Pakistan’s women educational attainment has been the lowest in the entire South Asia; with women and girls continuing to suffer discrimination in the field of education. This study is designed to examine the linkage between gender disparity in education and Pakistan economic success, using annual secondary data to date range 1980 to 2019. Also the study checked the variables integration order by using Dickey-Fuller and Philip-Peron tests apart from utilizing the ARDL bound test technique for long-run co-integration relationship while the (...) direction of causality were tested by using Granger causality. The analyses reflect that a strong adverse influence on growth was the result to be yielded from gender educational disparity in Pakistan. This finding is based on the empirical interpretation such as women educational attainment at primary and secondary levels, government expenditures on education, total secondary education and male secondary education significantly contribute to growth. However, the associations of population growth, total labor force, male education at primary level and total primary education with growth being significantly negative. This study also found long run pair-wise causality from male and female secondary school attainment separately, male primary education, total primary and total secondary education to economic success. (shrink)

The contribution of women to China’s economic growth and development cannot be overemphasized. Women play important social, economic, and productive roles in any economy. China remains one of the countries in the world with severe gender inequality and sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalance. Severe gender inequality and disenfranchisement of girls with abnormally high sex ratios at birth reflect deep-rooted sexism and adversely affect girls’ development. For China to achieve economic growth, women should not be ignored and marginalized so that (...) they can contribute to the country’s growth, but the sex ratio at birth needs to be lowered because only women can contribute to growth. Thus, this study empirically predicts an asymmetric relationship between gender inequality, sex ratio at birth and economic growth, using NARDL model over the period 1980–2020. The NARDL results show that increases in gender inequality and sex ratio at birth significantly reduce economic growth in both the short and long term, while reductions in gender inequality and sex ratio at birth significantly boost economic growth in both the short and long term. Moreover, the results show the significant contribution of female labor force participation and female education (secondary and higher education) to economic growth. However, infant mortality rate significantly reduced economic growth. Strategically, the study recommends equal opportunities for women in employment, education, health, economics, and politics to reduce gender disparities and thereby promote sustainable economic growth in China. Moreover, policymakers should introduce new population policy to stabilize the sex ratio at birth, thereby promoting China’s long-term economic growth. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of two comparative leadership styles on organizational performance outcomes. The leadership styles undertaken is transformational and servant leadership. A sample of 155 participants is taken from profit-oriented service sector of Pakistan. Data through survey gathered on a five point likert scale from organizations. AMOS and SPSS are used for statistical analysis. The result shows that, transformational leadership has more impact on organizational learning than servant leadership. Furthermore organizational learning enhances organizational (...) performance. Managers and leaders of corporate sector can get benefited from this study. Their main objective is to maximize the profitability of organization thus, they can choose leadership style which polishes their abilities and helps them to achieve profit maximization. (shrink)

This article constitutes the new fixed point results of dynamic process D through FIC-integral contractions of the Ciric kind and investigates the said contraction to iterate a fixed point of set-valued mappings in the module of metric space. To do so, we use the dynamic process instead of the conventional Picard sequence. The main results are examined by tangible nontrivial examples which display the motivation for such investigation. The work is completed by giving an application to Liouville‐Caputo fractional differential equations.

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2019 has created an acute fear of economic crisis, and people have experienced the state of perceived job insecurity. Several measures were taken to control this deadly pandemic, but it still affected the majority of global operational activities. This study addresses the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal number 8 that relates to decent work and economic growth. This quantitative study examines the impact of fear associated with economic crisis and perceived job insecurity on mental (...) health with the moderating effect of surface and deep acting. Surface acting is displaying fake emotions, and deep acting is modifying inner feelings according to the required emotions. This study used sample data from private-sector employees and applied SmartPLS for structural model assessment. As many organizations took more challenging decisions to sustain their business operations, the study therefore analyzes the impact of the pandemic on private sector employees. The two main findings of the study are: surface acting moderates the relationships of fear of economic crisis and perceived job insecurity with mental health and declines the impact of both on mental health, while deep acting negatively moderates the relationships of fear of economic crisis and perceived job insecurity with mental health and improved mental health even in the presence of both. The study highlighted the importance of deep acting at workplaces to sustain employees’ mental and psychological stability. Organizations could introduce emotional labor strategies and strengthen the mental health of their employees against the underlying fear of economic crisis and perceived job insecurity. (shrink)

Though the current research stream has provided some risk factors for envy at the workplace, little is still known about the drivers and consequences of envy. Based on Vecchio’s theory, this study investigates the ripple effect of the span of supervision on envy. Moreover, it sheds light on the moderating role of meaningful work in their relationship. The data comprising sample size 439 were collected from confrères of four fast food companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Pakistan. Partial Least (...) Square Structural Equation Modeling technique was implemented through SmartPLS 3.3.2 to analyze the measurement and structural relationships. The results demonstrate that a narrow span of supervision will increase work engagement, and reduce instigated incivility via decreasing envy and resource depletion in sequence. Moreover, meaningful work would help regulate the inimical stream of dénouement of envy. Theoretical and practical implications, along with the limitations and future directions, have also been discussed. (shrink)

This manuscript investigates fixed point of single-valued Hardy-Roger’s type F -contraction globally as well as locally in a convex b -metric space. The paper, using generalized Mann’s iteration, iterates fixed point of the abovementioned contraction; however, the third axiom of the F -contraction is removed, and thus the mapping F is relaxed. An important approach used in the article is, though a subset closed ball of a complete convex b -metric space is not necessarily complete, the convergence of the Cauchy (...) sequence is confirmed in the subset closed ball. The results further lead us to some important corollaries, and examples are produced in support of our main theorems. The paper most importantly presents application of our results in finding solution to the integral equations. (shrink)

This study adds to the growing research exploring the consequences of knowledge hiding in organizations. Drawing from the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, this paper examines the direct and indirect—via distrust in supervisor—relationships between supervisor knowledge hiding and supervisee organizational citizenship behavior directed at the supervisor in the context of the Middle East. Using a supervisor–supervisee dyadic design, two-source data were obtained from 317 employees of 41 Saudi firms. The findings suggest that supervisees’ distrust in their supervisors (...) mediates the significant and negative relationship between SKH and supervisees’ OCB-S. Furthermore, the significant and positive relationship between SKH and distrust in supervisor is more pronounced for foreign workers than for local workers. This study provides empirical support and a better understanding of the existence and consequences of SKH for local and foreign workers and also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the end user perspective of advertising in Pakistan. This involves exploring and examining the consumer feedback about advertising from multiple dimensions. In this regard, survey was done for the current developments in literature so far, in order to discover a general pattern of consumer attitude that has been developing over time. This leads us to the realization that the advertising has been radically changing since its beginning with the change in literature. Advertisers (...) communicate with consumers through advertising, public relations, direct marketing, interactive/Internet marketing, sales promotion etc. organizations must use all available communication tools to communicate consumer and to create awareness about the need of consumer. Advertising is used to create awareness for products and services. Advertisers should know the needs of consumers, target audience, their culture, likes and dislikes. Advertising create feelings and satisfaction in consumer’s mind. Many food and beverage brands use advertising for the promotion of their products. Advergames have an advertisement for a product, service, or company and have become popular. Cultural frame work plays important role in advertising and consumer behavior. Music plays an imported role in advertising; it has recently attracted interest in marketing and consumer psychology. Music is key elements of the culture; it plays an important role in consumers’ perceptions, moods, and in the theme of the advertisements. (shrink)

Young adult literature has been studied to understand how authors represent characters who denotes their version of experiencing mental disability or social distress. Thus the following thematic analysis of young adult novels points a question, that whether portrayal of mental disability/social distress is empowering or not. Certainly, mental disabilities seem to be different in novels: in their attempts to represent mental disability/social distress as a real experience, they’re sometimes also attached to popular conceptions of protagonist’s love-affair. Hence, to focus on (...) novels representing mental disability/social distress; themes are hypothesized to explore the identity of the protagonist, society’s influence on protagonist and whether novel romanticize or represents realistic portrayal of disability/distress. Six novels have been selected-One memory of Flora Banks, Everything-Everything, All the Bright Places, 13 Reasons Why, When we Collided and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. These novels calls attention towards how society aggravates disability and shun those who don’t meet certain expectations to be mentally healthy. Literature is a powerful social force and conversation starter about disability/distress awareness to address and deal with challenges. Thus it’s important to recognize that it plays a key role in the empowerment and appreciation for disability which has been the center of this analysis. (shrink)

We studied the impact of teachers’ ethical leadership on students’ moral identity and academic citizenship behaviors. Data from 256 student–teacher matching dyads were collected from one of the top 5 Pakistani business schools. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to ensure factorial validity of the measures that were employed, and the hypothesized relationships were tested using structural regression models that utilized structural equation modeling in AMOS with 5,000 bootstrap samples. Based on social learning theory, the results supported the hypothesis that teachers’ (...) ethical leadership had significant direct and indirect positive effects on the students’ academic citizenship behaviors that were directed toward other students and the school. This study contributes to existing literature on ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior by highlighting useful implications of these organization-based constructs in an academic context. (shrink)

The rise to taking over state power after elections of 2014 by majoritarian forces in India has since witnessed weakening of institutions of governance. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party has returned to power with an enhanced parliamentary majority in the 2019 elections. The rise of hindutva, the Hindu nationalist political philosophy of the formations comprising the BJP and the Sangh parivaar or affiliates of the right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has reshaped the discourse on the “idea of India”. Under the (...) extensive reframing in majoritarian nationalist terms of Indian political verities, it is conceivable that the Indian military, widely regarded as a professional, apolitical and secular force, will also be impacted. There has been little academic scrutiny of the possible influence of majoritarianism on the Indian military. The paper examines impact of the onset of majoritarianism democracy on India’s military by taking a close look at the movement in civil-military relations under the BJP government. There is a shift in civil-military relations from objective civilian control, that enhances professionalism and keeps the military apolitical, to subjective civilian control, wherein the military is co-opted through subscribing to the ideologybased security perspective of the ruling party. This shift poses for the military a risk of losing their a political ethic. Erosion of the apolitical ethic of the military will open up the military’s secular ethic to modification. The conclusions are both relevant for policy and theory. The relevance for policy lies in the need for the Indian state and the military to preserve professionalism by persisting with the objective civilian control model. The theoretical relevance is in discerning limits to the concept of obedience of the military to the civilian political rulers. Where there is a threat from a political ideology or its penetration into the military’s intellectual domain with the potential to dilute the military’s professionalism, the military needs to pushback for the sake of national security. (shrink)

The occurrence of a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 cannot be ruled out. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the possible effects of a hypothetical imperfect anti-COVID-19 vaccine on the control of not only the first variant of SARS-CoV-2 but also the second variant of SARS-CoV-2. We further examine the rates and a, escape of quarantined infectious individuals from isolation centers. The control R c and basic reproduction numbers R 0 are computed which gives assess to obtain asymptotic stability of disease-free (...) equilibrium point globally and the existence of a unique persistent equilibrium solution. Numerical results reveal that people infected with the second strain who are vaccinated with an imperfect vaccine are under control but the prevalence of the second variant enhances the prevalence of the first variant. Thus, discovering a vaccine that is effective for the prevention of variant 2 is necessary for the control of COVID-19. Numerical results also reveal that increase in the rate at which individuals infected with the first variant escape the isolation center gives rise to the population infected with the first variant and lowers the peak of the population infected with the second variant. This is probably because individuals infected with the second variant appear to be more careful with their lives and get vaccinated more than individuals infected with the first variant. (shrink)

Background Truth-telling in health care is about providing patients with accurate information about their diagnoses and prognoses to enable them to make decisions that can benefit their overall health. Physicians worldwide, especially in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the United States (U.S.), openly share such medical information. Bangladesh, however, is a Muslim-majority society with different social norms than Western societies. Therefore, we examined whether Muslim culture supports truth disclosure for patients, particularly how and to what extent medical information about life-threatening (...) diseases is provided to patients in Bangladesh. Methods This was a phenomenological qualitative study. We conducted thirty in-depth interviews with clinicians, nurses, patients and their relatives at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We also used observations to explore interactions between patients, families and healthcare professionals regarding their involvement in medical decisions and truth disclosure issues. NVivo software was used to identify common themes, and a thematic analysis method was utilised to analyse the datasets. Results This study identified three recurring themes relevant to the ethics and practice of truth disclosure: best interest rather than autonomy, the ambivalent value of deception and who understands what. The participants revealed that physicians often withhold fatal medical prognoses from terminally ill patients to ensure the best healthcare outcomes. The results indicate that deception towards patients is commonly accepted as a means of reducing burden and providing comfort. The participants opined that true medical information should be withheld from some patients, assuming that such disclosures may create a severe burden on them. Whether or to what extent medical information is disclosed primarily depends on a family’s wishes and preferences. Conclusions While truth disclosure to patients is considered an ethical norm in many cultures, such as in the U.K. and the U.S., the practice of concealing or partially revealing severe medical prognoses to patients is an actual medical practice in Bangladeshi society. This study emphasises the importance of recognising a patient’s active involvement and respecting the cultural values that shape family involvement in medical decision-making. These findings may have significant policy and practical implications for promoting patient autonomy within Bangladeshi family dynamics and religious-based cultural values. (shrink)

During crises and uncertain situations such as the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, social media plays a key function because it allows people to seek and share news, as well as personal views and ideas with each other in real time globally. Past research has highlighted the implications of social media during disease outbreaks; nevertheless, this study refers to the possible negative effects of social media usage by individuals in the developing country during the COVID-19 epidemic lockdown. Specifically, this study investigates (...) the COVID-19 fear using the survey data collected from a developing country. In total, 880 entries were used to analyze the COVID-19 fear using the AMOS software. Findings indicated that information-seeking and sharing behavior of individuals on social media has a significant impact on perceived COVID-19 information overload. Perceived COVID-19 information overload has a positive impact on COVID-19 fear. In addition, fake news related to COVID-19 strengthens the relationship between perceived COVID-19 information overload and COVID-19 fear. The implication and limitations of the study are also discussed in the final section of the study. (shrink)

Generally, there are two interpretative approaches to quantum theory: psi-ontic and psi-epistemic. According to the psi-ontic interpretations, quantum theory does/should describe or represent what...

This article argues about John Rawls' paradigm shift in contemporary political philosophy. In the article, this paradigm is defined as democratic insofar it claims, among other things, to leave enough room for democratic deliberations and citizens’ political autonomy. On this specific issue, Rawls and Habermas dialogue is still particularly fruitful. Both authors believe that contemporary political philosophy must be modest in some relevant theoretical and methodological aspects but they disagree on which of these aspects should be more or less modest. (...) This article argues that when we look for the legitimate boundaries of the contemporary political philosophy, Rawls and Habermas projects should be seen as closely complementary to one another. On the one hand, the article partially agrees with Habermas’ objections to Rawls that political philosophy should not be too modest in providing orientations for the normative grounds of the political justification. On the other hand, against Habermas, the article remains on Rawls's side on the idea that political philosophy cannot be agnostic regarding the substantive and distributive issues of social justice. (shrink)

John Archibald Wheeler is one of the staunchest advocates of the idea that information is more fundamental than anything else in physics. In this paper, we examine the status of this idea summarized in Wheeler’s slogan ‘it from bit’ in the context of Bohmian Mechanics and spontaneous collapse models. We will argue that any question about the status of ‘it from bit’ crucially depends on the particular interpretation of these theories one favors.

Given the dearth of research examining the distinctions across various facets of employee knowledge-hiding (KH) behaviors, there is little known about why and when leadership negatively influences playing dumb and evasive hiding but positively influences rationalized hiding. The present study fills this void by hypothesizing that employee justice orientation (JO) acts as a mediator of the associations of ethical leadership (EL) with different facets of employee KH behaviors. We also propose employee conscientiousness moderates the relationship of EL with JO and (...) the indirect relationships of ethical leadership with distinct variants of employee KH behaviors. The results based on time-lagged data from 387 employees provide support for the hypothesized relationships. Together, our research provides a more nuanced account of the influence of leadership on employee KH behaviors that can facilitate the development of more appropriate interventions to deal with the intricate problems related to employee KH behaviors. (shrink)

al-ḥalqah 1. Fī dirāsat ʻilm al-manṭiq -- al-ḥalqah 2. al-Manṭiq -- al-ḥalqah 3. Manṭiq al-ishārāt.

Although the timber trade was essential in the tenth century to the global ambitions of the North African Fatimid Caliphate, environmental and political obstacles compelled the Fatimids to obtain most of their precious cargo from Sicily. This article discusses timber’s essential importance to the Fatimids and how they procured this commodity, shedding light on the historical developments that occurred at the ports of al-Mahdiyya and Palermo under the Fatimids as a result of continuous trade between Ifrīqiya and Sicily. Applying a (...) multidisciplinary analysis of Fatimid chancellery documents, historical texts, material culture, environmental history, and history of art, this article considers the role of the timber trade in the urban development of these two port cities. Specifically, it looks closely at the direct role of Ustādh Jūdhar, a tenth-century Fatimid official, in the procurement of timber. The result is a nuanced picture of the complexities of trade in the medieval Islamic Mediterranean world. (shrink)

Containing both theoretical discussions of globalization and specific case analyses of individual African countries, this collection of essays examines the intersections of African education and globalization with multiple analytical and geographical emphases and intentions.

States in northern Nigeria are the latest in a list of political entities around the world formalizing religious law, or institutionalizing Shari'ah, into their public law system. Shari'ah applies in many Muslim-majority countries in the realm of personal law. However, when it is expanded and made to apply as part of public law, it carries enormous constitutional implications. This article examines the institutionalization of Shari'ah in twelve northern states of Nigeria in year 2000 and the likely implications on the constitutionally (...) guaranteed rights of non-Muslim minorities in those states. Muslims' objection to the methodology of human rights discourse stems mostly from the need to maintain integrity of the family, safeguard the interests of the community in addition to those of the individual, and preserve religious belief as manifested in ritual and in daily life. The author argues that the core issue in preserving Muslim values without trampling on the rights of the minorities lies in finding a synergy for simultaneous application of Shari'ah and human rights. A synergy is imperative because neither has proved to be satisfactorily workable at the public law level for contemporary Muslims—neither Shari'ah as represented by fiqh literature, nor the secular oriented human rights. It concludes that it is the goal of justice that should be immutable rather than the means for achieving the goal. Therefore, reconciling Islam with protection of non-Muslim rights in a Muslim-majority constitutional democracy should present less conceptual difficulties and social tension than is presently the case. (shrink)

Biography of ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ʻAyn al-Quḍāh al-Hamadhānī, d. 1131, a Muslim saint from Iran.

In the current debate on human rights, the political conception is attractive in its ability to try to find solutions to the central questions and problems, which the orthodox conception has difficulties in solving, because of its own nature it does not need a moral foundation that is independent of the recognition established by international law and practice. On the one hand, it is necessary to recognize that the current practice and the international doctrine consider human rights as tools addressed, (...) mainly, to establish the limits of the legitimate sovereignty of the state, thus, recognizing the plausibility of the political conception. On the other hand, the article intends to show that this specific function, while important, should not exhaust all that human rights perform. Therefore, the political conception runs the serious risk of weakening the normative force of human rights and conflating two different agendas, that of human rights and that of global justice. To go through this argument, first of all, the article presents the contemporary genesis of the political conception of human rights based on the work of John Rawls. Secondly, it focuses on the reformulation given by Raz and Beitz’s approaches. Finally, in the third section, I criticize three main assumptions which ground the current paradigm of political conception of human rights. (shrink)

The debate in acknowledging street harassment as an existing social problem renders research necessary on the topic. Street harassment is said to occur when it takes place in a public setting and is initiated by a stranger. Through this correlation research, we aimed to establish the relationship between experiencing street harassment and fear of victimization. A positive correlation between the experience of street harassment and fear of victimization was hypothesized and a positive correlation between street harassment and negative reaction to (...) harassment was also hypothesized. Additionally, the most recurring type of public harassing behaviors was identified as well. Two self report questionnaires were administered; A gender based harassment scale assessing the frequency of 8 harassing behaviors which ranged on a likert scale from 0 to 4 and a modified version of The Fear of Crime survey measuring fear of victimization. These questionnaires were administered to a sample of 250 females recruited via convenient sampling technique that had experienced street harassment previously. Percentages, mode and Pearson’s Product correlation were used to statistically analyze data. Results showed a significant, weak positive correlation between street harassment and fear of victimization and a moderate positive correlation between experiencing street harassment and negative reaction towards harassment. The most frequent harassing behavior was being stared in a manner that made the victims uncomfortable with 98% of participants experiencing it, followed by 83.5% of the participants experiencing non-verbal sounds. Through this research, we were able to conclude street harassment does have negative implications for women. (shrink)

This paper considers how a Shi’a Islamic perspective of wisdom can inform contemporary business ethics theory. Given the growing business ethics literature that adopts an Islamic orientation, it is vital that Islamic tenets in a business context are established. Thus, this paper thoroughly researches the tenets of Shi’a wisdom theory using a hermeneutic analysis, guided also by Iranian theological scholars of ancient Persian and Arabic foundational texts, to provide a comprehensive explanation of the foundations of Shi’a faith relevant to business (...) ethics. Having established the principles of Shi’a wisdom, we outline points of consonance and dissonance in comparison to the Western humanist, primarily Aristotelian, orientations to wisdom. Although identifying apparently irreconcilable differences, this analysis reveals important elements of Shi’a wisdom theory that can significantly invigorate and influence business ethics theory. (shrink)