Ahmed Zafar

• PHD
• Reasercher at Nantes Université

The satisfaction of employees with organizational climate is predictor of better performance. Organizationalclimate is having direct bearing on employees’ satisfaction. The satisfaction of employees with organizationalclimate enhances positive organizational outcomes: efficiency, productivity, organizational commitment andcohesiveness of coworkers...

LuLu Group International (LGI), led by Chairman and Managing Director Yusuff Ali M.A, has grown significantly over 43 years, becoming one of the largest retail conglomerates across the Middle East. The company’s success is attributed to its decentralized strategy, which allows effective administration across diverse regions. LGI’s commitment to qua...

Emerging markets have become vital players in the global economy, driving economic growth, global trade, and foreign direct investment. Market liberalization and global trade openness have facilitated the integration of emerging markets into the global economy. This monograph focuses on multinational enterprises (MNEs) originating from emerging mar...

The case study outlines the determinants of Vietnam Airlines’ successful establishment of a global presence. As the national flag carrier, the airline holds a predominant position in Vietnam’s domestic aviation industry, actively extending its services globally. Vietnam Airlines has meticulously cultivated an international brand image, represented...

The phenomenon of globalization has reshaped the world economic landscape, with developing countries emerging as pivotal players challenging the dominance of developed economies. This monograph focuses on emerging markets in terms of their multinational enterprises asserting themselves with their global brands on the global stage. This monograph de...

Qatar Airways has been a global success legend, rising to become the best airline in the world in 2011, just 18 years after its inception. Thus, this case investigates how Qatar Airways was able to develop a sound global branding model leading to its global success. From its earliest days, the airline’s management planned for Qatar Airways to becom...

Turkish Airlines (TA) is one of the companies that has been growing successfully internationally and increasing its market share steadily. Despite being from an emerging market, the company has been able to develop a strong brand name globally. The evolution of the company from a local player to a major international airline contains a lot of lesso...

This case study outlines AirAsia’s transformation from an indebted, minor airline to a global aviation leader under Tony Fernandes’s visionary leadership. Beginning with a seemingly modest investment against considerable debt, Fernandes led AirAsia to prominence in the competitive low-cost carrier market. This case highlights AirAsia’s mission to m...

Turkish Airlines has been one of the fastest-growing airlines in the past two decades. An aggressive growth strategy combined with a favourable environment helped the company to become one of the major players in the world airline industry. The global COVID pandemic between 2020 and 2022 had an enormous negative effect on the airline industry world...

Environmental concerns are becoming ever more urgent in the agendas of governments, executives, marketing scholars, and other stakeholders around the world. While the academic field has made several calls to understand the forces that drive firms to deploy environmental strategies as well as the performance implications of these strategies, such st...

Purpose In the current highly volatile and uncertain economic environment, recovery strategies that emphasise attributes and skills are essential for an enterprise to recover and adapt to disruptions. Based on the resource-based view (RBV), this study aims to understand how organisational resilience functions and its outcomes. Specifically, this st...

People typically purchase residential properties for two reasons: to live in or invest. However, both purposes necessitate careful consideration before deciding because high financial costs are involved, and housing loans are typically considered necessary for this purpose. Customers’ demands are constantly changing, becoming more complicated with...

Association of serum lipid profile ratios with disease severity and in-hospital outcome of patients with COVID-19 Azad MAK, Areefin MN, Murshed KM, Mahdi AA

Purpose COVID-19 has made businesses increasingly dependent on technology to be competitive and efficient. Small and medium enterprises (SME) digitalisation and innovation research are widespread. SME digital transformation and innovation require government policies, initiatives and assistance. How the government can help SMEs achieve these goals i...

Purpose Research demonstrates that servitization can achieve competitive advantages for firms; however, many firms are unable to achieve their target values due to various challenges. This study proposes a new model in which open innovation and co-creation are utilized to access consumer knowledge during the servitization process when developing cu...

The impact of climate variability on wheat crops has been estimated using classical and neutrosophic approaches. Temperature and rain have been incorporated as the indicators of climate variability during wheat growth phenology and taking wheat yield as a dependent variable. A comparative analysis of estimated results under the classical approach w...

Purpose The paper aims to find the preferences of different tourist type. Since, COVID-19 pandemic has brought the international hospitality industry to a standstill, there are some early signs of recovery. For this industry’s long-term recovery, the tourists’ changing preferences need to be analyzed. Moreover, with different types of tourists, a m...

The global increase of urban solid waste in developing countries is creating highly significant challenges. There is a lack of research on sustainable waste management behavior (SWMB) among university academic staff. Hence, this study aims to examine the effect of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control on SWMB. This study employe...

The study aims to explore the supporting functions of the microfinance ecosystem from a perspective of microfinance providers in Pakistan. Based on the broader financial ecosystem approach, this study has highlighted the key functions of different players supporting the operations of microfinance providers. Using a qualitative research method; the...

Purpose In 2017, Qatar Airways was recognized as the world's number-one airline by SKYTRAX World Airline Awards. These international awards have been described as “the Oscars of the aviation industry,” reflecting global recognition and excellence in conducting business activities at the international level. The main purpose of this case-based resea...

This study investigates the factors affecting Bharti Airtel's cross‐border postacquisition performance in an African market. This study describes the relationships among various factors such as technical capability, affiliated firm's absorptive capacity, and organizational learning capabilities, which determine the successful operations of the Zain...

Purpose-The service marketing literature has traditionally argued that the marketing practices of service firms that operate in diverse cultures should also differ. This paper aims to investigate this argument by examining the marketing practices of service firms in two highly diverse countries "Canada and Qatar" in the context of a contemporary co...

Most of the research on luxury brands has been conducted across rich Western countries. The resulting models may reflect socio-economic and cultural attributes of these countries that do not exist elsewhere. This paper proposes a model suitable for emerging countries that are asserting themselves on the global stage thanks to globalization. This pr...

Purpose Previous research has posited country image to operate at two levels: the country’s macro image, based on general politico-economic descriptors of the country, and the country’s micro image, based on perceptions of products from the country. The purpose of this paper is to further explore this premise in a practical study, using a psychomet...

This essential textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the Islamic business environment, exploring core concepts and practices in business administration from an Islamic perspective. Thorough and accessible, it covers the full range of Islamic business, including entrepreneurship, ethics, organizational culture, marketing, finance and dec...

This is school based cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among intermediary school students to assess the obesity and associated factors. All intermediary schools in the study area were selected; the study covered all students. Information on socio-demographic, feeding pattern, hours of television watching and computer, video games and...

Relationship development has become a critical dimension of international performance for exporters. Differences between markets have been proposed as determinants of relationship development. As a concept relating to those differences, psychic distance is an influential factor in relationship development, but the literature provides mix empirical...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive model that explains the influence of different relational variables on export performance and the interaction between those relational variables. Design/methodology/approach This is a theoretical paper building upon the relational variables and export performance literatures. Finding...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect the decision of university female students to start a business in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most of the existing research focuses on exploring the challenges female entrepreneurs face after they start a business, but no research has investigated the challenges they encounter before...

Purpose The service marketing literature has traditionally argued that the marketing practices of service firms that operate in diverse cultures should also differ. This paper aims to investigate this argument by examining the marketing practices of service firms in two highly diverse countries “Canada and Qatar” in the context of a contemporary co...

Skeletal related events (SREs) are skeletal complications from bone metastases such as spinal cord compression, pathological fracture, palliative radiation to the bone and bone surgery. These events resulted in greatest morbidity which affecting patients' quality of life over the years and may increase healthcare cost in treating SREs. Therefore, p...

Purpose Since Islamic markets are growing substantially, there is an urgent need to gain a better understanding of how Muslim consumers perceive products from a religious perspective. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the brain responses of Muslim consumers to Halal and non-Halal products using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMR...

Earlier, potentials like square well and several other half-potential wells with discontinuous jump have been found to have the expectation value $<\! p^6 \!>$ to be divergent for all bound states. Here, we consider two-piece symmetric potential wells to prove and demonstrate that in them the expectation value of $p^6$ diverges for even states and...

Merger and acquisition is a popular governance structure that strategically combines the resources of one firm with those of another. This paper examines the diverse factors influencing the acquisition process and the associated benefits of good governance. The study evaluates the post-acquisition performance from the perspective of Zain's acquisit...

Having expanded their global operations, many African firms have begun to appear on the radar screens of multinational players. The distinctive nature of the African continent has directed these firms to follow unconventional paths to internationalization. This study explores the strategies employed by Ethiopian Airlines to overcome the challenges...

Objective To explore the clinical and programmatic feasibility of using 800 μg of sublingual misoprostol to prevent and treat postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) during home delivery. Methods The present double‐blind randomized controlled trial included women who underwent home deliveries in Chitral district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, after p...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influences of relational variables on export performance and the interactions among relational variables in the emerging market context of Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a mail questionnaire sent to Malaysian companies that export to Arab-speaking countries and achieved a...

This is school based cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among intermediary school students to assess the obesity and associated factors. All intermediary schools in the study area were selected; the study covered all students. Information on socio-demographic, feeding pattern, hours of television watching and computer, video games and...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the interplay between managerial assumptions and institutional corporate social responsibility, and determines how such fit affects performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed and tested a model using survey methodology. The authors’ data from 210 hotels located in Qatar and the UAE were...

This study investigates customer loyalty and its salient correlates in the Arab world. Contrary to inconsistent findings in the existing literature, this current study examines a fully mediated customer loyalty model and compares it with three alternative configurations involving customer loyalty and its correlates using structural equations modeli...

Researchers studying the alignment of business resources usually focus on business cases that inherently have continuous interactions built on long-term relationships at the firm level, dyadic level, or broader network level. While contractual limitations can be applied to resource alignment, resource engagement holds the notion of a persistent val...

Background Identifying how racial/ethnic residential segregation and mobility may impact health can guide innovative strategies for reducing youth disparities. Methods This natural experiment examined the association between change in residential segregation and cardiovascular health outcomes across race/ethnicity and gender for youth (n=2250, mea...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the predictabilities of five intra-personal factors to predict pro-environmental consumer behavior (PECB) and the moderating role of religiosity in Oman. Design/methodology/approach The study uses neural network to analyze the antecedents/antecedents × religiosity → PECB relationships by using a samp...

This study is an attempt to analyze the students' tendencies to engage in knowledge sharing behaviors during their studies. A structured questionnaire was designed to investigate the students' behavior towards knowledge sharing. Results illustrate that interpersonal factors like: trust, perceptions about knowledge sharing, and willingness to share,...

More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes...

The present study was carried out to determine the presence of Babesia spp. in cattle by conventional microscopic examination and by PCR. A total of 100 blood samples were taken from cows of dairy farms of different areas of Quetta City (60 from Govt dairy farm and 40 samples from private dairy farms). Out of 100 samples analyzed microscopically, 1...

Objective: The study aimed at investigating the validity of multiplex-PCR for S. typhi detection in blood specimens of Widal-positive typhoid patients and to compare the detection rate of PCR with blood culture. Methodology: Blood specimens were collected from 105 clinically suspected and Widal- positive typhoid patients. For the bacterial culture...

An increasing number of organizations embark on employer branding although this practice is not theoretically supported. Our study explores the employer brand by employing branding that examines the interrelation between the elements and the branding process’ outcomes. Our study is based on the employer branding model having two major components: t...

The study was conducted to isolate Nosocomial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa from clinical specimen of patients admitted in two government hospitals in Quetta district of Pakistan and to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of isolates. Pus samples (n=100) were collected from infected patients of age groups from 20-60 years and belonged to b...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that underpin consumer switching intention in the smartphone industry. Most of the literature on brand switching uses conventional models that lack the ability to explain this behavior for high-technology products. Such products have unique characteristics that make the switching process...

The significance of retail store brands has increased. However, despite the emergence of numerous exclusive retail products, not all of them achieved success. Seemingly, retailers have a shortsighted comprehension of the different risks related to including new categories of products to the store brands. This research analysis investigates how vari...

This article examines the bases of social power, namely individual information power, expert power, legitimate power, and referent power on successful international business negotiations (IBNs). The author conducted an online survey among international business executives working in the UK for multinational corporation subsidiaries who were asked t...

The aim of this study is to examine the issues that impact customers’ purchase attitudes about online shopping by employing the Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Reasoned Actions. Previous studies have largely dealt only with online shopping behavior in developed countries, whereas the developing countries remained out of scholarly focus. H...

Introducción: cada año, cerca de 1,3 millones de personas fallecen en el mundo a raíz de un siniestro de tránsito y estos siniestros tienen una repercusión económica del 1% al 3% en el Producto Nacional Bruto (PNB) respectivo de cada país. La mortalidad por siniestros de tránsito en Uruguay fue de 16 fallecidos cada 100.000 personas en los años 201...

People with speech disabilities communicate in sign language and therefore have trouble in mingling with the able-bodied. There is a need for an interpretation system which could act as a bridge between them and those who do not know their sign language. A functional unobtrusive Indian sign language recognition system was implemented and tested on...

Recurrent outbreaks of Newcastle disease have questioned the usage of existing vaccines that whether they are still adequate to protect clinical diseases and inhibit virus transmission in poultry. Advancement in molecular biology has led to the production of recombinant vaccines in recent years, which can be a more useful strategy to control infect...

Introduction Moraxella catarrhalis previously considered as commensal of upper respiratory tract has gained importance as a pathogen responsible for respiratory tract infections. Its beta-lactamase-producing ability draws even more attention toward its varying patterns of resistance. Methods This was an observational study conducted to evaluate th...

Purpose – This study aims to analyze the effects of goal-directed feelings on student’s performance in marketing simulations. Calculating path coefficients from data collected at two points in time, the authors tested a model consisting of four constructs personal stakes, anticipatory emotions, volitions and goal-directed behavior. The results sugg...

Neonates with congenital malaria may present with non-specific signs and symptoms which may be mistaken for neonatal sepsis and inborn error of metabolism resulting in delay of diagnosis.and significant mortality and morbidity. Here we present a unique case of 25 days old premature female baby who was diagnosed to have mixed malarial infection. Des...

E-marketing technology adoption and use continues to vary, despite widespread acceptance of the Internet in corporate environments. This study aims to explore the role of technology motivation in the adoption of e-marketing technology among firms. A survey was sent to 1,700 corporate managers in Malaysia based on the Federation of Malaysian Manufac...

Water pollution is one of the main environmental issues in Balochistan. This serious environment issue leads to many deaths in Balochistan. In most of the places of Balochistan clean and safe water is now totally converted to polluted water. Drinking water sources, both surface and groundwater are contaminated with coliforms, toxic metals and pesti...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the historical development of brands and the development of literature on brand switching to define the antecedents that cause switching behavior among consumers and the impact of switching on market share of companies. Design/methodology/approach – The historical development of brands is tracked using...

Bacilli used in this study were Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus mycoides, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus subtilis. All of the bacilli tested were Gram-positive while hemolysis on blood agar was variable. All bacilli were motile and catalase positive except for Bacillus anthracis. The Lecithinase reaction on egg yolk agar was also va...

Background : To compare the effectiveness of topical steroid and oral steroid in reducing size of polyps and improving patency of nasal air way. Methods: In this randomized controlled trial a total of 140 patients were taken with bilateral nasal polypi. They were divided in 2 groups. Group A (70 ) were given topical steroids and Group B (70) were g...

The Kail sheep breed of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) was analyzed by using 11 microsatellite markers in order to estimate genetic diversity of this famous breed. This study aimed to provide information on the genetic structure of the Kail breed. In total 47 samples of Kail sheep were genotyped. We obtained 58 alleles, while average number of allel...

The Kail sheep breed of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) was analyzed by using 11 microsatellite markers in order to estimate genetic diversity of this famous breed. This study aimed to provide information on the genetic structure of the Kail breed. In total 47 samples of Kail sheep were genotyped. We obtained 58 alleles, while average number of allel...

Edge-tone is a tone of discrete sound produced when a jet of gas issuing from a slit impinges wedge-shaped edge placed at a short distance from the slit exit. Numerical investigations of edge-tone generation have been conducted in the present study. Two-dimensional computations of high speed jet-edge system are conducted and the resulting flow and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that underpin brand switching of medical imaging products by mass-market users. Most of the literature on brand switching is focused on competitive market products, for which switching costs are manageable. However, little consideration is given to brand switching of high-technology...

Purpose – Meat consumption decisions within a religious context can differ significantly from purchase decisions where religion does not play a key role. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of Halal meat consumption within a Chinese Muslim population using the “marketing theory of planned behavior”. The role of self-identit...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies that companies could adopt to build a global brand during industry turbulence. CHALCO company was selected as a case study to conduct this research. Design/methodology/approach – A multi-faceted approach to data collection is used to demonstrate that a company strategy in the form of...

Beneficial effects of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in medical education are often emphasized. However, there is another side of the coin. This study was conducted to find out frequency of PBL group problems in our setup and the influence of these problems on students' learning. We also compared the perception of students and tutors as regard to fre...

Purpose – The main purpose of this research is to empirically test how animosity, religiosity, and ethnocentrism interact to affect judgment about US products and purchase action of consumers in a progressive Islamic country like Malaysia. There are many studies that have been conducted in conservative Islamic countries such as Iran, Jordan, Morocc...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce a conceptual framework for knowledge transfer between Chinese firms and universities around the world, based on a joint learning process. The transfer of knowledge is important to increase the innovative capabilities of Chinese firms by accessing more sources of new knowledge not available locally....

Materialism has been identified as highly relevant for consumer behavior and therefore has been investigated extensively. This article extends previous research by investigating materialism in Mexico, a country relatively high in masculinity and substantially different from the United States and other Western markets. Specifically, the article take...

Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are rapidly increasing as multidrug resistant strains worldwide. In nosocomial settings because of heavy exposure of different antimicrobials, resistance in these pathogens turned into a grave issue in both developed and developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate in vitro antibiot...

The attitudes and values of a society play a significant role in entrepreneurship development as they influence and shape the environment within which entrepreneurial activity takes place. In this article the authors focus on the philosophical basis of entrepreneurship principles within an Islamic framework. The authors highlight, in particular, th...

Oil is a commodity with huge strategic importance to all countries in the world. During the years 2002 to 2008, crude oil reached peak prices that mainly reflected increased crude oil demand as a result of strong global economic growth. Rapid manufacturing growth in China, India and other Asian countries during pre-recession years lead to a largest...

Brazil is in line with China and India in its economic ambitions to be a dominant player on the world market. Brazil’s success so far is built on transition from a command and mixed economy to a freer market and by building stable institutions that complement her objectives. To inquire further, this research sheds light on Brazil’s pattern of econo...

For a user to perceive continuous interactive response time in a visualization tool, the rule of thumb is that it must process, deliver, and display rendered results for any given interaction in under 100 milliseconds. In many visualization systems, successive interactions trigger independent queries and caching of results. Consequently, computatio...

Objective: Low birth weight (LBW) is closely associated with perinatal morbidity and bears an increased risk for subsequent infant morbidity. The study aimed to assess low birth weight delivery factors among women in Chitral, Pakistan. Methodology: Mixed Methodology was adopted. Structured data collection tool was used to collect information from m...

There has been an increase in bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the post-FTA milieu. Today Pakistan is the second largest trading partner of Sri Lanka amongst South Asian economies. There have been some concerns about the negative trade balance for Sri Lanka however the lower prices have resulted in an increase in welfare for both c...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics of Malaysia's new economic model (NEM) formulated to achieve Malaysia's aspiration to become a high‐income nation by 2020. Based on that analysis, the paper seeks to identify areas of research that could profitably be pursued to further the aims and implementation of the NEM. Such identif...

Purpose – Meat consumption decisions within a religious context can differ significantly from purchase decisions where religion does not play a key role. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of Halal meat consumption within a Chinese Muslim population using the “marketing theory of planned behavior”. The role of self-identit...

Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) and Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS) have become important tools for analyzing service delivery and public expenditures. The objective of this PETS/QSDS Guidebook is to assist practitioners in using these instruments and explaining to those who are considering undertaking PETS/QSDS why and how...

PETS and QSDS Guidebook. Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) and Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS) have become important tools for analyzing service delivery and public expenditures. The objective of this PETS/QSDS Guidebook is to assist practitioners in using these instruments and explaining to those who are considering undertaki...

Various theoretical studies have been done to investigate the structural parameters and electronic bandgap as well as optical properties using different techniques. In this study, we present structural and electronic bandgap of anatase and rutile titanium dioxide investigations by applying ultrasoft pseudo-potential plane wave approach developed wi...

Supplier relationship management or SRM is becoming increasingly relevant to buyers in modern times. It has climbed up in order of importance and is only second to cost cutting as showed by a research undertaken by the supply management publication (Leach, 2012). This precedence over other priorities may not be a new phenomenon as Jared (2009) stre...