Examining the quality perceptions of consumers has often been recommended as an international research paradigm. This study is grounded in the Pakistani consumer market to evaluate the impact of food packaging cues on perceived product quality. The moderating effect of consumer knowledge was also taken into consideration in the study. A signaling theory was used in the study for its established predictive power in consumer behavior, marketing, and various fields of research. Based on the essence of the signaling theory, this (...) study hypothesized that food packaging cues cast a positive impact on perceived product quality and consumer knowledge moderates these relationships. By using the sample of 504 consumers, data were gathered using the mall intercept method following a multi-stage sampling technique. The responses were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social sciences and Smart Partial Least Square. The findings of this study unveil that the extrinsic cues' brand name, price, nutritional labels, and precautionary labels were positively and significantly related to the perceived product quality. However, the country of origin cast no impact on the perceived product quality. Consumer knowledge reflected a moderation effect on the relationships between brand name and country of origin with the perceived product quality whereas it exerted no moderation impact on the relationships of price, nutritional labels, and precautionary labels with the perceived product quality. As the results exhibit that Pakistani consumers rely on food packaging cues for perceiving a product, hence it is recommended that marketers and policymakers develop appropriate marketing strategies focused on the significance of food packaging cues. (shrink)

This volume includes a target paper, taking up the challenge to revive, within a modern (formal) framework, a medieval solution to the Liar Paradox which did ...

The Joint Battle Management Language (JBML) is an XML-based language designed to allow Command and Control (C2) systems to interface easily with Modeling and Simulation (M&S) systems. While some of the XML-tags defined in this language correspond to types of entities that exist in reality, others are mere syntactic artifacts used to structure the messages themselves. Because these two kinds of tags are not formally distinguishable, JBML messages in effect confuse data with what the data represent. In this paper we (...) show how a realism-based ontology combined with a rule language can be used to make these distinctions explicit. The approach allows storage of the contents of JBML messages in a Referent Tracking System in a format that mimics the structure of reality thereby providing an aid to message validation. (shrink)

The availability of newer choices in contemporary bioethics, especially enhancement technologies, poses a challenge for Muslim patients and their care providers in making appropriate decisions. How should they reconcile personal autonomy with ethical guidelines of Islamic Shariah ? This article discusses such concerns.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of cognitive board diversity in education, expertise, and tenure facets on financial distress likelihood in the emerging economy of China. This study examines how this relationship varies across State-Owned Enterprises and Non-State-Owned Enterprises. Paper argues that the Chinese stock market, as a typical emerging market, is an excellent laboratory for studying the impact of board diversity on the probability of financial distress. Its underdeveloped financial system and inadequate investor protection leave firms unprotected from financial (...) hardship. A sample of 12,366 observations from 1,374 firms from 2010 to 2018 shows that cognitive diversity qualities are positively linked with Z-score, implying that directors with different educational backgrounds, financial skills, and tenures can assist in reducing the probability of financial distress. Cognitive board diversity reduces the likelihood of financial distress in SOEs and NSOEs. However, tenure diversity is insignificant in all cases. Furthermore, the robustness model “two-step system Generalized Methods of Moments ” demonstrated a positive association between educational diversity, financial expertise, and financial distress scores. The results have significant implications for researchers, managers, investors, regulators, and policymakers. (shrink)

Intellectual Capital is a driving force behind the financial performance of non-financial firms. Investing in intellectual and physical capital allows companies to optimize their financial performance by maximizing resource utilization. This study aims to determine whether IC efficiency impacts the financial performance of listed Pakistani and Indian companies between 2010 and 2020. Return on Assets and Return on Equity are used to calculate financial performance, and IC is calculated using the modified Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient model. Regression analysis is performed using (...) the STATA software developed by the South Texas Art Therapy Association. Human Capital, Structural Capital, and Capital Employed have a significant impact on Pakistani and Indian firms’ financial performance. Resource-based theory supports these findings. The findings should provide management with a prompt to improve financial performance and emphasize the importance of IC. A rare study has addressed the impact of IC on firm financial performance using the MVAIC model, rather than the VAIC model, in Pakistan and India. (shrink)

Physically and intellectually, man is not the same as a million years ago. This “improvement” in humans has occurred over a period of time and not as a result of any outside biotechnical intervention. So, the question is what is the need now? The fine line between what can be done technically and what should be done morally is the reason for biomedical ethics. What is the nature of man, and what is his relationship with his creator and his environment? (...) Whose interest are we as scientists and physicians to guard? What are the rights of the unborn, and who protects those rights? While seeking medical treatment for infertility and reconstructive surgery for a malformation or genetic manipulation for a genetic disease might perhaps be appropriate and recommended, is it also appropriate to create a super healthy, super human with genetic manipulation? If so, then are we embarking on the path of ethnic cleansing of humans of lesser ability, and is it appropriate to discriminate? In this paper, such questions and concerns are discussed from an Islamic perspective. (shrink)

Green entrepreneurship has a huge role in solving environmental degradation and social problems. As today’s youth are tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, enhancing their green entrepreneurial intention will contribute to the sustainable development of economy in the future. The existing literature has examined the green entrepreneurial intention of college students based on self-efficacy, entrepreneurial creativity, entrepreneurship education, financial support, sustainable development values, and other influencing factors. However, these studies focus on net effect of factors on the results of college students’ green entrepreneurial intention, (...) ignoring the combination of multiple factors, and the relationship between different configurations of factors and the results of college students’ green entrepreneurial intention. Therefore, this study aimed to understand and analyze the influence of the complex relationship between multiple antecedents on college students’ green entrepreneurial intention from a comprehensive perspective. Based on 207 questionnaires collected from colleges in the coastal cities of China, this study used the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method for data analysis. The results showed three dominant paths of great significance to college students’ high green entrepreneurial intention: entrepreneurial creativity—green cognition—dominant path; entrepreneurial creativity—financial support—dominant path; and the future self-continuity—entrepreneurship culture—entrepreneurship education—dominant path. The results of this study can help college educators to plan courses on innovative thinking and green entrepreneurship to improve college students’ entrepreneurial creativity and green cognitive ability. (shrink)

Improved governance in any economy indicates government stability, secured law and order, and minimum internal and external conflicts. A higher level of governance may demonstrate the healthy performance of economic activities and tax revenue collection. Hence, it is vital to investigate the relationship between governance and tax revenue collection in any developing country. Therefore, we aim to investigate the impact of governance on tax revenue in Pakistan using control variables inflation and industrial value-added. The Autoregressive Distributive Lag cointegration technique is (...) utilized to find the long- and short-run effects of hypothesized variables on the tax revenue using a period 1976–2019. After employing a cointegration on the hypothesized model, the results expose that government stability, law and order, and internal and external conflicts leave a positive and significant impact on tax revenue in the long and short run. Hence, it is concluded that governance is an essential source in expanding tax revenue in Pakistan. Moreover, industrial value-added and inflation also show positive effects on the tax revenue. On the grounds of these results, it is proposed that the government should make serious efforts to improve governance and industrial activities for better tax revenue collection. (shrink)

Recent literature on dialogical logic discusses the case of tonk and the notion harmony in the context of a rule-based theory of meaning. Now, since the publications of those papers, a dialogical version of constructive type theory has been developed. The aim of the present paper is to show that, from the dialogical point of view, the harmony of the CTT-rules is the consequence of a more fundamental level of meaning characterized by the independence of players. We hope that the (...) following paper will contribute to a better understanding of the dialogical notion of meaning. (shrink)

Despite the significant amount of debate that Merleau-Ponty’s work has seen over the years, it remains an unresolved issue whether his phenomenology offers what he announces as a ‘new definition of the a priori’. In this paper, I make a case in favor of his claim by clarifying his commitments to the a priori against two dominant lines of interpretation, naturalist and Kantian. I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s view that the sciences themselves rely on the a priori method of Wesensschau establishes (...) his basic commitment to apriority. At the same time, Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of the a priori differs in important respects from the Kantian a priori and its transcendental idealist ramifications because, on his view, the subject is not the unique ground of constitution. Having tackled these obstacles to understanding Merleau-Ponty’s commitments to the a priori, I argue in light of his conception of ‘radical reflection’ that rather than being a static element of experience, the a priori stands in a dynamic relation with the a posteriori as a distinctive way of articulating structures of lived experience. (shrink)

Management of information is facilitated by unambiguously tracking portions of reality over time. To track the portions of reality, a referent tracking system is used. The referent tracking system is able to communicate with other tracking systems and/or tradition information systems. Errors in the referent tracking system are detected and corrected to maintain actual representations of the portions of reality.

The current study investigates whether tournament incentives motivate chief executive officer to be socially responsible. Furthermore, it explores the role of sub-national institutional contingencies [i.e., state-owned enterprises vs. non-SOEs, foreign-owned entities vs. non-FOEs, cross-listed vs. non-cross-listed, developed region] in CEO tournament incentives and the corporate social responsibility performance relationship. Data were collected from all A-shared companies listed in the stock exchanges of China from 2014 to 2019. The study uses the baseline methodology of ordinary least squares and cluster OLS regression. (...) Moreover, firm-fixed effects regression, two-stage least squares regression, and propensity score matching deal with the endogeneity problem and check the robustness of the results. The results provide reliable evidence that tournament incentives motivate CEOs to be more socially responsible. On the other hand, sub-national institutional contingencies positively affect the association between CEO tournament incentives and CSRP. The findings have important implications for companies and regulators who wish to enhance CSP by providing incentives to top managers. (shrink)

Despite periods of resurgence over the last decades, it is safe to say that transcendental arguments no longer enjoy a prominent presence in the philosophical landscape. One reason for their declining prominence is the sustained suspicion that despite their self‐proclaimed metaphysical neutrality, transcendental arguments are, in fact, metaphysically committed. This paper aims to revive the discussion of transcendental considerations by offering a metaphysically neutral account of transcendental arguments. I argue that a metaphysically neutral conception of transcendental arguments requires a revision (...) of two concepts constitutive of transcendental claims, namely, transcendental necessity and the a priori. I propose a transcendental reading of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, which, I maintain, provides us with an alternative, metaphysically neutral understanding of these concepts. Thus revised, transcendental claims are suitable for what Mark Sacks once described as the “post‐metaphysical” orientation of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to understand how leader humility effectively stimulates follower creativity in the workplace during the coronavirus disease 2019 scenario. Relying on social cognitive and social information processing theories, this study investigates how leader humility cultivates follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. Furthermore, it explores an intervening mechanism of follower self-efficacy and examines a moderating role of leader proactive personality. The hypothesized model is empirically tested by collecting the data from 405 employees and 87 managers working in (...) the banking sector of Pakistan. The results indicate that leader humility is positively related to follower self-efficacy and follower creativity, which improve the organization’s innovation climate and an environment for social sustainability. Follower self-efficacy is also significantly related to follower creativity. The mediation analysis shows that follower self-efficacy mediates the relationship between leader humility and follower creativity. Additionally, leader proactive personality moderates the relation between follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. This study highlights the importance of leader humility for creativity and extends the literature by explaining the role of self-efficacy. Furthermore, the findings may assist the policymakers in how a humble leader heightens employee creativity and social sustainability in COVID-19. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique sur la non-existence est une thématique qui a été abordée au commencement même de la philosophie et qui suscite, depuis la publication en 1905 de « On Denoting » par Russell, les plus vifs débats en philosophie analytique. Cependant, le débat féroce sur la sémantique des noms propres et des descriptions définies qui surgirent suite à la publication du « On Referring » par Strawson en 1950 n’engagea pas d’étude systématique de la sémantique des fictions. En fait, (...) le développement systématique d’un lien qui articule approches logiques, philosophiques et littéraires de la fiction devait attendre les travaux de John Woods publiés en 1974 dans son livre The Logic of Fiction : A Philosophical Sounding of Deviant Logic. Un des enjeux les plus excitants du livre de Woods se situe au niveau de l’interaction entre les points de vue internalistes ou interne-à-l’histoire (principalement pragmatiques) et les points de vue externalistes ou externe-à-la-fiction (principalement sémantiques). Sur ce point, Woods fut le premier à formuler une sémantique pour l’opérateur de fiction à lire comme « selon l’histoire… » en relation à la notion logique de portée, ce qui permettait l’étude de l’internalisme et de l’externalisme. Suite au livre de Woods, loin de s’essouffler, les débats trouvaient une nouvelle impulsion. Le fait pertinent pour notre article est que la tradition phénoménologique également, l’étude de la fiction a joué un rôle central. En effet, l’une des problématiques les plus sujettes à controverses dans l’intentionnalité est celle de l’indépendance à l’existence, c’est-à-dire le fait que les actes intentionnels n’ont pas besoin d’être forcément dirigés vers un objet existant. Influencée par les travaux de Roman Ingarden (1893-1970), l’un des plus importants disciples de Husserl, Amie L. Thomasson développe le concept phénoménologique de dépendance ontologique en vue d’expliquer les processus de références inter- et transfictionnels – dans le contexte de l’interprétation littéraire par exemple. L’enjeu essentiel de cet article est de proposer une reconstruction multimodale bi-dimensionnelle de la théorie des personnages fictionnels de Ingarden-Thomasson. Cette théorie qui entend prendre au sérieux le fait que les fictions sont des créations montre la voie pour une articulation entre les approches internalistes et externalistes. Nous motivons certains changements quant à l’approche artéfactuelle - incluant une sémantique appropriée pour l’opérateur de fictionalité qui, nous l’espérons, éveillera l’intérêt des théoriciens de la littérature. L’article est à d’autres égards un panorama de la façon dont différents concepts d’intentionnalité pourraient fonder différentes sémantiques formelles pour la fictionalité. Nous proposerons enfin un cadre dialogique qui est une extension modale d’un certain système de preuve développé par Matthieu Fontaine et Juan Redmond. Le cadre dialogique développe la contrepartie inférentielle de la sémantique bi-dimensionnelle introduite par Shahid Rahman et Tero Tulenheimo dans un article récent. (shrink)

The main aim of our paper is to implement Leibniz's analysis of the conditional right in the framework of a dialogical approach to Public Announcement Logic. According to our view, on one hand: PAL furnishes a dynamic epistemic operator which models communication exchange between different agents that seems to be very close to Leibniz understanding of the dynamics between the truth of a proposition and the knowledge of the truth of that proposition (Leibniz calls the latter certification of its truth); (...) on the other hand, the dialogical approach provides a semantics for the dynamic epistemic operator in the context of conditional right by means of which: (i) the exchange between agents leading to a public announcement amounts to the (contractual) interaction of commitments of both the benefactor and the beneficiary of a conditional right (ii) the notion of certification is understood as an action, namely as a move where the beneficiary asks the benefactor to stand to his commitments, (iii) some restrictions specific to the logical nature of the head and the tail of the conditional right can be implemented by combining PAL with some features of linear logic within the same theory of meaning. (shrink)

In questo volume sono raccolti gli scritti frutto della ricerca effettuata nell’ambito del Progetto: “Ontologia Formale e Ontologie: uno Strumento per il Dialogo Interdisciplinare e Interculturale”. Scopo del progetto è mostrare al pubblico intellettuale italiano, sia di estrazione scientifica che umanistica, le potenzialità dello strumento dell’ontologia in generale, e dell’ontologia formale in particolare, per il dialogo costruttivo interdisciplinare e interculturale. Dialogo interdisciplinare per il rapporto fra discipline scientifiche e umanistiche, dialogo interculturale per il rapporto fra le diverse culture e religioni (...) in una società globalizzata. (shrink)

In her book Fiction and Metaphysics (1999) Amie Thomasson, influenced by the work of Roman Ingarden, develops a phenomenological approach to fictional entities in order to explain how non-fictional entities can be referred to intrafictionally and transfictionally, for example in the context of literary interpretation. As our starting point we take Thomasson’s realist theory of literary fictional objects, according to which such objects actually exist, albeit as abstract and artifactual entities. Thomasson’s approach relies heavily on the notion of ontological dependence, (...) but its precise semantics has not yet been developed. Moreover, the modal approach to the notion of ontological dependence underlying the Artifactual Theory has recently been contested by several scholars. The main aims of this paper are (i) to develop a semantic approach to the notion of ontological dependence in the context of the Artifactual Theory of fiction, and in so doing bridge a number of philosophical and logical gaps; (ii) to generalize Thomasson’s categorial theory of ontological dependence by reconstructing ontological categories of entities purely in terms of different structures of ontological dependence, rather than in terms of the basic kinds of entities the categorical entities depend on. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to offer a solution compatible with Graham Priest’s Noneism and Amie Thomasson’s Artifactual theory which stresses the epistemic features of the notion of individuality in fiction in a framework where individuals are conceived of as functions (the framework is known as the world-lines-semantics of Hintikka). According to our view, it is the endorsement of a reader’s perspective that extends the range of the values of the functions (individuals) and that offers an alternative solution (...) to cases of identity inside and outside the scope of a fictionality (or representation) operator. More technically, this proposal can be seen as both extending the notion of individuality of the Artifactual theory and furnishing an epistemic twist to Priest’s principle of freedom. (shrink)

The Talking-Tree or Palaver Tree is a designated location in many African traditions where the community comes together to discuss, in a peaceful and constructive manner, issues of common interest. It is conceived as an open gathering space of interactive communication led by the stance that finding a compromise or common solution is the best way to consolidate a community. At times, the interchange taking place at a Talking-Tree may also transform into conflict management. Conflict management unfolds into several specific (...) patterns of argumentation including those that aim at deciding if some given accusation is justified or not. The main aim of this chapter is to study, within the Baule tradition of Talking-Tree debates involving accusations of wrongdoing, the meaning explanation underlying proverbs, which constitute the most fundamental elements of these debates. More precisely our study, based on a pragmatic approach to meaning, will focus on the distinction drawn by linguist Kouadio between ascertainment, logical and moral Baule proverbs by distinguishing their different role in a Talking-Tree debate. One of the main results of our approach is that it makes it patent that drawing a conclusion from a Talking-Tree debate is grounded on contentual functional links, rather than on the analysis of logical constants. This research should set the basis for a larger epistemological research on the structure of argumentation patterns born and developed in Africa, where meaning and knowledge are constituted during dialogical interaction. The dialogical system underlying such form of argumentation, that we call Dialogues of functional reasoning by proverbs, we think provides a general instrument for the study of patterns of argumentation beyond the African tradition. (shrink)

With the advancement of scientific collaboration in the 20th century, researchers started collaborating in many research areas. Researchers and scientists no longer remain solitary individuals; instead, they collaborate to advance fundamental understandings of research topics. Various bibliometric methods are used to quantify the scientific collaboration among researchers and scientific communities. Among these different bibliometric methods, the co-authorship method is one of the most verifiable methods to quantify or analyze scientific collaboration. In this research, the initial study has been conducted to (...) analyze interdisciplinary research activities in the computer science domain. The ACM has classified the computer science fields. We selected the Journal of Universal Computer Science for experimentation purposes. The J.UCS is the first Journal of Computer Science that addresses a complete ACM topic. Using J.UCS data, the co-authorship network of the researcher up to the 2nd level was developed. Then the co-authorship network was analyzed to find interdisciplinary among scientific communities. Additionally, the results are also visualized to comprehend the interdisciplinary among the ACM categories. A whole working web-based system has been developed, and a forced directed graph technique has been implemented to understand IDR trends in ACM categories. Finally, the IDR values between the categories are computed to quantify the collaboration trends among the ACM categories. It was found that “Artificial Intelligence” and “Information Storage and Retrieval”, “Natural Language Processing and Information Storage and Retrieval”, and “Human-Computer Interface” and “Database Applications” were found the most overlapping areas by acquiring an IDR score of 0.879, 0.711, and 0.663, respectively. (shrink)

Despite the significant amount of debate that Merleau-Ponty’s work has seen over the years, it remains an unresolved issue whether his phenomenology offers what he announces as a ‘new definition of the a priori’. In this paper, I make a case in favor of his claim by clarifying his commitments to the a priori against two dominant lines of interpretation, naturalist and Kantian. I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s view that the sciences themselves rely on the a priori method of Wesensschau establishes (...) his basic commitment to apriority. At the same time, Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of the a priori differs in important respects from the Kantian a priori and its transcendental idealist ramifications because, on his view, the subject is not the unique ground of constitution. Having tackled these obstacles to understanding Merleau-Ponty’s commitments to the a priori, I argue in light of his conception of ‘radical reflection’ that rather than being a static element of experience, the a priori stands in a dynamic relation with the a posteriori as a distinctive way of articulating structures of lived experience. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the underlying mechanism of the relationship between perceived green human resource management and perceived employee green behavior. By drawing on attitude and social exchange theories, we examined green commitment as a mediator and green knowledge sharing as a moderator of the GHRM–EGB relationship. The study employs partial least square structural equation modeling to analyze 329 responses. Data were collected in two time lags. The empirical results confirmed that GC mediates the relationship between GHRM and EGB. (...) However, the study results found that GKS moderated the indirect influence of GHRM on green behavior via GC. This research signifies the effect of GHRM, GKS, GC, and green behavior on organizations’ sustainability and environmental management. Despite the emerging literature on the significance of green practices in organizations for environmental management, no study has examined the moderating role of GKS on the indirect effect of GHRM on green behavior via mediating role of GC. This study offers valuable insight into environmental management in organizations through green practices and green behavior. (shrink)

We now move to the demonstration of the left-to-right direction of the equivalence result. Let us assume that there is a winning $$\mathbf {P}$$ P -strategy in the dialogical game for $$\varphi $$ φ.

Contemporary accounts of evil attempt to identify features or properties that transform an act of wrongdoing into an act of evil. What is missing from the discussion, however, is a phenomenology of evil that engages with the standpoint of the subject that undergoes evil. This paper discusses basic themes for a phenomenology of evil through a critical comparison between Hannah Arendt and Jean Améry’s respective conceptions of evil. Central for this discussion is a claim Arendt and Améry share: evil destroys (...) subjectivity and undermines trust in the world. Furthermore, both argue that the perpetrators of evil inhabit a distorted moral framework. They differ, however, insofar as Améry foregrounds the subject that undergoes evil, a standpoint that remains tacit in Arendt’s account. Recounting his torture by the Gestapo, Améry reveals how embodied subjects experiences evil and how it is in light of these experiences that perpetrators of evil should be understood. (shrink)

In Ideen II Edmund Husserl delineates the three spheres which constitute the reality which human being is and this way introduces us to a different anthropologywhich is fruit of his phenomenological analysis. The tri-partite analysis of the human subjectivity, in Ideen II provides us with an anthropology which is a sound foundation for a new psychology (phenomenological psychology) where the analyses of the lived-experiences is an instrument to understand the psychic acts. Husserl after having known the psychology, a science of (...) the subjectivity and which is interrelated with the corporeality, proposes a psychology which is in connection with the nature and only in this connection it can be realized fully. In this way the concept of purely phenomenological psychology serves also to clarify what the fundamentally transcendental science i.e. transcendental phenomenology is. The phenomenologicaly transcendental psychology developed by Husserl is completely a new science of consciousness in respect to all the other historical forms of psychology and other sciences which study consciousness. As phenomenological psychology moves in its natural attitude towards the world (Welteinstellung), it has access to all the positive sciences and in this way it can be called science of all sciences. (shrink)

The ‘dignity and worth of the human person’ emphasised in international human rights instruments resonate strongly in relation to the world’s ageing population, which is projected to be the fastest growing population group in the world and often among the most vulnerable. While elderly persons as a group are heterogeneous and their socio-economic life situation varies significantly between individuals, the need for universal support mechanisms such as non-contributory old-age benefits have been recognised by many states, and currently, over 100 countries (...) around the world provide some form of social pension targeted towards the elderly populations. This article appraises a sample of these old-age pension schemes from the perspective of the right to social security, with particular emphasis on the dignity and worth of the human person as espoused within the international human rights regime. (shrink)