• Energy Research

With the increase in awareness about the wide range of issues and adverse effects associated with the use of conventional energy sources came an increase in project management research related to sustainability and sustainable development. Part of that research is devoted to the development of sustainable project typologies that classify projects based on a variety of external factors that can significantly impact these projects. This research focuses on developing a sustainable project typology that classifies sustainable projects based on the external institutional influences. The typology explores the influence of the coercive, normative, and mimetic institutional isomorphisms on the expected level of change, level of uncertainty, project team skills and experience levels, and the level of technology information exchange in sustainable projects. Two case studies are presented to demonstrate the use of the typology to classify sustainable projects based on the external institutional influences.

A robust project selection process is critical for the selection of sustainable projects that meet the needs of an organization or community. There are multiple factors or criteria that can be considered in the selection of the appropriate sustainable project, but it can be challenging to find sufficient depth of expert opinion to perform a strong evaluation of these criteria. Several researchers have turned to the sustainable project literature as a source of expert opinion to evaluate the criteria used in sustainable project selection and rank them based on importance using different multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodologies. However, using the literature as a source of expert opinion poses a different set of challenges and may not accurately represent the actual opinions of sustainable project subject matter experts (SMEs) and practitioners. In this study, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) methodology is used to determine the importance of project cost, project maturity, skill and experience, uncertainty, and technology information transfer as selection criteria using collected opinions from academic sustainable project experts and practitioners. The results are then compared with previous research that used the literature to rank these five criteria based on importance when selecting between multiple sustainable project alternatives. The results show that project cost is still considered the major driver of decision making in sustainable project selection by both the literature and practice. However, unlike the literature-as-experts approach, SMEs prioritize skill and experience and technology information transfer over project maturity and uncertainty. Project managers and decision makers can use these findings to best prioritize the types of challenges that may occur depending on inputs for the FAHP analysis.

Environmental degradation is a serious global issue that has received increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, regulators, environmental activists, and the public as a whole. In the meantime, corporations have been criticized as major contributors to environmental pollution. Environmental accounting (EA) is a corporate practice that seeks to account for the cost of environmental impacts of business operations. However, it is questionable whether the true cost of environmental impacts of business operations is accounted for in the conventional accounting systems. In order to shed more light on this issue, this study examines key drivers of managerial intention to engage in EA practices in Sri Lanka. We employ the theory of planned behavior to conceptualize the antecedents of managers’ intention to engage in EA practices. The results of the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) evaluation revealed that managers’ intention is significantly influenced by the attitudes towards EA practices, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Our results also indicate that a larger proportion of the variance of perceived behavioral control is explained by the perceived cost and complexity, perceived regulatory pressure, and organizational environmental orientation. The findings of this study provide important theoretical and practical implications for scholars, managers, and policymakers.

Leadership is essential for the success of every organization, as people believe in the ability of their leaders to guide change and achieve success. Today’s law firms are operating in a complex business environment and facing huge competition from both clients and talent. Tough competition, business alliances, corporate social responsibleness, and market conditions demand a huge transformation in the law industry. This study was designed to investigate the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), employee’s job performance (JP), and corporate social responsibility (CSR), as well the mediating mechanism of CSR among TL and JP. The data has been collected from 200 employees working in law firms of Pakistan by using a cross sectional research method. The study hypothesized that TL is significantly related to JP and CSR; in addition, CSR mediates the relationship between TL and JP. Results confirm our conjectures, hence allowing us to contribute to the scant literature of TL, CSR, and JP in the law industry. Our study provides important information to the decision makers who are involved in policymaking; that the adoption of TL practices and involvement in CSR activities can improve JP. Moreover, theoretical and practical implementations are provided for generalization.

Despite the extensive academic interest in e-commerce, cognitive innovativeness in e-commerce context has been neglected. This study focuses on the moderating role of consumer cognitive innovativeness on the influencing factors of interpersonal trust (iTrust) towards online purchase intention of new product in business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. Data were collected in Australia from consumers who has had prior online shopping experience. Variance-based structural equation modeling such as partial least squares (PLS-SEM) is used to test the research model. The results show men and women have different perceptions of what is important to be provided by an online store to make a positive shopping experience. We highlighted that in-addition to the e-commerce web design aspects; the individual cognitive innovativeness can influence females more to purchase online. Practitioners should adjust their online business strategies, considering consumer cognitive innovativeness to enhance their e-commerce desirable outcomes. This means online business should not treat their consumers as a uniform group with a ‘one-design-fits-all’ web design strategy but need to consider the individual needs of their male and female consumers.

This precise study is the first to perform a focalized investigation on the relationship between entrepreneurial business networks and sustainable performance of small firms. The entrepreneurial business network is a multifaceted business network of business firms, working together to achieve business objectives. Business relationships and firm aggregations are the main categories of entrepreneurial business networks, which help small and medium-sized enterprises to become more dynamic, innovative and competitive. The entrepreneurial business network is a networking, which provides a platform to build business relationships, identify, develop or act upon economic opportunities, share information and seek potential business partners for ventures. However, few studies have sought to understand the association of entrepreneurial business network (EBN) and firms’ sustainable performance in the context of Pakistan. This investigation aims to examine the relationship between EBN and small firms’ sustainable performance by applying the Smart PLS-SEM software V-3.2.8. This study explores how dynamic capabilities mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial business network and sustainable performance of small firms. The data received reports on small firms, manufacturing surgical instruments. The findings indicated that the entrepreneurial business network had a significant positive relationship with dynamic capabilities, which in turn presented a positive relation to a sustainable performance of small firms. By developing sustainable EBN, small firms can achieve sustainable performance by implementing dynamic capabilities in a competitive environment. The results affirmed that highly entrepreneurial firms showed a tendency to create a business network for achieving sustainable performance. The results also revealed that firms using business networks and dynamic capabilities efficiently; achieved their sustainable performance. The findings indicated that the study proposed a holistic and systematic model to achieve sustainable performance through firms’ dynamic capabilities. The generalizability of these findings provides useful insight and direction for future studies in Pakistan.

Typically, residents play a role in developing strategies and innovations in tourism. However, few studies have sought to understand the role of Islamic religiosity on the perceived socio-cultural impacts of sustainable tourism development in Pakistan. Previous studies focusing on socio-cultural impacts as perceived by local communities have applied various techniques to explain the relationships between selected variables. Circumstantially, the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique has gained little attention for measuring the religiosity factors affecting the perceived socio-cultural impacts of sustainable tourism. This investigation aims to address such limitations in this area of scientific knowledge by applying Smart PLS-SEM, developing an empirical approach, and implementing Smart-PLS software V-3.2.8. The proposed tourism model predicts the effects of the religiosity level on the perceived socio-cultural impacts of sustainable tourism development. In this study, we examine the relationships among religious commitments, religious practice, and religious belief and the socio-cultural effects of sustainable tourism. Our research identifies influential factors through an extensive literature review on communities’ religiosity and the socio-cultural impacts of developing sustainable tourism. We examine and analyze data based on 508 residents’ responses. The findings reveal an R² value of 0.841, suggesting three exogenous latent constructs, which collectively elucidate 84.10% of the variance in the perceived socio-cultural impact of sustainable tourism. The findings reveal that religious respondents with a higher religiosity level have a positive attitude towards developing sustainable tourism. These findings are helpful to understand the dynamics of communities’ perceptions, behaviors, quality of life, cultural aspects, and religiosity factors affecting sustainable tourism in Pakistan. This study is novel in the context of Pakistani cultural and social norms, and this study’s implications may provide further direction for researching and developing sustainable tourism in the northern regions of Pakistan.