Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences (ISSN 1997-8553)
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Selling Souls: An Empirical Analysis of Human Trafficking and Globalization
Get PDFThis paper investigates the impact of globalization on human trafficking using a large panel data set of 169 countries from 2001 to 2011. This study explores the contribution of economic, social and political globalization in the trafficking of humans for forced prostitution, forced labor, debt bondages and child soldiers. Moreover, the study investigates the impact of globalization on source (supply) and destination (demand) of human trafficking. This study uses Probit and Oprobit models of panel data for empirical analysis. Findings of the study show that globalization facilitates human trafficking, particularly, forced prostitution, forced labor and debt bondages while it helps to suppress the demand and supply of child soldiers. The empirical analysis also reveals that these are the mostly poor countries which serve as source of human trafficking while the rich countries are destination of trafficked victims. The data series over a long period are not available and therefore the sample size is small. This research paper contributes into the literature on human trafficking and globalization by highlighting the heterogeneity of source and destiny economies in shaping the links of globalization with human trafficking. To the best of our knowledge, it is first study of its kind that provides an empirical analysis of source and destiny of human trafficking with globalization. Moreover, this study considers different dimensions of globalization and human trafficking. The main message of this research is that as globalization proceeds, human trafficking increases. Therefore, the governments of developing economies need to improve socioeconomic conditions to provide basic necessities of life at home country and the governments of developed countries need to implement strong rule of the law to discourage such practices. Our study is useful in offering insights to policy makers that how to avoid the perils of globalization
Impact of Managerial Coaching on Employee Performance and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Intervening Role of Thriving at Work
Get PDFA thorough probe into managerial coaching effectiveness is rare in the literature. To fill this research gap, this study examines the relationship of managerial coaching and employees’ performance more profoundly. This research probes the direct relationship of managerial coaching with task performance and contextual performance, and indirect relationship through intervening role of thriving at work. The self-designed questionnaires were used to collect data from 280 employees of pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan. The hierarchical regression analysis reveals that managerial coaching directly influences job performance, and indirectly influences job performance, organizational citizenship behavior toward individual and organization (OCBI-OCBO) as well via mediating role of thriving at work. The Sobel tests also confirms and shows the significance of mediating role of thriving at work in the conceptual model. This research provides empirical evidence regarding usefulness of managerial coaching grounded on social exchange theory in the context of Pakistan. The contribution of study, future directions and limitations are also discussed
The Antecedents and Consequents of Customer Value Co-Creation among Small and Medium Enterprises
Get PDFThe scholarly understanding of the antecedent and consequent behaviors of customer involvement in the creation process particularly among small and medium enterprises (SME’s) are limited to date. So, this paper aims to explore the antecedent and consequent behaviors of the customer involvement in the creation process among SME’s.
Sample data was collected by administering 384 questionnaires from the customers of SME’s. The hypothesized relationships are tested through Structural Equation Modeling. The findings suggest that customer involvement in the creation process is influenced by brand attractiveness, brand response, active engagement and sense of community. Resultantly, customer involvement in the creation process leads to enhanced behavioral loyalty, attitudinal attachment, and resilience against any negative information.
A critical limitation lies in this study is the use of only four antecedent and three consequent behaviors of co-creation behavior. Future researchers need to investigate this model with some other antecedent and consequent behaviors. The study provides strategic recommendations to SME’s that the marketers should focus on essential customer behaviors as it not only enhances customer involvement in the creation process but resultantly improves behavioral loyalty, attitudinal attachment, and resilience against any negative information. This paper provides an original insight into customer value cocreation by identifying and examining its antecedent and consequent behaviors
Line Managers HR Implementation Level and Work Performance: Estimating the Mediating Role of Employee Outcomes
Get PDFThe ongoing debate to unlock the black box between HRM and performance is yet to be fully concluded. This paper addresses the recent calls by adding three employee outcomes (affective commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention) as a mediating mechanism in the causal chain from HR implementation level - i.e., the extent of organization\u27s HR practices that are implemented by each line manager - to work performance. Primary data was collected through a self-administrative survey from 200 permanent employees and 82 supervisors/line managers working in four manufacturing firms. The data was analyzed using SPSS process macros and AMOS. The results reveal that line managers HR implementation level increases work unit performance. Furthermore, an elevated level of HR implementation enhances employees’ affective commitment and job satisfaction and reduces their turnover intention and mediating role of these employee outcomes is fully supported by our data. The paper advances the strategic HRM research and contributes by providing a new mechanism to unravel the complexity of HRM performance linkage debate
Moderating Impact of Environmental Turbulence on Business Innovation & Business Performance
No full textThe importance of Pakistan’s Tourism sector has increased manifold due to economic activities under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative. However, it has been in crisis phase due to the influence of the war on terror and other administrative issues. This paper is an effort to analyze the impact of environmental turbulence on the relationship between Customer Relationship Management effectiveness (CRMe’), business innovation and business performance in organizations comprising tourism sector. Responses from 382 respondents were collected through a questionnaire. The analysis is done using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through Amos software. It is observed that all the moderating effects on hypothesized relations are statistically significant. In other words, technological turbulence and competitive intensity weaken (strengthen) the relation of CRMe’ with business innovation and business performance. While, market turbulence strengthens (weakens) the said relation. The outcomes of this study will help stakeholders in understanding the market forces and their impact on innovation and business performance in a better way to prepare themselves for the varied challenges of CPEC
Influence of Electronic Word of Mouth on Purchase Intention of Fashion Products in Social Networking Websites
Get PDFThe growth of social networking sites has changed the living style of people around the globe and it has also become an important tool for marketers. This growth has also emerged electronic word of mouth that significantly shapes the purchase intention of consumers. This study investigates the outcome of electronic word of mouth on purchase intention of Facebook users. It also identifies the major factors influencing the electronic word of mouth to buy fashion products. A survey was conducted to collect data from 503 Facebook users. Data collected through questionnaire was empirically analyzed using SPSS Process macro developed by Hayes and Preacher (2014). The findings confirm the electronic word of mouth is an effective factor influencing purchase intention of fashion brands. The findings also confirm the role of homophily, trustworthiness, expertness, informational influence and high fashion involvement as major factors influencing electronic word of mouth. Findings from the study help to assist the companies that use social networking sites like Facebook for promotion of their products in targeting the factors that have major influence on purchase intention of fashion products
Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility: The Case of Small, Medium, and Large Firms
Get PDFThis paper aims to explore whether and how firm-level governance mechanisms affects Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) using a large sample of firms listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange. Further, the paper investigates the differential effects of corporate governance (CG) on CSR across small, medium, and large firms. The findings strongly support the hypothesis that CG alone is not sufficient to induce firms to provide more CSR information. Rather, we show that both CG and ownership structure matters and have a vital role to play in firms’ choice of CSR engagement. The results reveal that better governed firms have higher CSR disclosure when compared with lower CG firms controlling for the level of insider ownership. Specifically, the results suggest that firms are more likely to be involved in CSR when insiders’ ownership is at medium level (25% to 50%) as compared to low (0 to 25%) or high level (>50%). Nonetheless, the estimates suggest that CSR involvement decreases when the insider ownership goes beyond the 50% level. Finally, the results reveal that there are significant differences in the effects of CG and other underlying empirical determinants of CSR across different sized firms
Why Pakistani Small and Medium Enterprises are Not Reporting on Sustainability Practices?
Get PDFThis paper seeks to understand why Pakistani SMEs are not reporting on sustainability practices. Also, this paper aims to understand the sustainability reporting patterns of SMEs worldwide. Out of 190 sustainability reports, published by SMEs around the world, there is not even a single report published by any Pakistani SME. This paper employs mixed methodology that includes the use of quantitative content analysis for understanding the reporting patterns and the use of questionnaire based survey and qualitative interviews for understanding the reasons for non-reporting. This paper concludes that there is a lack of awareness about sustainability reporting. Also, there are some implementation issues, lack of training and skills, lack of regulation, government support and sustainability infrastructure. Furthermore, the stakeholder pressure and demand for sustainability reporting is missing in the context of Pakistan. In the absence of all these pressures and in the presence of limited resources, SMEs are least interested in sustainability reporting as perceived benefits are far less than perceived costs
Brand Image and Customers Willingness to Pay a Price Premium for Female’s Stitched Clothing
Get PDFThe aim of the present study is to better understand customer’s willingness to pay a price premium in the market for female’s stitched clothing and what sort of brand images can be used by a brand in order to achieve price premium. This study is based on quantitative survey of brand images found in branding literature and their impact on customer’s willingness to pay a price premium for branded female’s stitched clothing. This study applies regression analysis to find out the strength of the role of brand image dimensions towards willingness to pay price premium, using data collected from 409 university level female students. The outcome of the present study demonstrates that perceived uniqueness is the strongest predictor, perceived social image is the second strongest, perceived corporate social responsibility is the third strongest predictor, perceived awareness is the fourth strongest predictor, perceived quality is the fifth strongest predictor, perceived country of origin is the last strongest predictor of customer’s willingness to pay a price premium. This study looks into other branding related dimensions to check price premium rather than actual price premium determinants. The outcomes aid brand managers to be aware of the significance of incorporating price premium and to build up an improved perceptive of what brand images dimensions coerce price premium
The Mediating Role of Internal Locus of Control and Job Stress between Spiritual Intelligence and Job Performance
Get PDFSpiritual intelligence is the mind’s capacity to handle spiritual and substantial aspects of life. Literature indicates that spiritual intelligence can be effective in lowering the stress and increases the job performance of employees at the workplace. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of internal locus of control (ILOC) and job stress (JS) between spiritual intelligence (SI) and job performance (JP). The data was collected from 425 employees working at managerial positions in different textile companies in the province Punjab, Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study found that internal locus of control and job stress partially mediate the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job performance. It is important for the management of textile companies to develop the spiritual intelligence of the employees at their workplace. Spiritual intelligence and ILOC are useful for lowering the indices of job stress and increasing the job performance of employees at their workplace