The stagnant and even underdeveloped condition of Muslims all over the world has raised concerns among scholars. Many are trying to offer solutions to restore Islamic civilization to its peak. Various proposals lead to the reconstruction of philosophical elements, including epistemology and worldview, to more practical ones, such as the Islamization of knowledge. This study tries to compare the concept of worldview and its implications for the Islamization of knowledge from two major contemporary figures. The two are Syed Muhammad Naquib (...) Al-Attas, a mainstream leader of the Islamization of knowledge from Malaysia, and Ayatullah Muhammad Taqie Miṣbāḥ Yazdī, a neo-Sadrian philosopher from Persia. This research used a qualitative approach, namely the method of literature study to understand the Islamic worldview from the perspective of the two figures and what the implications are for the Islamization of knowledge. The results of the study revealed they both believe in the importance of a genuine worldview as the basis for the reconstruction of Muslims at the individual level and Islam at the level of civilization. However, they adhere to different ontological and epistemological arguments. In Al-Attas, the commitment to sacred texts as well as the interpretation of classical scholars makes the model of Islamization of knowledge tend to be backward and reactionary towards the West. As for Ayatullah Yazdī, prioritizing reason and demonstration has led to a model of Islamization of science that is critical and open for dialogue toward Western science. (shrink)

From the early ninth century until about eight centuries later, the Middle East witnessed a series of both simple and systematic astronomical observations for the purpose of testing contemporary astronomical tables and deriving the fundamental solar, lunar, and planetary parameters. Of them, the extensive observations of lunar eclipses available before 1000 AD for testing the ephemeredes computed from the astronomical tables are in a relatively sharp contrast to the twelve lunar observations that are pertained to the four extant accounts of (...) the measurements of the basic parameters of Ptolemaic lunar model. The last of them are Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ma‘rūf’s trio of lunar eclipses observed from Istanbul, Cairo, and Thessalonica in 1576–1577 and documented in chapter 2 of book 5 of his famous work, Sidrat muntaha al-afkar fī malakūt al-falak al-dawwār. In this article, we provide a detailed analysis of the accuracy of his solar and lunar observations. (shrink)

Workplace incivility is a common phenomenon that is frequently found across all organizations and cultures. This study was planned to investigate the impact of workplace incivility on job and non-job related gossips through the mediating role of cynicism and psychological contract violation. The perspective of low-ranked unionized employees was explored through a survey method by using stratified sampling in eight strata, which were formulated based on geographical distribution. A total of four hundred questionnaires were distributed among the employees of eight (...) circles, 50 from each, while use able responses remained 301. SmartPLS was used to analyze the data through structural equation modeling. From a theoretical perspective, this study has made several contributions by investigating the impact of workplace incivility in the South Asian context and documenting the impact of incivility from the perspective of individuals belonging to minority socio-cultural status. Besides supporting existing literature, this study provided a unique argument that low-ranked employees in South Asian societies do not spread nonjob-related gossips. This finding is contradictory to the existing literature; and, thus, calls for future research to identify this inconsistency. Limitations and future directions are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper navigates the relationship between the growing influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the foundational principles of academic integrity. It offers an in-depth analysis of how key academic stakeholders—publishers and universities—are crafting strategies and guidelines to integrate AI into the sphere of scholarly work. These efforts are not merely reactionary but are part of a broader initiative to harness AI’s potential while maintaining ethical standards. The exploration reveals a diverse array of stances, reflecting the varied applications of AI in (...) academic settings. These range from conservative approaches emphasizing the need for stringent AI regulations to more progressive strategies that seek to leverage AI’s capabilities. The paper accentuates the importance of guidelines that are adaptable, transparent, and culturally sensitive, acknowledging the global context of academic research. It also highlights the pressing need for effective implementation and enforcement of these guidelines to ensure that the integration of AI into academia does not compromise the integrity of scholarly work. The conclusion emphasizes the dynamic balance required between embracing AI’s transformative potential and upholding the timeless values of academic rigor and ethical research. This comprehensive analysis aims to provide a detailed perspective on the evolving role of AI in academia, fostering a dialog on how best to navigate this new technological frontier while preserving the sanctity of academic scholarship. (shrink)

By combining the art of Saudi heritage, because of its aesthetic values that increase and enrich the work, and the recycling of old environmental materials, innovative artistic artifacts were produced. The importance of the research came Attention was paid to the decorations of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefiting from it in creating innovative artistic artifacts. The The research aims to demonstrate the aesthetic values of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefit from them in creating innovative modern art objects through the idea (...) of recycling. The research assumes the possibility of making artistic artifacts through recycling using the idea of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art. The research problem is represented in the following question. (shrink)

Includes an introd. of 49 p. by S. G. Abbas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a record global crisis, particularly and extremely, for the service sectors. Due to extensive security measures, many service sector employees have to work remotely to maintain services. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this research investigates the impact of servant leadership on the task performance of employees in virtual working environments during the COVID-19 crisis. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from 335 individual employees in the education sector of Pakistan. SPSS version (...) 26.0 was applied to find the hypothesized relationship between the study variables. To find the indirect mediating effect, we applied Model 4; for moderation, we applied Model 1; and for the moderation and mediation effect, we applied Model 7 of the Process Macro model of Hayes. The results of the study revealed that servant leadership is positively related to task performance in a virtual environment during crises. Furthermore, psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Perceived supervisor support positively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Moreover, the indirect effect of servant leadership on task performance via psychological empowerment is moderated by perceived supervisor support. The results provided guidance to the educational sector on how to lead effectively in times of crisis when service sector employees work predominantly in virtual environments. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to highlight the relationship between green product attributes and consumer trust that influence consumers’ decision to purchase green products in the context of Pakistan. This study contributes to determining quantitatively how green product attributes such as physical, perceptual, and reflexive attributes influence consumers’ trust to purchase a green product and investigates the mediating role of green marketing. Data was collected from different industrial sectors through a survey questionnaire. We employed Structural Equation Modeling using the (...) SMART-PLS software to check the reliability and validity of the constructs, and to test the hypotheses. This study reveals variations in terms of shaping the sustainable consumers’ buying behavior by modifying product attributes and green marketing strategies that are in congruence with the proposed hypotheses of this study. In the end, the findings and interpretations of the results are given which can guide the managers to develop effective green marketing campaigns in reshaping the purchase intentions of consumers toward their green products. (shrink)

Landslide is a critical natural geological hazard that causes severe damage to property, infrastructure, and humans. In general, some location-specific factors trigger a landslide. Wireless sensor network is an enabling technology to monitor most of the parameters associated with these factors. A challenge in landslide monitoring through WSN is that each sensed data item might be critical whereas the underlying wireless communication is often unreliable. In case of landslides, the terrains have irregular shapes, providing harsh conditions for wireless communication thereby (...) more data loss may be expected. This study focuses on the effect of lossy communication in WSN on the efficiency and accuracy of landslide monitoring systems. To this end, collaborative local data analysis is used to enable each node to decide locally whether its sensed data corresponds to a potential event-of-interest. Through extensive simulations, the performance of various landslide prediction and detection models has been evaluated. By and large, the study lets a significant insight into landslide monitoring before implementing a parameterized application for real-world deployment. (shrink)

Code of conduct in society according to Islam.

Nūr Muḥammad is one of the teachings in Sufism that studies the beginning of the creation of the universe. The Sufis discussed Nūr Muḥammad through God's tajallī (manifestation), and they believed that only Insan Kamil (Perfect Humans) possessed the perfection of His tajallī. This Sufi theory can be comprehended through the dhawqi approach. This research will deal with Nūr Muḥammad's theory of Sufism through the perspective of Tijaniyah Tarekat. The data for this study was obtained through library (...) research utilizing a documentary technique. The collected data will be analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. This study finds that the Tijaniyah Tarekat is a Sufism institution that bases its teachings and practices on the concept of Nūr Muḥammad in the form of ṣalawāt al-fātiḥ and ṣalawāt jawharah al-kamāl. This Tarekat's elucidation of Nūr Muḥammad is also built on and consistent with the explication of authoritative Sufis in Islam's intellectual and spiritual tradition. (shrink)

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been a mere victim of climate change in recent years. The country needs emergency measures at every level to mitigate environmental dilapidation. The role of enterprises in the country’s environmental efforts is critical. In this regard, the hotel sector is known for its outsized carbon footprint. Knowing this, the current study aims to improve a hotel enterprise’s environmental performance as an outcome of corporate social responsibility. The study also considers the mediating role of pro-environmental (...) behavior of employees and the moderating role of altruistic values. A hypothesized model was developed, which was validated by employing the structural equation modeling technique. The empirical results confirmed that CSR, directly and indirectly, positively induces the ENP of a hotel enterprise. Whereas the conditional indirect role of ALT was also found significant. The study offers different implications for theory and practice, among which one important takeaway for the hotel sector is to realize the importance of employees to spur ENP of a hotel enterprise through their eco-friendly behavior. At the same time, the current work also advances the theory by highlighting the moderating role of ALT between the indirect relationship of CSR and ENP. (shrink)

Data center technology changes the mode of computing. Traditional DCs consist of a single layer and only have Ethernet connections among switches. Those old-fashioned DCs cannot fulfill the high resource demand compared with today’s DCs. The architectural design of the DCs is getting substantial importance and acting as the backbone of the network because of its essential feature of supporting and maintaining the rapidly increasing Internet-based applications which include search engines and social networking applications. Every application has its parameters, like (...) latency and blocking in the DC network. Every data center network has its specialized architecture. It has a specific arrangement of layers and switches, which increase or decrease the DC network’s efficiency. We develop a simulation tool that comprises two different DC architectures: basic tree architecture and c-Through architecture. Using this simulation, we analyze the traffic behavior and the performance of the simulated DCN. Our main purpose is to focus on mean waiting time, load, and blocking with respect to the traffic within the DCN. (shrink)

Rockburst phenomenon is the primary cause of many fatalities and accidents during deep underground projects constructions. As a result, its prediction at the early design stages plays a significant role in improving safety. The article describes a newly developed model to predict rockburst intensity grade using Adaptive Boosting classifier. A database including 165 rockburst case histories was collected from across the world to achieve a comprehensive representation, in which four key influencing factors such as maximum tangential stress of the excavation (...) boundary, uniaxial compressive strength of rock, tensile rock strength, and elastic energy index were selected as the input variables, and the rockburst intensity grade was selected as the output. The output of the AdaBoost model is evaluated using statistical parameters including accuracy and Cohen's kappa index. The applications for the aforementioned approach for predicting the rockburst intensity grade are compared and discussed. Finally, two real-world applications are used to verify the proposed AdaBoost model. It is found that the prediction results are consistent with the actual conditions of the subsequent construction. (shrink)

Features new to the second edition include a foreword by Tynnetta Muhammad, wife and student of Elijah Muhammad; opening comments by world renowned mathematician Dr. Abdulalim Sahabazz; a new chapter co-authored with Dr. Dorothy Blake Fardan; plus guided questions and power point notes to stimulate discourse around Elijah Muhammad's educational ideas.

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

Ensuring diversity within the healthcare sector is essential for improving team dynamics and ultimately patient outcomes. Diversity among medical students is fundamental to embody this philosophy. With the demand for diversity in the admissions process gaining traction, the authors expanded this conversation to the editorial boards (EBs) of Medical Student Journals (MSJs). The authors designed a cross-sectional study to evaluate the diversity status of EBs of MSJs under gender, geographic, and socioeconomic parameters using the Journal Diversity Index (JDI). Relevant information (...) regarding the journal characteristics and the editorial board members (EBMs) of systematically screened journals was sequentially extracted along with job roles, which were later categorized into eight categories. Chi-squared test was applied to study the association between gender of the editor and the global distribution of the journal. Out of 22 included journals, 90.9% were published by institutions based in high-income countries (HICs). On regional analysis, none of the journals originated from “South Asia,” “Latin America and the Caribbean,” and “Middle East and North Africa”. Disparity in gender representation of EBMs became more prominent in senior roles. Additionally, 78.8% EBMs belonged to HICs. Regional analysis of EBMs revealed 83% belonging to the Global North. This disparity was seen across all editorial job roles. A greater disparity was seen among editors from the Global South with men comprising 66.4% of the total editors (p<0.001). On JDI, 95.5% journals demonstrated poor diversity. Moreover, 72.7% and 77.3% journals had all members of the EB belonging to the same region and the same country income level respectively. As EBs of MSJs offer opportunities for further advancement, networking, and promotion, a commitment to prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion accompanied by development and implementation of actionable plans and allocation of sufficient resources should be given precedence. (shrink)

Firms have traditionally responded to environmental violations by increasing information disclosure and/or communication to manage stakeholder perceptions. As such, these approaches may be symbolic in nature, with no genuine intention to improve the environment. We draw from restorative justice grounded in stakeholder theory and explore a relatively new approach in the form of supplemental environmental projects aimed at restoring the environment, and empirically examine the role of corporate governance in firms’ decisions to undertake reparative actions. Using environmental violations and SEPs (...) data from the US Environmental Protection Agency between 2002 and 2015, we find that firms with smaller boards are more likely to undertake SEPs. We also find that firms with higher board independence and CEO duality undertake SEPs more frequently; however, board gender diversity and the existence of a sustainability committee appear to have no impacts. These results are robust to propensity score matching and an alternative data source. We extend the scope of stakeholder theory by emphasizing a new approach—restorative justice—by which corporations can repair damaged relationships and also improve the environment. We also contribute to corporate governance and environmentalism literature by identifying governance structures that promote environmental restorative justice. Thus, our study will inform different stakeholders, including regulators, shareholders, and boards of directors, and will open new avenues for business ethics scholarship. (shrink)

Could some social kinds be natural kinds? In this paper, I argue that there are three kinds of social kinds: 1) social kinds whose existence does not depend on human beings having any beliefs or other propositional attitudes towards them ; 2) social kinds whose existence depends in part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them, though attitudes need not be manifested towards their particular instances ; 3) social kinds whose existence and that of their instances depend in (...) part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them . Although all three kinds of social kinds are mind-dependent, this does not make them ontologically subjective or preclude them from being natural kinds. Rather, what prevents the third kind of social kinds from being natural kinds is that their properties are conventionally rather than causally linked. (shrink)

With the growing call for private sector actors to address global challenges, it is necessary to first assess whether regions with the greatest needs are accessing corporate philanthropy. In this paper, we ask whether corporate philanthropy is reaching those with the greatest health-care needs. Drawing on economic geography and corporate homophily, we argue that corporate philanthropy tends to exacerbate health inequality as grants are destined for counties with fewer health problems. We test and find support for this hypothesis using data (...) on health grants made by US corporate foundations and county-level health data. Our results that corporate health grants are less likely to go to counties which have a lower proportion of medical service providers and insured citizens suggest that corporate foundations are unwittingly complicit in worsening the resource gap between small, poor, rural counties and large, wealthy, urban counties. From an ethical perspective, we provide some guidance as to how this may be corrected. (shrink)

The present study examined the direct and indirect (via relational social capital) relationships between supervisors’ ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. It also tested the moderating role of instrumental thinking in the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and knowledge hiding and the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and relational social capital. Data were collected from 245 employees in different firms spanning different manufacturing and service sectors. The results showed that supervisors’ ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, both directly and (...) via relational social capital. The results revealed that instrumental thinking moderated the positive relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and relational social capital, such that the relationship was weak when instrumental thinking was high. The results also showed that instrumental thinking moderated both direct and indirect relationships between supervisors’ ethical leadership and knowledge hiding, such that the relationships were weak when instrumental thinking was high. The study carries important practical implications for managers concerned about the destructive consequences of knowledge hiding. (shrink)

Objectives: The present study examined relationships among gaze behaviour and cardiac vagal tone using a novel stress-inducing task.Methods: Participants’ eye movements and heart rate variability were measured during an unsolvable computer-based task randomly presenting feedback of “Right” and “Wrong” answers distinctly onscreen after each trial. Subgroups were created on the basis of more frequent eye movements to the right or wrong areas onscreen.Results: Correct-Attenders maintained HRV from baseline to the stress task. In contrast, Incorrect-Attenders spent significantly more time viewing “Wrong” (...) feedback, exhibited a reduction in HRV during the stress condition, and were more likely to negatively self-evaluate performance.Conclusions: Results demonstrate that pervasive attention to negative feedback elicits perseverative stress and negative self-evaluations among university students. This study highlights the potential for studying attentional biases and emotional distress through combined measures of gaze behaviour and cardiac vagal tone. (shrink)

The intention of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on financial performance in a case study of listed Pharmaceutical firms in Pakistan. For this case study, the panel data of 10 years from 2005 to 2014 are obtained through content analysis of annual reports. Quantitative tools were used to measure variables studied in which index was developed and used scoring methodology. Further, brand equity is introduced as a mediator between CSRD and financial performance. The (...) results of content analysis revealed that GSK Pakistan laboratories involved in greater level of disclosure as compared to other pharmaceutical firms. The average rate of disclosure of listed pharmaceutical firms is increasing annually. Among four themes, the results showed that pharmaceutical firms mostly disclose information regarding community involvement. The results of regression which were significant shows that brand equity act as mediator between the corporate social responsibility disclosure and financial performance. (shrink)

Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari who lived from 1710 to 1812 in Borneo, Indonesia, applied a model of integrating uses of the Banjarese tradition into Islamic Jurisprudence based on a dialectical constitution of qiyās, the legal argumentation theory for parallel reasoning and analogy, he learned from the Shāfi‘ī-school of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh). Our paper focuses in the model of integration proposed and practiced by Al-Banjari, a rational debate grounded on a dynamic view on legal systems. We will illustrate the method with the (...) help of two different kinds of qiyās deployed by Al-Banjari in order to argue for the rejection of some traditional Banjarese offering-rituals for avoiding disease or calamities (manyanggar and mambuang pasilih), and for the acceptance of the use of consuming the traditional drink called lahang made of the juice of sugar-palm. As our dialogical reconstruction shows, the development of the debates, particularly the first one, is quite sophisticated, with a Banjarese opponent that does not surrender easily to the rejection of his use of those rituals. (shrink)

Substituted judgment assumes adequate knowledge of patient’s mind-set. However, surrogates’ prediction of individual healthcare decisions is often inadequate and may be based on shared background rather than patient-specific knowledge. It is not known whether surrogate’s prediction of patient’s integrative life-story narrative is better. Respondents in 90 family pairs rank-ordered 47 end-of-life statements as life-story narrative measure and completed instruments on decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability as control measures, from respondent’s view and predicted pair’s view. They also scored their confidence in (...) surrogate’s decision-making and familiarity with pair’s healthcare-preferences. Life-story narratives’ prediction was examined by calculating correlation of statements’ ranking scores between respondent-personal and respondent-surrogate Q-sorts and between respondent-surrogate and pair-personal Q-sorts before and after controlling for correlation with respondent-personal scores, and by comparing percentages of respondent-surrogate Q-sorts co-loading with pair-personal vs. respondent-personal Q-sorts. Accuracy in predicting decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability was determined by percent concordance. Results were compared among subgroups defined by intra-pair relationship, surrogate’s decision-making confidence, and healthcare-preferences familiarity. Mean age was 35.4 years, 69% were females, and 73 and 80% reported ≥ very good health and life-quality, respectively. Mean surrogate’s decision-making confidence score was 3.35 and 75% were ≥ familiar with pair’s healthcare-preferences. Mean projection, simulation, and adjusted-simulation correlations were 0.68, 0.42, and 0.26, respectively. Out of 180 respondent-surrogate Q-sorts, 24, 9, and 32% co-loaded with respondent-personal, pair-personal, or both Q-sorts, respectively. Accuracy in predicting decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability was 47 and 52%, respectively. Surrogate’s decision-making confidence score correlated with adjusted-simulation’s correlation score. There were significant differences among the husband-wife, parent-child, and sibling-sibling subgroups in percentage of respondent-surrogate Q-sorts co-loading with pair-personal Q-sorts and percent agreement on healthcare-outcomes acceptability. Despite high self-reported surrogate’s decision-making confidence and healthcare-preferences familiarity, family surrogates are variably inadequate in simulating life-story narratives. Simulation accuracy may not follow the next-of-kin concept and is 38% based on shared background. (shrink)

Discussions about politics and human power, including discussions about the concept of the state, have been a discussion that has been going on since Greek times until the time of the growth of Islamic philosophy. The overemphasis on the power of reason led early modern Western societies to reject religion in all political discourse. At this stage, all views of man, power, the constitution, and the state eventually ceased to be associated with God. On the other hand, especially among Muslims, (...) religion is still connected with discussions of politics and human power. This paper will reveal how secularization in political thought grew and developed through principles such as the state of nature and the social contract. Then, based on the thought of one of the influential Muslim scholars, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, the author tries to provide a critique of the views of Western thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and other philosophers, by presenting the concept of the ideal state form derived from the concept of tamaddun formulated by Al-Attas. This research is literature review research using the descriptive method. The findings of this research show that secularization is a product purely born by Western secular thinkers and not taken from any religious teachings, so Western political concepts cannot always be applied, especially in Muslim societies. (shrink)

This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘interactive kinds’ first identified by Ian Hacking. An interactive kind is one that is created or significantly modified once a concept of it has been formulated and acted upon in certain ways. Interactive kinds may also ‘loop back’ to influence our concepts and classifications. According to Hacking, interactive kinds are found exclusively in the human domain. After providing a general account of interactive kinds and outlining their philosophical significance, I argue that they are not (...) confined to the human realm, but that they can also occur elsewhere. Hence, I conclude by arguing that interactive kinds pose a challenge to scientific realism about kinds by making it difficult to make a distinction between real and non-real kinds. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, (...) this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

Consumers occasionally buy commodity products without much thought but purchase high involvement products or services after rigorous information collection and detailed comparisons of the different options. At the core, research on consumer behavior comprises studies on the cognitive processes involved in consumer purchasing decisions and the way buying decisions are made. The discipline of consumer research and marketing has remained dominated by positivist, empiricist, and realist philosophies. Since consumer behaviour is a social phenomenon, the researchers have used logical positivist and (...) interpretivist philosophies to study and develop various theories about consumer behaviour. However, both of these philosophies have inherent limitations to capture the complete knowledge of consumer reality. Pragmatist philosophy is capable of providing solutions to real-life problems by starting with research question and exploring the issues from multiple perspectives. It is, therefore, suggested to explore the various aspects of consumer behaviour research from a pragmatist perspective and contribute more effective information to the body of knowledge in this discipline. (shrink)

This article attempts to evaluate emotive meanings across languages and cultures expressed and elicited semiotically from viewers. It investigates the challenges of subtitling emotive feelings in the American filmHomeless to Harvard(2003) into Arabic. It adopts Paul Thibault’s (2000. The multimodal transcription of a television advertisement: Theory and practice. In Anthony Baldry (ed.),Multimodality and multimediality in the distance learning age, 311–385. Campobasso: Palladino Editore) method of multimodal transcription and Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013. The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive (...) and semiotic approaches.Semiotica197(1/4). 79–100) framework of the multimodal representation of emotion to formulate strategies for subtitling emotion from English into Arabic. Additionally, Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013) framework is adapted to show how stylistic choices (e.g., cinematography, music, soundtracks, etc.) and semiotic expressions can elicit emotion from viewers. The social semiotic model is employed to investigate how emotive representation is realized through verbal and non-verbal items. The findings showed that the filmmakers had properly used stylistic choices and various semiotic techniques to elicit emotion from the viewer derived from the emotion of the film’s heroine. (shrink)

Building on conservation of resource (COR) theory, this study adds to the business ethics literature by examining how employees' religiousness might help them cope with a stressful work environment. In doing so, this study examines the differential effects of challenge and hindrance stressors on employees’ job performance and their helping behaviors; and the moderating role of religiousness in this process. Findings from a multisource and three-wave survey data, collected from dyads of employees and their supervisors in Pakistan-based organizations, indicate that (...) challenge stressors positively predict employees' job performance; however, the link between challenge stressors and helping behavior was not significant. Religiousness invigorates both these relationships such that the employees with high religiousness exhibit higher job performance and helping behavior when confronted with challenging stressors. In contrast, hindrance stressors had a negative effect on employees' job performance and their propensity to engage in helping behaviors. Religiousness mitigates this negative effect of hindrance stressors such that the effect is weaker for employees who can draw strength from their religiousness. Finally, this paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings and offers directions for future research. (shrink)

This study is aimed to identify the relative effect of online review ratings and perceived crowding on purchase intentions of a consumer. Our study also investigated the contingent effect of gender and perceived crowding between the relationship of exogenous and endogenous variables. This study was conducted in the Malaysian restaurant industry. We applied the purposive sampling technique to identify respondents, the mall intercept survey method was used for data collection. Smart PLS software was applied for data analysis. This study demonstrates (...) through its results that online review ratings and perceived crowding have a positive effect on purchase intentions of a consumer. Moreover, if a consumer perceives crowding at a restaurant, this has a positive contingent effect on the relationship between review ratings and purchase intentions. This demonstrates that the consumer is more inclined to choose a restaurant with a high online review rating and has high perceived crowding at some unfamiliar place. Lastly, no evidence is found for the gender difference between review rating and purchase intentions; however, gender shows contingent effect and results confirmed that males preferred more crowded restaurants as compared to females. There are theoretical and practical implications for managers in the findings of this study. (shrink)