The impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on the education sector

The COVID-19 outbreak has prevented students from contributing towards the economic growth of Pakistan. It first disrupted the education system in China and later entered Pakistan to close all levels of educational institutions/sectors since the middle of March 2020. This study aims to highlight the COVID-19 outbreak’s effects on educational sector in Pakistan. Pakistan’s overall public sector expenditure as a percentage of GDP before the pandemic was already low as compared to regional level, but due to the pandemic, it has dropped down significantly. This study seeks to answer two important questions: (1) What are the impacts of COVID-19 outbreak on Pakistan? (2) Will the closure of educational institutions impact the economic growth of Pakistan? According to empirical and theoretical findings, the results show that the lack of school education for a long period of time will contribute towards unskilled human capital. The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted student learning activities, which may increase the dropout rates, loss of mental health, and consequently, may impact the economic growth of Pakistan later

The nexus between global disruption due to the covid-19 and performance of the construction project

In the current COVID-19 pandemic, this paper attempts to empirically find out the increasing workplace bullying effect on project performance with employee deviant behaviour as a mediator, internal, and external locus of control as moderators. The random sampling technique was used to gather data from 777 employees, working in construction companies in Pakistan. The examination was established using WarpPLS software version 7.0. The results revealed that workplace bullying is positively associated with employee deviant behaviour which in return negatively affects the project performance. It can be inferred from the results that the “moderating role” of internal “locus of control” is insignificant; whereas the external “locus of control” significantly moderates the relationship between workplace bullying & employee deviant behaviour. The proposed research and hypotheses support social exchange theory and social behaviour exchanges. This study has clarified some unique points that are equally important for the managers, employees, and project-based construction organization as a whole. It is also recommended that once the pandemic COVID-19 passes, it would be the dire need of that time to re-evaluate that, what has been changed in terms of professional thinking, working & behaving as for as their project work and communication between the team members is concerned

Creativity in construction project through entrepreneurial leadership, innovative ambidexterity and collaborative culture

The purpose of this paper is to empirically find out how entreprene-\\urial leadership impacts the creativity in projects and the way innovation ambidexterity acts as a mediator and collaborative culture as moderator in the process. The non-probability random sampling technique and time lag was used to collect data from 300 employees working at project-based construction companies of Pakistan. Smart PLS SEM v.3.2.8 was used to test the hypotheses. The result indicates that entrepreneurial leadership has a significant and positive impact on creativity in projects. Entrepreneurial leaders act as a risk taker and encourage novelty, therefore, enhance innovation ambidexterity in the organization which in turn results creativity in projects. However, results indicate collaborative culture does not play significant role as moderator on the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and creativity in projects