Search results

The goal of this research is to look at how urban microfinance affects livelihood transformation in terms of poverty reduction, living standards, social well-being, empowerment and entrepreneurship.

This paper analyses the role of urban microfinance towards livelihood with special reference to Western Uttar Pradesh. Primary data were collected from 321 respondents who are users of a microfinance programme using a standardised questionnaire. The data were collected using a stratified random sampling technique, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Urban microfinance has a considerable impact on poverty reduction, the standard of living, social well-being, empowerment and entrepreneurship in the urban poor, according to the findings.

The fact that the majority of the borrowers were uneducated was the most significant barrier to them filling out the questionnaire. Their anxiety was the most significant psychological obstacle to successfully answering the questions, and it took time. As a result, it is urged that proper counselling be conducted before the poor borrowers fill out the questionnaire.

The current study highlights the factors that lead to the utilisation of microfinance services. This research will aid MFIs in selecting the appropriate products and services for the urban poor. The results of this study will aid them in understanding and meeting the expectations of microfinance CEOs.

This is a first study conducted in Northern zone of India measuring the roles urban microfinance institutions (MFIs) in uplifting the livelihood of urban poor.

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

This study aims to map the “Desktop Research” (DR) output in Pakistan, as part of the growing field of research globally. It also ascertains the productive institutions and prolific authors along with their collaboration patterns.

Bibliometric techniques were used to quantitatively analyze the DR published in Pakistan. The publications from 1981 to 2021 were retrieved from Scopus. A total of 1,802 publications were retrieved and used for analysis.

Results indicated an unpredictable increase in DR output from approximately 100 to 400 records during the past five years. The year 2020 was most productive in DR research showing the excess use of secondary data by researchers in COVID-19. The focus of researchers towards DR was consistently rising. Medical journals were found to publish DR extensively. Majority of the publications were contributed by collaborative work and researchers of the USA were found as the most collaborative with Pakistani authors. Publications of single category journals, open access journals and international collaboration get more citations.

The results of the analysis rely only on a single database, Scopus, for retrieving the publication data.

The study has practical implications for the policymakers and higher education development organizations to introduce the DR as a course in academic schools.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to review DR in the context of Pakistan through bibliometric analysis. This comprehensive overview provides a better understanding of the development of the field and possible practice implications.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the frequency and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of pathogens present in ready-to-eat salads available at a local market.

A 100 salad samples were collected aseptically. Each sample (25 g) was homogenized in 225 ml of sterile peptone water and was serially diluted up to 1×106. Dilutions were inoculated on nutrient agar by surface spread plate technique. Aerobic colony count (ACC) was estimated by counting the colonies. Bacterial isolates were cultured on blood and MacConkey agar and identified on the basis of their morphology, culture characteristics and confirmed by API 20E and 20NE. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined as per CLSI 2014.

ACC range was 1.1×103 cfu/g to 5.8×109 cfu/g. Among these the highest ACC was found in channa chat (4.9×104 to 5.8×109 cfu/g). A total of 127 microorganisms were identified; 73 were gram negative rods (GNRs) and 24 were gram positive cocci (GPC). Among GNRs; Klebsiella spp. (n=18) was the predominant whereas among GPC, Staphylococcus aureus (n=6) were the chief pathogen. Klebsiella spp. showed 100 percent resistance to ampicillin, 89-78 percent to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and 33 percent to imipenem, however, Enterobacter spp. were resistant to ampicillin (100 percent) amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (77 percent) and imipenem (23 percent). Staphylococcus aureus showed resistance to co-amoxiclav (83 percent) and penicillin (75 percent).

This study revealed that effective control measures must been implemented and respected by throughout the entire food chain and better surveillance studies should be performed at national level to reduce the spread of bacteria by fresh salads.

This paper explore the high prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens in different salads and most of the salads were found to be unhygienic for consumption.

This study is the maiden attempt to understand the effect of specific human resource practices (HRPs) on employee retention (ER) with the mediation of job satisfaction (JS) and moderation of work experience (WE) and job hopping (JH) in the context of the textile industry.

This study adopted a quantitative methodology and applied quota sampling to gather data from employees (n = 365) of leading textile companies in India. The conceptual model and hypotheses were tested with the help of Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings of a path analysis revealed that compensation and performance appraisal (CPA) have the highest impact on JS followed by employee work participation (EWP). On the other hand, EWP had the highest impact on ER followed by grievance handling (GRH). The study revealed that JS significantly mediates between HRPs like CPA and ER. During Multi-group analysis (MGA) it was found that the importance of EWP and health and safety (HAS) was more in employee groups with higher WE, but it was the opposite in the case of CPA. In the case of JH behavior, the study observed that EWP leads to JS in loyal employees. Similarly, JS led to ER, and the effect was more pronounced for loyal employees.

In the context of the Indian textile industry, this work is the first attempt to comprehend how HRPs affect ER. Secondly, it confirmed that JS is not a guaranteed mediator between HRPs and ER, it could act as an insignificant, partial or full mediator. Additionally, this study establishes the moderating effects of WE and JH in the model through multigroup analysis.

The authors have attempted to understand how big data and predictive analytics (BDPA) can help retain employees in the organization.

This study is grounded in the positivism philosophy. The authors have used a resource-based view (RBV) to develop their research hypotheses. The authors tested their research hypotheses using primary data gathered using a single-informant questionnaire. The authors obtained 254 usable responses. The authors performed the assumptions test, performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the validity of the proposed theoretical model, and further tested their research hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis.

The statistical result suggests that the various human resource management strategies play a significant role in improving retention under the mediating effect of the BDPA.

The authors have grounded their study in the positivism philosophy. Moreover, the authors tested their hypotheses using single-informant cross-sectional data. Hence, the authors cannot ignore the effects of the common method bias on their research findings. Moreover, the research findings are based on a particular setting. Thus, the authors caution the readers that their findings must be examined in the light of their study limitations.

The study provided empirical findings based on survey data. Hence, the authors provide numerous guidelines to the practitioners that how the organization can invest in creating BDPA that helps analyze complex data to extract meaningful and relevant information. This information related to employee turnaround may guide top management to reduce the dissatisfaction level among the employees working in high-stress environments resulting from a high degree of uncertainty.

The study helps understand the complex factors that affect the morale of the employee. In the high-paced environment, the employees are often exposed to various negative forces that affect their morale which further affect their productivity. Due to lack of awareness and adequate information, most of the employees and their issues are not dealt with effectively and efficiently by their line managers. Thus, the BDPA can help tackle the most complex problem of society in a significant way.

This study offers some useful contributions to the literature which attempts to unfold the complex nexus between human resource management, information management and strategy. The study contributes to the BDPA literature and how it helps in the retention of employees is one of the areas which still remains elusive to the academic community. Moreover, the managers are still skeptical about the application of BDPA in understanding human-related issues due to a lack of understanding of how and to what extent the employee-related information can be stored and processed. This study’s findings further open the new avenues of research that need to be tackled.

The purpose of this paper is to access the present situation of the Pakistani population that suffers from vitamin D deficiency.

A review-based study was conducted based on publications from Pakistan between the years 2008 and 2018. The publications were archived from Pub Med and Google Scholar databases. A total of 18 publications were shortlisted, based on the cutoff values of vitamin D sufficiency, insufficiency and deficiency.

As per the data, 38.5 per cent of the participants were males, 48.7 per cent were females and 12.8 per cent of the studies have not mentioned the genders of the participants. The cumulative results show that 58.17 per cent (95 per cent CI: 52.17, 64.16) of the population is vitamin D-deficient and 26.65 per cent (95 per cent CI: 21.63, 31.66) is insufficient in vitamin D. The highest level of vitamin D deficiency was reported from Sindh (62.15 per cent), followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (60.57 per cent), Punjab (51.75 per cent) and the Federal Capital (49.25 per cent). Moreover, Cochran’s Q test indicated considerable heterogeneity (p = >0.001) with regard to Vitamin D deficiency (VDD) prevalence found among samples from the selected studies.

The present analysis suggests that more than half of the Pakistani population suffers from VDD, which, thus, should be considered as an epidemic and treated likewise.