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This study aims to investigate the impact of dividend policy on a firm’s participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related activities in the context of Pakistani firms. Furthermore, the role of the board governance mechanism in dividend policy-CSR is investigated.

The study’s sample consists of 115 nonfinancial Pakistan Stock Exchange-listed firms from 2010 to 2021. A multidimensional financial method is used to assess the firm’s CSR engagement, and dividend policy is assessed using the dividend payout ratio and dividend yield. The authors used the fixed effect model and the random effect model to fulfill the study’s objectives. Furthermore, the system-generalized method of moment estimation technique is used to test the robustness of the result. In addition, the authors perform reverse causality analysis and investigate the effect of financial constraints on the dividend policy–CSR relationship.

The authors find that dividend policy has a significant positive impact on CSR. The authors also find that dividend policy is significantly positively associated with components of CSR, i.e. donation, employee welfare and research and development. Furthermore, the authors find that the board governance mechanism strengthens this positive relationship between dividend policy and CSR.

The government and authorities must mandate or at least encourage enterprises to pay dividends as doing so not only keeps shareholders happy but also encourages firms to make CSR initiatives to balance stakeholders. Furthermore, the regulator should take steps to strengthen the board governance structure as it strengthens the positive dividend policy–CSR relationship.

Although little previous research has focused on the CSR-dividend policy link, the authors believe that this is the first study to look at the influence of dividend policy on CSR and the moderating impact of board governance mechanisms in an emerging country, namely, Pakistan.

The authors examine the impact of asymmetric information on firm's financing decisions, the feedback effect of changes in capital structure on the level of asymmetric information, and the speed of adjustments in capital structure on its target leverage.

The authors extract the data on 280 non-financial firms listed in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from the DataStream. The authors implement the generalized method of moments (GMM), complemented by the fixed effect model (FEM) to estimate the model coefficients.

The authors find that asymmetric information significantly affects the financing decisions; and that on average, firms adjust 26% of the total debt toward their target capital structure. The negative effect from the difference between the observed and target changes in leverage on asymmetric information confirms that capital structure changes act as a signal for future profitability and helps the management to lower its level of asymmetric information.

The findings offer fresh insight into the effect of asymmetric information on financing decisions, as well as the speed of adjustment of capital structure toward its target leverage, in the context of the firms working in emerging markets like Pakistan. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of asymmetric information on financing decisions that incorporate firm's age, size and the global financial crises 2007–2008. The authors construct an asymmetric information index using both accounting and finance measures of asymmetry.

Introduction: In the context of Sri Lanka, this study compares how institutions and financial development (FD) affect economic growth (EG) and inclusive growth (IG).

Purpose: The well-structured administration and judicial system at the provincial level have been established against the socioeconomic vulnerabilities in the country for an extended period. Still, the country as a whole and provincial level is experiencing huge income and social inequality, though there are required provisions for enhancing the well-being of the people.

Methodology: The study consists of data from the nine provinces from 2013 to 2019. The analysis used the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model (D-SDM) to explore the spatial dependencies between the provinces. Two models were developed: the interaction of the financial service activities (FSA) and insurance, reinsurance, and pension (INPEN), representing the FD with the EG and IG with and without. The IG index was estimated by principal component analysis (PCA) using indicators of the four dimensions. The results indicated spatial dependency among FD’s interaction with EG when provincial tax (PROTAX) and provincial expenses (PROEXP) are the provincial institutions.

Findings: The IG model results showed the IG’s spatial dependency moderated by the FD and only the IG model between the provinces. PROEXP showed a significant positive spillover impact among provinces towards the IG.

Practical Implications: The finding inform economic policy making while identifying weaknesses in existing local governments. Attention must be given to how poverty can be reduced, enhancing the well-being of the people with the proper channelling of finance and government institutional mechanisms.

The term ‘fundamentalism’ has come of late into popular usage more than any other. It has been used for various Christian movements. During the twentieth century, the term came to be used in Christian–Protestant circles in an effort to define beliefs that are fundamental to Christian religion. The world that emerged after the Second World War saw the emergence of many former colonial and semi-colonial countries as independent nations. Their development caused ferment among the Muslim countries also. It took the form of a resurgence of fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism. During the last several decades, the Islamic revival that is sweeping from Morocco in the West to Mindanao in the Philippines is considered with some reason as a response to the predatory policies of Western imperialism. This was the reassertion and the response of the Muslims to the challenge of the West. This was the promise of the fundamentalist Muslims: self assertive Islamic nationalism and simplicity of argument in the hope of recapturing the pristine purity and political glory of Islam (Ahmad, 1991). The first Muslim to react against the alien accretions to Islamic society, not necessarily the result of external or foreign influence, was Shah Waliullah (1703–1762) who was almost a contemporary of Abdul Wahab (1703–1787) in Arabia. Both evolved from attempting to purge the Islamic society of foreign accretions to protesting oppression and corruption of Westernisation (Jansen, 1979). The fundamentalism today is different from that of the eighteenth century. It is not of much use to trace historical continuity in the fundamentalist ideology; although, this does not negate some linkages between Islam's past history and modern day fundamentalist movements (Ahmed, 1994).

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Customer-relations management (CRM) plays a critical role in enhancing business performance. Organizations can attain this goal by adopting customer-centric business strategies whereby representatives exploit IT capabilities to share knowledge with clients. This enables identification of products and services best suited to meet their requirements.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Telemedicine is delivered to patient anywhere during emergency treatment care, and medical information is transferred from one site of patient to another site of specialist doctors by using mobile internet communication. Some rural areas have slow internet speed because of weak internet signal propagation from mobile towers. A good design of antenna is needed to improve mobile internet speed for big medial data transmission in telemedicine application. Hence, this paper aims to propose economically low-cost design of antenna.

Telemedicine recommended to design the satellite frequency modulation dish (SAT FMD) antenna ( where in FM radio antenna, dish antenna are combined ) to improve the internet speed at Telemedicine system and Hospitals for purpose of Telemedicine communication and information for emergency treatment.

In the proposed system, designed SAT FMD satellite-based antenna improved internet speed is achieved at 90.6% accuracy in this research method. Finding latitude and longitude angles to identify the patient location, nearest hospitals location and finding distance, shortest path routing between patient and hospital. Finding elevation, Azimuth, latitude, longitude, skew for alignment dish to focus satellite and mobile cell tower to improve internet speed at telemedicine area and hospitals and reduced transmission delay and nodal delay of big medical data.

The social awareness among people can be shared information of accident patient to communicate Hospital and Ambulance driver by internet mobile app tools and help find nearest hospitals to emergency treatment for accident people.

This paper presents SAT FMD antenna model based on satellite dish antenna consisting of FM radio receiver antenna and dish antenna for telemedicine communication.

Gaining independence from fossil fuels and combating climate change are the main factors to increase the generation of electricity from renewable fuels. Amongst the renewable technologies, solar photovoltaic (PV) is believed to have the largest potential. However, the number of people adopting solar PV technologies is still relatively low. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the household consumers’ acceptance of solar PV technology being installed on their premises.

To examine the solar PV technology acceptance, this study uses technology acceptance model (TAM) as a reference framework. A survey was conducted to gather data and to validate the research model. Out of 780 questionnaires distributed across Malaysia, 663 were returned and validated.

The analysis revealed that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and attitude to use significantly influenced behavioural intention to use solar PV technology.

This study contributes by extending the understanding of public inclination towards the adoption of solar PV technology. Also, this study contributes in identifying the areas which need to be examined further. However, collecting data from urban peninsular Malaysian respondents only limits the generalization of the results.

On the policy front, this study reveals that governmental support is needed to trigger PV acceptance.

This paper uses TAM to analyse the uptake of solar PV technology in Malaysian context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections of agricultural productivity, access to credit and farm size in Africa using Ghana as a case study.

The paper employs mixed methods – quantitative and qualitative strategies for data collection and analyses. The hierarchical competitive model was used for the quantitative analyses supplemented with qualitative analyses using key informant interviews, focus group discussions and household case studies.

The results show that there is significant relationship between credit from formal and informal sources and agricultural productivity. Thus access to formal and informal credit increases farm household agricultural productivity by about 0.10 (p=0.05) and 0.45 (p < 0.01), respectively. The quadratic terms of formal and informal credit as well as farm size were found to significantly influence agricultural productivity. The implication of this is that the relationships between formal credit, informal credit and farm size on one hand and agricultural productivity on the other are non-linear in nature. The interactions of formal credit with informal credit; informal credit with farm size; and formal and informal credit with farm size have significant relationships with agricultural productivity. The amount of remittance received by farm households has negative and insignificant influence on agricultural productivity. Market access is also an insignificant determinant of agricultural productivity in Ghana.

This paper provides new insights on whether the scale of production (farm size as proxy) and access to financial services (credit as a proxy) matter in promoting agricultural productivity in Africa using Ghana as a case study. Thus the paper is of relevance to policy-makers and practitioners in Africa and Ghana in particular who are seeking to make informed policy decisions on effectively incorporating credit provision into the agricultural transformation agenda of the continent.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of Malaysia's renewable capacity target. Malaysia relies heavily on fossil fuels for electricity generation. To diversify the fuel-mix, a technology-specific target has been set by the government in 2010. Considering the complexity in generation expansion, there is a dire need for an assessment model that can evaluate policy in a feedback fashion. The study also aims to expand policy evaluation literature in electricity domain by taking a dynamic systems approach.

System dynamics modelling and simulation approach is used in this study. The model variables, selected from literature, are constituted into casual loop diagram. Later, a stock and flow diagram is developed by integrating planning, construction, operation, and decision making sub-models. The dynamic interactions between the sub-sectors are analysed based on the short-, medium- and long-term policy targets.

Annual capacity constructions fail to achieve short-, medium- and long-term targets. However, the difference in operational capacity and medium- and long-term target are small. In terms of technology, solar photovoltaic (PV) attains the highest level of capacity followed by biomass.

While financial calculations are crucial for capacity expansion decisions, currently they are not being modelled; this study primarily focuses on system delays and exogenous components only.

A useful model that offers regulators and investors insights on system characteristics and policy targets simultaneously.

This paper provides a model for evaluating policy for renewable capacity expansion development in a dynamic context, for Malaysia.

The paper seeks to document attitudes and patterns of behavior in Pakistan's criminal justice system over the past 30 years.

A conceptual discussion and approach are taken following extensive interviews, conducted in 1992‐1993, with members of the police, judges, civil service bureaucrats, torture victims, psychiatrists, political detainees, criminal lawyers and others.

The patterns of behavior are longstanding and deeply rooted despite periodical changes in political leadership. Cynicism about law enforcement is widespread throughout the country and much crime goes unreported as a result. There is a lack of faith and support for police officials and legal safeguards for criminal suspects are often ignored.

The conditions in Pakistan's criminal justice system are explained theoretically with reference to the concept of hegemony in Pakistan's prevailing political culture.