Impact of Protean Career Attitudes on Career Outcomes via Job Crafting Behavior: A Serial Mediation Model

The protean career attitude (PCA) is an emerging proactive career attitude and an essential source for successful career development. However, to do so, the individuals also must employ proactive career behaviors at work to achieve desired career outcomes. The study proposes that the individuals with protean career attitudes employ best work practices through job crafting behaviors and attain desired career outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of protean career attitudes on career outcomes, i.e., Perceived Employability (PE) and Subjective Career Success (SCS) through job crafting behavior. The data from the employees working in the universities of Pakistan revealed that PCA has a positive impact on individual career outcomes. It was also found that there exists a pathway of serial mediation from job crafting towards perceived employability to achieve career success. The individuals who craft their jobs are more likely to enhance their employability, ultimately leading to career success. The study highlights the importance of PCA and Job Crafting behaviors, yet un-explored phenomena, for the employees for career development.

Queen Bee Syndrome a Part of Sexual Politics or another Gendered Stereotype

Purpose: The aim of the study is to explore the queen bee stereotype in the financial institutions running its operations in Pakistan since there has been seen an increase in the trend of participation of women in the commercial banks. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using a qualitative research methodology, the lived experiences of the female at leadership position and their subordinates are explored; by recognizing the factors of phenomena of queen bee syndrome as well as the sexual politics prevalent in the banking industry. Findings: The results highlighted that the phenomena of queen bee is a gender based stereotype along with being a part of the sexual politics which is taking place in the banking sector since it is a sector having domination of male. The study also found that there is female to female acceptance and female leaders help their fellow women to grow in the banking sector. Implications/Originality/Value: The study is beneficial to all the stakeholders and provides a clear insight about the predominant dynamics in females working in the same organization but at different position which results in eliminating the perpetuation of biases within female staff members regarding the women leaders.

A Broader Relevance of Gullivers Suffering in the Context of Culture Shock

Purpose: This study analyzes Gulliver’s sufferings among his different hosts and his relevancy to today’s sojourners who travel abroad and suffer from the effects of culture shock. During his stay with four different hosts, Gulliver remains unable to adjust with them due to the impact of culture shock. He looks at his hosts from the cultural parameters of his native land that leads to multiplication his problems. Like him, most of the travelers who move abroad for various reasons undergo the effects of culture shock. If they fail to understand the internal and external aspects their hosts’ culture, they may respond as Gulliver does. Approach: Though critics have analyzed Gulliver’s character from different perspectives, none has studied him from the lens of culture shock. On close analysis of the text of Gulliver’s Travels, readers can easily observe Gulliver suffering from the effects of culture shock among his hosts. A fresh perspective has been adopted in this study by analyzing Gulliver’s character in the light of culture shock. Culture shock affects sojourners in multiple ways. Many students, migrants, and the diaspora go through this experience while living in a new culture among new people. Findings: This study shows that culture has been a common phenomenon for people who stay abroad for long or settle though they do not realize that several problems that they face are caused by culture shock. However, if someone consciously assimilates the effects of culture shock, it becomes a great experience to live a better life. Implications: Though Gulliver belongs to the eighteenth century England, yet he exists around and among us. It is Gulliver’s relevancy that adds to the meaningfulness of his character for the contemporary sojourners.

Madaris in Pakistan: Religious and Social Challenges

Purpose: The nature and extent of religious and social challenges posed by the madaris have been studied by scholars on a micro level, but there is a need of methodologically investigating of the problems on a macro and global levels by using a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach to readdress these issues. The purpose of this research paper is to find out the role of for causing militancy in Pakistan and to recommend measures/strategies for de-radicalization in Pakistan. Design/Methodology/Approach: Agenda setting, priming and farming theories were used in this study. Qualitative content analysis method was used in this study to analyze the editorial policy of these three newspapers. Findings: The results revealed that all these three newspapers gave significant coverage to the peace talks issue but Nation gave more coverage to the issue. Findings also revealed that Dawn and The News, most of the time showed neutral behavior but tilted towards unfavorable position regarding peace talks. Nation showed strongly unfavorable behavior regarding peace talks. Implications/Originality/Value: So it is concluded that the government should take steps to take madaris in main stream education system in Pakistan. The funding should be checked and audited.

Factors that Influence the Public Sector Universities Performance in Pakistan

Purpose: The perceived performance of the public sector universities mainly depends upon on academia particularly the faculty members’ potential contribution, quality of teaching and knowledge generation. HRM practices are designed in such a way to accelerate performance of employees, for attaining organizational aims and objectives with organizational justice. Whereas the workforce of any organization is deemed as dynamic asset to contribute for institutional performance. Therefore, career success of the faculty members has been taken as mediating variable in the study. Design/Methodology/Approach: For crafting the research study, faculty members were chosen from Pakistan’s public-sector universities. Whereas, to establish the conceptual framework, the researchers have applied the Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT) as the underpinning theory for this construct. For sampling purposes, proportionate stratified sampling has been designed; random sampling was utilized to select the respondents within each stratum. The questionnaire was distributed among individuals personally. Afterword, data were cleaned for missing values, outliers, aberrant values and tested for normality, reliability, and validity. Findings: Hypotheses were tested by applying partial least squares - structural equation modelling (SEM) technique through statistical software SMART PLS licenced version 3. The construct in the context of Pakistan in amongst the preliminary studies. Implications/Originality/Value: The findings will be helpful for higher education commission of Pakistan for designing strategies.

Be Muslim Buy from Muslims: Impact of Retailers Religious Orientations on Consumers Purchasing Patterns

Purpose: This study investigates the impact of retailers’ religious affiliation and religiosity on consumers’ purchasing patterns. The moderated mediation model of this study contemplates a) the mediating role of buying motives of consumers based on thoughts, feelings, emotions, which help them make decisions, and b) the moderating role of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity dimensions. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were obtained from consumers from metropolitan cities of Pakistan. Simple Linear Regression and Pearson Correlation Coefficients were used to investigate the relationships with the help of SPSS and AMOS software. ArcMap was used to represent the selected sample size. Findings: Drawing on the belief-congruence theory, the findings of this study suggest that religious affiliation of the retailer (RAR) has a significantly positive impact on consumer purchase intentions (CPI) and that consumer buying motives (CBM) have a strong mediating role between RAR and CPI. The study also reveals that the impact of CBM on CPI is stronger in consumers with high intrinsic religiosity. However, data analysis shows that consumers’ extrinsic religiosity is not a significant moderator of the relationship between consumers’ buying motives and purchase intentions. Implications/Originality/Value: The findings of this study can help retailers make better policies to attract consumers and sustain their businesses.

Food Security and Conflict Nexus An Empirical Evidence from South Asian Region

Purpose: This emprical study aims to find the plausible link of food security and conflict for six conflict affected south asian countries durng 1990-2017. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using the data from FAO for Dietary Energy Supply (DES) a proxy for food security and battled deaths for Conflict from Uppsala conflict database a panel of six south Asian countries has been analyzed. Using fix effect model. Findings: The results reveal that conflict in selected sample of south Asian countries is negatively associated with food security as the onset of conflict the calories intake (kca/day/capita) decrease 26 on average in year. The results might be consistent with some recent empirical studies investigating the same relationship from other regions of the world. Implications/Originality/Value: The empirical literature explaining this nexus of food security and conflict has been analyzed on the date from single country affected by conflict. Fewer studies investigate this relation which is based cross countries analysis.

Be Muslim Buy from Muslims: Impact of Retailers Religious Orientations on Consumers Purchasing Patterns

Purpose: This study investigates the impact of retailers’ religious affiliation and religiosity on consumers’ purchasing patterns. The moderated mediation model of this study contemplates a) the mediating role of buying motives of consumers based on thoughts, feelings, emotions, which help them make decisions, and b) the moderating role of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity dimensions. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were obtained from consumers from metropolitan cities of Pakistan. Simple Linear Regression and Pearson Correlation Coefficients were used to investigate the relationships with the help of SPSS and AMOS software. ArcMap was used to represent the selected sample size. Findings: Drawing on the belief-congruence theory, the findings of this study suggest that religious affiliation of the retailer (RAR) has a significantly positive impact on consumer purchase intentions (CPI) and that consumer buying motives (CBM) have a strong mediating role between RAR and CPI. The study also reveals that the impact of CBM on CPI is stronger in consumers with high intrinsic religiosity. However, data analysis shows that consumers’ extrinsic religiosity is not a significant moderator of the relationship between consumers’ buying motives and purchase intentions. Implications/Originality/Value: The findings of this study can help retailers make better policies to attract consumers and sustain their businesses.

Social Ties impacting Audit Quality Exploring Government Entities

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyze the first hand data regarding intimacies between government entities and government audit institution of Pakistan, to see its impact on the quality. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative research design is used to explore the concept base on theoretical saturation technique. Findings: The results revealed by default presence of social ties among interactive agents. It further explores indirect relationship between audit quality and social interactions in the presence of petty corruption due to familiarity, unwarranted mutual trust and favoritism however this relationship is shifted toward direct relationship in the presence of material corruption due to fear of losing good reputation, loss of job, fear of departmental inquiry, threat of floating your weaknesses before your rival clique. Implications/Originality/Value: The results presented in this paper should therefore be of great interest to government, regulators and standard-setters charged with developing accounting standards to improve the audit quality of reporting information related to existing government auditing setup.

Investigating the Poverty Human Capital and Economic Development Nexus in Dera Ghazi Khan Division: An Econometric Analysis

The present study focuses on the D. G. Khan division, which is one of the important divisions of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Being less developed, this study tries to find out different factors that can contribute to the betterment of this region. The study was based on primary data collected during the year 2019. The findings revealed that human capital is the most significant factor that can contribute to alleviating poverty and promoting the development of the D.G. Khan division.