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Purpose: This research aims to supplement the existing knowledge in the realm of customer experience and its effect on customer's retention in the online shopping context, as earlier readings advocate that there is vagueness in the measurement of direct effects of customer's experience and retention. Design/Methodology/Approach: A research model was developed based on the SOR and CRM models. Data were acquired from a sample of 350 respondents. Nonprobability sampling is used for this research and respondents are individuals who prefer online purchases of clothes through brands' websites. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) version 22.0 were used for the data analysis. Findings: The study shows that customer experience has a significant effect on loyalty. The research is constructed in the context of an online platform. Also, experience has a significant impact on satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has an impact on retention. Based on the results, it could easily be found that satisfaction translates into its effects on retention. Lastly, satisfaction and loyalty mediate the relationship between experience and retention. Implications/Originality/Value: The findings of the study led to three potential practical implications. First, companies must invest significant efforts in customer relationship management. Firms and managers focus on the customer's experiences in the context of digital platforms. Second, a manager needs to understand the importance of customer relationship management techniques to enhance the retention rate. Third and last, customer's loyalty and satisfaction plays an important role in disseminating the effects of experience on retention. is another important strategy to enhance employees' performance at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this research is to add to the current knowledge in the arena of Internet (i-net) banking and to aid decision-makers have a better understanding of the effect of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on behavioral intentions to use i-net banking. Design/Methodology/Approach: A research model was developed based on the Technology Acceptance Model and Diffusion of Innovations Theory. Data were obtained from a sample of 239 i-net banking service users using convenience sampling. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) version 22.0 was used for the data analysis. Findings: It has been found that perceived ease has an insignificant relationship with behavioral intentions to use i-net banking services whereas perceived usefulness has a positive significant impact on behavioral intentions to use i-net banking services. This study provides empirical evidence to show that consumers' attitude mediates the relationships between perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and behavioral intentions to use i-net banking services. Implications/Originality/Value: From a managerial perspective, an individual develops an attitude based on certain beliefs and as a result, develops an intention for consumption. This study helps decision-makers to have a better understanding of the process behind the development of behavioral intentions to use i-net banking services. Finally, limitations and future direction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming and greenhouse gas emissions pose severe threats to environmental sustainability. A sustainable environment is a prerequisite for long‐term socioeconomic growth and human survival. Green technology is brought about by a country's economic and financial openness, and education provides knowledge to the public and labor, contributing to environmental sustainability. Thus, this research aims to unveil the liaison between human capital, trade openness, and environmental quality for Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) countries from 1998 to 2018. Several econometric methods, including the Driscoll–Kraay standard errors and the Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality approaches, reveal long‐run and causal relationships among the modelled indicators. The Driscoll–Kraay standard error results show that human capital is negatively related to carbon dioxide emissions (CO2 emissions). Imposing high tariffs and excise duties, changing tax structures, discouraging the inflow of polluted commodities, and encouraging green trade can help BRICS combat high environmental pollution. The results show that a one‐point increase in human capital in models 1 and 2 can reduce CO2 emissions by 1.5279 and 0.1538 points, respectively. In contrast, a 1% growth in trade can lead to a rise in CO2 emissions of 0.3731% and 0.2384%, respectively. Similarly, financial development and energy consumption result in high CO2 emissions in the long run. Moreover, a feedback effect of the human capital index on CO2 emissions is discovered. As a result of the findings, the government and responsible authorities should provide financial support and encourage investments in the region's energy‐resourceful and sustainable green projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile users today are much more aware of third-party tracking activities resulting in highly targeted advertising. Companies need to consider whether there is a notable evolution in consumer behavior towards mobile advertising due to heightened privacy concerns. Subsequently, almost 10 million Pakistani smartphone users have installed ad-blocking browsers on their smartphones. This research study aims to tackle this issue of ad avoidance by looking into the factors that may improve user attitudes towards in-app ads and result in greater ad acceptance. This study explores attitudes towards in-app mobile advertising in terms of perceptions regarding advertising utility, irritation, trust, and privacy concerns and explores the role of permission in mitigating privacy concerns. The structural equation modeling was adopted using AMOS v-22, using cross-sectional data from a sample of 684 individuals. The findings of the study offer guidance to app developers and advertising professionals in designing and directing advertising content more effectively and ensuring excellent ad-click rates. The study also provides some insight into understanding the ad-avoidance behavior prevailing in Pakistan and how marketers can redesign their marketing approach and techniques to control it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sustainability and energy transition, especially the renewable energy transition, have become critical concerns of nations throughout the world in recent decades. The sustainable and eco‐friendly technologies have led to more sustainable methodologies, substantial stewardship of our natural resources, and the conversion to renewable energy sources, all of which have been demonstrated to benefit the environment significantly. However, prior studies have overlooked the ecological sustainability and energy transition effects of green technology innovation. Therefore, this study endeavored to investigate the role of green innovation (lnGRN) and financial globalization (lnFIG) on the sustainability of the environment (lnEFT) and energy transition (lnENT) in the United Kingdom using quarterly data for the period from 1995 to 2020. The study applied the time‐varying (bootstrapping) rolling window technique, which can retrieve casual associations among variables at different periods of sub‐samples. Besides this, the method is advantageous for addressing the non‐consistency of parameters and eliminating the pre‐test distortion. The novel Bootstrap Rolling‐Window full‐sample causality technique results demonstrate that lnGRN and lnFIG have unidirectional causality toward lnEFT and lnENT. Furthermore, the bootstrap rolling‐window subsamples in the final stage indicate that lnGRN and lnFIG mitigate lnEFT, whereas lnGRN and lnGDP enhance energy transition. On the other hand, lnGDP and lnETX contribute to environmental deterioration, while lnFIG hinders the energy transition. Several important policy implications are derived from the results to encourage financial globalization, green innovation technologies, renewable energy resources consumption, and environmental taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the corporate governance role in persuading nonfinancial firms' investment pronouncements listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). Since Pakistan Corporate Governance Code was revised in 2012, the impact of change due to the revision of the code is also analyzed. The results of the study provide interesting insights. We found that the corporate governance code 2012 diminishes investment inefficiency. The family-owned businesses have an incentives alignment effect by decreasing inefficient investments. However, post-code period results show that stringent monitoring mechanisms of code decrease the family managers' initiatives to undertake projects. The resource provisioning function of the independent board in decreasing inefficient investment is identified when combined with improved governance code standards. Independent directors of the audit committee diminish inefficient investments. However, the supervision effect of independent audit committee directors is eliminated in the post-code 2012 period. Asset side accruals quality reduces investment inefficiency. However, against our expectations, liability side accruals quality increases investment inefficiency. We further observed that the corporate governance code 2012 incrementally linked with accrual quality and investment inefficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the widespread use of social media, especially social networking sites among consumers and brands, academic scholars and marketers need to comprehend the critical role of social media in their marketing efforts. This study highlights both theoretical and conceptual literature about consumers' psychological empowerment, utilitarian shopping value, consumer brand engagement, online purchase intention, and brand experiential satisfaction. The study contributes to the process by evaluating the relationships between consumer psychological empowerment and utilitarian shopping value. The study also explores the concept of practical shopping value with the support of literature and its impact on online purchase intention and brand experiential satisfaction. The study also determines the mediating role of consumer brand engagement in the relationship between utilitarian shopping value, online purchase intention, and brand experiential satisfaction. The findings suggested that consumer psychological empowerment significantly affects utilitarian shopping. The results also revealed the positive impact of utilitarian shopping value on online purchase intention and brand experiential satisfaction. The managerial and academic implications are discussed; limitations and future directions for research are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data from 619 sales representatives working in 24 multinational and 76 National pharmaceutical firms in Pakistan, prepositions of Affective Events Theory (AET) are tested. Affective Events Theory (AET) proposes that behavioral demonstrations encompassing the effects like supervisory support at the workplace stimulate emotional reactions like engagement that further influence the workers' behaviors. In the current study, we applied this theoretical framework to elucidate the relationships between the proposed variables of our conceptual model. The study, in specific terms, investigated the relationships between perceived supervisory support and the three dimensions of work engagement i.e. vigor, dedication, and absorption. Furthermore, the relationships of these three dimensions of work engagement with the two dimensions of salesperson's performance i.e. selling behavioral performance and non-selling behavioral performance. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the proposed hypotheses. The results revealed that perceived supervisory support is positively related to all three dimensions of work engagement, namely vigor, dedication, and absorption, and two out of three dimensions of work engagement are positively related to two dimensions of salesperson's performance i.e. selling behavioral performance and non-selling behavioral performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to examine the economic profile of tribal regions in South Punjab, focusing on the tribal areas of Taunsa Shareef. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative. The independent variables include income, professional standing, social networking, land ownership, sources of credit, credit purpose, and savings, whereas the dependent variable is the economic profile index. A questionnaire survey and interviews were used to obtain data from 206 respondents and were analyzed using various statistical techniques such as correlations, regression, and analysis of variance tables. The findings reveal that the tribal districts of South Punjab have an unsatisfactory economic situation. Tribal people also have difficulties obtaining higher education, farming, and using government programs. There is a strong connection between independent and dependent variables in regression analysis. The most significant influencing element is determined to be one's professional position. According to the findings, the government should first offer essential services like education, health care, and infrastructure to tribal people in tribal regions to improve their economic situation and ensure sustainable growth. This study has presented several practical implications to be considered by policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the abnormal returns of 958 insurance companies from Australia, Canada, Germany, USA, UK, Brazil, India, and Indonesia under the COVID-19 scenario. This study deploys the event study methodology to analyse the effects of COVID-19 on stock returns both in the short and long terms. Results reveal that, overall, COVID-19 negatively affected the stock returns, particularly in the case of insurance firms operating in developing countries. This research also explores firm-specific determinants distinguishing the most affected insurance firms. It is found that firm size, systematic risk, price-earnings ratio, profitability, and dividend yield affect the intensity of abnormal returns in response to COVID-19 but in different event windows. The investors and policymakers should consider these factors in connection with the risk mitigating strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study inspects the comparative effects of inside shareholding on firm value for group-affiliated firms and non-group-affiliated firms in Pakistan. The research uses the excess-value as a performance measure by employing a chop-shop approach in treatment effects regression model (TERM). The results reveal that lower level and higher level inside shareholding negatively associated with firms' value. However, it positively relates at a moderate level. Also, inside shareholding-value relationship differs significantly for group-affiliated firms and non-group-affiliated firms. Firms with inside shareholding at lower level appear to more visible in business groups, and these firms show adverse firms' value consistent with divergence of interest effect. Nevertheless, inside ownership firms at a higher level, namely standalone firms, negatively affect firm value with entrenchment effect. The findings also confirm non-linearity in inside shareholding-firm value relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the mediating impact of earnings management upon the relationships identified between selected corporate governance characteristics and firms' performance by using the sample of all non-financial KSE-100 index companies for the years 2009 to 2017. The corporate governance characteristics relating to BoD, ownership structure, external audit quality and audit committee independence were incorporated in research analysis. The level of discretionary accruals was used as a proxy of earnings management as per Modified Jones Model (1995). Preacher and Hayes' (2004) mediation model was applied to establish the mediation effect of earnings management. Results of the study reveal that the audit committee independence has a negative association with the firm performance. The board independence was also found to be negatively associated with profitability variables like ROA and ROE. Rest of the constructs (board size, CEO duality, big4 audit firms and ownership structure) has insignificant relationship with firm performance. Moreover, earnings management had no relationship with the characteristic of corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to develop an index of asymmetric information that not only captures the information environment but also determines the level of asymmetric information around the firms. The index is constructed through the Principal Component Method (PCM) by incorporating trading volume, price impact measures, relative bid-ask spread, volume coefficient of variation, discretionary accruals, and abnormal returns. Equity data of 280 firms, which comprises 155 firms from agriculture allied sectors and 125 firms from other non-financial sectors of Pakistan is extracted from DataStream and Worldscop for the period of 19 years from 2000 to 2018. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and PCM are used for data analysis. Year by year statistics is calculated to check the level of asymmetric information over the sample period for the full sample, agriculture allied firms, and other non-financial firms. Mean values of the asymmetric information show no specific pattern; however, it increases from 2007 to 2008, the period of financial crises. The pattern of asymmetric information index in agriculture allied firms' data set is different from the two data set. There is less variation in the mean of the data and shows an increase over the time-period with less decrease in some years. The results of the study describe that asymmetric information prevails around the firms and there may be technological advancement as well as the improvement in disclosure policies, to minimize the level of asymmetric information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine the interest of residents of orthodontics in using distance learning and to determine their perceptions of learning experience. Study Design: A Cross-Sectional, Interventional Study. Period: From 1.1.2016 to 1.7.2017. Setting: Orthodontic department of de'Mont Dental College, Lahore. Methods: Present study was conducted on the orthodontic postgraduate trainees. Trainees were asked to read all given research studies before watching a recorded 1 hour interactive seminar. This was followed by participation in a discussion with specialist at the trainees' institute. The trainees then filled questionnaire to measure the interest of postgraduate trainees of orthodontics in using distance learning and to determine their perceptions of learning experience. Results: Results of the study showed that trainee's interest and perceptions were generally positive about distance learning experience. Statistically significant differences were found between trainee's interest and perceptions based on how well they were prepared before involvement in this interactive distance learning session. Conclusion: The postgraduate trainees of orthodontics perceived distance learning to be effective, enjoyable and learn full. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of working capital management on conventional banks' cash holding decisions in Pakistan. In order to estimate the empirical model, we apply fixed effect estimator for the period from 2006 to 2016. The results show that debtor collection period and cash conversion cycle have negative while the creditor payment period has significant positive impact on cash holdings of conventional banks. Moreover, the profitability, change in cash position, and leverage has significant positive and the size of banks has negative relationship with the cash position of banks while, the growth opportunities do not have any significant impact on the cash holding behavior of banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance, considered the lifeblood of business, always been a vital issue amongst the academicians, researchers and the policy makers. Since the different groups of businessmen may use different criteria for their financing decisions and resultantly the different sources and modes of capital acquisition, their financing decisions may invariably be influenced by several determinants or factors present both on the demand and supply sides. A review of extant literature on firm finance reveals several factors including characteristics of firm and owners, skills of owners/managers, the nature and composition of available sources of capital, and last but not the least the preferences of owners/managers regarding financing decisions. This paper investigates the nature and determinants of the selection of sources of start-up capital and ongoing finance by micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Pak economy. Our analysis revealed some significant as well as complex relationships between the demand side factors such as characteristics of firms and owners, financing attitudes and preferences, and the corresponding supply side factors such as financiers' credit criteria and policies, nature and availability of finance and contemporary financing environment. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed an evidence and application of Pecking Order Theory of financing by MSE owners. A typical pecking order i.e. financing firstly through internal/additional owner equity, then family and fiend's finance, then trade credit/short term borrowing, then long term debt/bank loan and lastly from new partner/equity was revealed. The capital acquisition preferences by MSEs were significantly related to the factors such as availability of financing from owners' personal worth and social network, financing knowledge and experience, growth objectives, risk propensity and need for control. The analysis of supply side factors revealed that the financiers and banks really need to rationalize their financing criteria by incorporating in it the owners' traits and firm dynamics, growth orientation and viability of their financing strategies. Our analysis suggested that by making finance available to the capital deficient entrepreneurs having high credit worthiness and growth orientation, the overall scenario of formation, growth and ultimate success of MSEs can be improved. The relevant training and professional courses both for the bankers, and nascent entrepreneurs are highly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]