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Organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) is vital for manufacturing firms' ability to improve their triple bottom line (TBL) performance. This study's objective was to examine the direct relationship between three OCBE key dimensions, i.e. eco-initiatives (EIs), eco-civic-initiatives and eco-helping (EH) and TBL performance, i.e. economic (ECOP), social (SOP) and environmental (ENP).

The quantitative design was used based on the positivist approach. A sample of 350 manufacturing firms was targeted using random probability sampling via a survey questionnaire. The data were analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique employing AMOS 24 software.

Research findings confirmed a significant direct positive relationship between components of OCBE, i.e. EIs, eco-civic- initiatives and EH and TBL performance within ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

This research presents vital implications for both managers and organizations. The findings revealed that the three OCBE key dimensions, i.e. (EIs, eco-civic-initiatives and EH) are essential for enhancing TBL performance (ECOP, SOP and ENP), respectively. Manufacturing firms should modify the traditional OCB toward pro-environmental OCBE to improve TBL performance.

This research focuses on the impact of OCBE key types, i.e. EIs, eco-civic-initiatives and EH on TBL performance (ECOP, ENP and SOP) dimensions among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

Organizations worldwide are integrating sustainability into their operations to reduce the damage they do to the environment and to earn a better reputation in society. Scholars have acknowledged the role of environmental transformational leadership (ETL) in creating pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). The manufacturing sector has shown interest in accepting an environmental management system (EMS) and fostering a mechanism for what is called perceived support organizational support for the environment (POSE). Voluntary PEBs taking the form of organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment (OCBE) increasingly interests researchers because it is important for the success of the EMS in the manufacturing sector. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of the EMS and POSE in the relationship between ETL and OCBE within ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

A quantitative design was used based on a positivist approach. The data of 216 manufacturing firms were targeted using random probability sampling via a survey questionnaire. Later, the data were analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) method using the SmartPLS 3.3.3 software.

Research findings confirmed a significant direct positive relationship between ETL and OCBE. Also, they confirmed the mediating role of the EMS and POSE in the relationship between ETL and OCBE among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

This research has vital ramifications for both managers and organizations. Manufacturing firms should modify the traditional OCB towards pro-environmental OCBE using key antecedents, e.g. ETL, EMS and POSE.

The study analyzed the impact of ETL on OCBE through the mediating role of PSOE and the EMS. Here the focus is on the impact of OCBE key antecedents, i.e. ETL, EMS and POSE in predicting OCBE among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

Entrepreneurship is a vital source of job creation and a key driver in promoting economic growth. The Malaysian government encourages higher educational institutions (HEIs) to develop more competitive and innovative graduates for the economy so that Malaysia achieves high-income nation status by 2025. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of attitude toward entrepreneurship (ATE) in the relationship between key psychological factors, that is, subjective norm (SN), perceived behavior control (PBC), big-five (BF) personality traits, entrepreneurial motivation (EM) and educational factors (EFs) with entrepreneurial intention (EI) among Malaysian university students.

This study used a quantitative design based on a positivist approach. The adopted questionnaire was used as the survey instrument. The primary data were collected from a sample of 251 final-year students in the management field who were enrolled in research-intensive Malaysian universities. Data were analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique using AMOS 24 software.

Findings confirmed that the BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN, ATE and EFs were positively related to EI. Furthermore, ATE mediated the relationship between BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN, EF, and EI among Malaysian university students.

This research provides critical insights into the key antecedents, for example, psychological and EFs, in explaining the EI of university students and future graduates. However, results can only be generalized to research-intensive Malaysian universities.

This study investigated the relationship between psychological factors, that is, BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN and EFs in predicting EI of Malaysian university students. ATE mediated the relationship between BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN, EF and EI among these students.

Human Resource Management Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior.

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate and MBA/MSc level.

This case illustrates the application of green human resource management (HRM) practices that are inevitable for Malaysian manufacturing firms to mitigate the imbalance between economic and environmental performance. Over the past 12 years, the environmental performance has significantly declined based on data reported by environmental performance index (EPI). This dramatic decline has caused imbalance between economic and environmental performance impacting sustainability of Malaysian manufacturing firms. Among the challenges faced by many manufacturing firms are lacking environmental control, inability to understand and apply green HRM practices, aligning green HRM strategy to firm’s strategy and environmental objectives, educating its existing employees on green HRM, measuring the outcomes of green HRM practices, and changing the existing traditional HRM practices to green HRM practices. This case sheds light on the implication of ISO14001 certification among Malaysian manufacturing firms registered with Federation of Manufacturing Malaysia (FMM) 2015 in addressing this issue.

This case illustrates the following:

• The application of green HRM practices and how it can improve sustainable performance among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

• The need for adopting ISO14001 certification as the integral part in addressing sustainability issues and in improving firm’s performance.

• The integration of both green HRM practices and ISO14001 certification helps manufacturing firms to minimize the imbalance between economic and environmental performance and to improve overall sustainable performance.

The application of green HRM practices and how it can improve sustainable performance among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

The need for adopting ISO14001 certification as the integral part in addressing sustainability issues and in improving firm’s performance.

The integration of both green HRM practices and ISO14001 certification helps manufacturing firms to minimize the imbalance between economic and environmental performance and to improve overall sustainable performance.

The initial policy of the countries that developed vaccines has been to lock the vaccine by patent. This has been due to the fact that domestic demand for vaccine was mounting. Since only a few countries could invest in it, manufacturing and export remained at the behest of those few resulting in deep inequity in the global rollout. Pandemics are global health crises. Hence, calls for the patent waiver for the COVID-19 vaccine are growing to access the vaccine. The vaccine and its production, marketing and distribution have been politicized driven by the hegemonic aspiration. Both manufacturing and import-dependent countries are racing to win the diplomatic battle: the former has to win to gain hegemony and the latter to get the vaccine. Hence, the vaccine distribution has been marked with deep discrimination, and as a result, the migrant community is less likely to get their vaccine on time. This article engages in the decades-long debate over intellectual property rights and patenting life-saving vaccines. We argue that exemption of COVID-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights would improve global access and equity.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on schools and schoolchildren across the globe. There is still a dearth of studies that investigate this recent phenomenon in a developing country context, and this is true of Pakistan. Much of the population in Pakistan resides in rural settings and a lack of technology and of online provision of teaching for more than one year must have had huge negative impacts on students’ learning. The school dropout rate was already high in rural settings (Geven & Hasan, 2020) and, with school closures, this will likely have increased further, and cause some schoolchildren to lose interest in going back to school. However, no current data appear to exist to corroborate this. Due to the lack of available current quantitative and qualitative data, this study seeks to explore the impact of COVID-19 on schoolchildren’s education in Pakistan by examining recently published related studies. This study employs a literature review technique that gathers data to ascertain the potential overall impact on schoolchildren during the pandemic. The findings reveal that there remains a lack of detailed studies on this important topic and that urgent attention is needed from researchers to assess the scale of the impact. In addition, the review found that many children from rural communities had little to no school engagement due to technology poverty and their families being unable to support home-schooling, either due to family and/or work constraints or a lack of prior education and/or skills. Themes that emerged were that families, especially mothers, struggled to balance both caring and home-schooling duties, pupils from private schools had a better experience than those from public school backgrounds, and many of these reported that online provisions helped students develop new skills. This study may help to improve the understanding of the impact on the lost learning of schoolchildren during the pandemic by guiding practitioners as well as policymakers.

The study hypothesized that the impact of board diversity on financial distress (FD) is not direct but rather mediated by the firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of CSR as a mediator in the board diversity–FD relationship.

The study examined six board diversity dimensions – age, gender, nationality, education and tenure in 81 nonfinancial Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)-listed firms from 2010 to 2021. The CSR engagement of the sample firms is evaluated using a multidimensional financial approach and the likelihood of FD is computed using Altman’s Z-score. The system-generalized method of moments estimator is used to meet the study objectives. In addition, several tests are run to determine the robustness of the study’s findings.

Based on the procedure for mediation analysis outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986), the authors found that CSR is significantly inversely associated with the likelihood of FD. Second, board diversity variables age, gender and national diversity were positively associated with CSR. Third, board age, gender and national diversity are significantly inversely related to FD. Finally, it was found that there is partial mediation between board age diversity and FD, whereas full mediation is shown between board age diversity and FD and between board nationality diversity and FD.

This study provides practical insights into PSX’s board diversity for companies, regulators and policymakers.

This research studies the connection between board diversity and FD. In addition, the current study extended the analysis by testing for the first time the mediating role of CSR in the diversity–distress relationship, particularly in the context of an emerging economy.

This study aims to synthesize the existing literature with insights gained from interviews conducted with regulatory experts. The objective is to analyse the challenges associated with incorporating cryptocurrencies into regulatory frameworks and to explore constraints in the regulatory institutionalization of cryptocurrencies.

The study methodology consists of two steps. The first step is to identify regulatory constraints in the literature review and in the next step, interviews are conducted with officials of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The study used a qualitative case study methodology, in which a single case (regulatory constraint) was selected as a unit of analysis.

The findings show that lack of traceability, legal status, lack of governmental control due to decentralization, difficulty enforcing laws, volatility, lack of skills with regulators and difficulty integrating cryptocurrencies into the current financial system are the main obstacles to the introduction of a regulatory framework. Thus, on a broader conceptual level, the findings can be grouped into opportunism, lack of strategic capability and fragmented global laws.

This study could inform global cryptocurrency regulation discussions, sharing a developing country’s views on balancing the government, central banks, the financial sector and public interests. This could guide countries to consider cryptocurrency adoption in similar situations. This could affect the cryptocurrency market, impacting demand, supply and investor trust in Pakistan.

The study has implications for policy making officials. The research aims to offer valuable insights to the SBP and other regulatory authorities, helping them identify potential risks and create an effective regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.

The study has implications for society in knowing about the volatile nature of cryptos and anonymity of their issuers, which poses regulatory constraints. This then implies its harmfullness to its traders and the huge losses that may arise from their trading due to its volatile nature.

This study contributes to the literature on the constraints, responsibilities and consultation framework of cryptocurrency regulations.

Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) has caused revolutionary changes in various industries of South Asia, including financial services. Financial inclusion has been recognized as an important driver of economic growth. The combination of financial inclusion and the industrial revolution offers exceptional opportunities for business. The present chapter delves into the significance of financial inclusion within the framework of IR 4.0 in Asia and its potential to stimulate growth, innovation, and societal influence. It includes the discourse regarding challenges and opportunities for business in a new era of financial inclusion and the industrial revolution. Based on a thorough discussion, we give practical insights and best practices for businesses aiming to maximize the opportunities offered by financial inclusion in the era of IR 4.0. This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of Asia’s expanding financial inclusion landscape and empowers companies with the information and tools needed to prosper in this dynamic market.