providers of business opportunities in Pakistan, there is a limited adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to first investigate the various roles that ICTs can play in enhancing SME efficiency, by adopting and extending the Technology Acceptance Model, and then identifying several factors to achieve their adoption. Thematic analysis has revealed four key themes for qualitative research methodology: (1) The roles and benefits of ICTs, (2) Factors influencing the adoption of ICTs, (3) Entrepreneurial (Individual) characteristics of owner-managers, and (4) Role of governments and national (local) institutional support. Though study contributes that ICT plays an important role in the development of SMEs, with an extended model, role of entrepreneurial (individual) characteristics of owner-managers is the most important determinant in the adoption of ICTs by SMEs. In addition, factors such as cultural and social effects, government and national (local) institutional support functions also influence the decision of SMEs to adopt ICT. Therefore, the findings of this empirical study could have the potential to improve innovation, knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour within SMEs to successfully adopt and use ICT in the future with the support of different stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this investigation is to examine the influence of information and communication technologies (ICT), on women's engagement in the online market of Pakistan, both preceding and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were sourced from comprehensive semi-structured interviews with participants, a survey involving 346 women, and supplementary data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics of Pakistan. Descriptive statistical analysis for the period 2017-2022 among men and women in employment patterns, and unemployment. This approach helps unveil factors influencing the sex ratio, with abnormal gender ratios potentially reflecting socio-economic factors, such as the tendency of women to be more active than men. Methodological comprising two sequential stages of scrutiny: an evaluation of ICT development concerning gender dynamics from 2017 to 2022 and a quantitative assessment of the market landscape and its developmental trajectory in the online realm in Pakistan. The most frequented online marketplace among women is Daraz.pk, Facebook, Cybermart.pk, Symbios.pk, and Aliexpress. The findings of the study reveal the discernible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volume and structure of online purchases and sales, with a notable uptick. Potential applications in fostering women's entrepreneurship are extended by this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education sector of Pakistan is trying its best to facilitate our education setup to embed the use of the latest technology in line with traditional methods of teaching throughout the country that are being integrated from the very first year of schooling. The primary focus of the government is to replace all traditional methods of teaching with interactive teaching methods so that ICT-based teaching can be promoted throughout the country, necessary to compete with the world in the 21st century. This study highlighted the effective role of technology at the secondary school level as well as on school leadership. The head teachers of the Tehsil Jhang from the public sector were the study population and 50 head teachers were taken as samples of the study. After data collection researcher applied the independent samples t-test to analyze the impact of gender perception to embed or use technology and ICT tools in their classroom. The study results emphasized that the use of the latest technology to educate children is one of the most important needs that has to be used by every instructor in their school setting so that interactive teaching can be made possible for the effective learning of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study used an asymmetric ARDL model to analyse the asymmetric (positive and negative shocks) impact of foreign direct investment, personal remittances, total reserves, gross savings, and information and communication technology on economic growth in Pakistan from 1976 to 2019. The short-run and long-run results of the asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag approach show that total reserves have a negative and non-significant influence on Pakistan's economic growth. Similarly, the results of asymmetric ARDL show that positive shocks in personal remittances have a positive and significant influence on Pakistan's economic growth, but negative shocks have a negative and non-significant impact in both the long-run and short-run. The findings of the gross savings show that a positive shock has a favourable and non-significant impact on economic growth in both the long-run and short-run. The investigated outcomes of foreign direct investment show that positive shocks have a detrimental and considerable impact on the economy of Pakistan in both the long-run and short-run. Furthermore, information and communication technology has a negative impact on economic growth in both the long-run and short-run. The government of Pakistan may adopt better policies to build the country's infrastructure by employing foreign investment more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although prior research on late-career entrepreneurship has explored the effects of financial, human, and social capital on the intentions to engage in entrepreneurial activity within the domains of a developed economy, little research has investigated this scholarship in the context of a push perspective within a developing economy. This study endeavors to meet this gap by investigating the effects of financial, social, and human capital and the personal dispositional traits on the entrepreneurial intentions among early retirees in the ICT sector of Pakistan. Based on the collected data from the web-based questionnaire and personally administered surveys and interviews from 345 respondents who face a survival challenge in the aftermath of a job loss, we make use of hierarchical logistic regression to periodically explore the independent and combined effects of the financial, social and human capital and the impact of a stable dispositional trait of fear of failure on the entrepreneurial intention. Being one of the foremost studies to address the late-career entrepreneurship phenomenon in a developing economy, this study has to offer notable contributions to entrepreneurship literature. Consistent with prior research, we observe support for the individual influence of various elements of financial, social, and human capital and the fear of failure on the intentions to engage in an entrepreneurial career. Results also demonstrate considerable evidence for the interaction effects among financial, human, and social capital as well as among different measures of financial capital, human capital, and the fear of failure. Discussion about the results is furnished followed by limitations and future research implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the world, cities are partnering with multinational corporations to launch "safe city solutions", technical‐bureaucratic assemblages which use integrated information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance urban safety and security. In metropolitan Pakistan, safe city projects are framed as responses of the "security state"—a common lens through which the country is regularly understood. The article, however, situates safe city projects and the concept of security, more generally, within the history of infrastructure development and urban planning in Pakistan. It shows that safe city projects shape the relations between the state, people, urban environments, and material things in three key ways. First, the collection and production of vast quantities of data through which ICTs make people not only the objects of—but also the input for—"safe city solutions". Second, safe city projects idealise state modernity, professionalism, and efficiency. Finally, safe city projects are connected to complex financial and legal regimes, which position security in relation to proprietary technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Project managers are under a never-ending pressure to demonstrate the expected value of projects to the project sponsors; however, in most cases, project managers fail to realize this strategic value due to the loopholes left in project governance throughout various stages of the project life cycle. Furthermore, another root cause of project failure might be linked to an exceedingly self-interested project leader who is exploitative of his/her team. This is a recurring yet still unexplored aspect of destructive leadership that requires attention from the scientific community as well as practitioners. Hence, the present study explored the relationship between project governance and information and communication technology (ICT) project success, as well as the moderating effects of exploitative leadership on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: With this aim, 357 responses were collected from project professionals in the emerging ICT industry in Pakistan, and the results were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS). Findings: The findings provide new evidence that project governance significantly improves project success opportunities in the ICT industry; however, this relationship is negatively moderated by exploitative leadership. Originality/value: The study findings extend the project leadership literature by uncovering the influence of the dark side of project leadership (i.e. exploitative leadership), in addition to revalidating the impact of project governance on project success through a multi-dimensional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on student's learning primarily concentrating on the following factors: including availability, accessibility and user-ability of using ICT resources. This investigation will highlight the role of ICT in the pedagogical activities of students, especially in their learning. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was designed to comprehend the questions related to the objectives and a sample of 275 students through convenience sampling technique was selected that was enrolled in various degree programs of the University of the Punjab, Pakistan. Primarily the descriptive analysis was made and data were presented in tabulated form. However, for inferential analysis, the Pearson correlation test was applied to determine the relationship among the dependent and independent variables including (availability, accessibility user-ability and student's learning) and to test the hypotheses of the study. Findings: The findings disclose that students at the University of the Punjab have access to various kinds of ICT applications and resources. Moreover, they have an adequate number of ICT equipment available for their use and they are familiar with various kinds of ICT applications and resources which they use in various educational tasks during their studies. A strong positive linear correlation exists between availability, accessibility and user-ability of using ICT resources and the student's educational learning. This confirms that ICT plays a significant role in the student's educational accomplishments. It helps students in searching, retrieving and consulting various types of information sources. It also helps them in completing their educational tasks in a quick manner. Students at all levels also see it as a matter of great importance to acquire ICT-related skills as this can help them to be more productive in their educational accomplishments. Originality/value: This study concludes that availability, accessibility, adequacy and user ability to use the ICT resources positively impact students learning. Therefore, it is highly recommended for students to learn ICT-related skills and to make the best use of the different communication technologies in their pedagogical activities. Moreover, if academic institutions in Pakistan give more emphasis on developing ICT-based infrastructure and ICT skilled manpower then this can also bring fruitful results in the learning process of student's educational endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic agricultural production practices are generally often regarded environmentally and eco-friendly compared to conventional methods, primarily because they prevent the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that may have untoward effects on human health and the environment. It lessens the risk of chemical residues in soil and food. Farmers' decision about organic farming practices is important due to several factors mainly the consumer demand for organic products continues to rise, organic farmers often receive premium prices for their produce and potentially enhance their own economic viability. So, the farmers' decision play an imperative role in the adoption and diffusion of organic farming practices. However, these factors and their effects remain untapped for the organic production practices. The study identified the factors affecting farmers' decision to adopt organic production technology particularly in context of socio-economic and information and communication technologies (ICTs). A sample of 300 respondents were selected by using a purposive random sampling technique from villages of Lahore Pakistan. The outcomes obtained through the multinomial regression technique revealed that literacy level of farmers, access to ICT tools, access to credit, membership in farmers association, contact with food super stores, no use of chemicals, participation of farmers in training programs were influencing the farmers' adoption decision to adopt organic production practices significantly. Thus, the research recommends that government officials, policy makers, farming community and agribusiness value chain actors should consider these traits when promoting smart agricultural practices to improve the well-being of associated stakeholders. Certainly, initiating awareness campaigns and pilot projects with joint involvement of public and private sectors may be highly effective in educating farming communities. Ultimately, the outcomes of this research work may navigate behavioral and cognitive dynamics to facilitate the adoption of organic production practices within the farming community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SMEs are one of the main contributors to job creation and GDP. To ensure the sustainability of their business and meet market needs, the owner-managers these days, switch the functioning of SMEs from traditional to latest technological frameworks. However, even after adoption, local SMEs are still not fully able to exploit and reap the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs). To understand this issue, this research focuses on two research objectives. First, it highlights the impact of ICT usage on SMEs. And, second, it tries to identify different factors that affect the ICTs adoption in SMEs. Main contribution of this research is that it extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) on two antecedents of Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) as a theoretical framework. For this research, qualitative interviews were conducted from ten (10) owner-managers of SMEs in Pakistan. A careful thematic analysis of interview data reveals the emergence of five different themes: the impact of ICT usage on SMEs, cultural decisions, factors affecting the adoption of ICT in SMEs, entrepreneurial characteristics of owner-managers, and the role of governments and institutional support leading to successful adoption of ICT in SMEs. Findings of this study have significance for SME's owner-managers, government bodies, and relevant business authorities who wish to address issues pertaining to the adoption and increase in ICT usage among SMEs in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) positively contributes to economic growth; however, their environmental implications cannot be ignored. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the impact of ICT, energy consumption, economic growth, and financial development on the air quality in Pakistan. Drawing on the data set from 1976 to 2018, we employed Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag model. The results revealed that there is a substantial presence of asymmetric cointegration between ICT and CO2 emissions. The empirical results unfold that positive shocks in ICT negatively affect CO2 emissions, implying that an increase in ICT brings a decrease in CO2 emission; negative shocks in ICT publicized a negative association with CO2 emissions, inferring that a decrease in ICT will bring an upsurge in CO2 emissions. Moreover, on the dark side, energy consumption and financial development degrade the environmental quality by increasing the CO2 emissions in Pakistan. Additionally, the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in Pakistan was confirmed. Our key findings emphasize the importance of ICT development and several environmental implications in attaining the sustainable development goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital environment of cyber society is being affected by intruders, cybercriminals, and neighboring countries. The ongoing research in the field of cybersecurity is therefore playing an important role and a huge impact on society. The main objective of this research is to measure the level of security and analyze the behavior of cyber-attack via Information and communications technology (ICT) tools. The idea is to improve security by highlighting the behavior of attacks (i.e., gaps, weak points, and solutions) to control the crimes. We have conducted the distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack using Wireshark and LOIC. For the DDoS attack, TCP flooding is chosen to analyze the behavior of organizations in three aspects (i) before attack, (ii) during attack, and (iii) after attack. Two organizations of Pakistan have been chosen to analyze their behavior. The simulation results in terms of the number of packets and average packet per second indicate the cyber security level of organizations against DDoS attacks. In addition, the accumulated results (i.e., before, during, and after the attack) could be used for the analysis of large-scale DDoS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural productivity has been improved through the utilization of modern techniques. Access to information in agriculture can be extended through ICTs which support and share knowledge. The research study was conducted to find out the role and utilization of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for availing agricultural information in the research area. District Charsadda was the universe of the study and Multi Stage Sampling technique was used to select respondents from three selected villages of Tehsil Shabqadar of District Charsadda, namely Hajizai, Katozai and Battagram. Through Proportional Allocation Technique a sample of 112 respondents on basis of 10% of total 1120 registered farmers was drawn to collect primary data through pre-tested and well-structured interview schedule. Collected data was analysized using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results show that 42% of the respondents were above 35 years of age, majority (80%) were literate having education from primary to above matric, 45.5% had farming experience of 1-10 years while 67% have knowledge about agriculture extension department. All the respondents have knowledge about ICTs in which mobile phone was owned by 42.8% respondents in the research area followed by TV (25%) and radio (17.0%) while respondents who have telephone was recorded as 15.2% as a ICT tool. In the research area 7.1% of the respondent avail information through TV program, 9.9% through radio broadcasts, 13.4% through mobile, 11.6% through internet, 14.3% through agriculture extension agents, 5.4% through private companies while 7.9% through fellow farmers. Only 41.1% of the respondents were aware of the programs about agriculture programs on mobile or internet in which more than half of the respondents (54.8%) got awareness from extension agents, 19.5% by themselves, 17.4% by fellow farmers and 4% through private companies. Major problems encountered in receiving information were weak radio and TV signals, poor internet facility, less contact with extension workers and load shedding of electricity. Farmers considered that information obtained through ICTs are moderately sufficient and effective. Significant association existed of age and educational level with major problems faced whereas highly significant relationship was found for age and farming experience with application of information obtained while non-significant association existed with educational level. The study recommends that extension agents should create awareness and educate farmers on the use of modern ICT tools to obtain timely and relevant information to speed up adoption of innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to investigate the effects of information and communication technology, foreign direct investment, trade and renewable energy use with GDP growth in Pakistan using time series data ranging from 1985 to 2017. Stationarity of data was verified by using unit root tests including ADF and P-P, while an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was used to check the dynamic association amid prescribed variables with long- and short-run analysis. Furthermore, cointegrating regression analysis with FMOLS, DOLS and CCR was applied to validate the variables causality. The outcomes during long-run analysis show that ICTE, trade and renewable energy have constructive linkage to GDP growth, while foreign direct investment has adverse influence to GDP growth in Pakistan. Similarly, the outcomes from cointegrating regression technique exposed that all variables including foreign direct investment, ICTE and trade have positive and constructive association with GDP growth except renewable energy that causes the adverse association to GDP growth in Pakistan. On the basis of outcomes, we will discuss the policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to measure the information and communication technology (ICT) skills of library and information science professionals considering it as a predictor of enhanced library services. The study also finds out which ICT skill is the best predictor for better library services. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from librarians at university libraries in Punjab, Pakistan. Four constructs – computer skills, information storage skills, information retrieval skills and online utility software skills – were taken as the independent variables and a construct measuring library performance was taken as the dependent variable. After checking all assumptions, a multiple regression was run to predict the dependent variable from the independent variables. Further, comparison among the independent variables was made to check the level of contribution towards library performance. The regression model shows that the explanatory power of ICT skills for enhanced library services is slightly high, which indicates that a higher level of ICT competency among librarians is important for enhanced library services. Furthermore, the beta coefficient illustrates that the contribution of information retrieval skills towards enhanced library services was relatively high compared with the three other ICT skills. The study concludes that ICT skills are a prerequisite for better library services and the professional development of librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic and technological gadgets play a crucial role in the development of any society as well as the personal nature of individuals in this modern era, they also serve as tools for creating remarkable effects in the modernization of any business or trade globally. Based on this notion, this study analyzed the access to information and communication technology (ICT) in Pakistan and also provided facts and figures about ICT gadgets and how much it stimulates the interests of people towards ICT concerning age and income. Most of the studies centered on ICT have only examined perspectives from developed countries such as the USA, Europe, and Asia. However, in Pakistan, there is a significant research gap in this regard. Therefore, this study examined access to ICT towards how the people in the main cities of Islamabad, Hyderabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Quetta of Pakistan were potential business owners and traders. The usage and access of ICT are available mostly in urban areas whereas rural residents are already facing the problem of low access to ICT. In this study, the logit model was used to model the data of HIES 2015-16 obtained from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics website. According to the empirical analysis, an inverse relationship between the age of individuals and their interests in ICT was observed, which seemed to reveal that usage of ICT and its gadgets was found to be more accessible and penetrable among younger generations towards the management of businesses. In addition, it was also perceived that an increase in the income of an individual, brings an increase in the interest of such individuals towards ICT, both in their personal lives as well as in their businesses and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]