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The case is based on interviews in 2022 with the founder of Shape, Monoshita Ayruani, supplemented by classroom testing and secondary sources such as textbooks, journals, newspapers and other pertinent sources such as reports produced by marketing and consulting firms.

Shape is a private limited company operating in Bangladesh, a country in South Asia. Bangladesh is a fast-developing country where the people (the vast majority of whom are young) are practical and forward thinking, conservative, yet also generally tolerant. Its CEO is Monoshita Ayruani, who has had several years of experience in a PR and Marketing agency before starting Shape. It produces and sells “innerwear” or undergarments, which are their staple products, as well as clothing, bath products, sleepwear and various other products targeted at women. Starting off as an online business in 2019, it was about to find its footing in the market when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The problem faced by Shape at the beginning was that digital marketing was not resulting in word of mouth for the product, as undergarments were considered too “taboo” to talk or share about with most people. The second problem faced was the sudden protests about Westernised clothing and culture in 2022, which may potentially threaten the company.

This case would be well suited for an undergraduate or graduate-level Marketing or Strategic Management course that exposes students to the challenges of promoting a new brand and marketing taboo products imported from abroad, in a largely conservative and culturally sensitive market, and preventing a potential crisis when protests break out. The case also touches on international supply chain problems, so may also be taught in an International Business course. The level of difficulty is intermediate as the problems are nuanced.

The adequate culture of knowledge sharing in organizations is considered a key factor for improving the employees’ performance. Along with knowledge sharing, total quality management (TQM) practices are the ways to achieve business excellence. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating effect of knowledge sharing on the relationship between TQM practices and employees’ performance.

The quantitative study has been carried out in software houses of Pakistan. Data were collected from 340 employees using survey questionnaires from software houses of Pakistan and is analyzed through structural equation modeling technique using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 2.0.

The results reveal that knowledge sharing partially mediates between TQM practices and employee performance. Furthermore, the results indicate that the TQM practices should be implemented holistically rather than individually.

The generalization of the results is limited as the sample size is relatively small and represents software houses of only four regions in Pakistan. Moreover, the study findings were only based on software houses. So, these should be applied to other sectors with caution.

This study complements the previous researches and seeks to extend literature that how the core elements of knowledge sharing mediate between TQM practices and employees’ performance especially, in developing countries like Pakistan.

This study paper aims to analyse a real life case based on Human Resource Management, specifically the concepts of the recruitment process and the grapevine.

The main topic is HRM related. Concepts introduced include recruitment process and grapevine.

The information for the case was attained from one-on-one interviews with the main case protagonist, Sabrina (name of all characters in the case and organisations have been changed as per request of the interviewee. However, all the happenings in the case are real).

This case deals with the tricky situation faced by Sabrina, an certain employee of an international development organisation, (an institution focussing on aiding development in economically underdeveloped countries), who finds herself in when she inadvertently comes across some negative information about a job candidate currently in the middle of the recruitment process, who, if successful, will become her colleague and work closely with her in future. It has taken months to find this candidate, and if hired should lighten Sabrina’s workload tremendously. The preliminary decision maker in the case is Sabrina, but the ultimate management decision will have to be made by her boss John Nash.

The case can be used at undergraduate and graduate level. The main topic is Human Resource Management (HRM) related. It is of preliminary level of difficulty. There are no specific prerequisites. Concepts introduced include recruitment process and grapevine.

Moral consideration is significantly important as social responsibility of economic actions. This article aims to analyze the moral embeddedness of labor market using the typology of moral behavior in market exchange by Beckert (2005).

This study contributes to methodological novelty through a digital research design using Gephi and NVIVO software. Textual Network Analysis (TNA) is used to analyze the moral embeddedness of labor market transaction of Chinese migrant workers.

Overall, the results show that the presence of Chinese migrant workers in Indonesia is a form of Trojan altruism and harmful to local labor market. This study also provides a theoretical debate that morals are always embedded in markets.

The data and focus of this study are the Indonesian side, particularly the local labor market. In addition, access to interviews with the Chinese government and companies is very challenging and cannot be done because they cannot carelessly provide information to journalists and researchers.

In contrast to previous studies on Chinese migrant workers that tend to use the economic perspective, this study applies the moral perspective that is more sociological and discusses social responsibility of market actions.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0737

This paper aims to examine the impact of innovativeness on customer satisfaction through mediation of perceived quality and also examines the effect of consumer involvement and communication strategy as moderating variables to validate relationship between innovativeness and perceived quality from the perspective of Generation M.

Cluster sampling method is used and data is collected from 451 graduates studying in different universities of Sahiwal division to know their perception regarding mobile phones brands. Structural equation modelling technique is used, and all analyses are performed using SPSS 23.0 and SmartPLS 2.0 to know the findings of the study.

This study finds positive significant nexus between innovativeness-satisfaction, innovativeness-perceived quality and perceived quality-customer satisfaction at brand level. This study also finds that perceived quality is a significant mediator between brand innovativeness and customer satisfaction. However, moderating variables do not help to boost the relationship among brand innovativeness and perceived quality to transmit their impact on customer satisfaction.

This study may help to understand the preferences of different generations. Findings of the study can also benefit the firms in investment decisions, brand management and formulation of innovative strategies for future.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the first studies to investigate the integrated model of BI-CS through mediating and moderating variables to know the perception of Generation M regarding smartphone brands in developing economies like Pakistan.

This study aims to review the psychosocial determinants of divorce and their effects on women for a social reform in Pakistan. Enigmatic societal standards vandalize social status of divorced women and stress them to experience psychological trauma that triggers psychosocial disorders.

The study is categorized into three major determinants: the human emotional, the formal legal and societal aspect(s) in association with the deferential social status of divorced women. Rapid evidence assessment methodology was used to search the all-inclusive literature, collate the available descriptive evidences, critically analyze and evaluate it, sieve out studies of penurious quality and provide an aperçu of the evidence.

The research evinces domestic violence and abuse as an endemic cause of divorce in Pakistan; emotional and psychological consequences of domestic abuse damage women’s self-worth and well-being. Literature reported that all these determinants impacted the mental health stability of the divorced women. Divorce rates are climbing at a faster pace in the country and Punjab has been identified as a province of rocketing divorce rate. Lamentably, in various villages of other provinces, women risk face mutilation if they show courage to seek divorce.

More research needs to be carried out on the issue nationwide. Fundamentally, cultural norms around women’s roles in society need to be addressed and challenged where this research may become an impetus for further research.

The paper contributes towards the redressal of the domestic abuse, social exclusion, marginalization and vilification of divorced women in Pakistan. The rising rates indicate an urgent need for social reforms to curtail offending behaviors toward them, to safeguard their mental health and well-being and to empower them with their legal rights to enjoy deferential social status in life.

Leadership has a decisive role in the success of all types of businesses and firms, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the ethical behavior of leaders is a key component which brings a sense of respect, fulfillment, trustworthiness and acceptance among the employees, which later become visible in their job performance (JP). This study aims to check the immediate effect of ethical leadership (EL) on employee’s JP (EJP) and also explore the indirect mediating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on this EL and EJP nexus.

Primary data was obtained from the employees of manufacturing SMEs of Northern Italy using a cross-sectional design from the end of 2019 to the start of 2020. This paper circulated 450 self-administered questionnaires using simple random sampling, and 202 (44.88%) valid questionnaires were returned. The PROCESS macro was performed using statistical package for social sciences to ensure whether or not EL affects EJP and is there any mediation effect of CSR present in this nexus.

The results indicate that EL has a strong positive connection with EJP and CSR. Interestingly, CSR positively influences EJP. Furthermore, the results also report the strong mediating effect of CSR in the nexus of EL and EJP.

This scholarly work seeks to contribute not only to the literature of EL and EJP but also enriches the understanding of this EL-EJP association by highlighting the indirect effect of mediating variable CSR in the SME sector.

The capital markets witness phenomenal shifts of corporate control. With the shift of world economy into a global one, there has been a rapid increase in the volume of acquisitions. The previous studies shed light on the motives behind acquisition and impact of acquisition on both bidding and target firms. The purpose of this study is to bridge a gap in literature by exploring the factors affecting the acquisition ability (AA) of the firms. The study has analyzed the role of financial strength, corporate governance and regulatory influence on AA of acquiring firm.

Cross-sectional data has been analyzed with respect to Pakistan stock exchange for a period of 2004-2017 by using logit regression.

Analysis indicates that firm-specific variables are important determinants in firm’s decision to acquire. Chief Executive Officer duality and presence of institutional shareholders on the board contribute to this important phenomenon in the life of the acquiring firms. Bidding firm’s financial strength is also another important consideration while going for corporate control transfer transactions. The empirical results indicate the better AA for firms characterized by minimum capacity usage, lower level of intangible assets, lower debt levels and lower advertising expenses. However, the regulatory factor has no significant role in firms’ AA. The findings of the study are helpful for managers, regulators and policymakers.

Analyzing the role of financial strength, corporate governance and regulatory influence on AA of acquiring firm is a rare study, especially in an emerging country such as Pakistan.

The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the satisfaction level of researchers with electronic resources as well as the uses, purposes, reasons and problems faced by them in using of these resources in the context of Pakistani Universities.

This paper opted for a quantitative study using a questionnaire for survey. Response rate was 80 per cent and data were analyzed from 261 researchers of two universities of Pakistan. Five-point Likert scale ranked from “Dissatisfied” (5) to “Extremely Satisfied” (1) was used to evaluate the satisfaction level of researchers.

The paper found that mostly researchers were “Very Satisfied” with electronic resources though they faced problems in using of these resources.

Research scholars from Faculty of Arts, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, and Bahauddin Zakariya University of Multan, Punjab, Pakistan, were included in this paper.

This paper advances knowledge about the current status of the use of university library electronic resources, helps librarians in Pakistani university libraries understand the information need of the researchers more specifically, and provides some guidelines for the efficient and effective use of these resources.

This paper fulfils the identified need of researchers and indicates how researchers can utilize electronic resources in a better way.