Varying occupational stress and organisational commitment within the university staff of contrasting economies (Cross-sectional comparative study of middle range public universities in Pakistan and the UK)

This thesis investigates the varying occupational stressors and organisational commitment of the contrasting genders at the teaching and administrative positions in the contrasting economies of the UK and Pakistan. Whilst the existing literature is focused on individual cases of personal strain and resources, occupational therapists’ role, social support and organisational commitment of employees, this thesis extends the current knowledge with comparative analysis in the context of gender, faculty and economy. The mixed method used is based on the combination of SEM, ChiSquare and multiple regression informed by the total of 408 survey responses, followed by a qualitative study of 98 interviews. The results confirmed that overall organisational factors cause higher stress while psychological effects are common in the education sectors of both economies. Overall stress, and organisational commitment, is higher in Pakistan despite higher power distance and collectivism. Overall, personal factors cause more stress to females and non-teaching staff, while organisational factors often make males and teaching staff stressed. Furthermore, the physical and behavioural effects are higher amongst males and non-teaching staff, while females and teaching staff have higher psychological symptoms. Nevertheless, the causes and consequences of stress, and job-related preferences differ for gender, faculty, and economy. The statistical tests confirmed non-significant impact of occupational therapists on the affective commitment (AC), normative commitment (NC), and continuance commitment (CC). All other predictors, to some extent, have a significant effect on OC. Furthermore, males exhibit higher AC, while females often report NC and CC. Social support and stress management programmes are effective in sustaining human capital and reducing strain. The qualitative findings supported the statistical outcomes. Based on above results, practical implications are recommended to public universities for reducing stress and improving organisational commitment to sustain human capital

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia