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This study was carried out for the investigationofthe Late Permian Wargal limestone at Kafar Kot Chashmaarea, Khisor Range to determine its suitability as an aggregate that is used in roadconstruction and civil structures with the help of geological engineering testing. The results of geological engineering testing of Wargal limestone samples show the tolerable values of all standard engineering parameters including the Loss Angles Abrasion value (23.37%), Aggregate impact (16.8%), Crushing value 13.1%, Unit weight 1.67, Soundness (1.007%), Specific gravity (2.70), Water Absorption (0.48%), Flakiness Index (6.5%), Elongation value(7.1%), Coating of bitumen (> 95%), stripping of bitumen (

Soil mercury (Hg) and its bioaccumulation in food crops have attracted widespread concerns globally due to its harmful effects on biota. However, soil mercury fractionation, bioavailability, and the major factors predicting its transfer and accumulation in soil-wheat-systems have not been thoroughly explored. Twenty-one (21) soil samples collected throughout China with a wide spectrum of physico-chemical characteristics were contaminated with HgCl

The purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of how macro (country)—level dynamic capabilities (DC), such as government environmental policies, legal and market requirements, and techn...

Prior studies on big data analytics have emphasized the importance of specific big data skills and capabilities for organizational success; however, they have largely neglected to investigate the use of cross-functional teams’ skills and its links to the role played by relevant data-driven actions and business performance. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and on the data collected from big data experts working in global agrifood networks, we examine the links between the use of big data-savvy (BDS) teams’ skills, big data-driven (BDD) actions and business performance. BDS teams depend on multidisciplinary skills (e.g., computing, mathematics, statistics, machine learning, and business domain knowledge) that help them to turn their traditional business operations into modern data-driven insights (e.g., knowing real time price changes and customer preferences), leading to BDD actions that enhance business performance. Our results, raised from structural equation modelling, indicate that BDS teams' skills that produce valuable insights are the key determinants for BDD actions, which ultimately contribute to business performance. We further demonstrate that those organisations that emphasise BDD actions perform better compared to those that do not focus on such applications and relevant insights.

Environmental innovation is regarded as an essential tool to achieve the Paris Climate Conference agreement and Net Zero by 2050. Despite the extensive studies on the determinants of environmental innovation in developed countries, little attention has been paid to developing countries despite their dominance of emissions and different institutional characteristics. This paper fills the gap in the literature by investigating the determinants of environmental innovation in developing countries. In addition, the paper examines the role of national culture, an informal institutional factor, as a potential determinant of environmental innovation. Using 10,764 firm-year observations for a sample of 15 developing countries from 2015 to 2019, we find that environmental innovation is mainly driven by the demand-pull factor, rather than the technology-push factor, in developing countries. In addition, certain national cultural dimensions such as masculinity and long-term orientation enhance environmental innovation, while other dimensions such as power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence reduce it. The paper makes a theoretical contribution by extending the Porter Hypothesis towards institutional theory to include informal institutional factors (i.e. national culture) as a determinant of environmental innovation. The finding also suggests a rethink of policy in developing countries to focus more on demand-pull factors to promote environmental innovation.

Endogeneity issues in empirical research have received increasing academic attention. Tackling endogeneity problems effectively and using the appropriate estimation techniques are important quality benchmarks in the publication process of many academic journals. In this paper, we discuss the use of instrumental variables (IVs) in business and marketing research, with a particular focus on its implementation in STATA. We discuss several pre- and postestimation tests that researchers can use to implement various versions of IVs in STATA, including two-stage least squares regression, limited information maximum likelihood estimation, and generalized method of moments.

The employment of renewable resources and their association with the real economy’s growth in mitigating the problem of carbon emission risk has been debated in the literature in a specific group of countries and regions. However, their relations and effects for a better sustainable energy transmission would need further research works in an international context. Motivated by that reason, this study contributes to the ongoing literature by revisiting the effects of renewable energy consumption, electricity output, and economic activities on carbon risk using a global sample of 219 countries over the period of 1990–2020. Using GMM estimation, simultaneous quantile, and panel quantile estimations; the study finds supportive findings showing that the higher the countries with renewable energy consumption and electricity output the better the capacity those countries can mitigate the environmental degradation by reducing the amount of total carbon emission over time. However, those relations are changed when using system GMM approaches, implying the role of FDI inflows and the difference in income groups in the selected sample countries. This can be intuitively explained that emerging countries might give more priority to the economic growth receiving FDI inflows from more advanced economies and balancing the trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection, while the developed economies with their advantages in green technologies and financial flexibility might have higher advantages in acquiring a sustainable transition and maintaining the real economy’s growth without significant trade-off concerns. Finally, the study provides important policy implications and avenues for further research.

This paper investigates the connectedness, in time and frequency domain, between daily returns series of crude oil and petroleum products for the period 2003/01/11-2018/03/12. In doing so, we have applied DY (2012) and BK (2018) spillover method. The overall spillover index value obtained from DY (2012) method is 62.29% and from BK method index value fluctuates with frequency. Further empirical evidence shows that the total connectedness, in time and frequency domain, as measured by a rolling-window approach, has dynamic and volatile characteristics. Our overall results show that there is a high level of partial contemporaneous relationship between jet fuel, heating oil, US gasoline as well as diesel. Furthermore, results from the Wavelet multiple correlations and cross-correlation show that heating oil act as a leader for a short time horizon, whereas gasoline at medium and longer time scale. The results from the DY spillover analysis suggest that among the series analysed heating oil has the highest contribution to others, which is confirmed across frequencies by BK spillover method (and the Brent contributes least to others at all frequency bands). These findings have important implications for a wide range of market participants, including investors, hedge funds, speculators, as well as for energy policy, with different temporal horizons.

Acute poisoning is one of the most common causes of poisoning worldwide and is the fourth leading cause of death. It is either accidental or suicidal and causes a high mortality and morbidity. It is more common in males due to prolonged occupational exposure. The objective of this study is to find the pattern of acute poisoning and its relation with demographic variables in the emergency department of Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad.This cross-sectional study was carried out on patients of acute intoxication brought to the emergency department of Ayub Teaching Hospital in the year 2017-18. Data was analyzed by SPSS-16.0 and presented as tables and figures. Chi-square test was applied at 5% level of significance.A total of 76 patients, 48 (63.16%) females and 28 (36.84%) males were included during the period. Mean age was 24.12±9.058 years. Thirty-nine (51.32)% cases belonged to rural areas and 37 (48.68)% were from urban areas. Cases of medicinal poisoning were 25 (32.89%) followed by 19 (25%) cases of organophosphate poisoning. Most cases of poisoning 36 (47.4%) were presented in the night shift. Thirty-one (40.79%) cases were brought to the hospital within 1-2 hours of incident. Cases of intentional poisoning were 51 (67.11%) while 25(32.89%) were due to accidental poisoning.Females within the age group 21-35 belonging to rural areas were more prone to poisoning. The common type of poisoning is medicinal poisoning. Most patients were presented to the emergency in the night shift within 1-2 hours of intoxication.

This paper examines the relationship between sustainability targets and their impacts on corporate environmental innovation. Using data over the period 2009-2018 on 202 companies from BRICS countries, covering firm-level governance, social responsibility and sustainability this paper examines firm-level sustainability targets, and incentives encourage managers to engage in more environmentally friendly activities. Using panel data probit regression, and after controlling for country-level governance and institutional factors, the study finds that embedding environmental targets in corporate strategy does encourage corporate managers to design and develop eco-friendly products and services, and such firm-level commitments at the top motivates managers to promote, market, and label environmentally friendly products. The findings call for greater emphasis on aligning executive compensation with sustainability targets rather than focusing too much on short-term accounting and market-based measures of firm performance.

With the surge in economic growth in the global-north vis-a-vis social and economic inequalities in the global-south (north-south dichotomy), there is an increasing requirement for critical research and an examination of the policy implications with respect to human rights in emerging economies. This paper draws on the concept of convergence and institutional theories to enhance our understanding of how multinational corporations (MNCs) fulfil their profit maximisation agendas using capitalist principles; and the extent to which these ideologies produce human rights violations in emerging economies. Using multiple data sources from the Human Rights Watch, our study provides a comprehensive list of various human rights violations perpetrated by MNCs from 2002 to 2017. We verified 273 violations by 160 MNCs mostly from developed countries. More than 90% of our sample firms have CSR/sustainability committees, are signatories to the UN Global Compact and have reported compliance with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This raises questions about the effectiveness of these programmes for CSR compliance. We contribute to the CSR/sustainability literature by providing new insights into the nature and location of human rights violations committed by MNCs.

Mercury (Hg) contamination and accumulation in food crops is a global threat posing potential health risk to humans. However, Hg phytoavailability in soil-pepper system and its influencing factors largely remain unknown. In this study, a greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to grow peppers using 21 Chinese agricultural soils with varied soil properties and aged Hg levels. Mercury concentration in pepper leaves and fruits ranged from 0.021 to 0.057 mg kg−1 and 0.005–0.022 mg kg−1 respectively, while fruit Hg content in three soils (Anhui, Hubei, Beijing) exceeded the safety limit. Fruit Hg concentration was better positively correlated with soil Mg(NO3)2-extractable Hg content (r = 0.7, P

Blockchain is one the most remarkable technological innovations of the 21st century. The most notable application of blockchain is in the development and operation of cryptocurrencies (e.g. bitcoin, ethereum, among others). Besides the financial services industry, blockchain is also considered in other sectors such as international trade, taxation, supply chain management, business operations and governance. However, blockchain has not been examined comprehensively in all areas of relevant literature. This article conducts a survey of the literature to gain an understanding of the opportunities and issues presented by blockchain in various business functions. The article begins by providing a discussion regarding how the blockchain technology operates. The paper takes a broad focus in its analysis of the prospects of blockchain for various business functions, including banking and the capital markets, corporate governance, international trade, and taxation. The paper demonstrates how organisations and regulators can leverage blockchain to upscale business operations, enhance efficiency and reduce operational costs. The key drawbacks of blockchain that stakeholders need to bear in mind before adopting the technology are also highlighted. The article also reflects on how organisations can tap into blockchain to reap the full potential of the fourth industrial revolution.

This study develops a 'comply or explain' index which captures compliance and quality of explanations given for non-compliance with the corporate governance codes in UK and Germany. In particular, we explain, how compliance and quality of explanations provided in non-compliance disclosures, and various other internal corporate governance mechanisms, affect the market valuation of firms in the two countries. A dynamic generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator is employed as the research technique for our analysis, which enabled us to control for the potential effects of endogeneity in our models. The findings of our content analysis suggest that firms exhibit significant differences in compliance, board independence and ownership structure in both countries. The 'comply or explain' index is positively associated with the market valuation of UK firms suggesting that compliance and quality governance disclosure is value relevant in the UK. Institutional blockholders' ownership is however, negatively associated with the market value of firms, which raises questions about the monitoring role of institutional shareholders in both countries. We argue that both compliance and explanations given for non-compliance are equally important, as long as valid reasons and justifications for non-compliance are provided by the reporting companies. These findings thus imply that the 'comply or explain' principle is working well and that UK and German companies could benefit from the flexibility offered by this principle. With respect to the role of board size, board independence, ownership structure, and institutional ownership of firms, this study offers policy implications.

This paper proposes a model to explain what makes organisations ethically vulnerable. Drawing upon legitimacy, institutional, agency and individual moral reasoning theories we consider three sets of explanatory factors and examine their association with organisational ethical vulnerability. The three sets comprise external institutional context, internal corporate governance mechanisms and organisational ethical infrastructure. We combine these three sets of factors and develop an analytical framework for classifying ethical issues and propose a new model of organisational ethical vulnerability. We test our model on a sample of 253 firms that were involved in ethical misconduct and compare them with a matched sample of the same number of firms from 28 different countries. The results suggest that weak regulatory environment and internal corporate governance combined with profitability warnings or losses in the preceding year increase organisational ethical vulnerability. We find counterintuitive evidence suggesting that firms’ involvement in bribery and corruption prevention training programmes is positively associated with the likelihood of ethical vulnerability. By synthesising insights about individual and corporate behaviour from multiple theories, this study extends existing analytical literature on business ethics. Our findings have implications for firms’ external regulatory settings, corporate governance mechanisms and organisational ethical infrastructure.

This study explores the determinants of corporate cash holdings in the Chinese context. As one of the largest developing countries in the world, China offers an interesting opportunity to explore the role of corporate governance, and ownership structure in explaining corporate cash holdings. Owing to the unique economic problems in the developing and emerging economies, this study aims to investigate whether the research findings on developed countries could be generalized globally. Applying fixed-effects estimations on a sample of 115 Chinese firms listed between 2012 and 2016, we find that the level of corporate cash holdings has a significantly negative relationship with leverage, bank debt, non-cash liquid assets and managerial ownership. In particular, cash flow volatility, investment opportunity and dividend have a significantly positive relationship with cash holdings levels. These findings are consistent with the majority of the existing studies carried out in the Western context. We also find that firm size, cash flow, board independence and ownership concentration have a significant influence on the level of corporate cash holdings. Our study contributes to the finance literature and we offer new insights into the relationship between corporate governance and corporate cash holdings in the Chinese context. Some of the findings on the developed countries could be generalized to a wider context. Further, the unique relationship between corporate governance and cash holdings in the Chinese context provides empirical insights for further research.

Motivated by recent inconclusive debates on the natural resource ‘curse’ phenomenon, this paper reviews studies that have explored the causes and implications of natural resource endowments ‘curse’ within oil-rich developing countries (ODCs). Most of these studies find corruption, transparency, accountability, weak institutions and poor governance as causes of developing countries’ natural resource ‘curse’. However, recent studies identify a strong association between oil and gas multinational corporations (MNCs) as agents of globalisation and the resource-curse. First, we consider the international dimensions of this relationship and how MNCs have an influence on the resources of ODCs. Second, we link the impact of MNCs and their natural resource nexus to broaden debates on strategic organisational practices. We show that globalisation creates the platform for the natural resource ‘curse’ phenomenon. Our findings offer new insights into the natural resource ‘curse’ debates. We expand knowledge on the traditional focus of the resource-curse literature to include globalisation and how ethical practices of MNCs could avert the ‘curse’ or allow ODCs to experience the advantages of their natural resource wealth.

This paper examines corporate governance (CG) and corporate accountability practices in the African context, by focusing on the case of Kenya. Our data comprises a combination of 29 semi-structured interviews, field observations and archival evidence. We reveal how western-originated CG and accountability reforms are constrained or subverted by a vigorous neo-patrimonial regime. The Kenyan corporate sector has well defined legal-rational structures, including an elaborate corporate sector regulatory framework, professionals (i.e. accountants and auditors) and corporate boards. In contrast, however, informal networks and patronage interfere with the nomination and work of non-executive board members, thereby hindering the possibility of an independent monitoring of executive management. A conflictual and inadequately resourced regulatory framework plays a more symbolic than an effective regulative role in enforcing CG and accountability practices. We also find a widespread rent-seeking culture that significantly hinders the exercise of corporate accountability. Furthermore, external auditor independence is problematic due to conflicts of interest and the auditors’ dependence on advisory fees, thereby favouring a clientelist association with auditee firms. Overall, our findings reveal that CG and accountability practices, while ostensibly present in Kenya, are largely ineffective due to the influence of neo-patrimonial realities on the mind-set and actions of corporate actors.

This study examines evidences of executive reactions to say-on-pay (SOP) votes in terms of strategic policies which could affect firms' long-run growth and eventual survival. We employed an unbalanced panel data from 1932 firms taken from four countries in the Anglo-Saxon economy, covering time periods when different forms of SOP were implemented in these countries. Using Limited Information Maximum Likelihood (LIML) estimator to gauge the simultaneous determination of SOP votes and firm strategic policies, we find that, in line with shareholders preferences, US firms had increased capital expenditure ratio; Australian and US firms had reduced reliance on debt financing; US managers had shifted focus on current rather than long-term profit, but evidences emerged from other countries are unclear. Corroborations also suggest that excess liquidity was shunned by Canadian shareholders, but the reactions of their company executives were overly disproportionate. UK firm policies did not appear to have been affected by SOP, and vice versa. Overall, the varying effects of SOP votes on firms' strategic policies might be ascribed to either the adoption of a specific SOP practice or the effectiveness of the board.

This paper contributes to burgeoning research concerning the relationship between boardroom gender diversity and corporate innovation. The paper deploys a multi-theoretical framework comprising insights from the upper echelons, resource-dependency, and institutional theories, and the Hofstede's cultural dimensions framework. We test a panel dataset for 472 multinationals in 21 emerging economies, covering nine years (2009-2018). Our findings reveal that gender diversity is positively associated with corporate innovation. We also find that local factors such as national norms, cultural values, and country-level institutional quality influence boardroom gender diversity, level of investment in research and development (R&D), and corporate innovation. The paper concludes by providing policy and managerial recommendations on how to promote firm R&D within emerging markets contexts.

This paper presents empirical evidence on how Chinese firms perceive and tackle risks associated with their overseas investments. Using a first-hand survey dataset of Chinese firms who invest abroad, we depict variations in (1) the levels of different types of perceived risk, and (2) the risk management approaches taken by these firms. These variations are assessed with respect to three prominent factors: firm ownership structure, investment motives, and the host country institutional quality. Our evidence uncovers a significant degree and pattern of heterogeneity in the strategic behaviour of Chinese investors in risky environments.

Empirical research shows that developing countries that are rich in natural resources tend to suffer slow economic growth and development due to various factors such as quality of institutions, governance, among others. The phenomenon of slow growth is widely known as the ‘natural resource-curse’ within the energy sector literature, and past research suggests that the membership of international non-governmental organisations and transparency are key factors in supporting economic development. However, limited research has been conducted to explore the key factors and their impact on the ‘natural resource-curse’. This study utilizes 222 cases from 18 of Ghana’s key stakeholders and finds that the membership of country’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and petroleum revenue management policies are insufficient to avert its ‘resource-curse’ unless they are complemented with country-level institutional factors such as the quality of institutions, quality of governance, government effectiveness, accountability, corruption control mechanisms, natural resource sustainability and effective accounting practices. Consequently, the study contributes to the deeper understanding of complex macro-level factors interlinked with the ‘natural resource-curse’. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, along with suggestions for future research.

Endogeneity bias can lead to inconsistent estimates and incorrect inferences, which may provide misleading conclusions and inappropriate theoretical interpretations. Sometimes, such bias can even lead to coefficients having the wrong sign. Although this is a long-standing issue, it is now emerging in marketing and management science, with high-ranked journals increasingly exploring the issue. In this paper, we methodologically demonstrate how to detect and deal with endogeneity issues in panel data. For illustration purposes, we used a dataset consisting of observations over a 15-year period (i.e., 2002 to 2016) from 101 UK listed companies and examined the direct effect of R&D expenditures, corporate governance, and firms' characteristics on performance. Due to endogeneity bias, the result of our analyses indicates significant differences in findings reported under the ordinary least square (OLS) approach, fixed effects and the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations. We also provide generic STATA commands that can be utilized by marketing researchers in implementing a GMM model that better controls for the three sources of endogeneity, namely, unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity.

Smart cameras are considered as key sensors in Internet of Things (IoT) applications ranging from home to city scales. Since these cameras often capture highly sensitive information, security is a major concern. An elliptic curve (EC) based signcryption achieves resource-efficiency by performing data encryption and signing in a single step. In this work, we present aggregate-signcryption which extends the EC-based signcryption approach to a cluster-based multi-camera setup. The signcrypted data from the smart cameras within a cluster is aggregated on a specific node called cluster head. Aggregatesigncryption reduces the communication overhead and requires fewer steps for the unsigncryption as compared to individual signcryption.

Cameras are expected to become key sensor devices for various internet of things (IoT) applications. Since cameras often capture highly sensitive information, security is a major concern. Our approach towards data security for smart cameras is rooted on protecting the captured images by signcryption based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). Signcryption achieves resource-efficiency by performing data signing and encryption in a single step. By running the signcryption on the sensing unit, we can relax some security assumptions for the camera host unit which typically runs a complex software stack. We introduce our system architecture motivated by a typical case study for camera-based IoT applications, evaluate security properties and present performance results of an ARM-based implementation.

About 60% of primary energy is treated as waste heat but the temperature of this heat is low (200-300 0C). Thermoacoustic engine convert heat energy into high amplitude sound waves, which is used to drive thermoacoustic refrigerator or pulse tube cryocoolers by replacing the mechanical piston such as compressors. The potential of thermoacoustic engine is high but because of heat loss the actual efficiency is not so high. The onset temperature difference, defined as the minimum temperature difference across the sides of the stack at which the dynamic pressure is generated. Lowering the critical onset temperature is a challenging task. The authors designed a multistage thermoacoustic engine which oscillates with relatively low critical onset temperature TH/TR. The influence of the position of honeycomb ceramics is also investigated in this study.