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The qualitative study was conducted to examine work-family (W-F) balance practices in the collectivist culture of Pakistan. Keeping in view the context of Pakistan, three W-F practices, flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support, were studied by applying the theory of W-F balance.

In total, 16 In-depth interviews from the bank operating in three different cities in Sindh, Pakistan.

Data analysis showed that providing economic benefits and short working hours can achieve W-F balance. Nevertheless, the provision of flexibility in terms of short working hours is more important than economic benefits in balancing both domains of life. Secondly, the provision of childcare arrangements helps to balance work and home life. This practice favors females more compared to males. Thirdly, supervisor and co-worker support is most important in creating W-F balance than family support.

It is crucial to understand the W-F balance practices in developing countries; the bank should encourage policies related to flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support in Pakistan. In addition, banks should take the initiative to develop a way that facilitates the employees' social support, which should consequently help to achieve the W-F balance.

It is crucial to understand the W-F balance practices in developing countries; the bank should encourage policies related to flexibility, childcare arrangement and social support in Pakistan. Banks should take an initiative to develop a way that facilitates the employees' social support which should consequently help to achieve the W-F balance.

This research has a tremendous impact on society due to current changes in South Asian countries including Pakistan constitute a socio-cultural transition that directly affects working and family life.

Given the importance of W-F balance in recent times, the authors identified and extended the W-F balance practices in the collectivist culture of Pakistan. This study is novel and contributes to the W-F balance literature by considering most primary W-F balance practices that employees require.

Gossip spreads like wildfire, damaging relationships, decaying trust and creating a negative work environment. This study aims to investigate the relationship between negative workplace gossip (NWG) and quiet quitting (QQ), while considering the mediating effects of workplace stress and emotional exhaustion (EE).

Drawing upon the conservation of resource theory, the study aimed to comprehend this association in the context of 267 employees from diverse sectors in India, including health care, IT, banking and education. Through a three-wave time lagged survey design, using partial least squares structural equation modeling, significant findings were uncovered.

The results revealed a positive link between NWG and QQ. There was also a positive correlation between NWG and workplace stress. In addition, workplace stress and EE were found to mediate the relationship between NWG and QQ.

The findings have implications for both theory and practice. Organizations should consider implementing strategies to mitigate the prevalence of negative gossip and foster a healthier work environment, promoting employee well-being and retention.

The study reveals the “black box” between NWG and QQ, adding to the body of knowledge on the novel concept of QQ. Second, the study expands the literature on NWG, by examining impact path of how it leads to stress and EE, leading to QQ.

In this chapter, I uncover the jail diaries of a revolutionary woman of the 20th century Pakistan, Akhtar Baloch. Although feminism in Pakistan has oscillated between liberal and postcolonial camps, through reading Akhtar's diaries, compiled as Prison Narratives (2017), I center Akhtar's own struggles for Sindh, along with the resistance of the women she met in the prison convicted for the murders of their husbands, to better theorize Marxist Feminism in Pakistan that overturns the structures that commodify women through love and revolution. My article will show the commodification of women's bodies; the “sale” of women through marriage as the goal of this commodification; the lovelessness and alienation women experience in commodified marriages; the unexpected fall in love with someone whom it is subversive for the commodified wife to love; the subversion of this unexpected event that leads to the attempted resolution of this tension through murder; the separation of the lovers through the incarceration of the woman by the capitalist-patriarchal state; and finally, the unexpected outcome (albeit the most common one) that the male lover abandons his female lover once she's jailed, but the defiantly brave female lover finds platonic love in jail through close female friendships with other women who are similarly brave in both love and in revolution. Through this exposition, I show that Akhtar's diaries provide a way for us to build on Marxist Feminist theory through a theory of love and revolution from a Sindhi feminist perspective.

The measurement of women's economic welfare and exploring its underlying factors have been undervalued in the context of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. This study addressed this gap by focusing on assessing women's subjective economic welfare and its socioeconomic and cultural determinants in the education and health sectors within Mardan, Northern Pakistan.

The study used stratified random sampling techniques for the selection of sample respondents and collected data through a well-structured questionnaire. To measure women’s economic welfare, the study utilizes Lorenz curves, the Gini index, the Sen Social Welfare function and an individual's gross monthly income. Furthermore, the ordinary least squares method was utilized to analyze the determinants of economic welfare.

The findings show greater income inequality and a lower welfare level for women in the education sector compared to the health sector. Likewise, the study identifies several key determinants, such as age, educational qualification, job experience, respect for working women, outside and work-place problems and the suffering of family members of working women for their economic well-being.

This study makes valuable contributions to the literature by focusing on the cultural perspective of Pakhtun women in Mardan and providing a context-specific understanding of subjective economic welfare. Additionally, the authors collected first-hand data, which gave an original outlook on working women's current economic welfare level. Furthermore, this study undertakes a comparative analysis of working women's welfare in the health and education sectors. This comparison offers a more accurate portrayal of the challenges and opportunities specific to these occupations.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2023-0246

The present study enriches the person-situation debate by developing and testing a theoretical model on the nexus between empowering leadership (EL) and intrapreneurial behaviour (IB) in the presence of a strong organisational situation of perceived organisational support (POS).

Cross-sectional survey data collected from 237 engineers working for Pakistani automakers were used to evaluate the suggested theoretical framework. The survey results were analysed using the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) method.

The results from the analysed data revealed a significant and positive relationship between EL and IB. POS significantly moderate the relationship between EL and IB as per the conceptualisation of situation strength theory (SST) and is established as a strong organisational situation that generates situational cues for IB outcomes from employees.

The present study provides new insights into determining employees' workplace behaviour as viewed from the organisational situations. Hence, top management in organisations can create a conducive environment by improving employees' POS for valued work behaviours like IB.

This study aims to examine the impact of Islamic teachings on environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in Bangladesh, a country where Islamic principles are profoundly influential.

Using a mixed-methods research approach (quantitative study with close-ended questionnaire and qualitative study with semistructure interview), this study aims to explore the role of individual characteristics and organizational contexts in environmental CSR practices. The study uses a robust analytical framework encompassing variance inflation factor, orthogonal loading, Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability and average variance extracted to assess the reliability and validity of these metrics.

Thematic analysis reveals the motivations, attitudes and challenges experienced by organizational leaders in aligning Islamic ethics with environmental stewardship, whereas the quantitative results provide empirical support for the relationship between various organizational practices (denoted as M#1 to M#8) and environmental CSR.

The findings of this study illuminate the potential benefits of tailoring CSR policies to fit within specific religious and cultural frameworks, offering both theoretical contributions and practical insights.

The present study examines the relationship between personality traits (PTs) and conflict management styles (CMSs) directly and indirectly through leadership effectiveness (LE) in Pakistan.

This quantitative study employs a survey questionnaire to collect cross-sectional data from academic leaders of higher education institutes (HEIs) in Pakistan. The authors utilized 325 useable cases to conclude the results.

The findings through the structural equation model (SEM) resulted in a positive and significant effect of agreeableness (AGS) on integrating (ITG), avoiding (AVG), obliging (OBG), compromising (COG) and dominating (DOG) styles. Extraversion (EXN) positively and significantly affects ITG, OBG, DOG and COG. Emotional stability (EMSY) is a positive and significant predictor of ITG, AVG, OBG and COG. The conscientiousness (CNS) trait significantly and positively predicts ITG, OBG, DOG, COG and AVG. Likewise, openness (OPS) positively and significantly affects ITG, OBG, DOG and COG styles. On the other hand, EXN and OPS negatively and insignificantly affect AVG. Finally, EMSY is the negative and insignificant predictor of DOG among academic leaders.

This study offers additional insights into understanding direct and indirect connections between PTs and CMSs through EL. It would support the development of effective policies and organizational setup to resolve and manage conflict and employees' behaviour. Finally, the findings would further enrich the worth of literature through another empirical confirmation.

This study offers the original contribution of PTs and CMSs among academic leaders in HEIs of Pakistan.

In large enterprises, the notion is that an organization’s business strategy is a significant determinant of its human resource (HR) practices. However, there is limited evidence in the literature of such linkages for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and extent of the relationship between the types of business strategies used and HR practices, namely, staffing, training and employee relations among SMEs.

The authors have collected data from 168 SMEs manufacturing autoparts and purposively chosen three SME case studies to derive in-depth observations of business strategies and HR practices. Quantitative results from the survey indicate that these SMEs exhibit a logical relationship between the strategic posture of the SMEs and their adopted HR practices.

This study illustrates that SMEs operating in the risky and lesser developed labor markets of a lower-income country such as Pakistan adopt certain practices that differ considerably from firms operating in more competitive automotive markets using highly skilled labor. The findings suggest that there is a significant potential to be realized through strategically managing HR practices to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Education of supervisors and management and suitable skill level of labor in tandem with continuous cutting edge industrial training appear to be the most successful business strategy followed by Prospector and Analyzer SMEs. For greater efficiency they need to have dedicated HR management, and financial and auditing services. Meanwhile, public sector entities as well as representative business bodies need to provide targeted practical technical and financial training and assistance to strengthen Defender and Reactor SMEs and improve their range of outputs.

This study contributed to the SMEs’ management literature in the context of Pakistan because there are very few studies that have examined the impact of business strategy on the HR practices in SMEs manufacturing autoparts in the automotive industry of Pakistan. The case study approach captures detailed insights and identifies the areas where the SMEs in developing countries perform differently than the SMEs in developed countries.

Available zakat accounting standards as well as the laws governing business zakat suggest that the adjusted net working capital or the adjusted growth capital of a business may be regarded as the base for computation of its zakat liability. The apparent consensus follows from the fiqhi prescription of imposing zakat on urud al-tijarah or the inventory of goods available for trade. Some contemporary scholars however question the rationale underlying this method and argue that the objectives of the Shariah are better met by seeking recourse to alternative methods of zakat determination for business organizations. There is therefore a need to revisit the issues and subject them to fresh scrutiny in terms of economic rationality and consistency.

The paper examines the arguments of the “orthodox” school as well as those of some contemporary scholars on alternative methods of computing business zakat. It also undertakes a comprehensive review of the laws of zakat as they are related to businesses and the related accounting pronouncements along with their underlying rationale. As the issue of incentivizing zakat payment is an important one, and it is often linked to provision of tax benefits, the paper examines a few suggestions in this regard.

On examination of specific suggestions – specifically, of treating earnings as zakat base – to scrutiny in terms of economic rationality and consistency, the authors argue that the “orthodox” position is not only consistent but also makes enormous economic sense. Further, the issue of incentivizing zakat payment and that of lack of harmonization between business zakat accounting and taxation need not be and should not be resolved by making changes in the former because the same has a sound Shariah basis. It can be easily resolved, if need be, by making changes in methods of taxation (tax deduction or tax rebate) and base them on specific items in the balance sheet or the income statement.

The paper provides useful insights to policy makers who are concerned about the huge gap between actual and potential collection of zakat and are considering tax reforms for incentivizing business zakat mobilization. It highlights the diversity in practices relating to zakat computation and related taxation across Muslim countries.

The paper searches for and observes consistency and compatibility between the orthodox Shariah-legal position and several accounting and taxation-related policies relating to business zakat. The policy prescriptions are expected to rejuvenate and strengthen the global zakat sector.