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Technological development has been a cornerstone of any emerging economy in the past few years. Blockchain has emerged as a promising technology in the past few years, revolutionizing business dynamics. There is always a concern or hesitation during such novel technological innovation. This paper aims to investigate the blockchain technology (BCT) implementation and acceptance in the supply chain function domain.

The proposed model is based on the Technology Readiness Index (TRI) and extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). The responses were collected from information technology (IT) professionals working at management positions in various manufacturing industries. A total of 147 usable responses were collected for analyzing hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

As per the findings, perceived ease of use significantly impacts perceived usefulness and attitude toward technology acceptability. Perceived usefulness is significant to attitude toward use. Trust in technology has a significant impact on building up the attitude to use the technology.

The novelty of this work lies in gauging the acceptability of new ways and means of transacting among supply chain professionals and decision-makers. This study provides a broader perspective regarding reluctance and acceptance of the BCT in the developing country that may help the technologist to elucidate better for smooth adoption.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: How to measure customer satisfaction from the provisioning service of both: Islamic and Conventional banks? Can we trust one tool to measure such satisfaction or both banks are different identities and there is a need for separate measurement tool? What is the relationship between banks operating style (Islamic or Conventional) and bank performance?

A cross-sectional survey design was conducted to analyze a sample of customers. A total of 480 Jordanian participants were included in the study.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the most important drivers of customer satisfaction are Sharia’ compliance, complaints, pricing and convenience, whereas the least important drivers are e-banking, the perception of employees, enjoyment and tangibles. Also, the result of the multi-group analysis shows that the significant impacts of all drivers on customer satisfaction differ from Islamic banks to Conventional banks except for the enjoyment. The significant effects of customer satisfaction on bank performance also differ from Islamic to Conventional banks.

The result is limited to the selected sample, and hence, future research in other countries should contribute to a better understanding of the impact of customer satisfaction relationship on bank success or performance.

This study provides a useful information for bank managers on the main driver of customer satisfaction and performance.

This study is intended to add to the existing literature in three ways: There is a lack of studies on the main drivers of customer satisfaction, especially those based on a consumer’s decision-making process in Arabic countries like Jordan. This study broadens the scope by testing the proposed model using data from a sample of consumers in Jordan. This study serves to propose and validate the drivers that influence customer satisfaction and bank performance and elucidate the manner of their influence, to help with the development of more effective business strategies.

This study aims to develop and estimate the Musharaka demand and supply model for full-fledged Islamic banks to explore patterns and stability of Musharaka equilibrium in the market.

This quantitative study uses a deductive approach to explore financial statement-level data of 30 Islamic banks of six countries between 2012 and 2017.

The results show that the Musharaka market is stable when Musharaka demand is purchase price elastic and supply is sale price inelastic. It indicates that the current banking industry is unable to increase supply when there is an increase in Musharaka returns. In comparison, industry demand for Musharaka is increasing at a higher rate, corresponding to a decrease in Musharaka price.

This study is fundamental in estimating the market stable market returns and market quantity of Musharaka financing. If market returns and quantity deviate, market forces will push it to equilibrium.

The theoretical and empirical studies worked on the application and suitability of Musharaka financing. However, they failed to explain demand and supply forces in determining the level of Musharaka financing in the economy using empirical data. Without an equilibrium model, policymakers would be unable to predict the movement of the Islamic stock market index (the price of Musharaka financing) and the incidence of Musharaka financing. Further, it is not possible to apply expansionary intervention by policymakers if the stability of the market is unknown.

Literature has pointed that conventional financial development theories have inconclusive role on motivating new businesses. New ventures often consider the conventional system that passes through risk and provides fixed-interest lending as a burden. Comparatively, Islamic finance contributes using participative and equitable substitute for startups and has a potential in promoting new businesses. This study aims to investigate the holistic financial development index quadratic effect on entrepreneurship and include the moderating role of Islamic financing at national level.

Islamic banks of 21 nations constitute the unbalanced panel data. Financial development and entrepreneurship indices were developed using factor analysis and panel median regression to estimate the nonlinear financial market development effects and Islamic financing moderation model.

The results indicated that low financial market development is entrepreneurship deterring because of interest burden effect, which could be eased with a proportional increase in the Islamic financing, which is participative. The moderating effect has led to the categorization of the sample countries into entrepreneurship promoting and entrepreneurship discouraging with respect to the current incidence of financial market development and Islamic financing, which can help policymakers in understanding the entrepreneurship promoting combination of financial development and Islamic financing.

Central banks and Shari’ah advisory councils can adopt Islamic financing transition in the national financial inclusion policy for new business facilitation.

This study is instrumental in exploring the assessment of introducing Islamic financing while developing the financial sector on multidimensional entrepreneurship.

Money laundering (ML) is the process used to convert the proceeds of crimes into lawful form. This global problem promotes social ills, corruption and organized crimes. Various instruments are used to counter individual illicit behavior. However, in low-income countries, these regulations are not common because of weak institutions, poor governance and a lack of awareness about the negative consequences of ML. In these countries, multinational corporations take advantage of poor law and order, lower environmental regulations and corruption and shift their domestic operations into foreign countries.

This study uses a multiple mediator model to investigate the link between foreign direct investment (FDI), environmental degradation measured as CO₂ emissions (CE), exports and ML for 118 countries between 2008 to 2018.

Results indicate that FDI promotes exports and CE, leading to illicit financial flows.

Policymakers should enforce checks on foreign funds flow and adopt illicit flow mitigation measures to minimize ML globally.

The ailing agriculture sector in Pakistan demands a supportive financial sector. The low adoption of Salam financing by Islamic banks does not match the potential demand. Empirical studies identified demand-led issues that led to a low proportion of Salam financing, but the exploration of supply-side constraints is overlooked.

This study has applied Interpretive Phenomenological Analyses on 20 interviews with the experts in the Islamic banking industry who play a role in decisions on Salam financing to the agriculture sector. The purpose of the study is to explore the determinants of low adoption of Salam financing by Islamic banks.

The experiences led to the major reasons for the low adoption of Salam financing categorized as intentions, attitudes and behavior control which corresponds to the theory of planned behavior.

This study is instrumental in exploring the supply-side constraints to Salam financing and helps find aligning theory to intervene via Islamic banking regulations.

Considering the importance of employees' voice behavior (VB) and psychological capital (PC) amidst the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), this study highlights the role of authentic leadership (AL) in building a psychologically strong workforce that can provide meaningful suggestions for the improvement of organization.

The study employed a questionnaire survey to collect the data and recruited 261 participants from the telecom sector Sindh, Pakistan. The data analysis was done using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings of the study supported the hypotheses suggesting that AL can directly influence employees' VB and indirectly via PC.

The study was conducted during the COVID-19 in the telecom sector of Sindh, Pakistan. This study contributes by providing useful insights into that AL is an important form of leadership that encourages employees' voluntary behavior and psychological strength during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social development is the ultimate goal of every nation, and climate change is a major stumbling block. Climate Risk Index has documented several climate change events with their devastations in terms of lives lost and economic cost. This study aims to link the climate change and renewable energy with the social progress of extreme climate affected countries.

This research used the top 50 most climate-affected countries of the decade and estimated the impact of climate risk on social progress with moderation effects of renewable energy and technology. Several competing panel data models such as quantile regression, bootstrap quantile regression and feasible generalized least square are used to generate robust estimates.

The results confirm that climate hazards obstruct socioeconomic progress, but renewable energy and technology can help to mitigate the repercussion. Moreover, improved institutions enhance the social progress of nations.

Government should improve the institutional quality that enhances their performance in terms of Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption to increase social progress. In addition, society should use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels to avoid environmental degradation and health hazards. Innovation and technology also play an important role in social progress and living standards, so there should be free hand to private business research and development, encouraging research institutes and universities to come forward for innovation and research.

The ultimate goal of all human struggle is to have progress that facilitates human beings to uplift their living standard. One of the best measures that can tell us about a nation’s progress is Social Progress Index (SPI), and one of many factors that can abruptly change it is the climate; so this study is an attempt to link the relationship among these variables and also discuss the situation where the impact of climate can be reduced.

Although social progress is an important concept of today’s economics discussion, relatively few studies are using the SPI to measure social well-being. Similarly, there is consensus about the impact of climate on people, government and crops but relatively less study about its overall impact on social progress, so this study attempts to fill the gap about the relationship between social progress and climate change.

The main contribution of this study is the solution for the impact of climate risk. Climate risk is not in human control, and we cannot eliminate it, but we can reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Moderator impact of renewable energy decreases the negative impact of climate change, so there is a need to use more renewable energy to mitigate the bad consequences of climate on social progress. Another moderator is technology; using technology will also mitigate the negative consequences of the climate, so there is a need to facilitate technological advancement.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious investment strategy for infrastructural development belonging to the significant potential for stimulating regional economic growth in Asia, Europe and Africa. This study aims to investigate the impact of infrastructure on spurring inward foreign direct investment (FDI) within the purview of human capital, GDP per capita, foreign aid, trade, domestic investment, population and institutional quality in BRI countries.

In doing so, the authors analyze panel data from 2000 to 2019 within the framework of the system generalized method of movement (GMM) approach for 66 BRI countries from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The investigated results demonstrate that aggregate and disaggregate infrastructure indices, e.g. transport, telecommunications, financial and energy infrastructures, are the driving forces in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the BRI countries. In addition, control variables (i.e. institutional quality, human capital, trade, domestic investment, foreign aid and GDP per capita) play an essential role in spurring FDI inflows.

The authors’ study uniquely investigates both the pre- (2000–2012) and post- (2013–2019) BRI scenarios using the aggregate and disaggregate infrastructural components from the perspectives of full and clustered sample regions, such as Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The study provides several policy implications.

Recognising the significance of international trade in economic growth, this research explores the drivers of exports in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries from 2008 to 2021. The study employs the export demand model and the augmented exports supply model and utilises pooled time-series data. This study questions whether export supply decisions are based on traditional trade model factors, emerging trading realities or macroeconomic variables. The model based on fixed effects evaluates the connection between exports and their possible drivers. Traditional export supply models suggest determinants like production capacity, variable cost and relative pricing influencing South Asian export supply performance substantially. Changes in trade, for example, have a substantial impact on export supply, demonstrating that the trade liberalisation procedure promotes growth in exports, compression in imports and technological advancement. The worsening state of the energy industry and growing levels of corruption have proved to be significant deterrents to export supply decisions. The results verify foreign direct investment's positive and medium influence on the expansion of exports. Other variables, however, such as GDP and its growth, Official Development Assistance (ODA), development expenditure, indirect taxation, labour supply and the exchange rate of currencies, have a positive impact on the flow of exports. Furthermore, the data corroborate the notion that increased savings have a significant beneficial influence on the flow of exports. The study proposes that concerned governments examine their export policies and adopt new policies adapted in accordance with changing circumstances with the goal of increasing and enhancing the performance of exports.