Succession in Family Businesses of Pakistan : Kinship Culture and Islamic Inheritance Law

Family businesses are growing and turning into complex business groups, transforming from family controlled and managed to family owned and professionally managed public listed businesses. Hence, successful succession of a business and development of future successors are becoming the key success factors for family businesses. This paper examines succession dynamics and successor development within three family businesses in Pakistan. These cases are not only taken from different sectors, e.g., textile, engineering and manufacturing, but are also at different phases of organizational development. The conceptual framework to observe successor development at the pre-entry, entry and succession phases was developed from literature research. The paper further explores the kinship culture in succession of the family businesses, and examines aspects of Islamic inheritance law in family business succession. We find that kinship culture and Islamic inheritance law influence division of the business during the succession phase in Pakistan. The paper also explores transformation of the family businesses from kinship and biradari culture to professionally managed businesses listed on the stock exchange.Succession, Successor Development, Family Businesses, Kinship Culture, Islamic Inheritance Law, Pakistan

Inorganic analytical polarography in organic solvents

Imperial Users onl

Mechanical Properties of Poly (vinyl alcohol) Based Blends and Composites

One of the most important product specifications in design of materials for different applications is to closely match desired mechanical properties of the target. The soft tissue could be very elastic such as blood vessels and skin, whereas others are soft and non-elastic such as fat tissue. Soft human tissue has a diverse structural component that give them the different feel, texture, shape, and mechanical properties. Poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as hydrophobic polymer has outstanding features such as very good physico-mechanical properties, nontoxicity and biocompatibility, and high swelling properties which makes them favorable for biomaterial and biomedical applications. By physically crosslinking PVA, one can eliminate residual amount of toxic crosslinking agent compared to chemically crosslinking. Moreover, by adding fillers (particle or fibers) to PVA and making PVA based blends, desirable mechanical properties can be achieved which, consequently can mimic the different human tissue texture and properties. Different naturally based fillers such as chitosan, micro crystalline cellulose (MCC), and cotton fibers were added to improve the mechanical properties. Also, PVA was blended with xanthan gum and sorbitol to improve the elasticity of the material

Prospects for the In Situ detection of Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS by Solar Orbiter

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft will pass approximately downstream of the position of comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) in late May and early June 2020. We predict that the spacecraft may encounter the comet's ion tail around 2020 May 31-June 1, and that the comet's dust tail may be crossed on 2020 June 6. We outline the solar wind features and dust grain collisions that the spacecraft's instruments may detect when crossing the comet's two tails. Solar Orbiter will also pass close to the orbital path of C/2020 F8 (SWAN) on 2020 May 22, but we believe that it is unlikely to detect any material associated with that comet.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Three essays in behavioral economics

Over the last few decades, behavioral economics, by introducing psychology in the decision making process, has changed the way we think about the policy problems of our age. Governments and non-governmental organizations all over the world are using insights from behavioral economics to solve wide ranging issues in the domains such as health, wealth, education, social security, environment etc.. In this dissertation research I use insights from behavioral economics to understand two unrelated but pressing problems of our age; labor-market discrimination and road-safety behavior. In this dissertation, I first present a theory of worker side discrimination and highlight the importance of exploring worker side discrimination to improve our overall understanding of labor market discrimination. The main thesis of this work is that in many situations, workers\u27 motivation to work for employer depends on employer\u27s social group. More precisely, workers feel more motivated when they work for the same group employer and less so when working for an out-group employer. Workers\u27 productivity differential provides incentive to the non-discriminatory employers to recruit workers from their own group and pay higher wages to own-group workers. The assortative matching of employers and workers leads to segregation of the labor force when there are enough same-group employers. However, under-representation of employers of one group leads to adverse labor market outcomes for the workers of that group in terms of wages. I show that this has implications for how we interpret the existence and source of discrimination in the labor markets. Specifically, I demonstrate that what is traditionally understood as discrimination by employers may, in fact, be a rational response to the worker\u27s differential social preferences towards the employer\u27s group identity. I also show that ignoring worker social preferences (and employer\u27s beliefs about them) may lead to misleading conclusions about the sources of discrimination. In another chapter of this dissertation, I (with my co-authors) explore the evidence for the above theorized channel of discrimination in an online labor market. Specifically, we examine whether workers in the online economy discriminate against their employers via their social-preferences / motivation. In this chapter, we focus on racial identity and ask, do workers discriminate (say, by under providing effort) for an out-race employer relative to an otherwise-identical, own-race one? We run a well-powered model-based experiment using subjects from Amazon\u27s Mechanical Turk (M-Turk). Interestingly, we find that white workers do not discriminate against their out-group employers, in-fact they work harder for black employers as compared to white employers. The results are exciting because it reflects the lack of bias in workers preferences towards the minority group employers in the online economy. The results imply that as the economies transition to online jobs, the possibility of discriminatory behavior against minorities may diminish. In the last chapter, I (along with my co-author) study another application of behavioral economics to understand road-safety behavior of the automotive drivers. Particularly, we look at the traffic-related messages such as “drive sober,” “x deaths on roads this year,” and click it or ticket,”, displayed on major highways, on reported near-to-sign traffic accidents. To estimate the causal effect of these nudges, we build a new high-frequency panel dataset using the information on the time and location of messages, traffic incidents, overall traffic levels, and weather conditions using the data of the state of Vermont. We estimate several models that control for endogeneity of these messages, allow for spillover effects from neighboring messages, and look at the impact as the function of distance from the sign. We find that behavioral nudges, such as “drive sober” and “wear seat belt”, are at best ineffective in reducing the number of crashes while informational nudges, such as “slippery road” and “work zone”, actually lead to causal reduction in number of crashes. Our findings are robust to many different specifications and assumptions

City of Kabul, Afghanistan

Kabul : Afghan Tourist Organization, [between 1969 and 1979] Physical Description: 1 map ; 42 x 50 cm, folded to 21 x 13 cm Scale 1:20,000. Photos by J. Cudnay

An Audit of hand hygiene practices in ICU’s and wards of a tertiary care hospital

Objective: To assess the extent to which Hand hygiene practices, as proposed by the WHO, were being followed by the healthcare workers based in different departments of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad.Methodology: An observation checklist was designed based on the recommendations of WHO. This checklist was then filled by nurses working in different departments while they observed the participants. The participants included consultants, post-graduate trainees, house-officers, nurses, and technicians. The observations were then compiled on data collection sheets and analyzed.Results: A total of 106 healthcare workers took part in this audit. Out of them, only 57.5% of healthcare workers disinfected their hands before moving from infected to non-infected body site on the patient. Jewelry was worn by only 25.5% of healthcare workers out of which 45.5% wore the recommended type and the majority of healthcare workers had small and clean fingernails. As far as following the 5 steps for hand hygiene was concerned, only 75.5% of healthcare workers reported compliance. Availability of sinks which was found to be 75.5%, nearly a quarter of the participants reported no area designated for cleaning hands. Soap was provided in 86.4% of the cases and around 95% of the workers were provided with alcohol-based hand washing agent and the solution dispenser was filled.Conclusion: Overall, it is obvious that hand hygiene plays a very crucial role in patient safety and the reduction of hospital acquired infections. An honest effort is required on part of the hospital administration to ensure that there is adequate infrastructure on ground for people to have access to hand washing areas

Perlindungan Hukum terhadap Pasien Bpjs Kesehatan di Rsup Dr. Soeradji Tirtonegoro Klaten

Masih terdapat kekurangan dalam pelaksanaan BPJS Kesehatan di Indonesia yang masih tidak sesuai dengan harapan masyarakat. Hal ini tentunya sangat merugikan pihak yang seharusnya dilindungi yaitu peserta BPJS Kesehatan Konsumen perlu dilindungi, karena konsumen dianggap memiliki suatu “kedudukan” yang tidak seimbang dengan para pelaku USAha.Penelitian ini menggunakan metode pendekatan yuridis empiris. Spesifikasi penelitian yang digunakan deskritif analitis. Metode pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan wawancara. Jenis dan sumber data yang digunakan dalam menganalisis dan mengumpulkan data dilakukan dengan analisis kualitatif. Pelindungan hukum pasien sebagai konsumen dalam pelayanan kesehatan terhadap kualitas pelayanan di RSUP dr. Soeradji Tirtonegoro Klaten dalam kategori baik dengan implikasi baik. Hal ini dapat diindikasikan dari penilaian mereka terhadap penerapan biaya pelayanan secara gratis, kualitas produk pelayanan yang cukup baik, ketersediaan sarana prasarana yang lengkap, serta petugas yang kompeten di bidanganya. Jaminan upaya hukum pasien apabila merasa dirugikan hak-haknya sudah dilaksanakan oleh tenaga kesehatan serta rumah sakit dengan implikasi baik, hal ini dapat dibuktikan dengan adanya kotak surat yang disediakan oleh rumah sakit sebagai saranan menampung keluhan-keluahan pasien, pasien juga dapat mengadukan keluhannya kepada dokter atau perawat apabila merasa dirugikan dengan pelayanan. Rumah Sakit juga harus selalu mementingkan aspek perlindungan hukum terhadap pasien sebagai konsumen jasa dalam pelayanan kesehatan yang diberikan oleh rumah sakit yaitu dengan selalu mementingkan hak-hak dari pasien