The mediating role of innovation in the relationship between market orientation and university performance in Pakistan

Universities globally are going through a paradigm shift with a need to become more innovatively market-oriented to handle the issue of growing competition for funding, as well as attracting/retaining the international/local competent students and academicians. However, there appears to be a dearth of research on how such state of affairs could be addressed, particularly in the emerging economies like Pakistan. In the light of resource-based theory (RBT), as well as organizational-learning theory (OLT), literature suggests that market-orientation (MO) and innovation are to be the desirable unique resources, as well as the guiding philosophies, to enable universities for a more competitive performance. Hence, this study investigated how resources like marketorientation (MO), and innovation, can influence university performance (UP). The study also tested empirically the potential mediating effect of innovation on the MOUP relationship. In addition, how the dimensions of MO influenced the innovation and university performance (UP) were also tested empirically in the universities of Pakistan. Results of the PLS path modelling (with 369 respondents from the target public-sector universities) firstly confirmed significant effect of the “universal construct of MO” and two of its dimensions “the advising and mentoring, as well as the intelligencegeneration and response” on UP. However, one dimension of MO, which is the administration-leadership, was not significantly supported to directly influence the UP. Secondly, the study confirmed that there were significant direct effects of the “universal construct of MO”, as well as all of its dimensions, on innovation. Thirdly, the study also found that there was a significant effect of innovation on UP. Furthermore, the bootstrapping results found significant mediation of innovation between the MO-UP relationship. Hence, the results show that UP can be directly enhanced through MO and innovation. Even the use of innovation as a mediator can further strengthen the MO-UP relationship. Based on the findings, the study offers theoretical and practical implications, followed by its limitations and directions, for future research

Meritocracy and Innovation: A Synergy for Organizations in Pakistan

Today, in the rapidly emerging globalization process, increasing the organizational competitiveness depends on increasing of their organizational performance. Meritocracy is one of the HRM practices in which the best people and thoughts win into an organization. Also, organizations needs to build and foster engagement among their employees and encourage the top management, should consider adopting a meritocratic approach. The meritocratic approach has to utilize the abilities and competencies of all employees in order to become more innovative which ultimately enhances the organizational performance. Although, there are many mechanisms to effect organizational performance, yet the organizational innovation has turned out to be one of the most widely used methods. Even though it is well recognized that organizational innovation increases organizational performance, yet the recent literature asserts to analyze the organizational performance from different perspectives in order to make it further efficient. The current study emphasizes the importance of organizational innovation as a mediator between meritocracy and organizational performance. The primary goal of this study is to develop a conceptual framework that may determine whether organizational innovation is effective as an intermediate variable to the effects of meritocracy on organizational performance.

The Intention to Adopt Green IT Products in Pakistan: Driven by the Modified Theory of Consumption Values

Over the last decades, prompt economic growth and the resulting overconsumption has deteriorated the environment in an accelerated way. This environmental deterioration has prompted academicians and practitioners to study ecological consumption behavior. E-waste and energy consumption play a major part in this environmental deterioration, which makes consumer conscious regarding their consumption pattern. In this regard, the emergence of green Information Technology (IT) enables individuals to become involved in environmental protection and sustainability programs to reduce the negative impact of IT products on the environment. This study aims to investigate individual intentions to adopt green IT products in Pakistan by the theoretical foundation of the theory of consumption values (functional value, social value, epistemic value, emotional value, and conditional value). Whereas, an additional value, i.e., the religious value, is included in the model, due to its significant impact in green consumption behavior of individuals. Cross-sectional data is used to obtain a total of 536 valid questionnaires to test the hypothesis. The Partial Least Square Modeling approach is used to test the proposed model (variance-based SEM). The results infer that functional value, social value, epistemic value, emotional value, conditional value, and religious value have significant positive impact on the consumer intention to adopt green IT products. The reasons for the results and implications for the practitioners are discussed. Furthermore, directions for future research have also been suggested

Nurturing Innovation Performance Through Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Moderation of Employee Engagement

The objective of the present article is to highlight the concept of innovation performance, its importance and the different elements that could potentially enhance it within an organization. Through critical appraisal of the literature, the paper has attempted to shed light on how innovation performance is essentially important for businesses to thrive in the current global economy via focusing on prospects like corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement. The review has concluded that Innovation and more importantly, employee performance towards bringing innovative is critical for businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship is an evolving concept that talks about nurturing and establishing such an environment that supports and motivates people to work with initiative mindset, indulging in creativity and innovation within the organization. Notably, past empirical evidence has underscored employee engagement to be highly significant in enhancing performance focused outcomes. The paper had attempted to establish how corporate entrepreneurship can enhance innovation performance within an organization. Importantly, the paper has also outlined pivotal role of employee engagement as a potential moderator to enrich this relationship. The paper has forwarded research model highlighting severe paucity of research and mature significance for fostering innovation performance at the workplace

Predicting consumer purchase intention toward hybrid vehicles : testing the moderating role of price sensitivity

Purpose Today, global warming is one of the most acute challenges in the world, prominently caused by greenhouse gases. The introduction of hybrid-vehicles (HVs) is thus, one of the industrial initiatives to tackle this challenge by allowing at least some proportionate reduction in global-gas-emissions. Such initiatives like HVs have also affected the consumers’ green-purchase-intention (GPI). Hence, underpinned into the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study aims to analyze consumers’ response in terms of GPI for HVs, in addition to exploring the moderating-effect of price-sensitivity between independent-variables (attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) and consumers’ GPI for HVs. Design/methodology/approach The data was collected from 266 automobile-consumers with the help of questionnaires. A two-step approach was used to analyse the given hypothesis with the help of partial least squares structural equation modelling (Smart-PLS 3.2.7). Findings First, significant empirical-evidence was secured regarding the impact of given independent-variables (i.e. attitude, subjective norms and perceived behaviour control) on consumer’s GPI for HVs. Second, the empirical-evidence for the moderating effect of price-sensitivity onto the association between given independent-variables (except for the perceived-behavioural-control) and the consumers’ GPI for HVs, also turned out to be quite substantial in this study. Originality/value In-line-with the TPB, this study extends the existing body of literature regarding consumers’ GPI as it was significantly contingent to the given independent variables of the study, whereby, the price-sensitivity has been recognized as a key moderator particularly in the context of developing countries such as Pakistan. The present study thus provides in depth-insights to guide automobile manufacturers and marketers to redefine their pricing strategies to further strengthen the consumer’s GPI for HVs within certain socio-contextual setup. Automobile establishments should thus, invest in HVs’ adoption that serves both the eco-system (particularly human-well-being) and sustainable-organizational-growth.peerReviewe