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This study examines the incidence of earnings management
around the time of the privatisation of State Owned Enterprises in
Pakistan during 1991-2005. Using the modified Jones model and a sample
of large privatisations (minimum US$1 million), it shows that the
sampled firms experienced increase in earnings, decrease in cash flows,
and increase in current discretionary accruals in the year prior to
and/or in the year of privatisation. The SOEs used both short term and
long term accruals to inflate reported earnings. These accruals were
reversed in the post-privatisation period. These findings suggest that
managers of the firms slated for privatisation were engaged in earnings
management to inflate their firms' financial worth to maximise the
privatisation proceeds. Hence, we cannot reject the incidence of
earnings management during privatisations in Pakistan. The results imply
that the investors should carefully evaluate the to-be-privatised firms
and keep in view the possibility of earnings management by the SOEs. JEL
Classification: G14, G34, G38, L33, M41 Keywords: Earnings Management,
Privatisations, SOEs, Pakistan, Accruals

PurposeAcceptance and use of mobile shopping as the preferred shopping medium is becoming the new normal today. The proliferation of mobile shopping practices follows unsteady growth patterns in different countries. Despite challenges of price, quality and privacy matters, young consumers still lead the race to engage in mobile shopping activity in developing countries. This research investigates the determinants that either support or hinder the mobile shopping intentions of aspirant young consumers in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachThe present research applies a consumer-centric approach to the technology adoption framework to unearth the behavioral patterns of these young consumers in Pakistan. Employing the structural equation modeling technique, this research examines the significant effect of structural assurance, perceived risk, trust and various unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model constructs on behavioral intention to engage in mobile shopping.FindingsThis research examines the significant effect of structural assurance, perceived risk, trust and various UTAUT model constructs on behavioral intention to engage in mobile shopping. Results also demonstrate a significant moderating effect of structural assurance and prior shopping experience on the relationship between perceived risk, trust and mobile shopping intentions. Further, the mobile shopping patterns for the male and female segment indicate a significant difference for perceived risk, trust structural assurance and social influence. The research contributes to the growing body of knowledge which advocates the application of consumer-centric customized model approach to explore various factors that either facilitate or impede the adoption of mobile shopping in a developing economy.Research limitations/implicationsThe study validates the need to enforce structural assurance mechanism for facilitating mobile shopping in a developing country. It also offers practical implications for online businesses and marketers striving to attract and retain more mobile customers.Practical implicationsThe study offers practical implications for online businesses and marketers striving to attract and retain more mobile customers.Originality/valueThis study offers fresh insights about driving elements and impediments of mobile shopping behavioral intentions. Structural assurance and prior shopping experience appear to influence the mobile shopping behavior through direct and indirect effect.

PurposeThis study aims to test the Kuznets curve between economic growth and child labor, along with the influence of exports, household size and rural population in the context of Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the research objective, this study applied the unit root test, bound co-integration test, and autoregressive distributive lags (ARDL) method for the period of 1972–2021.FindingsThe findings show an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and child labor indicating that at the beginning stage of economic development, child labor increases due to lower per capita household and subsequently, in the long-run of economic development, child labor decreases due to the higher per capita households. Moreover, the results also show that exports, household size and rural population have a positive influence on increasing child labor.Research limitations/implicationsThe policymakers and government of Pakistan need to focus on long-term economic growth policies, ensure free quality education and cheap equipment which practices minimum manpower to reduce the threat of child labor.Social implicationsHaving long-run economic growth, the government of Pakistan need to equally benefit the households and the poor population to reduce child labor and enhance the social welfare of society.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the Kuznets curve relationship between economic growth and child labor in the context of Pakistan. Moreover, this study contributes to the reduction in child labor through long-term economic growth in the context of Pakistan.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0387

PurposeEmployee green behavior contributes to the achievement of hospitality organizations' sustainability goals. However, there is a need to examine how green human resource management (GHRM) fosters employees' green behavior. Anchored on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we anticipate that GHRM may have double-edged effects on employees' organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) via two opposing mechanisms (e.g. environmental passion and emotional exhaustion). Moreover, we expect that the relationship of GHRM on environmental passion and emotional exhaustion depends on environmentally specific empowering leadership (ESEL).Design/methodology/approachThe data were garnered from 356 hospitality employees in Pakistan and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe findings revealed a significant and positive link between GHRM and employee OCBE and environmental passion and a significant and negative relationship between GHRM and emotional exhaustion. Similarly, the link between environmental passion and employee OCBE was significant and positive and between emotional exhaustion and employee OCBE was significant and negative. Our results indicate that the impact of GHRM on OCBE among hospitality employees was mediated by environmental passion and emotional exhaustion. Further, ESEL strengthened the association of GHRM with environmental passion while mitigating the effect of GHRM on emotional exhaustion.Originality/valueAnchored on the COR theory, our study provides novel empirical evidence by investigating the mechanisms and boundary conditions between GHRM and employee OCBE nexus in the hospitality realm.

Funding Information: The CMB-S4 collaboration ( https://cmb-s4.org/ ) is working to plan, construct, and operate a next-generation, multisite CMB experiment in the 2020s. The collaboration is led by an elected Governing Board, Spokespeople, Committee Chairs, and Executive Team. Funding for the CMB-S4 Integrated Project Office is provided by the Department of Energy's Office of Science (project level CD-0) and by the National Science Foundation through the Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure-R1 award OPP-1935892. This research used resources of Argonne National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. This document was prepared by the CMB-S4 collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. Work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Work at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. In the United States, work on CMB-S4 by individual investigators has been supported by the National Science Foundation (awards 1248097, 1255358, 1815887, 1835865, 1852617, 2009469), the Department of Energy (awards DE-SC0009919, DE-SC0009946, DE-SC0010129, DE-SC0011784), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (award ATP-80NSSC20K0518). In Australia, the Melbourne authors acknowledge support from an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT150100074). In Canada, R.H. is supported by the Discovery Grants program from NSERC, and acknowledges funding from CIFAR, the Sloan Foundation, and the Dunlap family. In Italy, C.B. acknowledges support under the ASI COSMOS and INFN INDARK programs. In the Netherlands, D.M. acknowledges NWO VIDI award number 639.042.730. In Switzerland, J.C. is supported by an SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship (No. 186879). In the United Kingdom, A.L., G.F., and J.C. are supported by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC grant Agreement No. [616170]. A.L. also acknowledges STFC award ST/P000525/1. S.M. is supported by the research program Innovational Research Incentives Scheme (Vernieuwingsimpuls), which is financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research through the NWO VIDI grant No. 639.042.612-Nissanke and the Labex ILP (reference ANR-10-LABX-63) part of the Idex SUPER, received financial state aid managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche,as part of the program Investissements d'avenir under the reference ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02. Some computations in this paper were run on the Odyssey cluster, supported by the FAS Science Division Research Computing Group at Harvard University. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. ; CMB-S4-the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment-is set to significantly advance the sensitivity of CMB measurements and enhance our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. Among the science cases pursued with CMB-S4, the quest for detecting primordial gravitational waves is a central driver of the experimental design. This work details the development of a forecasting framework that includes a power-spectrum-based semianalytic projection tool, targeted explicitly toward optimizing constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, in the presence of Galactic foregrounds and gravitational lensing of the CMB. This framework is unique in its direct use of information from the achieved performance of current Stage 2-3 CMB experiments to robustly forecast the science reach of upcoming CMB-polarization endeavors. The methodology allows for rapid iteration over experimental configurations and offers a flexible way to optimize the design of future experiments, given a desired scientific goal. To form a closed-loop process, we couple this semianalytic tool with map-based validation studies, which allow for the injection of additional complexity and verification of our forecasts with several independent analysis methods. We document multiple rounds of forecasts for CMB-S4 using this process and the resulting establishment of the current reference design of the primordial gravitational-wave component of the Stage-4 experiment, optimized to achieve our science goals of detecting primordial gravitational waves for r > 0.003 at greater than 5 sigma, or in the absence of a detection, of reaching an upper limit of r < 0.001 at 95% CL. ; Peer reviewed