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The purpose of this study is to comparatively analyze the effect of dividend policy on shareholders’ wealth in Shariah-compliant (SC) and noncompliant (NC) nonfinancial firms in Pakistan.

All the nonfinancial firms listed on the Pakistan stock exchange have been taken as a sample for 2016–2021. The Karachi Meezan index screening criteria were applied to screen SC firms. Based on the BPLM and Hausman test results, the authors used the fixed-effect and pooled OLS model for SC and NC firms, respectively. The F-test was used to compare the effect of each dividend policy variable on shareholders’ wealth for both firm types.

The findings reveal that the dividend policy does affect the shareholders’ wealth in both firm types. Dividend per share (DPS), dividend yield (DY) and earnings per share significantly affect the shareholders’ wealth in SC firms. For NC firms, the dividend payout, DPS and DY are critical. Moreover, the F-test results show that the DPS, DY and leverage effect on the shareholders’ wealth significantly differ for both firm types.

This study fills the research gap in the Pakistani context specifically as well as globally by providing important insights into the relationship between a firm’s dividend policy and shareholders’ wealth for SC and NC firms. In addition, this study comprehensively compares the results for both firm types, which is also lacking in the existing literature. Because this study is based in Pakistan, the generalizability of the results would be limited.

The findings of this study are helpful for the management of SC and NC firms in devising their dividend policies that can maximize their shareholders’ wealth. This study also provides guidance and knowledge to investors in choosing companies for their investments that can maximize their wealth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the relationship between dividend policy and shareholders’ wealth for SC firms in Pakistan. It is also the first study that comprehensively compares the dividend policy relationship with shareholders’ wealth for SC and NC firms. In addition, using the F-test for joint hypotheses to compare the specific effect of each dividend policy variable is a methodological contribution of the study.

This study aims to compare capital structure determinants' effect on the leverage levels of Shariah-compliant (SC) and noncompliant (NC) firms in Pakistan. This study also estimates and compares the capital structure adjustment speed for both firm types.

Based on the Karachi Meezan Index screening criterion, a balanced panel of 117 SC and 68 NC firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2018 was constituted. This study used the generalized method of moments to identify the significant determinants of capital structure and estimate the speed of adjustment. In addition, the F-test was used to check whether the effect of the determinants on the leverage is same for SC and non-SC firms.

The authors found that different determinants affect both firm types' leverage levels (book and market) differently. The authors also found that the adjustment speed of SC firms toward their target leverage ratio is slower than their NC peers. Lastly, significant variation was observed in the results under different screening criteria.

This study fills the literature gap by providing a comprehensive comparison of the capital structure decisions of the SC and non-SC firms. Because this study is limited to Pakistan, generalizability would be an issue.

This study will guide the management of SC and non-SC firms about which factors are reliably important in choosing their capital structure. The findings also call for bringing harmony in the different Shariah screening criteria being in practice.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comparative study that identifies the significant capital structure determinants for SC and NC firms and investigates their effect on the leverage of both firm types. By testing joint hypotheses of same relationship, this study seeks to determine if, because of Shariah restrictions, the capital structure determinants of SC firms are similar to NC firms or they exhibit different behavior. The authors also repeat their analysis using other prominent screening criteria to assess the consistency of their results.

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the importance of leadership education, undergraduate leadership degree programs in Canada are limited and, in some cases, struggling for survival. This case study examines the ways in which competing discourses of careerism, postsecondary corporatization, liberal arts education, and business education impact an undergraduate leadership program’s sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the non-linear association between trade credit and profitability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, this paper analyses whether the above relationship varies according to financial constraints of SMEs.

The authors use panel data methodology to conduct investigations for a sample of 1,509 non-financial listed SMEs from nine countries or territories located in the East Asia and Pacific region, namely, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, over the period from 2010 to 2016.

This study indicates that trade credit receivable (TCR) and trade credit payable (TCP) have an inverted U-shaped relationship with SMEs’ profitability, which implies the existence of an optimal trade credit level that balances between costs and benefits to maximize their profitability. This result suggests that managers should try to keep the level of trade credit investment as close to the optimal point as possible to avoid the case that their profitability reduces when they move away from this point. Moreover, this study also finds that the optimal trade credit level is sensitive to the financial constraints of SMEs. In particular, optimal level of more financially constrained firms is lower than that of less financially constrained firms.

A number of contributions that this study makes to the existing literature are presented as follows. First, the paper takes account of the possible presence of a concave relationship between trade credit and SMEs’ profitability, largely ignored by the existing empirical literature. Second, it demonstrates this association in terms of both aspects of trade credit, including TCR and TCP. Third, the study investigates the effect of the different level of financial constraints faced by SMEs on the relationship between trade credit and their profitability.

This study seeks to examine self‐perceived entrepreneurial problems and prospects in a post‐war scenario. It aims to present a holistic and historical account of Afghan graduates and their ability to transform into educated entrepreneurs. The study further aims to highlight entrepreneurial characteristics of the Afghans and link them to the unique livelihood strategies they adopt.

Given a lack of archival data, this study relies on semi‐structured interviews and historical data from different sources. The findings are mainly based on life narratives of graduate entrepreneurs in different sectors. Descriptive questions about entrepreneurial problems and prospects in the post‐war era were asked.

Long wars and internal turmoil have pushed both educated and uneducated Afghans into entrepreneurship. The study finds that entrepreneurs rank entrepreneurial characteristics as major prospects available while adverse security conditions and widespread corruption are the major problems faced. The problems discourage them from entering a formal business domain. Despite emerging opportunities such as niche markets, entrepreneurial problems outweigh the prospects.

This research has implications for entrepreneurship educationists and policy‐makers. Economic growth can be made possible only when entrepreneurial problems are replaced with prospects. Afghan graduates could then serve as entrepreneurial drivers for real economic growth. Moreover, this strategy of entrepreneurialism may help in reducing extremist tendencies in the long run.

The study provides evidence of the effectiveness of the long entrepreneurial struggle of university graduates in war‐like conditions. Entrepreneurs' motivations suggest developing a viable entrepreneurship‐education program in the future.

Islamic banking as a financial institution has always been proclaimed to be different from conventional banking systems. This is mainly due to the prohibition of interest and emphasis on achieving social economic responsibility in society. However, in practice, Islamic banking practices in the UK seem to be far away from its paradigm version. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate user perceptions of Islamic banking practices in the UK.

To explore the understandings and perceptions of customers about Islamic banking practices in the UK an online questionnaire survey is used as the research approach in this study. The survey was conducted through a closed‐ended structured questionnaire.

The overall findings of this study suggest that Islamic banking in the UK is not fully aligned with the paradigm version of Islamic finance. The respondents generally agree with the view that the principle of profit and loss sharing element represents the true spirit of Islamic banking practices, however, due to the complex nature of Islamic banking products, they are unsure about the full benefits of this system. There is a high expectation among the respondents about the commitment and strong welfare role of Islamic banks in society. It is therefore suggested that through research, effective marketing and generating more awareness in users about Islamic finance, it is possible to achieve more from the Islamic banking paradigm.

This study is not only relevant to Muslims, but also to the banking regulators in the UK, as many conventional banks are now offering Islamic products and services alongside their routine interest‐based transactions. Hence there is a need for the regulators to understand the real nature of such practices by both the Islamic and conventional banks and establish a uniform regulation so that users are not ill‐treated by banks in the UK.

The purpose of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) is producing ultra-fine grain materials. In practical applications, it is important to understand and predict effect of different process parameters on deformed parts. One of the most important process parameters is friction coefficient. Behavior evaluation of different lubricants in the ECAP process is the aim of this research.

The present study concerns the experimental measurements of the effective strain by means of gridded parts for three different lubricants, graphite, molybdenum disulfide and zinc stearate, to evaluate friction coefficient in ECAP process. Mesh size was 2 × 2 mm² and embedded in parts made of AL2024; process was done in ambient temperature, and parts were in annealed situation. After the process, strain measured by optical and analytical methods for evaluation of lubricants’ behavior with different friction coefficients.

This study shows that zinc stearate has better effects rather than other lubricants in ECAP process and ECAPed parts.

The fatal challenge for researchers and industrial applications of ECAP process is lubrication. This research is a guide for scientists and engineers (in the future applications) to reduce and control bad frictional effects, produce better parts (more strain homogenous parts), prevent die failures and decrease press tonnage in ECAP process.