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There has been a drastic change in the ways of doing business after COVID-19. Business world has been shifted from traditional to contactless ways and digitalization has been increased during and after COVID-19 all over the world including Pakistan. So, there has been a need to study the factors that affect the success of contactless businesses, specifically in the context of Pakistan. The aim of the study is to generate the comprehensive list of critical success factors of contactless businesses in Pakistan and to analyze their interpersonal relationships and to classify them. This study is exploratory by its nature and the methodology used for this study is Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) along with Multiple Cross Impact Matrix (MICMAC) analysis that corroborate the results of ISM. Data has been collected primarily from the panel of experts on the topic. Results of the study show that the most important factor that contributes towards the success of contactless businesses in Pakistan is creativity and innovation which lies at the bottom of the model. This research is useful for all the stakeholders of contactless businesses since it contributes generates the list of critical factors, their hierarchical model, their classification model and lot of new information on interaction of these critical success factors.

Aim of the study is to evaluate climate selected sixty-six countries of the world. Since climate plays a vital role in economic growth of any country and there is dearth of climate models comparing country-wise position to predict as how climate of country is relatively better than others and how it may change in the future and how will it affect on businesses. Overall design of the study consists of review of literature, data elicitation & analysis. It follows quantitative research philosophy based on secondary data obtained from World Development Indicators (WDI). Grey relational analysis is used method of analysis. A classification is made under a predetermined scheme of ensigns like: much better, better, somewhat better, fair, poor, somewhat worse and worse. Results of the study show that Arabian Countries (AC), mostly member countries of European Union (EE), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) have much better and conducive climate, whereas, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries have worse and unfavorable climate for business. It is an original and valuable study that uses country level data from a reliable source. Results of the study are useful for international business community, political governments, society at large and researchers.

The study is aimed to analyze the determinants of the effectiveness of SOPs in mass gatherings for containing COVID-19. The overall design of the study involves a literature review, data collection by field survey, structural modeling, and analysis. The study is built on the experts' opinion of a focus group (representing people who recently participated in and are responsible for mass gatherings). The study uses the discussion of the literature review to identify the determinants, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) for developing and analyzing a structural model, and Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquée a un Classement (MICMAC) for corroboration of results of the ISM/classification of determinants. From the literature review, a list of determinants is generated and verified by a panel of experts. The results of the ISM revealed that the determinants “legal environment of the country,” “practicability of SOPs,” “perceived benefit of adapting SOPs,” and “possibilities of avoiding gathering” occupied the top of the model, therefore, they are less critical determinants, whereas “nature of gathering” occupied the bottom of the model, and is thus the most critical determinant. The remaining determinants form the middle of the model, and are therefore moderately severe. The results of MICMAC show that the determinant “perceived benefit of adapting SOPs” is dependent, “nature of gathering” is independent, and all others are linked. The results of MICMAC implicitly substantiate the findings of the ISM. The overall results of the study show that “nature of gathering” is the key determinant. This research does not require a priori theory since it is a theory-building study that uses an inductive approach. It is based on real data and it is useful for local authorities, organizers, participants (attendees/visitors) of mass gatherings, health officials/regulators, researchers, and the community at large. This study has fundamental importance for planning and preparing for such events while ensuring the minimum risk of COVID-19 transmission.

Researchers and scholars have widely attributed corporate social responsibility (CSR) to enormous outcomes. However, the customer-specific outcomes are either less investigated or lack clarity. By focusing on perceptual, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of CSR, this study entails that CSR influences customers&rsquo, citizenship behavior (behavioral outcome) both directly and indirectly (through service quality and affective commitment&mdash, perceptual and attitudinal outcomes). Survey data collected from 669 fast-food restaurant customers were analyzed through the structural equation modeling technique. The results revealed a positive and significant relationship between restaurants&rsquo, CSR efforts and customers&rsquo, behavioral responses in terms of citizenship behavior. Findings also highlight that CSR does not only have a direct relation but the sequential mediation mechanism also exists. The study extends the existing literature by focusing on the ignored causal link of CSR and customer citizenship behavior (CCB) by considering the service quality and affective commitment as an explanatory mechanism, and provides certain practical implications which could also be useful for managers of the restaurant industry to devise their socially responsible practices.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is envisaged to offer several outcomes and while customer-specific consequences are unclear or have not obtained due attention, there is a dearth of literature that focuses on perceptual, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes in tandem. Against this backdrop, this study entails the investigation of perceptual (service quality), attitudinal (affective commitment) and behavioral (customer citizenship behavior) outcomes of CSR through a serial mediation mechanism. A total of 994 responses obtained from fast-food restaurants, highlight the fact that CSR influences service quality, affective commitment, and customer citizenship behavior. Moreover, it is witnessed that CSR influences customer citizenship behavior indirectly as well, as the serial mediation mechanism is also proved. The practical and theoretical usefulness of the study is also provided at the end.

Purpose It is believed that the core aim of Islamic institution is idiosyncratic from conventional business entities. Considering this presumption, this study aims to reveal the understandings of various stakeholders about objectives of Islamic banks. Design/methodology/approach The research endeavor is based on the findings of two distinctive studies, where Study 1 was aimed at investigating the communication of objectives through mission statements of Islamic banks and conventional banks with window operations. Here, mission statements were analyzed using content analysis and readability and understandability tests. Study 2, on the other hand, was aimed at investigating the understandings of various stakeholders, both internal (employees) and external (Muslim and non-Muslim customers of both Islamic and conventional banks, employees and management of conventional banks and business students). In total, 370 responses were received and analyzed in this study. Findings The findings (Study 1) unveil, the fact, that the mission statements of Islamic banks working in Pakistan are not good at communicating the corporate goals clearly. Out of ten banks investigated for Study 1, it is evident that only one bank (HBL, with window operations) was at par with readability threshold standards. Thus, it was imperative to share that mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend. Study 2 adds further by revealing that most of the stakeholders are not clear about the objectives of these banks, while customers of conventional banks do not value the distinctive objectives of Islamic banks. Research limitations/implications This study leaves a valuable message for the policy makers and top management of Islamic banks by focusing on the unattended part on their end, i.e. quality of mission statements and stakeholders’ perception about the objectives of their organization, thus highlighting the needs of greater emphasis on the communication flow to stakeholders, as the clarity of business purpose may change the way customers react toward the business and opt for banking – customer relation in future. Originality/value This study covers a multi-dimensional investigation of the understanding and communication of objectives of Islamic banks. There is dearth of literature focusing on the aspects of content analysis, mission statement readability and understandability and investigation of stakeholders’ perception in tandem.

This study is aimed at investigating the quality of workplace ergonomics at various Pakistani organizations and quality of life of computer users working in these organizations. Two hundred and thirty-five computer users (only those employees who have to do most of their job tasks on computer or laptop, and at their office) responded by filling the questionnaire covering questions on workplace ergonomics and quality of life. Findings of the study revealed the ergonomics at those organizations was poor and unfavourable. The quality of life (both physical and mental health of the employees) of respondents was poor for employees who had unfavourable ergonomic environment. The findings thus highlight an important issue prevalent at Pakistani work settings.

This research covers the current status of occupational health and safety (OHS)-related practices in the informal construction segment of Pakistan. Data were collected, through interviews, from 316 construction sites employing 3577 workers. The results of the study reveal that both employers and workers lack knowledge of OHS laws/standards and no practices of this nature are enacted at these construction sites. Alarmingly, work-related accidents, whenever they happen, are not given due attention and there is no formal injury-report system. The informal construction industry employs a huge portion of the informal workforce, and lack of OHS happens at tremendous human cost. These research findings may thus play their role in strengthening the case for reforms in the sector. This study, if properly utilized, may also enable employers of the sector by increasing their knowledge about OHS practices and, as a result, trying to offer safer environments for their workers.

The paper describes a proposed study to examine the relationships between job satisfactions, organisational support, academics- employer relations and organisational citizenship behaviour. This study hypothesizes perceived organisational supports and academics-employer relations as antecedents; and organisational citizenship behaviour as consequences of job satisfactions among academics in Malaysian public universities. Data will be collected through self-administered questionnaire which will be distributed to a sample of academics in five Malaysian public research universities. The study will contribute to knowledge by looking at the relationships in the context of Malaysian higher education sector, something which has largely been ignored at present.

Purpose – A mission statement is an important tool for organizational communication, as it speaks to all stakeholders. It should be readable and comprehensible. The main objective of this article is to determine the readability of mission statements from selected Islamic banks. Design/methodology/approach – This study was conducted using simple counting techniques (total words, total sentences and number of words per sentence) and readability analyses. The mission statements from 169 Islamic banks were taken from their respective web sites between March and April 2012. Findings – The findings reveal that the mission statements of Islamic banks are difficult to read and comprehend and require 17 years of formal education before they can be fully understood. Research limitations/implications – Future studies should consider a comparative analysis that looks at how the origins of a bank can affect mission statements as well as examining different division of the financial sector such as insurance companies and other financial institutions. Practical implications – The findings of this study revealed that banks have a great deal of work to do on their mission statements in order to make them readable and understandable to a wide range of stakeholders. Originality/value – This article is first of its kind as it focuses on an area that has not been investigated by earlier researchers.

Conflicts are one of the indispensible parts of organizations life. Managing conflicts is issue that is to be considered to solve the said problem and to overcome the negative impacts of conflicts at work place. This paper is aimed to examine relationship between personality traits and preferred conflict handling style. Big five traits model are selected for personality assessment. Big five personality factors are extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, emotional stability and agreeableness. Conflict handling styles are compromising, competing, avoiding, accommodating and collaborating. This paper covers two personality traits Extraversion and Openness to experience and only two conflict handling styles i.e. avoiding and competing. A total of 300 students are randomly selected for data collection. Description and correlation is used for analysis. Findings suggest that there is significant relationship between personality type and conflict handling style adopted by individuals. Implications of the study for future researchers as well as practical implications are discussed in the paper.