Organizational Silence A Predictor of Organizational Commitment in Higher Education Institution

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: how the organizational silence is related with organizational commitment and how it affects the employees. The focus is particularly on the higher education institutions in the federal territory. Design/ Methodology/Approach-The scientific data which has been collected from the teachers of higher education in the form of survey questionnaire on which statistical techniques were implied. The sample size was consist of 80 teachers of public educational institutions out of which 55 were received and 44 were stand correct. The approach adopted in this study is exploratory in nature in order to explore relationship between organizational silence and organizational commitment. Findings-In our findings any relationship of the dimensions of organizational silence in context of reasons why employees remain silent is not found with organization commitment. We believe that this must be related to the chosen organization. The correlation is found positive between organization silence and organizational commitment but regression analysis shows in significance of organizational silence with organizational commitment Research limitations/ Implications-The sample used is relatively small due to lack of time and resources. The research is based upon higher education sector only. Practical implications-Managers will find the study useful in evaluating the environment of organization for employees which feel silence behavior, including the level of organizational commitment for the employees. Originality/Value-The study is focused on the different dimensions of organizational silence which include in the scale and correlates to something that is lacking in the literature. The paper will give birth to the debate and discussion of different dimensions of organizational silence in with the relationship of organizational commitment, and   contribute or plugin new experimental fact findings. It also focus on the increasing importance of the organizational silence which is prevailing in the organizations of the current era. Keywords: Organizational silence; Organizational commitment; Higher education sector; Federal territor

Social Media Marketing in Pakistan: Trends and Impact

Internet is the rapidly grown and emerging technology closing the gaps of distances between the people all across the globe and effectively replacing the traditional ways of advertising. Social Media are new emerging trends. Due to the high rush of audiences this media is being targeted by the various advertisers. Social media marketing is the emerging and rapidly gown new concept in which attention is gained by the use of social media. Purpose of this study is to explore out the awareness and usage trends of social networks in Pakistan. Also it tries to identify what age group spends how much time on internet, their awareness about social media, and primary reasons for using social networks. Finally this paper tries to explore out the understanding of the Pakistanis towards social media advertisement, what types of communications attract them and their influence on their behaviors. Primary data was collected through adapted research questionnaire. Questionnaires were floated online; Google Docs, emailed and were also filled by person. Analysis has been done using cross tabs and frequency tables. Findings suggest that facebook is the mostly used social network having well communicated and very effective ads. Results show that there is great opportunity to use facebook as a new medium to aware customers about the new products. Findings also suggest that there is an increasing trend of social networks usage in Pakistan. Not only among the age group of 18-25 but also in the adults of 50 and plus. This study can help to understand and design the effective communication strategy to reach the target market in Pakistan, using social media networks. Keywords: social media marketing, facebook, marketing trends, facebook advertisemen

Critical Success and Failure Factors of Entrepreneurial Organizations: Study of SMEs in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Purpose of this research paper is to highlight critical failure and success factors in Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of Bahawalpur. In this regard models are developed from studies of Bezing et al and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Finally results are generalized to SMEs of Bahawalpur. Findings suggest that customer service, know-how of the business and the past experience of the manager are the main key factors of success. Whereas different failure factors are explored out in which most crucial ones considered are lack of access to financial capital, inappropriate government structure and poor infrastructure as well as corruption. This paper has the vast implications for the SMEs in Bahawalpur and overall for the SMEs in Pakistan as it gives insight into the reasoning factors of failure and success. Research is limited to small scale due to time constraint and resistive behavior of organizations

An overview of Customer Relationship Management Software in Business Organizations

The aim of the article is to present details of the research on focus on the customer in relation to the utilization of the customer relationship management computerized system in business organization. Customer relationship management (CRM) plays a central role in the growth and success of corporations in an environment of fast technological development and the extensive competition currently in evidence. CRM empowers corporations with better customer awareness and helps to construct sustainable relationships with customers. People, technology, and processes are the three basic components of CRM. In order to ensure the successful implementation and adoption of the CRMinitiative, this paper presents a detailed review of the literature relating to CRM processes and its computerized system. Various types and levels of the CRM process as well as an understanding of the different perspectives of CRM are presented in this review. The paper suggests that it is important for an organization to understand the four major perspectives of CRM processes i.e. customer facing level processes, customer oriented processes, cross functional CRM processes and CRM macro-level processes. A survey is also conducted in this paper and a chi square test is performed to test the hypothesis relatingto the efficiency of customer relationship management and the client relationship it offers. Results show that the hypothesis is statistically significant

The Impact of Cognitive Biases on The Investment Decision of Individual Investors: The Role of Risk Propensity

This study investigates the impact of cognitive biases on individual investors' investment decisions using the mediation role of risk propensity. Data was collected from 320 investors with a minimum of one year of experience and over a 90-day time frame. A self-administered questionnaire was used, and statistical analysis was performed using smart PLS and SPSS. The results showed that cognitive biases have a positive impact on individual investment decisions, with an indirect effect supporting the meditation model between cognitive biases and investment decisions. The indirect effect of risk propensity also positively influences cognitive biases and investment decisions. This study contributes to the mediating role of risk propensity and validates it from an individual perspective, allowing for better understanding of the relationship between cognitive biases and investment decisions. The outcomes and implications of this research are relevant for behavioral finance-related research and can help individual investors, financial institutions, and governments better understand the role of investors' behavior in the stock market

A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON RELATIONSHIP OF DIABETES MELLITUS (TYPE 2) AND OBESITY IN PAKISTAN

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is one of the most common public health issues worldwide and its incidence is on the rise, particularly in middle-income and low-income countries. Objectives of the study: The main objective of the study is to analyze the relationship of diabetes mellitus (type 2) and obesity in Pakistan. Methodology of the study: The cross sectional study was conducted at Allied Hospital Faisalabad during March 2018 till August 2018 The data was collected from 200 diabetic patients who visited the OPD of the hospital. The data was collected through a questionnaire. We assess the nutritional and economic health of patients by asking some survey questions. From the large pool of data we select health status, diet quality, lifestyle, food culture, food security, and demographic information of the selected patients. The economic and health status describe the level of awareness regarding disease. Results: The data were collected from 200 diabetic patients. We also collect the basic characteristics of patients and compared these values with normal values. So we can find that diseases person have more blood pressure value as compared to normal. The demographical conditions of the patients explains the co-efficient and standard error values. The level of confidence interval is 90 and 95 in this table for the significant value. Conclusion: It is concluded that T2DM patients require reinforcement of DM education including dietary management through stakeholders (health-care providers, health facilities, etc.) to encourage them to understand the disease management better, for more appropriate self-care and better quality of life

Does courtesy bias affect how clients report on objective and subjective measures of family planning service quality? A comparison between facility- and home-based interviews

Purpose: Despite a general understanding that exit interviews being conducted at service providers\u27 facilities may influence clients\u27 responses favorably to health professionals, there is very little evidence available that demonstrates the extent to which this problem exists. This study aimed at assessing and comparing clients\u27 perceptions of the quality of family planning services and their satisfaction levels between facility- and home-based interviews.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among clients receiving family planning services across three service delivery channels - nongovernmental organization (NGO) clinics, social franchise (SF) centers, and outreach camps. The survey took place from December 2015 to January 2016 in 70 districts across all four provinces of Pakistan. A total of 2,807 clients were interviewed, of whom 1,404 clients were interviewed at health facilities after receiving services and 1,403 were interviewed at their homes within 3 days of method uptake.Results: Overall, we found no significant differences between the characteristics of study participants interviewed at health facilities or at home. The findings suggested that experiences reported in exit surveys at facilities were strongly biased positively. This was true for both experiential (service quality) and perception-based (satisfaction) questions in the context of SF centers, while at NGO clinics the interview location only affected clients\u27 responses regarding service quality. However, in outreach settings, clients are more likely to share bad experiences in exit interviews than in home-based interviews on objectively asked questions (service quality).Conclusion: Our study indicates signs of courtesy bias and possibly the Hawthorne effect in exit interviews. Program implementers could opt for home-based interviews for women receiving services at NGO clinics or SF center, whereas exit interviews could be used in outreach settings

IUD discontinuation rates, switching behavior, and user satisfaction: Findings from a retrospective analysis of a mobile outreach service program in Pakistan

Background: In Pakistan, the uptake rate for the intrauterine device (IUD) is very low at 2.5%. The most popular modern contraceptive methods in Pakistan are female sterilization and use of condoms. The Marie Stopes Society established its mobile outreach service delivery program with the aim of increasing use of modern quality contraceptive services, including the long-term reversible IUD, by women living in hard-to-reach areas. The present study attempts to assess IUD discontinuation rates and associated factors, including switching behavior and level of satisfaction with this type of service delivery.Methods: Using a cross-sectional approach, we contacted 681 women who had received an IUD from the Marie Stopes Society mobile outreach program during July and August 2009. Successful interviews were conducted with 639 of these women using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed with Stata 11.2 using simple descriptive Chi-square and Cox proportional techniques.Results: Analysis revealed that 19.4% (95% confidence interval 16.3-22.5) of the women discontinued use of their IUD at 10 months and, of these women, the majority (69.4%) cited side effects as the main reason for discontinuation. Other factors, such as geographical catchment province, age of the woman, history of contraceptive use before IUD insertion, and side effects following insertion of the device, were found to be significantly associated with IUD. Amongst the women who had their IUD removed, 56.5% did not switch to any other contraceptive method, while 36.3% switched to either short-term or traditional methods, such as withdrawal, rhythm, and folk methods. Degree of satisfaction with the device was also significantly associated with discontinuation.Conclusion: Early discontinuation and not switching to another contraceptive method increases the risk of unplanned pregnancy. Health care workers should be trained in managing clients\u27 concerns about the IUD to prevent discontinuation and providing counseling services for clients to select an alternative contraceptive method if they decide to discontinue

Enhanced label noise filtering with multiple voting

© 2019 by the authors. Label noises exist in many applications, and their presence can degrade learning performance. Researchers usually use filters to identify and eliminate them prior to training. The ensemble learning based filter (EnFilter) is the most widely used filter. According to the voting mechanism, EnFilter is mainly divided into two types: single-voting based (SVFilter) and multiple-voting based (MVFilter). In general, MVFilter is more often preferred because multiple-voting could address the intrinsic limitations of single-voting. However, the most important unsolved issue in MVFilter is how to determine the optimal decision point (ODP). Conceptually, the decision point is a threshold value, which determines the noise detection performance. To maximize the performance of MVFilter, we propose a novel approach to compute the optimal decision point. Our approach is data driven and cost sensitive, which determines the ODP based on the given noisy training dataset and noise misrecognition cost matrix. The core idea of our approach is to estimate the mislabeled data probability distributions, based on which the expected cost of each possible decision point could be inferred. Experimental results on a set of benchmark datasets illustrate the utility of our proposed approach

Techno-Economic Feasibility Analysis of Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Plants as Dispatchable Renewable Energy Resource of Pakistan: A case study of Tharparkar

Pakistan is identified to be one of the next-11 the top emerging economies of the world after the BRICS. This emphasizes the establishment of a competitive electricity market that can fulfil the demand of the country considering the environmental concerns. In this scenario reliability of power is something that cannot be compromised. Dispatchable power stations play a major role in balancing supply and demand; this balance is essential for maintaining the power cuts free country. All dispatchable power stations incorporate some form of storage particularly thermal or chemical (i.e. a stored fuel).  Earlier dispatchable power was regarded as the generation which can start quickly and meet the peak demand requirements but arrival of renewables in power system has increased worth of its presence since it has just not to supply peak demand but also to meet during the unavailability of other renewable energy sources because of their intermittent behavior meanly at times of dark hours and slow wind speed. This study considers the viability of Concentrated Solar Thermal Power in Pakistan and thoroughly analyses several characteristics i.e., Availability of fuel, water, road and communication network, flexibility and environmental impacts of the technology for the cite of Tharparkar