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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to establish the correlation between green technology, CSR, and financial sustainability in relation to sustainable entrepreneurship in the digital economy. The emphasis is made on the intermediary position of digital technology in promoting sustainable practices in the given business context. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses a quantitative method where the target population of 203 respondents is sampled from different industries. Self-administered questionnaires with structured and closed questions were used to collect the data and structural equation modelling analysis was applied. The findings reveal that green technology, CSR, and financial sustainability are correlated because digital technology acts as a moderator that enhances the effects of sustainability. Findings: Corporate social responsibility and financial sustainability are also critical in the formulation of sustainable business success. The mediating function of digital technology is illustrated in this case to demonstrate how organizations can enhance sustainability through better communication and operational effectiveness while using fewer resources. Implications/Originality/Value: This study contributes to the existing literature by revealing new perspectives on how firms can use digital technology to support environmentally friendly technologies and CSR to improve financial performance. The conclusion of the study indicates that firms which engage in sustainable business strategies facilitated by digital solutions are likely to be more viable in the long run. This research forms part of the ongoing literature on sustainable entrepreneurship.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine how artificial intelligence and digital transformation affect sustainable organisational performance with a particular emphasis on mediating role of digital leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach: The survey data from 245 employees employed in different industries and enterprises is considered. The data is collected through structured questionnaire and analysed with PLS-SEM. The study investigates the interrelationship between digital transformation, AI and sustainable organizational performance with mediating role that digital leadership. Findings: The conclusions of the study bring about the need for digital leadership in integrating sustainability and artificial intelligence. From this, it could be distinguished that combining digital leadership with AI is going to increase the performance and productivity of an organization. The integration of AI and digital leadership increased the capacity to innovate which in turn made an affirmative effect on sustainable organizational performance. Implications/Originality/Value: This study provides new perspectives towards the importance of AI and creative digital behaviors for the achievement of long-term sustainable organizational performance. It also follows that digital leadership can be viewed as a way to promote an innovative and sustainable culture, hence highlighting the mediation role of digital leadership.

Purpose: The objective of this research is to determine the impact of green manufacturing practices and digital transformation on firm performance, with a particular focus on the mediating role of green product innovation. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study conducted a survey of 212 employees from various businesses using a questionnaire-based method. The data is analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the connections between digital transformation, green manufacturing practices, and company performance. The study also investigated the intermediary function of green product innovation in these connections and offered valuable insights into how sustainable practices might enhance corporate performance. Findings: This research indicates that green product innovation plays a vital role in connecting these practices to improved company success. The results suggests that organisations that have used digital transformation technologies are more inclined to foster innovation in environmental friendly goods, so enhancing sustainability and subsequently improving performance. Implications/Originality/Value: The present research contributes to the existing understanding of the impact of digital transformation and green manufacturing techniques on enhancing company performance with a specific emphasis on sustainability. The importance of digital transformation and environmentally-conscious manufacturing methods in improving the sustainability of enterprises is emphasised.

Purpose: This study explores the intricate relationships between various corporate governance variables and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) as a proxy for the cost of equity for non-financial firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) during the period from 2011 to 2020. Design/Methodology/Approach: Employing a convenience sampling approach and fixed effects regression to account for unobserved heterogeneity, the research discerns both significant and non-significant associations, offering insights into the unique dynamics of the Pakistani financial landscape. Findings: Notable findings include direct and statistically significant association between BETA and CAPM, as well as the influential role of CEO duality. The Coefficient of Variation (CV), Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT), and governance-related factors like the governance index and insider ownership exhibit significant associations with CAPM. Conversely, board size, board independence, market-to-book ratio (MBR), and market debt ratio do not show statistically significant impacts on the cost of equity. Implications/Originality/Value These nuanced results contribute valuable insights for financial decision-makers and policymakers operating within the specific context of the PSX.

Purpose: This study assesses how perceived corporate social responsibility by employees’ functions as a mediator between organizational commitment and moral leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach: According to the social exchange theory, there is reciprocation between an employee and their employer, and how an employer conducts business shapes the perspective of its employees. Employees follow the same activities and behaviors that the corporation does. 348 front-line hotel employees in Pakistan provided the information. To test the data, structural equation modeling was used. Findings: The findings show that a leader's moral and ethical behavior influences how employees view a firm's CSR and how committed they are to the organization. Results exhibit that when workers witness their supervisors performing ethically, it affects their attitudes and makes them more dedicated to their businesses. Implications/Originality/Value: The study is distinctive in that by utilizing employee views of CSR as a mediator, the relationship between leadership and commitment was explored. The study has essential management and organizational ramifications, particularly for increasing employee engagement.

Purpose: The prevalence of crafting tasks in the workplace is rising in today's enterprises. Little is known about the underlying mechanisms of job crafting as of now. In this study, we examine how psychological capital plays a mediating role in the reciprocal relationship between job crafting and work engagement. Design/Methodology/Approach: The necessary information for the analysis was gathered from Pakistani higher education institution faculty members, with a sample size of 240 faculty members. To test these hypotheses, we employed SmartPLS. Findings: The study's conclusions show that psychological capital plays a role in mediating the reciprocal relationship between work engagement and job crafting. According to this study a person who is confident, hopeful, resilient, and self-efficient asks for more job resources and challenges at work. Implications/Originality/Value: By examining the reciprocal association between work engagement and job crafting behavior among Pakistani academic members, the study genuinely contributes in policy designing for employees who are more engaged at work and having high psychological capital are more motivated to craft their jobs at work.

Purpose: In accordance with the Washington Consensus, most developing countries were forced to privatize state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Corporatization and partial privatization emerged as two alternative possibilities for any government in circumstances where full privatization was not practicable. Pakistan followed suit and began the partial privatization and corporatization of SOEs working in its economy. This research examines whether Pakistan's corporatization or partial privatization policies have improved the profitability of these state-owned enterprises. Design/Methodology/Approach: If so, what variables contributed to this improvement in profitability, as measured by Return on Assets and Earnings per Share. The paper used data from 1990 to 2015 of thirteen SOEs, largely from the energy sector, that have been corporatized by partial privatization through stock market or other mechanisms. Findings: Results exhibit that the primary criteria strongly related with increased performance of corporatized SOEs, according to our findings, are the appointment of non-government directors by companies and persistently positive Gross Domestic Product of the economy. On the other hand, debt commitments, ownership, and size of an SOE are all weak or insignificant variables in determining whether an SOE should be corporatized. Implications/Originality/Value: Due to their strategic significance, the energy industry should continue to be governed and regulated by the government, but with a greater percentage of non-nominated members on their boards of directors to maintain corporate governance.

Purpose: Market bubbles and crashes remain unexplainable by classical finance theories. Because the history of the Pakistan Stock Exchange has been marked by occasional market bubbles and crashes, a behavioral study is conducted to investigate the impact of investor’s behavioral biases on investment performance. Design/Methodology/Approach: Our research investigates behavioral biases and examines the role of such biases in the selection of investment decision methods. We then investigate the direct impact of behavioral biases on investors' investment performance, as well as how investment analysis methods play a role in mediating the impact of behavioral biases on investment performance. We identified 11 irrational behavior biases based on existing literature and in-depth interviews with brokers, and two decision analysis methods are used: fundamental and technical. Findings: Our findings show that PSX investors exhibit moderately high levels of irrational behavior. Despite their moderately high level of irrationality, investors can use fundamental analysis to make better decisions and achieve better results. Since they use fundamental analysis method, they are boundedly rational rather than completely irrational. Implications/Originality/Value: The fundamental analysis does not fully mediate three determinants of irrationality, namely anchoring, control, and overconfidence. Individual investors and brokers are concerned about reducing the impact of these three biases in order to achieve optimal performance. Brokerage firms and fund managers are recommended to consider the behavioral aspects of investors to predict the future because behavioral factors of investors can not only shape the investment trend of individuals but also the market at large.

This study reported the returns to Human Capital in Pakistan. The main purpose of this study is to estimate the returns to human capital. In Pakistan, the level of output is dependent on manpower. Human Capital is a significant contributor in the way to betterment in the economic condition. In this study, time series data is used, and co-integration is applied for the empirical estimation. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), education, mortality, enrolment, unemployment, and age are the core variables of the research. Education has a positive impact on productivity. An increase in education level raises the female labor force participation in Pakistan. The presence of children decreases the early age participation in the labor market. The result shows that when the education level is increased, it boosts the economic activity, and the female labor force participation is the main reason that is increasing its likelihood. It is recommended that government should provide better facilities of education to enhance the female force participation in the labor market in the case of developing countries, by providing the best grades and tasks to the human beings both male and female, thus the level of returns by human capital utilization may increase.

This study intends to examine the nature & direction of relationship between stock market movements, particularly market decline, and its liquidity in 14 selected emerged and emerging economies (G8+5 and Pakistan) for January 2001 through December 2017 by applying Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds test and Granger-causality test. Trading value and turn over ratio are employed to measure market liquidity. Results of trading value Granger-causality test highlight the evidence of no causality in Germany & India. Bi-directional causality exists in Pakistan only. Uni-directional causality subsists only in Russia at 10% significance level from trading value to market return. However, from market return to trading value, results demonstrate the presence of uni-directional causality at 5% significance level for Brazil, Japan. Canada, China, France, Italy, UK, USA, South Africa and Mexico. Negative returns are used to represent the notion of market decline. The results exhibited by both proxies of liquidity demonstrate that two-way association exists between stock market decline and liquidity in the long term. Thus co-integration in long-run is suggested by ARDL bounds test at 1% significance level for all the emerging and emerged countries in the sample.

This study attempts to investigate the linkage of human resources management practices with customer satisfaction through intervening role of employee job satisfaction. The study also examined the moderating role of procedural justice between human resource management practices and job satisfaction. A conceptual model with four hypotheses was developed and two-source field data were collected from paramedical staff members and patients ( n = 228, dyads) working in the health care sector of Pakistan. Results indicate that full mediation where job satisfaction fully mediates between human resource management practices and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, moderated regression analysis also proved the significant moderating role of procedural justice between human resource practices and job satisfaction. The findings of the study provide useful insights to evaluate and improve human resource management practices for the wellbeing of the employees and to enhance the customer satisfaction.

The research paper entitled “Investor sentiments and trading volume’s asymmetric response: A non linear ARDL approach tested in PSX” is an attempt to investigate the dynamic linkages between trading volume and investor sentiments for Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) 100 index. Two sentiments indicators have been used to enlighten the linkages. These indicators are overconfidence and net optimism and pessimism. Trading volume has been used as a proxy for the measurement of market liquidity. Non-Linear Asymmetric Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) as well as Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) GARCH have been used to explain the dynamic linkages between trading volume and investor sentiments. Empirical findings suggested an asymmetric long-term market liquidity reaction to investor sentiment as well as upcoming three-year correlation have been forecasted between the trading volume and investor sentiments. In the short term, stock market liquidity reacts rapidly and asymmetrically to changes in overconfidence sentiment while the net optimism and pessimism sentiment have insignificant short-term impact on trading volume.

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance rules and regulations and financial leverage on the market value added in Pakistan. Market value added (MVA) is our dependent variable and corporate governance and financial leverage are our independent variables and examine their combined effect on the market value added. This study will help the Pakistani firms who are going to lever their firms and going to practicing the corporate governance rules and regulations. For this purpose we have taken the listed non-financial companies of Pakistan from 2006-2015 because they are actively practicing the corporate governance rules and regulations. The results indicate that the proxy variable of corporate governance which is board size also have the significant and negative impact on the MVA in Pakistan. Interest coverage ratio indicates that if the firm's ability to pay its interest expenses increases as results MVA also increases. Debt ratio is the proxy variable of financial leverage which is our next independent variable. By the help of our regression model we concluded that Debt also have the positive significant effect on the market value added on the firms in Pakistan. It means if a firm wants to increase their market value they should go for the debt instead of equity. Debt will help firms in Pakistan to increase their market value.

Due to the unprecedented happenings and dynamic conditions of international economic system, firms are always at the verge of bankruptcy no matter how sound they are, their sustainability is always in jeopardy. Besides, lenders are continuously raising red flags and giving consistent warnings about possible perils of corporate failure due to fragile economic conditions and increasing debt levels in both corporate and individual businesses these days. Hence there was an exigency to ‘develop indicators for monitoring long term progress and sustainability of companies. Thereof it would contribute in illustrating to business analysts, firm stakeholders about the relevance of embracing these active checks for predicting bankruptcy as a sustainable business practice. This created a bizarre cult to look into the matter seriously. For this there is no mantra, no clever feats, sure-fire quick strategies. Instead there are well-defined, simple, systematic and sophisticated models to assess sustainability of companies. Thus, to avoid the tide of massive/substantial corporate failure and any future catastrophe; there is a dire need to identify the most suitable and preeminent model that can truly forecast the likelihood of default ahead of time in given circumstances. And, mainstay of this study is to provide an answer of question in hand by comparing two most venerable model choices i.e. Altman’s Z-score and Z double prime (Z”).

This study examines the role of voluntary adoption of corporate governance mechanisms in mitigating the financial distress status of firms. Using the sample of 52 firms from non-financial sector listed at Karachi Stock Exchange and selecting time period of 10 years from 2006 to 2015, the study finds out the practices that are beneficial for firms and helps them in reducing the financial distress. Results of the study show that there is a negative significant relationship of blockholder ownership, director ownership and audit committee with the probability to financial distress. The causal relationship is also tested, and results show that voluntary adoption of corporate governance structures leads towards lower level of financial distress.

In the field of corporate finance the question as to whether dividend policy affects the shareholders wealth still remains unresolved. The objective of this research paper is to establish the impact of dividend policy on shareholders’ wealth and firm performance in Pakistan. The conduct of dividend policy has been one of the most debatable issues in literature of corporate finance. Numerous researchers have attempted to reveal issues with respect to the dividend policy, however, we still don’t have a worthy explanation regarding the behavior of dividend policy. The variables used in this research are dividend policy, shareholders wealth, and firm performance. Dividend per share and dividend yield are used to measure dividend policy. For shareholders wealth, earning per share and share price are used as proxies. Return on equity is used to measure firm performance. From the regression result, it is found out that dividend policy has positively significant impact on shareholders’ wealth and firm performance. This study supported dividend relevance theory, signaling effect theory, bird in hand theory and clientele-effect theory. The study commends the implementation of stable, effective, managed and target-oriented dividend policy by firm’s financial managers along with effective supervisory framework governed by capital market regulatory bodies to uplift firms’ performance and shareholders wealth in Pakistan. Furthermore, appropriate firm disclosure with respect to dividend payout and dividend per share is needed to guard the potential investors in making the right investment choices in listed firms.