Analyzing the women’s empowerment and food security nexus in rural areas of Azad Jammu & Kashmir,Pakistan: By giving consideration to sense of land entitlement and infrastructural facilities

A rich body of literature exists for explaining the role women play in ensuring their household’s food security; however, as far as their own food security is concerned, little attention has been given. Therefore, this research collects evidence on the relationship between women’s empowerment and their own food security (access) in the rural areas of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK). Data were collected from the households of 600 rural women. The results provide insights that the domains of legal rights, information and communication technologies (ICTs), social support and familial rights, can be a significant pathway for enhancing the food security of women as more bargaining power of women over the utilization of resources could result in a good quality of food choices and more expense on food items due to these rights. Besides, understanding food insecurity also requires considering gender norms as in this study, the infrastructural facilities and sense of land entitlement provide unexpected non-significant results. Though women help in the mounting necessities of their families, they are unable to enhance the food requirements for themselves due to restricted mobility and less economic opportunities. This is mainly due to the poor infrastructure, and more importantly, the lack of access to resources, especially land, because of lack of knowledge and self-confidence. Notably, the fear of conflict and domestic violence may also impede women from fighting for their rights, which results in poor access to food. Hence, by understanding the household makeup from women’s perspectives and customs, the findings from this study can help and guide policymakers in developing more appropriate strategies to improve the food security of women.     

How fashion cewebrity influences customer engagement behavior in emerging economy? Social network influence as moderator

Social media provides opportunities for individuals to become cewebrities by gaining fame via their presence on different platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. But, how cewebrities are engaging consumers is an under-developed research area that needs researchers' attention. Therefore, this research aims to determine the influence of fashion cewebrity on opinion leaders and customer engagement behaviors in the apparel fashion industry. Also, the moderating role of social networking influence in the relationship between opinion leadership and customer engagement is tested. The data was collected from 472 consumers following fashion cewebrities of five luxury apparel brands, and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The results confirmed the validity of the newly established scale of fashion cewebrity and endorsed the fashion cewebrity's impact on opinion leadership while opinion leadership mediates the fashion cewebrity – customer engagement behavior relationship. This study proposes that the managers should involve fashion cewebrities during all product development and promotion stages and establish collaboration to reap profit and create strong brand equity.     

Sustainability challenges in public health sector procurement: An application of interpretative structural modelling

Sustainable procurement is an integral part of public sector sustainability, but developing countries are far behind in this area. This study explores the internal and external challenges in Pakistan's public health sector that hamper sustainable procurement. With the help of experts, we found eleven key challenges that hamper sustainability in public health sector procurement. We designed an instrument and fielded it to eighty-five procurement officials in government hospitals, who verified the presence of the challenges in health sector. The interpretative structural modelling (ISM) we used to develop a hierarchy among the identified challenges reflects that government regulations and senior management's commitment—all strategic challenges—are the most critical challenges, whereas perceived ineffectiveness, third-party involvement, and the unavailability of green products—all operational challenges—are less critical. The study presents comprehensive recommendations to policymakers and future researchers related to achieving sustainable development goals in the health sector.     

Service multinational enterprises and linkages development in Pakistan

The development of various types of linkages is key to understanding the impact of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on the economic development of host markets. Using a qualitative research approach, we investigate the linkages created by IT MNEs in Pakistan. The findings suggest that these MNEs have created management, technological, diversification, and financial linkages, among others. Their creation is contingent and co‐determined by the MNEs' investment motives, their mandates, and embeddedness in the host market as well as the local technical capability. We highlight the contributions and implications of these linkages. Copyright © 2017 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Waste Not,Want Not: A Case Study on Food Waste in Restaurants of Lahore,Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Recently, there is growing focus on quantifying food waste problem and analyzing its causes due to an imminent challenge: feed nine billion people by 2050. Among developing countries, we focus on Pakistan which has the sixth largest population in the world and faces serious issues of food insecurity and malnourishment. Astoundingly, despite the gravity of the situation the available research on the issue is almost non-existent. Here, in this first-of-its-kind study for Pakistan we attempt to measure the quantum of food wastage and study its underlying reasons across restaurants in the country’s second largest urban center, Lahore, which is also popularly designated as “the culinary capital of Pakistan”. Segmenting restaurants according to the niche markets they target—as high-end, medium-end, and low-end—and using actual measures of daily wastage, we find overproduction and liability concerns as the prime reasons of excess food preparation and its improper disposal.     

Mean reverting financial leverage: theory and evidence from Pakistan

Grounding concepts of the two competing theories of capital structure (trade-off theory, pecking order theory) are quite opposite to each other. Trade-off theory claims that there is an optimal (target) capital structure and firms try to achieve that optimal (target) point. Whereas pecking order theory argues that there is no optimal (target) capital structure but the firms follow a specific pattern of financing. Using the two competing theoretic frameworks, this study applies Fisher-type panel unit root test to an unbalanced panel data of 13 115 firm-year observations of nonfinancial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange Pakistan spread over 38 years (1973–2010). Overall panel test results, for short-term, long-term, as well as total leverage support trade-off financing behaviour while individual firm results do not. Individual firm results show that only 16% of the firms have short-term target, 25% of the firms have long-term target and 12% of the firms have total target leverage ratio. Further, industry results explain that most of the industries do have target leverage ratios and classification of data into profitable and lossmaking firm-year observations explains that profitable firms clearly follow trade-off financing behaviour while the results for lossmaking firms do not support trade-off financing behaviour. Our study indicates that it is important for the government to ensure policies to develop well-balanced financial markets and to improve accountability systems.     

Mapping the obstacles to brownfield redevelopment adoption in developing economies: Pakistani Perspective

Brownfields located in urban centers are potential resources for urban development projects. In developed economies, brownfield redevelopment (BR) is considered an effective strategy and an important instrument in urban planning. However, BR in developing counties, especially Pakistan, has not received the same attention due to different obstacles, and it is still in its infancy. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the obstacles to BR adoption in Pakistan through a review of previous studies and to analyze these obstacles through expert opinion. After an extensive literature review, this study develops a contextual relationship-based model using an integrated methodology of Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and MICMAC (cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification) analysis. The results of ISM outlined ownership constraints, public protests, lack of transparent communication among stakeholders, and lack of environmental justice as dependent obstacles. However, financial constraints including lack of capital and cost consideration were identified as independent obstacles and the most critical ones. The results of this study can be a stepping stone to overcome obstacles to BR and promote urban sustainability. Considerable incentives and subsidies will foster BR implementation resulting in the integration of sustainable urban development in Pakistan.     

Standards and export performance in developing countries: Evidence from Pakistan

Several studies have analyzed the exporting pattern and performance of firms located in a developing country. However, there is limited work on the impact of standards on the performance of developing country exporting firms. This paper uses data from Pakistan to assess the effects of ISO 9000 certification on export sales and share of exports (relative to domestic and export sales) for textiles and the agro-food sector. As certification is not randomly assigned but there is ‘self-selection into treatment’, we use propensity matching methods to estimate the causal effect of certification on the change in the firms' value of export sales between 2000 and 2004. The results show that export performance is positively correlated with ISO 9000 certification.     

Determining the impact of age and LOS on job satisfaction: a case study of Pakistan automotive industry

This research was conducted to ascertain the impact of age and length of service (LOS) on job satisfaction in engineers of Pakistan public sector. Field survey was conducted using job satisfaction survey (JSS) questionnaire having closed-ended questions. Multistage sampling was conducted using a combination of cluster sampling, stratified sampling and random sampling techniques. Power and Precision software was used to determine the sample size. JSS questionnaires were administered amongst 225 electrical and mechanical engineers from five public sector organizations. 158 usable questionnaires were received and data were analyzed in SPSS. Statistical analyses showed existence of an open mouth U-shaped relationship between LOS/age and job satisfaction. It was found that age moderates relationship between LOS and job satisfaction. Non-responsiveness of senior engineers led to one of the limitations of this study. Results of this study can be used for policy-making decisions.     

Implications of high food prices for poverty in Pakistan

The study estimates the impacts of rising world food prices on poverty in rural and urban areas of Pakistan. Household income and expenditure data for 2004/2005 is used to estimate compensated and uncompensated price and expenditure elasticities using the linear approximation of the almost ideal demand system. Taking the unexpected component of higher domestic food prices in 2007/2008, own and cross price compensated elasticities are used to derive the changes in the quantity consumed, food expenditure and impacts on poverty assuming the food crisis happened in 2004/2005. The results indicate that poverty increased by 34.8%, severely affecting the urban areas where poverty increased by 44.6% as compared to 32.5% in rural areas. The estimates show that 2.3 million people are unable to reach even one‐half of poverty line expenditures while another 13.7 million are just below and 23.9 million are just above the poverty line. In the short run, it is important to ensure food availability to these people. In the long run, the policy environment of subsidizing urban food consumers by keeping wheat prices lower than the international price, needs to be reconsidered to provide the right incentives to increase food availability.