Biochemical and phenological characterization of diverse wheats and their association with drought tolerance genes.

Drought is one of the most important wheat production limiting factor, and can lead to severe yield losses. This study was designed to examine the effect of drought stress on wheat physiology and morphology under three different field capacities (FC) viz. 80% (control), 50% (moderate) and 30% (severe drought stress) in a diverse collection of wheat germplasm including cultivars, landraces, synthetic hexaploid and their derivatives. Traits like grain weight, thousand grain weight and biomass were reduced by 38.23%, 18.91% and 26.47% respectively at 30% FC, whereas the reduction rate for these traits at 50% FC were 19.57%, 8.88% and 18.68%. In principal component analysis (PCA), the first two components PC1 and PC2 accounted for 58.63% of the total variation and separated the cultivars and landraces from synthetic-based germplasm. Landraces showed wide range of phenotypic variations at 30% FC compared to synthetic-based germplasm and improved cultivars. However, least reduction in grain weight was observed in improved cultivars which indicated the progress in developing drought resilient cultivars. Allelic variations of the drought-related genes including TaSnRK2.9-5A, TaLTPs-11, TaLTPs-12, TaSAP-7B-, TaPPH-13, Dreb-B1 and 1fehw3 were significantly associated with the phenological traits under drought stress in all 91 wheats including 40 landraces, 9 varieties, 34 synthetic hexaploids and 8 synthetic derivatives. The favorable haplotypes of 1fehw3, Dreb-B1, TaLTPs-11 and TaLTPs-12 increased grain weight, and biomass. Our results iterated the fact that landraces could be promising source to deploy drought adaptability in wheat breeding. The study further identified drought tolerant wheat genetic resources across various backgrounds and identified favourable haplotypes of water-saving genes which should be considered to develop drought tolerant varieties.

Dark tetrad personality traits and counterproductive work behavior among doctors in Pakistan.

The purpose of this article is to identify the effects of dark tetrad personality traits (such as narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and sadism) on counterproductive work behavior with the mediating role of psychological contract breach and the moderating effect of political skills. Previous researches have focused on the direct effect of the dark triad to measure the counterproductive work behavior of individuals. Recently, everyday sadism has been added to the dark triad and become dark tetrad personality traits. Therefore, this study examines the dark tetrad personality traits to study counterproductive work behavior. This study applied structural equation modeling using partial least square to test the hypotheses on a sample of 400 doctors from the health sector of Pakistan. The results of this study reveal that dark tetrad has a positive and significant effect on counterproductive work behavior, and psychological contract breach significantly partially mediates in the relationship between dark tetrad and counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, findings show that the moderating effect of political skills also positively and significantly strengthening the link between dark tetrad and the psychological contract breach. The conclusion of this study is made an innovative contribution to the Pakistan health sector, researchers and policy makers to designing the relevant practical implications.

Loss-to-follow-up and delay to treatment initiation in Pakistan's national tuberculosis control programme.

BACKGROUND: Researchers and policy-makers have identified loss to follow-up as a major programmatic problem. Therefore, the objective of this study is to quantify TB related pre-treatment loss to follow up and treatment delay in private sector health care facilities in Pakistan. METHODS: This was a retrospective, descriptive cohort study using routinely collected programmatic data from TB referral, diagnosis and treatment registers. Data from 48 private healthcare facilities were collected using an online questionnaire prepared in ODK Collect, for the period October 2015 to March 2016. Data were analysed using SPSS. We calculated the: (1) number and proportion of patients who were lost to follow-up during the diagnostic period, (2) number and proportion of patients with pre-treatment loss to follow-up, and (3) the number of days between diagnosis and initiation of treatment. RESULTS: One thousand five hundred ninety-six persons with presumptive TB were referred to the laboratory. Of these, 96% (n = 1538) submitted an on-the-spot sputum sample. Of the 1538 people, 1462 (95%) people subsequently visited the laboratory to submit the early morning (i.e. the second) sample. Hence, loss to follow-up during the diagnostic process was 8% overall (n = 134). Of the 1462 people who submitted both sputum samples, 243 (17%) were diagnosed with sputum smear-positive pulmonary TB and 231 were registered for anti-TB treatment, hence, loss in the pre-treatment phase was 4.9% (n = 12). 152 persons with TB (66%) initiated TB treatment either on the day of TB diagnosis or the next day. A further 79 persons with TB (34%) commenced TB treatment within a mean time of 7 days (range 2 to 64 days). CONCLUSION: Concentrated efforts should be made by the National TB Control Programme to retain TB patients and innovative methods such as text reminders and behavior change communication may need to be used and tested.

GhTPPA_2 enhancement of tobacco sugar accumulation and drought tolerance.

Trehalose metabolism plays an important role in plant growth and response to abiotic stress. Trehalose-6-phosphate (Tre6P) can help regulate sugar homeostasis and act as an indication signal for intracellular sugar levels. Crop productivity can be greatly increased by altering the metabolic level of endogenous trehalose in plants, which can optimize the source-sink connection. In this study, the upland cotton GhTPP protein family was first homologously compared and 24 GhTPP genes were found. Transcriptome analysis revealed that GhTPP members had obvious tissue expression specificity. Among them, GhTPPA_2 (Gh_A12G223300.1) was predominantly expressed in leaves and bolls. The results of subcellular localization showed that GhTPPA_2 is localized in the chloroplast. Via PlantCare, we analyzed the promoters and found that the expression of GhTPPA_2 may be induced by light, abiotic stress, and hormones such as abscisic acid, ethylene, salicylic acid and jasmonic acid. In addition, GhTPPA_2 was overexpressed (TPPAoe) in tobacco, and we found that the TPPase activity of TPPAoe tobacco increased by 66 %. Soluble sugar content increased by 39 % and starch content increased by 27 %. Whereas, the transgenic tobacco had obvious growth advantages under 100 mM mannitol stress. Transcriptome sequencing results showed that the differential genes between TPPAoe and control were considerably enriched in functions related to photosynthesis, phosphate group metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism. This study shows that GhTPPA_2 is involved in regulating sugar metabolism, improving soluble sugar accumulation and drought stress tolerance of tobacco, which provides theoretical basis for research on high yield and drought tolerance of crops.

The dynamic impact of renewable energy consumption, trade, and financial development on carbon emissions in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

The present study confronts potential theoretical argument of dynamic and non-linear relationship between [Formula: see text] emissions, renewable energy consumption, trade, and financial development by using quantile regression that accounts for the role of development in explaining the stated nexus. The results show that renewable energy consumption reduces [Formula: see text] emissions in the short run in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. [Formula: see text] emissions plumet as country open up for trade and expand financial services for their people. It is found that trade openness and financial development decrease [Formula: see text] emissions at upper quantile in low-income countries. In the middle-income countries, the findings are not much different as reported in case of low-income countries. In the high-income countries, renewable energy consumption and trade openness lead to decrease in [Formula: see text] emissions at all income quantiles. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H) panel causality test draws a sturdy support of bi-directional causation between renewable energy and [Formula: see text] emissions in low-income countries. Based on this analysis, some important policy implications can be drawn. First, in advanced countries, restrictions on renewable energy do not have significant effect on environmental condition. However, in low-income countries, adoption of renewable energy can significantly reduce [Formula: see text] emissions. Second, low-income countries may combat rise in [Formula: see text] emissions by introducing new technologies in exploiting trade potentials that are necessary to acquire resources to adopt clean energy. Third, energy policies should be framed based on the stage of development of a country, share of renewable energy in its total energy mix, and environmental condition of the country.

Understand, track and develop enterprise workplace safety, and sustainability in the industrial park.

Industrial parks make great contributions to the local economy, society, and culture, but they have also encountered many problems, such as limited resources, the longevity of ecological restoration, and the contagion of safety accidents. As a socioeconomic and ecological composite system formed by the interaction of multiple stakeholders, the solutions to succeed in workplace sustainability in industrial parks are still not known. The purpose of this study is to explore how to integrate existing resources to achieve a win-win situation in industrial park safety and environmental protection issues. According to Actor-network Theory and a systematic search, this study identifies the relevant subjects from selected 24 studies and clarifies the interactions made by these subjects. In sum, this study concludes two main modes of developing workplace sustainability in the park from multiple actors' perspectives: self-regulation of inner park subjects and the driving force of exterior park subjects.

Genome-wide identification and analyses of cotton high-affinity nitrate transporter 2 family genes and their responses to stress.

Nitrate transporters (NRTs) are crucial for the uptake, use, and storage of nitrogen by plants. In this study, 42 members of the GhNRT2 (Nitrate Transporter 2 family) were found in the four different cotton species. The conserved domains, phylogenetic relationships, physicochemical properties, subcellular localization, conserved motifs, gene structure, cis-acting elements, and promoter region expression patterns of these 42 members were analyzed. The findings confirmed that members of the NRT2 family behaved typically, and subcellular localization tests confirmed that they were hydrophobic proteins that were mostly located on the cytoplasmic membrane. The NRT2 family of genes with A.thaliana and rice underwent phylogenetic analysis, and the results revealed that GhNRT2 could be divided into three groups. The same taxa also shared similar gene structure and motif distribution. The composition of cis-acting elements suggests that most of the expression of GhNRT2 may be related to plant hormones, abiotic stress, and photoreactions. The GhNRT2 gene was highly expressed, mainly in roots. Drought, salt, and extreme temperature stress showed that GhNRT2 gene expression was significantly up-regulated or down-regulated, indicating that it may be involved in the stress response of cotton. In general, the genes of the NRT2 family of cotton were comprehensively analyzed, and their potential nitrogen uptake and utilization functions in cotton were preliminarily predicted. Additionally, we provide an experimental basis for the adverse stress conditions in which they may function.

Do geopolitical risk and energy consumption contribute to environmental degradation? Evidence from E7 countries.

Environmental degradation is frequently cited as one of the eminent issues in the modern era. To limit environmental degradation, prior literature discerns several macroeconomic, socio-economic, and institutional factors that affect environmental degradation. However, the relationship between geopolitical risk and environmental degradation is understudied in the previous literature. To fill this gap, the inquiry at hand aims to scrutinize the influence of geopolitical risk on environmental degradation for E7 countries while controlling the effect of renewable energy, non-renewable energy, and GDP. Further, we utilize both the ecological footprint and CO2 emissions as proxies of environmental degradation and employ second-generation panel methods for robust findings. In addition to this, the present study uses augmented mean group (AMG) estimator to provide long-run relationship among the selected variables. The findings from the AMG estimator expound that there exists environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for E7 countries. Moreover, renewable energy ameliorates environmental quality because it plunges both ecological footprint and CO2 emissions. On the contrary, non-renewable energy consumption escalates both ecological footprint and CO2 emissions. Finally, geopolitical risk tends to decrease CO2 emissions as well as ecological footprint. Our findings deduce a few policy implications to replenish environmental quality. For instance, the share of renewables in the energy mix should be surged to ameliorate the environmental quality. Further, to control both the geopolitical risk and environmental degradation at the same time, policymakers should put forward reforms and initiatives (e.g., policies to escalate R&D, technological innovations, and tax exemptions on imports of renewables) that can help to improve environmental quality without affecting geopolitical risk. At times of low geopolitical risk, environmental degradation will surge; therefore, the rate of environmental control taxes should be increased by the policymakers.

Testing dependence patterns of energy consumption with economic expansion and trade openness through wavelet transformed coherence in top energy-consuming countries.

Economic growth and trade openness are closely linked with energy consumption and hence have environmental consequences. Many studies have investigated the relationship between these variables. Two weaknesses in empirical literature on energy-growth nexus are prominent. First majority of the studies are conducted on different groups of countries; however, no study has focused the top energy-consuming countries despite their immense importance in the context of energy-growth nexus. Second, this literature cannot simultaneously capture time and frequency domains, short- and long-run dependence, and lagging and leading effects among the variables. Furthermore, environmental impacts of increased energy consumption emerging from trade base economic growth are less studied. This study employs wavelet transformed coherence method to examine dependence partners of energy consumption with economic expansion and trade openness in top 10 energy-consuming countries. This methodology avoids the unrealistic assumption of stationarity of the variables due to favorable scaling tool and unveils the time frequency dependence among variables with more reliability as it accounts for the seasonality, cycles, or trends extracted from the transformation change over time. Furthermore, this technique has the novelty to handle data when its transformation from one-dimensional to bi-dimensional time-frequency sphere is allowed. Findings reveal a positive influence of economic growth and trade on energy consumption in many countries. The wavelet transformed coherence indicates short-run coherence among energy consumption and economic growth of all the top 10 energy-consuming countries. Long-run dependence among energy consumption and economic growth exists in case of China, India, Brazil, and South Korea with mostly leading role of energy consumption over economic growth. The findings of the study reiterate the importance of energy consumption in the development of these economies and suggest that energy policies aimed at improving efficiency in the production and consumption of energy will not hurt economic growth.

Investigating India's pollution-intensive 'dirty' trade specialisation: analysis with 'revealed symmetric comparative advantage' index.

This study intends to explore India's comparative advantage in the pollution-intensive product export with temporal and spatial analysis by applying an alternative measure of revealed comparative advantage index. The emission-intensive manufacturing commodities are mainly chosen as per the list published by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of India to draw some inferences on India's pollution haven characteristics. For the spatial analysis, the 'dirty' comparative advantage is calculated for all the BRICS countries for the year 2017, and for the temporal analysis, the index value is calculated for 42 product groups at 3 digit SITC level from 2009 to 2017 to examine the structure of 'dirty' specialisation in India and its change over time. India is found at the top among the BRICS members for a maximum of 16 in 25 products. Among these 25 sectors, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa are found having a comparative advantage in 4, 12, 11 and 10 products, respectively. In these comparatively advantageous products, Brazil ranked one in 75% and three in 25% of products. Russia ranked one in 33% and two in 67% of products. India among the BRICS members stood 1st at 62.5, 2nd and 3rd both at 18.75% cases, respectively. Findings reveal that pollution-intensive trade-exposed sectors successfully absorbed the stringent environmental regulation-shocks which brought in an additional burden of compliance cost upon trade competitiveness. The results of this study are more insightful for evaluating India's recent initiatives for stricter environmental regulations.

Does the environmental Kuznets curve reliably explain a developmental issue?

This study aims to achieve two main objectives; first, it provides a brief but critical description of the empirical literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in terms of history, origin, micro-foundations, measurement of environmental degradation, methodologies and samples. Second, it examines the curious attraction of the EKC despite considerable criticism it has attracted over time. The motivation stems from the mixed results probably due to different econometric techniques, sample periods, country-specific factors and environmental indicators used to test EKC. The study concludes that of course, the EKC has attracted a great deal of criticism, but its survival power is undeniable. Different taxonomies of the approaches to explain income-environment nexus have been established by various commentators producing different results under different scenarios. It is still equally important among researchers to interpret the relationship between income and pollution due to its charismatic characteristics; therefore, the empirical literature on EKC continues to grow despite criticism on its validity and assumptions. However, we should not be convinced that economic growth on its own will solve environmental ills. The proposition that affluent countries will invest heavily to level off and gradually contain their environmental pollution should not be persuaded. Therefore, policymakers must not encourage unlimited economic growth to cure environmental problems.

Effects of entrepreneurial orientation on social media adoption and SME performance: The moderating role of innovation capabilities.

The increase of social media (SM) has led to continuous deviations in how day-to-day entrepreneurial activities can be carried out. Additionally, studies devoted to SM entrepreneurship and SM are relatively limited and fragmented in their focus. However there is growing interest from scholars, practitioners and academia for upcoming studies and exploration within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) context. This research explores the impact of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on SM adoption and SME performance in developing countries. We employed the resource-based view (RBV) as the foundation for developing the conceptual framework The present study employed a closed-ended questionnaire to collect data from SMEs located in Pakistan. Partial-least-squares-structural equation-modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilized for the analysis of 423 responses. The results proved a direct positive link between EO-SMEs performance, EO-SM adoption, SM adoption-SMEs performance, innovation capabilities (IC), and SME performance. Partial mediation was found between EO and SME performance, and the significant moderation effect of IC was found between SM adoption and SME performance. This paper has implications for practitioners and researchers regarding SM adoption in the SMEs. It builds an empirical, multi-dimensional hypothesized model, including mediating and moderating roles affecting the relationships.

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Reciprocity Between Employee Perception, Perceived External Prestige, and Employees' Emotional Labor.

BACKGROUND: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is emerging as a relevant subject in the business world and in the field of management research. Therefore, the current study incorporates classifications often used in organizational level CSR research that distinguish social responsibility relevant to its focus (internal and external), in proposing diverse routes that link various CSR practices (ie, internal and external) to employees' choice of emotional labor strategy (ie, via perceived organizational support and perceived external prestige). METHODS: Data were collected from front-line employees of banks operating in Pakistan. Due to the study's focus on front-line employees, other personnel were excluded for data collection. We collected data through a self-administered questionnaire. The structural equation model (SEM) was employed on 376 valid responses using Smart-PLS3 to test the study hypotheses. RESULTS: After the analysis, we found satisfactory results for the fitness of both measurement and satisfactory models. Moreover, the results strongly support our proposed theoretical framework, and all proposed hypotheses were accepted. DISCUSSION: This study confirms that the perception of external prestige is a strong predictor of employees' emotions and relevant behaviors. Moreover, this study discusses under the light of social exchange theory that perceived organizational support strongly predicts employees' emotional labor, which diminishes the myth that prestige is the only factor to influence employees' emotions in the workplace. Moreover, this study negates the findings of Anwar et al that perceived external prestige does not have a significant negative effect on surface acting. It provides an insight not only for managers and researchers but also for society, especially in an Eastern workplace setting like Pakistan's banking sector.

Predicting the carbon dioxide emission of China using a novel augmented hypo-variance brain storm optimisation and the impulse response function.

For the past decade, the level of carbon dioxide emission in most cities in China is on the ascendancy. Yet, better prediction of environmental pollution is at the fringes of recent studies. Several erstwhile researchers have attempted predicting pollution whilst utilising approaches including the ordinary linear regressions, multivariate regressions, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), evolutionary and some conventional swarm intelligence. These conventional approaches, however, lead but to imprecise predictions owing to the inherent parameter problems characterised in those approaches. Consequently, there is the need for a better prediction of the key antecedents that affect air pollution whilst using robust techniques. This current study, therefore predicts the carbon emissions levels of China into the next decade, in response to changes in key economic variables: energy consumption, economic growth, trade, and urbanisation. This is to aid in monitoring and implementing of tailored policies and transformations in China and in similar developing and emerging economies. Our findings revealed a steadily rise in emissions as the economy grows during the initial years but decline in the ensuing forecasted period. The findings of the impulse response function, revealed that in the next decade, urbanisation, and trade (import and export) will be the major contributors of carbon dioxide emission. The proposed Brainstorm optimisation algorithms prediction model was verified and validated with actual data. Our study revealed that the Brainstorm Optimisation algorithm predicts better with less prediction error even under uncertainty information.

Work-Family Conflict Impact on Psychological Safety and Psychological Well-Being: A Job Performance Model.

In a modern working environment characterized by new technology and work assignments extended to personal time, employees are expected to balance multiple roles while maintaining maximum productivity. Past studies analyzed work-family conflict and its connection to job performance, without adequate integration of psychological factors into the research model. This study aims to fill the gap and explain the impact of work-family conflict and psychological factors on job performance. To explore the association between work-family conflict and job performance and measure the effects on psychological safety and psychological well-being, an empirical study was conducted on a sample of 277 company employees in Bahrain. The online questionnaire used five-point Likert-scales adopted from previous studies to measure the variables of the research model. In the structural model, relationships between work-family conflict, psychological well-being, psychological safety, and job performance were tested. Confirmatory Factor Analysis with Maximum likelihood estimation was performed by using SEM software AMOS version 23. The findings of the study suggest there is a negative impact of work-family conflict on psychological safety and psychological well-being. This study is significant since it detaches from the prior researches focused on observing the repercussions of work-family conflict in workers' well-being, and centers on the analysis of job performance instead. The findings show that psychological well-being and psychological safety influence job performance. When psychological well-being and psychological safety of employees are unsatisfactory, job performance will decrease accordingly. The mediation test indicated that work-family conflict had an indirect influence on job performance when psychological safety and psychological well-being were mediators. The study contributes to a better understanding of work-family conflict, psychology of employees, and job performance. The study provides valuable insight to organizations on ways to increase employees' effectiveness and ensure better performance by preventing work-family conflict from occurring.

The Enjoyment of Knowledge Sharing: Impact of Altruism on Tacit Knowledge-Sharing Behavior.

Knowledge sharing between individuals is a key process for knowledge-intensive organizations to create value and gain a competitive edge. An individual is in the center of a complex set of factors, which are conducive to the knowledge-sharing process. The purpose of this empirical study is to explain the interaction mechanisms between personality and knowledge-sharing behavior and to examine the mediating effects of willingness to share knowledge and subjective norm. The theory of planned behavior, the social exchange theory, and the big five personality traits theory are combined to explain tacit knowledge-sharing behavior. A survey strategy and purposive sampling was applied, and the analysis was conducted on a sample of 288 employees from Croatia working on knowledge-intensive tasks for which high levels of tacit knowledge sharing are characteristic. A standard online questionnaire consisted of items evaluated on a 7-point Likert-scale, ranging from strongly agree (7) to strongly disagree (1). In the structural model, relationships between altruism, willingness, subjective norm, and tacit knowledge sharing were tested. Confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was performed by using SEM software AMOS version 23. The findings of the study suggest that altruism has a direct impact on tacit knowledge sharing, reaffirming a relationship with knowledge sharing but distinguishing between sharing of different types of knowledge, assessing tacit knowledge sharing as a construct separate from general knowledge sharing. Our findings suggest that willingness to share is a predictive factor of knowledge sharing behavior between employees, having both direct impact on tacit knowledge sharing and being a mediator between the trait of altruism and tacit knowledge sharing. The mediation test also indicates that altruism has an indirect influence on tacit knowledge sharing when subjective norm was a mediator. The findings suggest that personality traits relying on social capital, such as altruism, have more influence on tacit knowledge sharing compared to personality traits that have accentuated intrinsic components. The study contributes to the better understanding of factors stimulating knowledge-sharing behaviors and provides recommendations based on empirical evidence, which may later be applied in the development of knowledge-sharing leadership styles, employee hiring, and auxiliary initiatives.

Green Innovation Practices and Its Impacts on Environmental and Organizational Performance.

This study aims to investigate the impact of stakeholders' views on the practices of green innovation (GI), consequent effect on environmental and organizational performance (OP), and moderating influence of innovation orientation. A quantitative method was employed for the sample size of 515 responses. To accumulate the data from the respondents, convenient random sampling was used. Data were collected from manufacturing and services firms through a field survey by using a closed-ended questionnaire based in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The analysis was done using the structural equation model of the partial least square analysis method. Our findings proved a positive and significant link between stakeholders' views on GI practices. A significant association has been found between GI practices and environmental and OP. The moderating effect was found to be negative but statistically significant. This research offers numerous contributions and provides decision-making insinuations.

Be Aware Not Reactive: Testing a Mediated-Moderation Model of Dark Triad and Perceived Victimization via Self-Regulatory Approach.

Generally, it is difficult to work efficiently in a toxic environment. Surprisingly, leaders are found to be liable for such toxic atmosphere because they possess certain traits that employees perceive as victimization. This research assesses the relationship between the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) and perceived victimization with a focus on the mediating effect of abusive supervision and the moderating effect of mindfulness. For this purpose, we surveyed 274 employees in the healthcare sector of Pakistan by using random sampling technique in three waves. To analyze the data, the structural equation model with partial least squares and PROCESS were used. The findings suggest that abusive supervision plays a mediating role in the association between the dark triad and perceived victimization. The results did not support the mediating role of abusive supervision in the association between narcissism and perceived victimization, however, the mediated moderation model was supported. Further, the findings suggest that mindfulness weakens the effect of abusive supervision on perceived victimization. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the results are also discussed.

Entrepreneurial Passion to Entrepreneurial Behavior: Role of Entrepreneurial Alertness, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Proactive Personality.

This study investigated the role of entrepreneurial passion in recognition of opportunity, developing entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention, in the shaping of entrepreneurial actions in the presence of proactive personality. This study applied partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses on a sample of 346 university students from Jiangsu province, China. The output of the study showed that entrepreneurial passion positively and significantly influenced entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial self-efficacy to entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial behavior. The findings also showed that a proactive personality positively and significantly moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior.

Impact of supervisory behavior on sustainable employee performance: Mediation of conflict management strategies using PLS-SEM.

This study investigates the relationship between supervisory behavior, conflict management strategies, and sustainable employee performance and inquires the mediating effect of conflict management strategies. Data were collected from the SMEs of the manufacturing industry of Pakistan. The significance of the model was assessed using the PLS-SEM (structural equation modeling). The findings of the study revealed a positive and significant relationship between supervisory behavior and sustainable employee behavior. Similarly, conflict management strategies had a positive effect on the relationship between supervisory behavior and sustainable employee behavior. This study adds in the current literature of supervisory behavior as a critical predictor of sustainable employee performance in two ways. Firstly, this study validates Conflict management strategies as an influential mediator between the relationship of supervisory behavior and sustainable employee performance. Secondly, this study provides substantial practical implications for managers at SMEs to enhance sustainable employee performance through supervisory behavior, stimulated by conflict management strategies. This study is based on cross-sectional data; more longitudinal studies can further strengthen the generalizability of relationships between the constructs. The study adds in the current literature of PLS-SEM as an assessment model for direct and mediation relationships.