PurposeThis study aimed to apply “multi-criteria decision approach and attitude-change theory” to examine post-COVID-19 impact on entrepreneurial mindset by investigating the link between entrepreneurs social capital and entrepreneurial success. Specifically, this study analyzed entrepreneurs' dispositional factor as an underlying mechanism to bridge trust and entrepreneurial success. Furthermore, it also analyzed entrepreneurs' situational factor as boundary condition.Design/methodology/approachWe applied time-lagged data collection from 505 industrial entrepreneurs. Survey method was used for data collection. A 7-point Likert scale was used for the respondent response. (...) Hayes developed PROCESS models 4 and 7 were used to test the hypothesis.FindingsThe direct impact of trust on three elements of the ecosystem was found significantly positive on both startup behavior and entrepreneurial success. The direct impact of startup behavior on entrepreneurial success is also significantly positive. The impact of startup behavior on indirect mediation between trust and entrepreneurial success is visibly positive. The moderated and moderated mediation impact of entrepreneurial strategy found positively significant at low and medium values. However, this study found an insignificant moderated impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy between trust on media and startup behavior. Furthermore, this study also found insignificant moderated mediation impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy by interacting with two elements of ecosystem through startup behavior on entrepreneurial success.Originality/valueThe authors suggested that startup behavior is an underlying mechanism through which industrial entrepreneurs trust achieved desired entrepreneurial success. The authors also suggested that the influencing role of “low level of entrepreneurial strategy” in comparison with “high level entrepreneurial strategy” is more helpful to achieve entrepreneurial success.ImplicationsThis study contributed to the literature on entrepreneurial strategy for its conditional indirect moderated impact on startup behavior and moderated mediation impact on firm entrepreneurial success. It also contributed to owners of the manufacturing industry for their startup behavior as an underlying mechanism through which trust influences entrepreneurial success. (shrink)

Bound-constrained optimization has wide applications in science and engineering. In the last two decades, various evolutionary algorithms were developed under the umbrella of evolutionary computation for solving various bound-constrained benchmark functions and various real-world problems. In general, the developed evolutionary algorithms belong to nature-inspired algorithms and swarm intelligence paradigms. Differential evolutionary algorithm is one of the most popular and well-known EAs and has secured top ranks in most of the EA competitions in the special session of the IEEE Congress on (...) Evolutionary Computation. In this paper, a customized differential evolutionary algorithm is suggested and applied on twenty-nine large-scale bound-constrained benchmark functions. The suggested C-DE algorithm has obtained promising numerical results in its 51 independent runs of simulations. Most of the 2013 IEEE-CEC benchmark functions are tackled efficiently in terms of proximity and diversity. (shrink)

This study sheds light on strategies for retaining skilled pharmacists in Pakistan's pharmaceutical sector, offering valuable insights for both academia and industry stakeholders by investigating the impact of human resource management practices, including training and development, compensation and rewards, job performance, and job satisfaction, on employee retention. It also examines the moderating role of career growth in this context. Theoretical foundations are grounded in international migration theories and social exchange theory, providing a comprehensive framework for the study. A cross-sectional survey (...) design was used to collect data from 254 pharmacists in southern Punjab, Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed for data analysis. Findings reveal that training and development, compensation and rewards, job performance, and job satisfaction all have significant direct effects on employee retention. Additionally, career growth acts as a crucial moderator, strengthening the relationship between training and development and job performance, as well as compensation and rewards and job satisfaction in relation to employee retention. Theoretical implications emphasize the importance of tailored training programs, fair compensation practices, and career growth opportunities. Practical recommendations include creating a positive work environment, rewarding high-performing employees, and fostering career development. Future research directions encompass longitudinal studies, the influence of organizational culture and technology, regional variations, and additional factors affecting retention. (shrink)

This article examines the risk and return profiles of stock indices composed of companies meeting environmental, social and governance screening criteria [such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices ] and conventional composite indices of eight Asian countries from 2002 to 2014. The results indicate that there are no significant differences in the returns or risk-adjusted returns between the ESG indices and the composite indices within countries. The results do reveal that the market volatility of the ESG indices is higher than (...) the market volatility of the conventional indices. Market betas of DJSI and ESG equity indices are significantly lower than betas of the composite equity indices. The overall results indicate that the performance of ESG equity indices of many Asian countries is similar to the performance of conventional indices, suggesting that investors can pursue socially responsible investing objectives without a material difference in portfolio performance from conventional investing. (shrink)

Leadership which lacks ethical conduct can be dangerous, destructive, and even toxic. Ethical leadership, though well discussed in the literature, has been tested empirically as a construct in very few studies. An empirical investigation of ethical leadership in Singapore's construction industry is reported. It is found that ethical leadership is positively and significantly associated with transformational leadership, transformational culture of organization, contingent reward dimension of transactional leadership, leader effectiveness, employee willingness to put in extra effort, and employee satisfaction with the (...) leader. However, it is also found that ethical leadership bears no correlations with transactional leadership. Also, it is negatively correlated with laissez-faire leadership and transactional culture of the organization. The findings also reveal that ethical leadership plays a mediating role in the relationship between employee outcomes and organizational culture. Practical implications of these findings are discussed. Directions for future research are also suggested. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has become a very common buzz word in the field of marketing since many years. This empirical paper assesses the attitude of devout and nondevout customers towards CSR in the context of a religious society. As making clear distinction between devout and nondevout customers may have associated measurement problems in a single-religion-dominated country, this paper initiates the discussion of peculiarity between two important religiosity measures, that is, observation based and solicited. A hypothetical story board with embedded CSR (...) information in a scenario supporting a religious cause is presented to the highly and less religious subjects in text written form. The scenario is followed by questions pertaining to their religious behaviors and attitude towards the company in question. The results illustrate that highly religious customers show slightly greater preference towards CSR as compared to less religious customers and the observation-based religiosity measure has a tendency of more reliability if the researchers have deep cultural and religious know-how about a specific society. Results of this study might help international marketers about choosing a particular cause under its umbrella CSR activities particularly when entering in a highly religious society dominated by a single religion. (shrink)

Phenomenology is linked to ancient philosophers as its roots can be traced from the Socratic era. Various other philosophers have also contributed to develop this field. As Socrates’ ‘skepticism’, Plato’s ‘idealism’, Aristotle’s ‘realism’, Locke’s ‘epistemology’, Hume’s ‘positivism’, and Kant’s ‘existentialism’ are all of the respective concepts which provided the very fundamentals of phenomenology. After these great philosophers, others have also played their significant role as milestones in this journey. In this work, researchers have reviewed the contributions of prominent phenomenologists in (...) historical order. The respective researchers have analyzed the difference and contrast between the approaches of different thinkers. On the basis of the review of selected thinkers by applying the method of relational analysis, researchers have concluded that with the passage of time phenomenology has also evolved and became more empirical as well as dialectic. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction in the post pandemic world in auto care industry. The car care vendor in the study made effective use of social media to provide responsive updates to the customers in the post pandemic world; such use of social media provides bases for service quality and customer satisfaction. The study examined the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction using the SERVQUAL framework. According to the (...) findings, empathy, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, and tangibles have a significant positive relationship with customer satisfaction. Our findings suggest that it is critical for workshops to recognize the service quality factors that contribute to customer satisfaction. Findings also suggest that empathy, assurance, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles contribute to customer satisfaction. Auto repair industry must regularly provide personal attention, greet customers in a friendly manner, deliver cars after services, notify customers when additional repairs are required, and take the time to clarify problems to customers. Furthermore, workshops must screen and hire courteous staff who can clearly communicate the services required to customers both in-person and online and effectively communicate the risks associated with repairs. Service quality seems to be aided by prompt services. (shrink)

In computer networks, vertices represent hosts or servers, and edges represent as the connecting medium between them. In localization, some special vertices are selected to locate the position of all vertices in a computer network. If an arbitrary vertex stopped working and selected vertices still remain the resolving set, then the chosen set is called as the fault-tolerant resolving set. The least number of vertices in such resolving sets is called the fault-tolerant metric dimension of the network. Because of the (...) variety of applications of the metric dimension in different areas of sciences, many generalizations were proposed, and fault tolerant is one of them. In this paper, we computed the fault-tolerant metric dimension of triangular snake, ladder, Mobius ladder, and hexagonal ladder networks. It is important to observe that, in all these classes of networks, the fault-tolerant metric dimension and metric dimension differ by 1. (shrink)

In a communication network with a source node, a multicast tree is defined as a tree rooted at the source node and all its leaves being recipients of the multicast originating at the source. The tree or bandwidth cost is normally measured by its utilization of tree links along with the quality of service measures such as delay constraint and end-to-end delay. However, if nodes are allowed to join or leave the multicast group at any time during the lifetime of (...) the multicast connection, then the problem is known as dynamic multicast routing problem. In this article, we combine a greedy approach with static multicast routing using Tabu Search to find a low-cost dynamic multicast tree with desirable QoS parameters. The proposed algorithm is then compared with several static multicast routing algorithms. The simulation results show that, on a large number of events, i.e., where nodes are leaving or joining, the proposed algorithm is able to find multicast trees of lower cost and more desirable QoS properties. (shrink)

In the modern business environment, characterized by rapid technological advancements and globalization, abetted by IoT and Industry 5.0 phenomenon, innovation is indispensable for competitive advantage and economic growth. However, many organizations are facing problems in its true implementation due to the absence of a practical innovation management framework, which has made the implementation of the concept elusive instead of persuasive. The present study has proposed a new innovation management framework labeled as “Absolute Innovation Management (AIM)” to make innovation more understandable, (...) implementable, and part of the organization’s everyday routine by synergizing the innovation ecosystem, design thinking, and corporate strategy to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth. The current study used an integrative literature review methodology to develop the “Absolute Innovation Management” framework. The absolute innovation management framework links the innovation ecosystem with the corporate strategy of the firm by adopting innovation management as a strategy through design thinking. Thus, making innovation more user/human-centered that is desirable by the customer, viable for business and technically feasible, creating both entrepreneurial and customer value, and boosting corporate venturing and corporate entrepreneurship to achieve competitive advantage and economic growth while addressing the needs of IoT and Industry 5.0 era. In sum, it synergizes innovation, design thinking, and strategy to make businesses future-ready for IoT and the industry 5.0 revolution. The present study is significant, as it not only makes considerable contributions to the existing literature on innovation management by developing a new framework but also makes the concept more practical, implementable and part of an organization’s everyday routine. (shrink)

The neutrosophic cubic hesitant fuzzy set can efficiently handle the complex information in a decision-making problem because it combines the advantages of the neutrosophic cubic set and the hesitant fuzzy set. The algebraic operations based on Dombi norms and co-norms are more flexible than the usual algebraic operations as they involve an operational parameter. First, this paper establishes Dombi algebraic operational laws, score functions, and similarity measures in neutrosophic cubic hesitant fuzzy sets. Then, we proposed Dombi exponential operational laws in (...) which the exponents are neutrosophic cubic hesitant fuzzy values and bases are positive real numbers. To use neutrosophic cubic hesitant fuzzy sets in decision-making, we are developing Dombi exponential aggregation operators in the current study. In the end, we present applications of exponential aggregation operators in multiattribute decision-making problems. (shrink)

The journey of phenomenology apparently is not so extensive, because it was the first half of the twentieth century when Edmund Husserl appeared as the founder of phenomenology. But, it has its very roots in the works of ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This journey did not stopped here, as various phenomenologists have also been contributing in this field and establishing the linkage between phenomenology and symbolic interactionism as well as its very relation to research. Researchers in (...) the presented work have critically analyzed the contributions of prominent phenomenologists, i.e. from Hegel to Dreyfus and have applied relational analysis. The present study propounds that with the passage of time, the concept of phenomenology has been constructively evolving; in a sense that it has become more calculative. (shrink)

In this article, complete synchronization and antisynchronization in the identical financial chaotic system are presented. The proposed control strategies depend on first-order sliding mode and adaptive integral sliding mode for complete synchronization and antisynchronization of the identical financial chaotic system. In the primary case, the system parameters should be known, and first-order sliding mode control is utilized for synchronization and antisynchronization while in the second case, the system parameters are considered unknown. An adaptive integral sliding mode control strategy is utilized (...) for synchronization and antisynchronization of the system considering the parameters unknown. The error system is changed into a particular structure containing a nominal part and several unknown terms to utilize the adaptive integral sliding mode control. Then, this error system is stabilized using integral sliding mode control. The stabilizing controller is usually developed based on the nominal part plus the compensator control part. To suppress the high-frequency oscillation phenomenon, smooth continuous compensator control can be used rather than conventional discontinuous control. The compensator controller along with the adapted law is derived such that the time derivative of the Lyapunov function becomes strictly negative. The effectiveness of the proposed method was tested through computer simulations. The proposed control strategies are verified for that Identical 4D hyperchaotic financial system to attain complete synchronization and antisynchronization along with the improved performance. (shrink)

The unsettling fear of COVID-19 infections has caused a new trend in consumer behavior in the food and beverage industry. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has shifted consumers’ preferences from eat-in to online delivery. This research aims to measure the impact of consumers’ motivation to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19, which explains why people switch from eat-in to online food delivery. We adopted the theory of protection motivation to explain consumer switching behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study investigated the (...) mediating effect of switching intention on the relationship between vulnerability, altruistic fear, anticipated regret, and switching behavior. Simultaneously, we examined the role of brand awareness as a moderator of behavioral choices of consumers switching from eat-in to online delivery. We collected data from 681 eatery consumers in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, using scenario-based survey questionnaires. Then, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. This new generation analysis was conducted using the analysis of moment structure and the statistical package for social science. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased consumers’ propensity to shift from eat-in to online food delivery. Allegedly, consumer behavioral control and intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased the shifting of restaurant dine-in patterns and made the intention to switch to online delivery. Consumers’ alleged behavioral control and their intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. We also found that brand awareness moderately affects switching behavior toward restaurant settings. The present research contributes to developing the consumer behavior model of switching from eat-in to online delivery. This study also provides eatery customers and the business community with a safer and healthier proposition of shifting to online food delivery during the pandemic. (shrink)

Based on the Guest 1997 organizational outcome model, this explanatory study examined the effects of five dimensions of practices of HR. i.e. performance evaluation, recruitment & selection, compensation & reward, career opportunities within organization and training & development on proximal business outcomes. The study validates components of GUEST model by integrating between HRM dimensions and banking operations, thus strengthens the existing theoretical model of GUEST by improving the comprehensiveness as it provides analytical framework for studying HR. Exploratory factor analysis and (...) confirmatory factor analysis was utilized in the current study, and tested the study hypotheses by SEM to analyze the proposed conceptual model. It was found that all five chosen HR practices had significant influence on the quality of operations however for flexibility of operations, performance appraisals and career within organization have shown significant role for banking industry of the country, Pakistan. The study contributed to the construction and validation of structural. path and measurement models of SHRM practices and two selected operational competitive outcomes based on theoretical and empirical foundations, which will help progress the human resource management future researches and important implications for HR mangers, as very little work has been done on interdisciplinary framework of HR and OM specifically within context of South Asian banking Industry. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has imperatively shaken the behavior of the global financial markets. This study estimated the impact of COVID-19 on the behavior of the financial markets of Europe and the US. The results revealed that the returns of the S&P 500 index have been greatly affected by a lockdown in the US owing to COVID-19. However, the health crisis generated due to the novel coronavirus significantly decreased the stock returns of the Nasdaq Composite index. The results also showed (...) that the economic crisis generated from the pandemic in Spain has had more impact on the IBEX 35 as compared to the health crisis itself. On the other hand, in the long-run, Italy’s stock markets are more affected by the health crisis as contrasted with the economic crisis, while, in the short-run, both lockdown conditions and economic instability lower the stock returns of FTSE MIB. The UK stock markets witnessed that in the short-run, deficiency of health management systems imperatively damaged the stock returns of the London Stock Exchange. The investigation revealed that deficiency of health systems and lockdown conditions have imperatively damaged the structure of financial markets, inferring that sustainable development of these nations is at risk due to COVID-19. The study suggested that governments should allocate more of their budget to the health sector to overcome a health crisis in the future. (shrink)

The number of edges in a shortest walk from one vertex to another vertex of a connected graph G is known as the distance between them. For a vertex x and an edge e = a b in G, the minimum number from distances of x with a and b is said to be the distance between x and e. A vertex x is said to distinguish two distinct edges e 1 and e 2 if the distance between x and (...) e 1 is different from the distance between x and e 2. A set X of vertices in a connected graph G is an edge metric generator for G if every two edges of G are distinguished by some vertex in X. The number of vertices in such a smallest set X is known as the edge metric dimension of G. In this article, we solve the edge metric dimension problem for certain classes of planar graphs. (shrink)

This study employs the Porter hypothesis framework to test the moderating role of production cost in the relationship between resource-efficiency actions and financial performance for German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For this purpose, we employ the 2012, 2018, and 2021 Flash Eurobarometer surveys to analyze how consistently SMEs adopt resource-efficiency actions, and the impact of these actions on their performance and costs. We also conduct a generalized method of moments regression analysis (GMM). Among the seven resource-efficiency actions proposed, saving (...) water had a significant positive (negative) influence on financial performance in 2012, 2021, and (2018). Saving energy and using renewable energy had a positive and significant (insignificant) effect on financial performance in 2018, 2021, and (2012). Finally, selling scrap material to other companies had a positive and significant impact in all years. Furthermore, increased production costs negatively moderate the relationship between eco-efficiency action scores and financial performance. The results indicate that the “strong” version of the Porter hypothesis is not supported: It only holds when the implementation of eco-efficiency actions reduces production costs and increases financial performance. (shrink)

Section 75 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) of 2003 overturned the principle in English law that a person cannot be retried for an offense of which he has been acquitted, recognizing advances in forensic science that uses modern analysis of DNA in adducing in evidence. The special plea of autrefois acquit can be overturned based on finding of compelling evidence after a previous acquittal of a suspect who can now be tried again for the same offense. The double jeopardy (...) arises only after a lawful acquittal or autrefois convict of the accused for the first offense and these principles have allowed exceptions to the rule against double jeopardy developed by the courts. There is an analogous rule in common law courts based on the unreasonable splitting of the case when there is a severing of indictments which overrides the bar on the accused being retried for the same offense. This paper examines the difficulty of trying a defendant fairly in the English courts when the defense has pleaded an abuse of process and there is no clear overall argument for trial. This question needs an appraisal of legal ethics in criminal courts because a retrial of the accused on the same charge breaches the autrefois acquit doctrine, and severing of an indictment can cause the fair trial process to be undermined. (shrink)

The rule against bias is a central tenet of English law and it also impacts on collegiate courts which typically exercise appellate/review jurisdictions over their professional or student members. This is true of the Bar Standards Board which has established the adjudicatory bodies to enforce its regulatory framework and has vested the procedure of fair trials upon the Council of the Inns of Court which is responsible for appointing the Disciplinary Tribunal panels that conduct hearings for professional misconduct. The COIC (...) has been exposed for ‘irregularities’ in the findings of guilt against barristers who have been adjudged by non-qualified judges. In R v Visitors to the Inns of Court and Ors [2014] EWCA Civ 1630, the Court of Appeal ruled that a disciplinary tribunal or a panel of visitors appointed from barristers or lay representatives outside its pool of enrolled judges would still ensure independence and guarantee freedom from outside pressure. The impugned tribunal members who were not entitled to sit nevertheless had authority to act as de facto judges. This part of the ruling reinforces the regulatory bodies inherent power to appoint its own tribunal to adjudicate and it needs a more rigorous application of natural justice principle on the part of the BSB. (shrink)

The Communist Manifesto’s salient point was set out in Critics of the Gotha Program as “From Each According to Their Abilities, to Each According to Their Needs”. The demise of communism in the former Soviet Union has caused its critics to claim that ‘revolutionary’ political theory has no basis for legal or philosophical development. The contention of those who oppose radical socialism achieved by the levelling of the classes proclaim that this is an unattainable goal. They argue that a ‘withering (...) of the state’ is not possible for the implementation of Marx’s theory because of the centralisation that is inevitable in socialism which leads to an aggregate of relationships that redistributes power at the apex of the hierarchy. However, this appraisal has to be viewed with reference to the adoption by Marxists of socio legal theory as an analytical tool that has spawned arguments based on legal realism. This article examines the construction of these arguments within the sociology of law and looks at the inception of critical race theory which projects historical injustices towards a racial minority and seeks to transform society by exposing law as an instrument of oppression. (shrink)

This article argues that there has been a significant turn in the discourse of feminist politics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The author suggests that the rise of a new feminism – rooted in Islamic discourse, non-confrontational, privatized and personalized, whose objective is to ‘empower’ women within Islam – is not a post-9/11 development but rather a result of unresolved debates on the issue of religion within the progressive women's movement. It has been due to the accommodation of religion-based (...) feminist arguments by the stronger secular feminist movement of the 1980s that paved the way for its own marginalization by giving feminist legitimacy to such voices. The author argues that the second wave of feminism may have become diluted in its effectiveness and support due to discriminatory religious laws, dictatorship, NGO-ization, fragmentation, co-option by the state and political parties in the same way as the global women's movement has. Yet it has been the internal inconsistency of the political strategies as well as the personal, Muslim identities of secular feminists that have allowed Islamic feminists to redefine the feminist agenda in Pakistan. This article voices the larger concern over the rise of a new generation of Islamic revivalist feminists who seek to rationalize all women's rights within the religious framework and render secular feminism irrelevant while framing the debate on women's rights exclusively around Islamic history, culture and tradition. The danger is that a debate such as this will be premised on a polarized ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ Muslim woman, such that women who abide by the liberal interpretation of theology will be pitted against those who follow a strict and literal interpretist mode and associate themselves with male religio-political discourse. This is only likely to produce a new, radicalized, religio-political feminism dominating Pakistan's political future. (shrink)

Background The post-trial period is the time period after the end of study drug administration. It is unclear whether post-trial arrangements for patient surveillance are routinely included in study protocols and consents, and whether research ethics boards (REB) consider the post-trial period. Objectives The objective was to determine whether trial protocols and consent forms reviewed by the REB describe procedures for post-trial period surveillance. Methods An observational study of protocols of randomised trials of chronic therapies for cardiac conditions, approved by (...) the REB of two academic institutions affiliated with the University of Toronto in Canada (University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital) from 1995 to 2007. Plans for patient surveillance in the post-trial period described in the protocol or in the consent form before and after REB approval were recorded. Results 42 studies were identified including 18 heart failure and 15 coronary artery disease trials. Only four studies planned a clinical visit after trial termination, and an additional three planned a telephone contact after trial completion. Five trials submitted consent forms to the REB with a discussion of the post-trial period. Conclusions The majority of protocols and consent forms did not discuss plans for post-trial period surveillance. The post-trial period and the REB approval process could be improved by systematic follow-up being described in the protocol and consent form. The small number of trial protocols evaluated in the study may impair the degree to which the results can be generalised. (shrink)

Multi-level institutional designs with distributed power and authority arrangements among federal, state, regional, and local government agencies could lead to the emergence of differential patterns of socioeconomic and infrastructure development pathways in complex social–ecological systems. Both exogenous drivers and endogenous processes in social–ecological systems can lead to changes in the number of “basins of attraction,” changes in the positions of the basins within the state space, and changes in the positions of the thresholds between basins. In an effort to advance (...) the theory and practice of the governance of policy systems, this study addresses a narrower empirical question: how do intergovernmental institutional rules set by federal, state, and regional government agencies generate and sustain basins of attraction in funding infrastructure projects? A pattern-oriented, agent-based model (ABM) of an intergovernmental network has been developed to simulate real-world transportation policy implementation processes across the federal, the state of Vermont, regional, and local governments for prioritizing transportation projects. The ABM simulates baseline and alternative intergovernmental institutional rule structures and assesses their impacts on financial investment flows. The ABM was calibrated with data from multiple focus groups, individual interviews, and analysis of federal, state, and regional scale transportation projects and programs. The results from experimental simulations are presented to test system-wide effects of alternative multi-level institutional designs, in particular different power and authority arrangements between state and regional governments, on the emergence of roadway project prioritization patterns and funding allocations across regions and towns. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of supervisor support on the relationship between the need to be unique and the innovative behavior. People not only strive to belong to a group but also want to be unique from others and feel exceptional. Individuals’ innovative behavior is one of the things that makes them feel different from other people. Because developing a new idea, supporting this idea, putting this idea into practice, and the positive achievements of (...) this idea distinguish people who exhibit innovative behavior from others. It depends on the behavior of supervisors whether people who break away from typical practices and procedures to feel unique and special continue to act in innovative ways. In this context, it is vitally essential for supervisors to support people who display innovative behavior. The research was conducted on employees working in the education sector in Mersin. We employed the confirmatory factor analysis to examine the fitness of the model and moderation was tested. As hypothesized, the need to be unique had a significant and positive effect on innovative behavior. This finding is consistent with existing literature and thus advance knowledge on need to be unique and innovative behavior, particular in education sector. Nonetheless, it has been determined that supervisor support doesn’t have a moderator role on the relationship between the need to be unique and innovative behavior. Although there are some researches in the literature on consumer experiences about the need to be unique and innovative behavior, but literature on education section is sparse and still long way to go to evaluate its’ reflections on the workplace. (shrink)

COVID-19 has had a huge impact on workers and workplaces across the world while putting regular work practices into disarray. Apart from the obvious effects of COVID-19, the pandemic is anticipated to have a variety of social–psychological, health-related, and economic implications for individuals at work. Despite extensive research on psychological contracts and knowledge sharing, these domains of pedagogic endeavor have received relatively little attention in the context of employee creativity subjected to the boundary conditions of the organization’s socialization and work-related (...) curiosity. This study investigates, empirically, the role of psychological contracts in escalating employee creativity through knowledge sharing by considering the moderating role of an organization’s socialization and work-related curiosity. The response received from 372 employees of the manufacturing sector has been investigated and analyzed through Smart PLS software. The results have revealed that knowledge sharing is mediating the relationship between psychological contract and employee creative performance, whereas the moderators significantly moderate the relationships between psychological contract and knowledge sharing and between knowledge sharing and employee creative performance accordingly. It has also been depicted that the moderating impact shown by both moderators is significantly high. (shrink)

Most studies have shown that reading is an important source of incidental vocabulary learning, and repeated reading may have a positive effect on learning gains. However, the study of incidental vocabulary learning through listening is still limited, and the immediate and long-term effects on different vocabulary knowledge dimensions are unclear. Furthermore, no empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the association between learning gains and preexisting vocabulary knowledge in listening. This article examines the effects of listening to English songs on (...) unintentional vocabulary learning and vocabulary retention through three different vocabulary knowledge dimensions: word recognition, meaning association, and grammar identification. A total of 114 Chinese college students participated in the study, and they were given vocabulary evaluations at different times based on three separate components of vocabulary knowledge. The effects of repeated listening and learners’ prior vocabulary knowledge were also investigated. According to the findings, listening to songs can improve vocabulary knowledge, particularly in the area of word recognition, which can be retained 4 weeks later. Furthermore, the effect of listening three times was superior than listening one or five times, which provides teachers and learners with guidance for teaching or learning vocabulary more effectively. Finally, for low, intermediate, and high-level learners, there was an immediate and positive effect on the dimensions of word recognition and meaning connection after listening, and this knowledge is likely to be preserved 4 weeks later. (shrink)

Texte d'une conférence prononcée à la Faculté de théologie de l'Université de Lausanne en 1985, dans lequel le philosophe reprend la question du mal, du défi qu'il représente, dans une perspective augustinienne.

Face detection plays important roles in many applications such as human–computer interaction, security and surveillance, face recognition, etc. This article presents an intelligent enhanced fused approach for face recognition based on the Voronoi diagram and wavelet moment invariants. Discrete wavelet transform and moment invariants are used for feature extraction of the facial face. Finally, VD and the dual tessellation are used to locate and detect original face images. Face recognition results based on this new fusion are promising in the state (...) of the art. (shrink)

Numerous authors indicate that the influence of academic education extends beyond the growth of specialized knowledge gained by the graduates. Scholars are trying to identify and examine the potential impact of higher learning on students’ attitudes and choices. One of the dimensions considered by the researchers is the effect of university training on students’ moral choices. Our paper attempts to identify differences between the students’ declared moral choices and their majors (fields of studies). Working with a sample of university students (...) of Economics and Sociology (N = 181), and using three variants of the Trolley Problem, the subjects’ responses are used to identify the similarities and differences between their choices. The participants were asked to respond to three hypothetical situations regarding a runaway trolley. Their decision in the first scenario could save a person’s life or let her be run over by the trolley. In the second scenario, their decision could either let one person die and save five lives or save one life and let five people be killed. These two scenarios required pulling a lever to switch the trolley from one track to another. The third scenario requires pushing an obese person in front of the runaway trolley to stop it from killing five persons. As expected, we found a significant difference between the two groups (the economists and the sociologists) in the case of our third scenario, however, we found no evidence supporting the indoctrination hypothesis. We conclude that the existing differences between the choices made by the future economists and sociologists may support the preselection hypothesis. (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)

In our current era, a new rapidly spreading pandemic disease called coronavirus disease, caused by a virus identified as a novel coronavirus, is becoming a crucial threat for the whole world. Currently, the number of patients infected by the virus is expanding exponentially, but there is no commercially available COVID-19 medication for this pandemic. However, numerous antiviral drugs are utilized for the treatment of the COVID-19 disease. Identification of the appropriate antivirus medicine to treat the infection of COVID-19 is still (...) a complicated and uncertain decision. This study’s key objective is to develop a novel approach called _q_-rung orthopair probabilistic hesitant fuzzy rough set, which incorporates the _q_-rung orthopair fuzzy set, probabilistic hesitant fuzzy set, and rough set structures. New _q_-ROPHFR aggregation operators have been established: the _q_-ROPHFR Einstein weighted averaging operator and the _q_-ROPHFR Einstein weighted geometric operator. In this study, we explored some basic features of the developed operators. Afterward, to demonstrate the viability and feasibility of the established decision-making approach in real-world applications, a case study related to selecting drugs for COVID-19 pandemic is addressed. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparison with the _q_-rung orthopair probabilistic hesitant fuzzy rough TOPSIS technique is also presented to illustrate the benefits of the new framework. The obtained results confirm the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed approach for finding uncertainty in real-world decision-making. (shrink)

This study examined how social media marketing activities influence consumers’ engagement behaviour in developing countries. Based on the stimulus-organism-response theory, we examined the effect of SMMA on consumers’ engagement intention and further investigated the moderating effect of social media sales intensity. The study employed a time-lagged design with two waves to confirm the hypothesised framework. The study findings showed that SMMA positively influence consumers’ engagement intention and engagement behaviour. In addition, social media sales intensity strengthens the link between engagement intention (...) and engagement behaviour. This study adds to the literature on social media and discusses its practical implications. (shrink)

The single most influential and widely accepted objection against any form of dualism, the belief that human beings are both body and soul, is the objection that dualism violates conservation laws in physics. The conservation laws objection against dualism posits that body and soul interaction is at best mysterious, and at worst impossible. While this objection has been both influential from the time of its initial formulation until present, this paper occupies itself with arguing that this objection is a fleeting (...) one, and has successful answers from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. It is to this end that I provide three groups of responses to the conservation laws objection. First, I outline responses which take the ‘laws of nature’ as the proper entry point into the discussion. Secondly, I provide an analysis of those who argue that contemporary quantum physical data requires that the objection itself involves scientifically unjustified premises. Finally, I layout a philosophically oriented answer which argues that the objection is linguistically problematic since its demands on the dualist are categorically fallacious. From these groups of answers, I conclude that while the conservation laws objection has been arguably the most widely accepted objection against dualism, the objection is without philosophical justification. (shrink)

Advertising, a form of publicity, can pass on a social message so that people understand their sobligation towards society. The purpose of this study was to look into how consumers responded to socially conscious advertisements. This study conceptualizes the antecedents of attitude towards commercial advertisements that incorporate the social message, including advertising creativity, informativeness, and emotional appeal; each one can influence consumers' behavior. This study also examined the relationship between (i) Attitude towards the ad with a social message and purchase (...) intention of the consumer and (ii) Purchase intention of the consumer and subjective well-being. The interrelationships in the proposed model were investigated using structural equation modeling (SEM). A quantitative survey of university students was conducted in order to gather the data, which was based on an experiment. A field survey of 395 students was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results of the empirical tests confirm that attitude towards the advertisement positively affects the purchase intention of the consumer and that advertising creativity and emotional appeal are the key predictors of attitude towards the advertisement that highlights a social issue. And, purchase intention positively influences the subjective well-being of the consumers. This paper contributes to the theory by giving new insight into the advertising literature. It also provides the necessary knowledge to marketers and advertisers on commercial advertisements incorporating a social message and the subjective well-being of consumers. (shrink)

This research investigates the factors that affect male gamers' behavioral intention to play PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which is one of the most widely played online games of today's era. We examine the factors through the lens of the hedonic consumption model and use the gratification theory to predict behavioral intention to play PUBG. Data from 248 male PUBG gamers were analyzed using PLS-SEM analyses. The study involved an initial stage where an estimation model was analyzed to assess the constructs' reliability and (...) validity. Following this, the second stage involved assessing the theoretical model to test the relationship between the principle constructs. The study found that playful-consumption experience factors, such as escapism, emotional involvement, sensory experience, enjoyment, and arousal, significantly influenced the behavioral intentions to play PUBG. The research findings further indicate that role-projection and fantasy failed to impact consumers' intention to play PUBG. This study provides both theoretical and practical implications. It fills the literature gap by focusing on predicting the behavioral intention to play PUBG through the playful-consumption experiences of a popular online multiplayer game. Practically, this study could potentially open avenues for gaming companies to address how different playful-consumption experiences impact game users' behavioral intentions. (shrink)

With his writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, ideology, and religion, Paul Ricoeur has single-handedly redefined and revitalized the hermeneutic tradition. From Text to Action is an essential companion to the now classic The Conflict of Interpretations. Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its own philosophical background: Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K.O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization (...) of ideology to their version of ideology critique. (shrink)

Given that personal source of information is preferred by the customers over company-generated marketing communications, promoting advocacy behavior among customers is of much importance for every organization. Literature suggests that an organization's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities significantly influence individual behavior. However, the advocacy behavior of customers (ADB), from a CSR perspective, did not receive due attention. To address this literature gap, the current study attempts to explore the relationship among CSR and ADB with the intervening role of brand admiration (...) (BA). To collect the data, customers of a large fast-food service organization in Pakistan were approached. The proposed relationships were tested through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The statistical evidence verifies a positive link between CSR and ADB, while BA mediated this relationship. These findings will be supportive to the fast-food business to realize the critical role of CSR for a meaningful customer-company relationship in the face of competition. (shrink)

The first part of this paper reveals a conflict between the core principles of deterministic causation and the standard method of difference, which is widely seen as a correct method of causally analyzing deterministic structures. We show that applying the method of difference to deterministic structures can give rise to causal inferences that contradict the principles of deterministic causation. The second part then locates the source of this conflict in an inference rule implemented in the method of difference according to (...) which factors that can make a difference to investigated effects relative to one particular test setup are to be identified as causes, provided the causal background of the corresponding setup is homogeneous. The paper ends by modifying the method of difference in a way that renders it compatible with the principles of deterministic causation. (shrink)