A Socio Religious Analysis of Suicides and its Impact on Economic Development

The aim of this paper is to gaining deeper insight into the reasons and consequences of condemned suicidal act from the socio-religious point of view and its impact on the economic development of a society. The condemned act of suicide and problems relating to it, keeping in view the available facts and figures is analysed in view of social and religious beliefs in the known religions of the world. Suicide is a serious public social problem. It is one of the important problems. Different reports on the causes and consequences of suicide have presented an extremely grim picture. It has threatened the life itself. The people resorted to suicides in huge numbers since last decade. Accordingly, the problem of suicide and other related matters may be viewed in terms of the role performance failure of the social & religious systems concerned and the social entities in their environment. Analogously, the problem may be interpreted in terms of the mal-functions of relationships based role on the reciprocity of expectations amongst the interacting social systems.Suicidal, Economics, Socio-religious, Beliefs, Rituals, problems, Reasons, Consequences, Role-Performance, Interaction.

Postoperative outcome of early appendectomy in patients having appendicular mass by laparoscopic surgery

Objective: To determine the frequency of postoperative outcome of early appendectomy in patients having appendicular mass by laparoscopic surgery.Methodology: It was a descriptive & case series study. Study was conducted in the department of surgery Liaquat University Hospital Jamshoro/Hyderabad, during the time period of Jan 2015 to Dec 2017. Patients were both gender and patients aged between 10-40 years having tender and palpable right iliac fossa mass on clinical examination confirmed on ultrasound abdomen as appendicular mass. Patients with mass in right iliac fossa but with associated features like fixed and immobile mass for more than 1 month, bleeding per rectum, history of weight loss, cardio respiratory diseases like recent myocardial infarction, congestive cardiac failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and renal diseases like glomerulonephritis, nephrotic syndrome and renal failure etc, gynecological and obstetrical diseases in female patients were excluded from the study. The postoperative hospital stay was counted and wound infection was noted.Results: During the study period of one year, total of 73 patients with appendicular mass were included in this study.  The age range 10 to 40 years with mean age ± SD (range) was 25.75±9.2 years. Out of them 46 (63.0%) were male whereas 27(37.0 %) were females During operation we found appendicular abscess in 12(16.43%) cases followed by perforated appendix in   10(13.69%) cases, while during operations we found in adhesions in 15(20.5%) cases and difficulty in localisation of appendix 06 (8.21%) cases. The mean hospital stay + SD (range) was 4.91 +1.65 (3-9 days).  Wound infection was seen in 15(20.5 %) cases.Conclusion: Early appendectomy can be safely performed in appendix mass without any increased risk of mortality and morbidity. The outcome of early surgical management of appendicular lump showed benefits for single hospitalization, shorter hospital stay and lower treatment costs

Digital innovation & enterprise in the sharing economy: An action research agenda

In this digital era, Digital Innovation & Enterprise have emerged as a possible prescription in the sharing economy. Scholars have noted that digital innovation is transforming the technological landscape, entrepreneurial practices, and the behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs of consumers across the globe. This research note serves three purposes. First, it introduces digital innovation and enterprise as a fruitful area of research in the sharing economy. Second, it extends the agenda set by Yoo, Henfridsson, and Lyytinen (2010) on “new organising logics of Digital Innovation” to propose contemporary research questions for scholarly collaboration. Third, it attempts to move forward research in digital business from B2B, B2C, mobile-social contexts to emerging eco-systems that address current socio-economic trends. In proposing such a digital business research agenda, the authors reason why Action Design Research studies may be particularly suited for the iterative development, replication and sharing of findings in the form of artefacts such as use-cases

What drives customer satisfaction and well-being in ridesharing? A developing country perspective

This study examines ridesharing services from the customer perspective in a developing country context and investigates two significant post-adoption and marketing consequences: satisfaction and well-being. Using a purposeful sampling technique, six semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in Sindh province, Pakistan. Among the major findings are that customers’ awareness of the services and how to use the mobile application, convenience of use, high perceived value, the quality of information available in the ridesharing mobile app, real-time location services, and an effective complaint resolution mechanism promote customer satisfaction and well-being. This study includes implications and an agenda for future research

Would you mind your language, please? Consumer incivility on social media platforms

Consumer incivility on social media platforms has recently gained the attention of academic researchers. However, few studies have presented the role that consumer incivility plays in forming social media perspectives (e.g. experiencing uncivil comments or rude replies on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). Using the stimulus-organism-response theory, this study investigated the impacts of consumer incivility on social media brand representatives’ efforts to deal with it, social media brand community participation and social media brand trust. The study also investigated the influence of social media brand representatives’ efforts to deal with consumer incivility on social media brand community participation and examined the relationships of these two factors with social media brand trust. Two hundred and forty social media consumers who had witnessed the effect of consumer incivility on social media community platforms completed the study questionnaires. SPSS 23 and SmartPLS-SEM (v. 3.3.7) were used to analyse the data obtained and to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that consumer incivility was significantly inversely associated with the causal constructs. The present study provided novel insights for high-tech social media industries, including digital marketers and community developers

Blockchain-enabled Platform for a Meta Customer Loyalty Program

The competitive value of customer loyalty programs is well-known among marketing strategists. With the emergence of digital platforms, their impact has skyrocketed, with mobile applications replacing more cumbersome physical cards with unique identification numbers on embedded magnetic strips or smart chips. However, these programs generally suffer from two major drawbacks that limit their growth. Firstly, physical cards and mobile applications are restricted to particular merchants and programs. There is no mechanism for customers to transfer their loyalty points between programs or to other customers (although airlines are pioneering efforts in this direction). Secondly, the payoffs of participating in these programs and transactions are not fair to all players (customers, merchants and program operators). Finally, the operational mechanisms of such programs are rarely transparent and traceable; hence, disputes are not easily mediated. Using the innovative strengths of blockchain technology, we present a conceptual architecture for a meta or universal customer loyalty program that supports the design principles of transparency, accountability, fairness and ethics

Toward the Development of a Revised Technology Acceptance Model

This study develops and proposes an extended technology adoption model based on the vast literature. The proposed revised technology adoption model is a five-layer evaluation model that can be used to determine the variables that influence individuals’ and organizations’ embrace of new technologies. The existing technology acceptance model (TAM) and its modifications (TAM2 and TAM3) have been applied for decades in varied disciplines, including marketing and information systems, to better predict generic human perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes toward new and existing technologies. The revised TAM is less generic and includes variables pertaining to culture-tech (indigenization) that predict user behaviors and intentions to adopt new technology. This proposed TAM offers the potential to engineer destruction in the development of culture-tech or indigenous technology by allowing local customization of technological contents and features to meet the needs of individuals and organizations, especially those in developing and emerging countries. The revised TAM, if supported empirically, will guide researchers and developers to capitalize on technology innovation rooted in users’ indigenous and personal attributes and characteristics

The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic a Global Emergency: The Journey from Bats to Humans

Bats are considered as the reservoirs of coronaviruses (CoVs) which resulted in severe disease outbreaks in humans. Zoonotic coronaviruses responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), were originated from bats and remain highly pathogenic to humans during the last two decades. Recently, an acute respiratory disease outbreak which spread in Wuhan, China was caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) also known as 2019-nCoV, received worldwide attention. The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 as a public health emergency. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has been considered as the third highly pathogenic epidemic of the 21st century. The SARS-CoV-2 belongs to β-coronavirus group with highly identical genome to bat coronavirus RaTG13, assuming bat as the natural host. According to WHO as of December 21, 2020, approximately 75,479,471 persons were infected with 16,86,267 deaths in 222 countries. Whereas the in Pakistan according to WHO as of December 21, 2020, around 4 57,288 persons were infected with 9, 330 death reported in the country. Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; 2019-nCoV; Bats; Human; Epidemic; Pandemic DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/105-07 Publication date: February 28th 202

Examining Consumer Mobile Money Usage Behaviour in Ghana

This study develops a theoretical model to examine the effects of agent credibility and service quality on customer empowerment and the consequences of such empowerment in mobile money (MM) usage in Ghana. In total, 595 valid responses were collected using a pre-tested onsite-survey instrument. The research findings suggest that a higher level of MM agent credibility increases customer empowerment, which in turn positively affects the continuous usage of MM services. A significant association between MM agent service quality and customer empowerment was also noted. The study concludes with a discussion of study implications, limitations, and future research directions

UML Artefacts for a Blockchain-enabled Platform for Fairtrade

Fairtrade-certified products have successfully entered the mainstream distribution channels, mostly in developed countries, and these products are now sold in famous supermarket chains. Nonetheless, the packaging and labeling of products as “Fairtrade” command premium pricing in the marketplace. How much of this, however, is valid and justified? Despite the reputable certification mechanisms for quality assurance, mass media reports suggest that much of the “surplus value” goes to the accreditation agencies themselves instead of the producers. This article proposes an agenda to set this right with a blockchain platform that provides “trust-free” assurances of verifiable labeling. Using an Action Design Research methodology, we have specified a research prototype of a Blockchain-enabled Fair-Trade platform Unified Modelling Language artifacts. We believe this will set the direction for social inclusion as part of information systems scholars’ aspiration to promote “tech for good.