Sara Qamar Yousufi

This study examines long-term connection and short-term dynamics concerning ecological footprint and six independent variables, named fossil fuel consumption, energy consumption, financial depth, trade, GDP, and ICT for Pakistan’s duration from 1960 to 2019. The “QARDL-quantile autoregressive distributed lag” technique is used for time series and panel estimation. The QARDL model exhibits the connection between variables over the quantiles range, reflecting varying stages of Pakistan’s ecological footprint. The results exhibit noticeable quantile-varying co-integration connection among ecological footprint and six independent variables. The results accentuate the significant influence of energy consumption, strong financial position, economic growth, and ICT technologies on ecological well-being, which assists in understanding short and long-term impact on the environment in Pakistan.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has led educational institutions to shut down and adopt e-learning practices through computer-mediated communication. An unanticipated switch of online classes from face-to-face classes isolates students from social groups and teachers, causing online disinhibition. Therefore, this paper investigates factors influencing university students’ toxic disinhibition behavior in online classrooms, WhatsApp groups, and Telegram groups. Also, social isolation has been used as a moderating variable to identify whether social isolation strengthens or weakens the proposed association. The research holds the basis of “Social Cognitive Theory” and “Theory of Planned Behavior.” The data from 506 university students have been collected for analysis. The proposed framework and research hypotheses have been assessed via PLS-SEM using Smart PLS software. Findings from the study show that toxic behavior victimization, attitude, subjective norms, and behavioral control are factors that positively & significantly affect toxic disinhibition online. Furthermore, motives and self-efficacy showed an insignificant influence on toxic disinhibition. Additionally, toxic disinhibition significantly & positively affects toxic behavior. At last, social isolation is likely to have a moderation effect on the variables. Hence, the research yields guidance on reducing toxic disinhibition online. Further, implications and recommendations are discussed at the end of the study.

Purpose: This current research investigates antecedents affecting young consumers' purchasing intention of organic foods in a developing nation’s (Pakistan) context utilizing Theory of Planned Behavior. For this purpose, theoretical framework comprising characteristics of a product, concerns of consumers and consciousness were proposed.Design/methodology/approach: Responses were collected from a sample comprising 418 young consumers through the convenience sampling technique. The data has been evaluated through Structural Equation Modeling.Findings: Findings demonstrate that characteristics of products and concerns of consumers significantly affect young consumer's health and social consciousness. However, such health and social consciousness were found to have an insignificant effect on young consumers' attitudes. Moreover, findings also show that attitude is positively linked with young consumers' purchase frequency towards organic foods. Outcomes also approve moderation of environmental awareness between attitude and organic food purchasing intention.Practical implications: The present study offers numerous implications for marketers, policymakers and socio-ecological organizations regarding development of intervention strategies to promote the purchase of organic foods. The study provides implications regarding making organic foods more accessible to all consumers in order to increase organic food consumption in developing countries.Originality/value: Although young consumers are aware of organic food products, their knowledge about the concept is limited. Therefore, this study provides an understanding of consumer's perspective regarding their purchase intention of organic foods, which will help marketers, researchers and food producers to achieve marketing strategies for the development of these products.

In higher educational institutes, developing classrooms for active learning is becoming a part of comprehensive educational drive for students involving and engaging in learning. For this purpose, influence of social factors on collaborative learning and engagement has been investigated which will influence learning performance of students. The study looked at following areas: (a) the ability of social factors for developing collaborative learning and engagement and (b) whether collaborative learning and engagement mediate a link between social factors and student’s learning performance. Constructivism theory has been utilized to observe the student’s learning behavior. Data have been collected through questionnaires from university students. Findings evaluated through structural equation modeling (SEM), shows that social factors, i.e. interaction with peers and teachers, social presence, and usage of social media positively impact active collaborative learning and student involvement, thus affecting their learning performance. The findings also provide evidence for double mediation used in this study. As online learning is becoming more prevalent in education, it has been concluded that overall collaborative learning and engagement with influence of social factors improve activities of students learning; therefore, their usage should be stimulated in teaching and learning in higher educational institutions as it influences students’ academic development.

The current investigation examines causal relation between PPP investment in energy sector and CO2 emissions in selected developing countries by using non-parametric causality in quantiles and linear granger causality techniques. Range of the data is from January 1998 to December 2016. Although results obtained by linear granger causality test does not report any causal relation between PPP investment in energy and CO2 emissions, but findings from non-parametric test show that non-linear relationship exhibit between variables. The non-parametric outcomes indicate that PPP investment in non-renewable energy in the selected countries contribute to carbon emissions and thus degrade environment. And therefore, the need is to divert PPP investment to renewable energy where it is more effective. This investigation provides valuable information to policy-makers in developing countries to think out of box and address pressing environmental issues.