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This study aims to examine the perceptions and opinions of relevant stakeholders regarding entrepreneurship opportunities and growth in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) province of Pakistan. Specifically, it focuses on the role of special economic zones (SEZs), such as Maqpondass SEZ and the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), in fostering nascent entrepreneurship (NE) and promoting regional development.

The study employs ordered logistic regression to estimate the relationship between various independent variables and nascent entrepreneurship (NE). The independent variables include awareness of CPEC (AAC), awareness of Maqpondass SEZ (AAMEZ), SEZ incentives (SEZInc), regional market competitiveness (RMC), loan availability (LA) and education and experience (EE).

The findings indicate a robust positive relationship between SEZ-based industries and the growth of local small businesses and enterprises in Gilgit-Baltistan. Furthermore, the study suggests that government incentives, access to finance, skill development, relevant knowledge, and connections with local businesses facilitate the establishment of new ventures.

The study underscores the importance of focusing on human capital development, providing financial assistance, and creating incentives for adopting advanced technology to foster the growth of local businesses in Gilgit-Baltistan through SEZs. It emphasizes the need for policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize initiatives that support entrepreneurship and innovation in the region.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing novel insights into the perceptions of entrepreneurship development in Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly concerning the influence of natural resources and SEZs. It fills a gap in the research by offering valuable implications for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners seeking to promote sustainable economic development in the region.

Drawing on the self-determination theory, this cross-cultural study aims to examine the associations between the dualistic framework of work passion and work outcomes (job satisfaction, job engagement and workaholism).

Using data from a time-lagged design with two-waves, service organizations employees of the UAE (n = 150) and Canada (n = 154) participated in the study. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to analyze the associations among the variables.

The study results support the harmonious and obsessive passion relationships with the identified work outcomes. In both the UAE and Canada, harmonious and obsessive passion predicted all three hypothesized work outcomes (workaholism, job satisfaction and job engagement). The study also acknowledged various culture-specific work passion effects.

The study encompasses the dichotomy of the work passion paradigm to compare between East and West. The examination of the work passion results offers a precise method to examine in what manner the two types of passion is linked to different work outcomes. Harmonious and obsessive passion is associated with negative (workaholism) and positive (job satisfaction and job engagement) outcomes. Accordingly, the findings strengthen the conceptual outline of the passion construct. Moreover, the research highlighted the importance of enriching the organization's environment with passionate human capital. This study shall help the decision-makers to formulate the suitable strategies to imbibe passion within the work culture.

This study contributes to the literature by being the first to compare the influence of harmonious and obsessive passion on work outcomes between the East and West cultures. Also, in this study, we draw upon the self-determination theory to investigate how work passion affects employees' work outcomes in a cross-cultural setting.

The present study investigated the influence of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial return using World Bank Governance indices.

This study analysed 84 IPOs listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange between 2000 and 2017 using cross-sectional data. The impact of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial returns was examined using ordinary least square, robust least square, stepwise least square and quantile regression.

Empirically, the values of political stability, government effectiveness and regulatory quality were positively significant, whereas rule of law and control of corruption were negatively significant in explaining the intensity of IPO initial return. The results also show the presence of significant risk in the market. Hence, investors were compensated with higher initial returns for weak country-level institutional quality. The results also reveal that improving country-level institutional quality would improve the financial market transparency, thereby reducing IPO initial returns.

No studies have been conducted regarding the influence of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial return in Pakistan. This study is a pioneering study that seeks to give insights into the link between these variables in the context of Pakistan.

The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2016 shows Pakistan as among the more corrupt nations in the world with a ranking of 117 among 176 countries surveyed. This situation raises concerns about members of the society and especially about the business communities. This paper aims to examine whether the tendency to corruption is also prevalent amongst business students, the future leaders and executives of business organizations.

The study uses survey questionnaires in the manner of Parsa and Lankford (1999) to examine the ethical levels of business students. It uses Levene’s (1960) tests for equality of variances and the t-test for equality of means to examine whether there are difference in the ethical perceptions between: bachelors (BBA) and graduate (MBA) students; business students who have taken the ethics course and those who have not; and female and male students. The authors also examine the overall ethical perceptions of business students.

The results show that students seem to make a clear distinction in respect of what they consider as acceptable and unacceptable ethical behavior. They would not indulge in behavior that directly falls within the category of stealing, misusing of company’s resources and undertaking actions that are wrong or dishonest, which may stem from their religious indoctrination. However, they would consider as acceptable behavior the overlooking of safety violations, not telling on peers; and fudging of the truth to get the job done. The latter attitude appears to be in line with business objectives of achieving targets irrespective of the means employed and that inform business education. We do not find any differences between the behavior of women and men which may be the outcome of the same religious indoctrination and educational perceptions. While there is a difference in the ethical perceptions between students who have taken the ethics course and those who have not, the course is not able to counter the lack of ethics among business students. There is a need for some stronger measures to inculcate a set of ethical values within students. However, we did find that some of the unethical behavior is diluted at the MBA level in comparison to BBA students.

This study provides new insights into the ethical perceptions of students in an Islamic emerging country. There is a conflict between ethics conveyed through Islamic precepts, and the ethics of business education with a focus on profits/revenues, costs, performance and competition that endorses a Machiavellian attitude of achieving goals at any cost and the love of money (Tang and Chen, 2008). It is the first study to suggest a differentiation in the ethical behavior of business students that exhibit both ethical and unethical behavior. There appears to be a clear segregation between what students deem as acceptable and unacceptable ethical behavior that may result from their personal/religious beliefs, and their business attitudes that strongly informs their ethical behavior. It provides a basis for developing more customized and effective ethics courses in Pakistan and suggests more importantly that ethics needs to be integrated into business concepts imparted in business programs at universities.

This study investigated the effect of pricing mechanism and oversubscription on the heterogeneity of investors' opinions on initial public offering (IPO) valuation.

Besides the ordinary least square method, this study incorporated robust least square, stepwise least square and quantile regression methods to investigate the aftermarket behaviour of investors using the price range on the first day of trading of 82 IPOs listed on the Pakistan stock exchange.

The aftermarket behaviour of investors was found to be significantly influenced by the pricing mechanism, oversubscription, financial leverage, political stability and the risk of IPO, whereas control of corruption showed an insignificant impact. Concurrently, the findings showed that pricing mechanism and oversubscription played a crucial role in determining the intensity of investors' heterogeneous opinions at high levels of significance.

Pricing mechanism and oversubscription not only signal the quality of IPOs but also provide an important means for reducing the information asymmetry associated with new listings. Based on the literature review, it was found that both the pricing mechanism and oversubscription have yet to be explored in investigating the aftermarket behaviour of investors using the price range in the Pakistan IPO market. This study suggests that book building pricing mechanism and oversubscription are associated with lower heterogeneity in investors’ opinions at a high level of significance.

Introduction: Healthcare facilities have witnessed deterioration, limited employee engagement, and communication gaps due to a lack of wireless technology. The Internet makes work and life quicker and more intelligent. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a scheme of interconnection equipped with unique identifiers in recent years. Artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT advancement allow employees to develop competent and predictive services and solutions in human resource (HR) practices. This chapter has been formulated to summarise and classify the existing research and better understand the past, present, and future of employee engagement by improving IoT interrelated devices in the healthcare industry.

Purpose: This study aims to categorise and overcome the challenges involved in HR practices. Effectively embracing IoT application-connected devices in the healthcare industry can enhance human resources management’s (HRM) role and measure performance assessment to improve employee engagement and productivity.

Methodology: In this study, the authors develop propositions dependent on a theory-based review. A systematic analysis was applied to minimise the challenges of HRM. The subject-related articles from different journal sources, like Scopus, Emerald, Web of Science, Springer, etc., were analysed based on engagement criteria. It was graphically recorded in a collective and informative way to emphasise the review outcomes. The study has presented the positive impacts of AI and IoT on engagement in health care.

Summary: This chapter accumulated theory-based knowledge about healthcare employee engagement and how IoT-based technology like AI can optimise employees’ engagement effectively. Further, it draws comparative benefits for a workforce to execute performance advancements and create future progressive aspects for healthcare employees.

This study aims to investigate the effect of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on initial public offering (IPO) underpricing in Pakistan.

Besides the ordinary least square’s method, this study used quantile least squares as a robust approach and stepwise regression for further analysis to investigate the underpricing phenomenon in Pakistan. Data of 84 IPOs listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange from January 2000 to December 2018 were collected to determine the impact of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on IPO underpricing.

Results of the study show that Shariah-compliant status has a negative relationship but Shariah regulation has a positive relationship with IPO underpricing. Hence, it is contended that Shariah-compliant firms have lower asset volatility and uncertainty than non-Shariah-compliant firms because of less information asymmetry, resulting in lower underpricing. These Shariah-compliant firms provide signals of high-quality IPOs as they must comply with the strict guidelines issued by the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan in addition to being considered as amicable by investors. Further, this study suggests that investors are more attracted to Shariah-compliant firms than non-Shariah-compliant ones.

This study’s offers limited consideration of nonfinancial and financial characteristics that could influence the decision of investors to subscribe to IPOs. Besides, future studies could consider the screening benchmarks; for instance, debt and cash may explain the intensity of IPO initial return in Pakistan.

The present work empirically investigated the influence of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on IPO underpricing in Pakistan’s IPO market, which has been scarcely covered in the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper was to examine whether or not the sponsor lock-up ratio, lock-up period, regulation changes and interaction variable (oversubscription [OSR]) affected initial public offering (IPO) initial return.

A complete sample of 111 listed IPOs in Pakistan stock exchange from 1996 to 2018 was incorporated. Based on the cross-section data, this paper estimated using ordinary least square and quantile least square for robustness. In addition to that, this paper estimated the data using stepwise least square to inspect the signalling aspect of the lock-up ratio, lock-up period and regulation changes on IPO initial return.

This study showed that the lock-up ratio, lock-up period and regulatory changes had a positive impact on the IPO’s initial return. Furthermore, the assertion of interaction variable (regulation changes × OSR) and (lock-up period × OSR) was a negatively significant factor in influencing the IPO’s initial return. The results of this paper were robust to endogeneity bias.

The finding of this study proposed that sponsors of IPOs can be a strong signal of risk or quality, which was consistent with the signalling theory prediction. Concurrently, investors must be aware of the total proportions of lock-up ratio so that they can estimate the chances of getting the highest initial return on IPOs. From the regulators’ point of view, it is suggested that the lock-up ratio and the lock-up period should be determined with a deeper understanding and incorporated into the equity guidelines as it is evident that these factors are priced by the market.

Studies on the effect of sponsors have always been centred on well-recognized firms. Therefore, using the IPO samples listed in Pakistan, this paper contributes to the IPO literature by investigating the lock-up ratio of the sponsor, the lock-up period and the regulatory changes to the initial IPO return. Additionally, OSR has been introduced as an interaction variable among the sponsors’ lock-up period and regulations changes to explain the ongoing IPO initial return phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to study haemodynamic flow characteristics and entropy analysis in a bifurcated artery system subjected to stenosis, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow and aneurysm conditions. The findings of this study offer significant insights into the intricate interplay encompassing electro-osmosis, MHD flow, microorganisms, Joule heating and the ternary hybrid nanofluid.

The governing equations are first non-dimensionalised, and subsequently, a coordinate transformation is used to regularise the irregular boundaries. The discretisation of the governing equations is accomplished by using the Crank–Nicolson scheme. Furthermore, the tri-diagonal matrix algorithm is applied to solve the resulting matrix arising from the discretisation.

The investigation reveals that the velocity profile experiences enhancement with an increase in the Debye–Hückel parameter, whereas the magnetic field parameter exhibits the opposite effect, reducing the velocity profile. A comparative study demonstrates the velocity distribution in Au-CuO hybrid nanofluid and Au-CuO-GO ternary hybrid nanofluid. The results indicate a notable enhancement in velocity for the ternary hybrid nanofluid compared to the hybrid nanofluids. Moreover, an increase in the Brinkmann number results in an augmentation in entropy generation.

This study investigates the flow characteristics and entropy analysis in a bifurcated artery system subjected to stenosis, MHD flow and aneurysm conditions. The governing equations are non-dimensionalised, and a coordinate transformation is applied to regularise the irregular boundaries. The Crank–Nicolson scheme is used to model blood flow in the presence of a ternary hybrid nanofluid (Au-CuO-GO/blood) within the arterial domain. The findings shed light on the complex interactions involving stenosis, MHD flow, aneurysms, Joule heating and the ternary hybrid nanofluid. The results indicate a decrease in the wall shear stress (WSS) profile with increasing stenosis size. The MHD effects are observed to influence the velocity distribution, as the velocity profile exhibits a declining nature with an increase in the Hartmann number. In addition, entropy generation increases with an enhancement in the Brinkmann number. This research contributes to understanding fluid dynamics and heat transfer mechanisms in bifurcated arteries, providing valuable insights for diagnosing and treating cardiovascular diseases.

Analysis of relationship between energy and growth offers the sustainable energy pathway for a country’s sustainable economic development. This study aims to focus on the evaluation of the Pakistan’s energy system using long-run energy alternative planning (LEAP) modeling framework through different growth scenarios.

Principal component analysis has been adopted for indicators index formation. Study period of 1980 to 2030 is covered by forward and backward simulations in LEAP software.

The study reveals that current energy policy does not have the potential to lead the country toward a desired goal of economic sustainability.

In falling off scenario, negative growth rate (-5 per cent) assumption is also debatable; LEAP shows an error in the analysis and takes the last positive available value for any further analysis as a default. This case could have been simply omitted from results but for research contribution, the computations for this case are also reported.

Long-range energy alternative planning model has been applied to answer the corresponding question for simulation period of 1980 to 2030 to better compare the past trend and future expectations. Critical analysis of four selected scenarios (BAU, moderate, advanced and falling off) indicate that energy policy of Pakistan is poorly managed to maintain energy system’s effectiveness.

As far as statistical difference is concerned, early years have more fluctuation; however, from 2009, curve flattens for energy consumption and energy demand. The increasing demand of energy impacts the society and hence disturbs all sectors.

Policymakers have been so dragged off from the main route to sustainability, despite all odds there is a huge unexplored potential in the country for use to move in step with the world for a better tomorrow. The study educates the policymakers to comprehend the future energy scenarios and make rational decisions based on the study outcomes.