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Absorptive capacity being an emerging field of research has been studied in different perspectives both in technological aspects and soft issues. Although an original study of absorptive capacity placed employees as playing pivoting role in the development of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), unfortunately, there are limited studies on behavior of employees toward this emerging construct. This study aims to explore the impact of employees’ behavior in the development of absorptive capacity. Specifically, impact of knowledge sharing, learning adaptability and organizational commitment on absorptive capacity has been evaluated in this study.

This cross-sectional study was conducted at the pharmaceutical firms of Pakistan. The data were collected through random sampling from middle managers as a unit of analysis of this study. The rationale of the unit of analysis is that the maximum information is handled/accessed by the middle managers in the perspective of Pakistan. The data were collected from 170 respondents on a five-point Likert scale with the response rate of 66.7 per cent. Data were collected from different genders and different age groups with different qualification levels.

All independent variables showed significant positive correlations with overall absorptive capacity (ACAP). At the same time, different relationships of all independent variables were found in different ways with different significant levels. The results showed that different strategies may be adopted to manage the external knowledge for competition in turbulent environment. For example, organizational commitment may be incorporated at strategy formulation only, whereas the Adaptability at both routine and strategy formulation stage. As all independent variables showed no correlation with Acquisition it is concluded that Acquisition is purely a routine function, and instead of coordination, the routine processes must be emphasized.

This study focused on the data from the middle managers of the pharmaceutical firms only. The results may not be generalized to the sectors. Another limitation is that the respondents of the study were middle managers. It was made intentional to see the impact of management aspects other than organizational mechanisms, as discussed by Cohen and Levinthal (1990) and Jansen et al. (2005) in their studies. The results on the basis of the data collected from other entities of the organization may differ. This is a cross-sectional study, and a longitudinal study may give different results.

Absorptive capacity has the capability to absorb new knowledge and plays an important role in the development of organizational processes to compete in the turbulent environment. It is dependent not only on technological infrastructure but also on the employees’ behaviors and attitudes. This study gives insights about the knowledge process activities and employment of human resource at each phase of absorptive capacity in relation to their behaviors toward knowledge process.

Development of organizational process with knowledge management plays an important role in the capacity building, which ultimately enhances social paradigm of activities.

Pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan acquire technologies from foreign countries and have very limited research and development of their own. As technology is upgraded by the foreign companies as a continuous improvement process, local firms of Pakistan are required to absorb the new knowledge with the same pace. The study highlights importance of human capital in the development of this capability.

Little research has focused on abusive supervision in the context of project management, despite its prevalence and detrimental influence on the psychological health of subordinates. Therefore, drawing on affective event theory (AET), this study sought to investigate supervisor-level antecedents of abusive supervision by considering the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and moderating role of psychological resilience.

Utilizing a time-lagged design, data were collected through questionnaires from project managers and their immediate subordinates in construction projects. PROCESS macros were utilized to analyze a sample of 241 supervisor-subordinate dyads.

The findings revealed that time pressure and emotional exhaustion significantly predicted project manager abusive supervision. The authors also found that emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between time pressure and project manager abusive supervision. Furthermore, the results show that highly resilient project managers become less emotionally exhausted when facing time pressure. Lastly, psychological resilience moderated the indirect effect of time pressure on project manager abusive supervision through emotional exhaustion.

According to Fordjour et al., abusive supervision is a critical factor that deteriorates the psychological health of subordinates in the project. Nevertheless, this phenomenon remains uninvestigated. Therefore, this research contributes to the project management literature by investigating key predictors of abusive supervision, thus filling both a theoretical and practical gap.

Innovations are imperative for organizational growth and sustainability. This study focuses on the employees' innovative behavior, a source of organizational innovations, which has received substantial attention from the researchers. Based on the psychological empowerment theory, the study exposes the effect of the various dimensions of public service motivation (PSM) on employees' innovative behavior (IB) in public sector institutions especially in the context of developing countries such as Pakistan. Moreover, the study also investigates the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PSE) between the dimensions of PSM and IB.

This study used the cross-sectional research design. By using random sampling, the adapted survey questionnaires were used to collect data from 346 faculty members of public sector universities located in provincial capitals of Pakistan. A partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) tool was used to assess the proposed hypotheses through SMART-PLS software.

Results revealed that attraction to policymaking (APM), compassion (COM), self-sacrifice (SS) have a significant impact on employees' PSE and their innovative behavior, while the relationship of commitment to the public interest (CPI) with PSE and IB was found insignificant. Moreover, PSE partially mediated the relationship between PSM dimensions and employees' IB.

There was a scarcity of research on IB especially in public sector institutions such as academia. This study theoretically contributed to the literature by providing a refined picture in assessing the proposed relationship of the constructs. This is also one of the original studies that examine the relationship between the dimensions of PSM and IB.

In the modern manufacturing environment, it is imperative to apply the manufacturing concepts of lean, agile, resilient and green, collectively known as LARG manufacturing, to achieve excellence in which lean manufacturing eliminates wastes; agile manufacturing makes processes fast, efficient and flexible; resilient paradigm deals with countering the uncertainty while green manufacturing improves environmental performance. The objective of this study is to develop an integration framework that synergizes LARG manufacturing with Industry 4.0.

Through a literature review, the authors have explored the possibility of collaboration between constituents of lean, agile, resilient and green manufacturing with the facets of Industry 4.0.

The authors have developed a comprehensive integration framework that has been divided into 11 phases and 31 steps in which the various Industry 4.0 facets have supplemented the lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms.

This investigation and adoption of technologically intensive automation shall provide clarity to practitioners regarding the synergy of LARG manufacturing & Industry 4.0, so that fast and efficient manufacturing processes can be achieved.

The framework provides detailed insight towards implementation of LARG practices in a manufacturing organization in coalescence with Industry 4.0 practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of middle managers (MM) in the knowledge-intensive environment as perceived by the employees, MM and principal decision makers (DM) in the context of the absorptive capacity process.

In this qualitative study, the data were collected from pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan by using purposive sampling and the results were analyzed based on the thematic analysis approach.

The results show that employees and principal DM have a strong agreement between them regarding the roles of MM; however, MM have contrasted views. Some of the roles were agreed to by all the respondents.

This study has focused on the roles of MM (common and conflicting) in knowledge-intensive pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan. The results of other studies on the roles of MM in the context of traditional and hybrid organizations may differ from this study.

The results of this study show the importance of role specificity of MM for the smooth absorptive capacity process. While dealing with complex knowledge structures in pharmaceutical companies, this study gives strong input to HR mangers and consultants and practitioners as they continuously handle complex knowledge process activities.

The study has explored the specific roles of MM by using the thematic analysis approach.

This study aims to extend the understanding of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) by investigating the international EO (IEO) from the perspective of the international performance of born global firms. The born global firm's EOs toward global firms led to innovation and dynamic organizational capabilities and to improve the firms' international performance and development.

It is a hypothesis that IEO predicted that utilization of export promotion programs (EPPs) would be positively associated with international performance. The samples of 405 respondents were collected from born global firms to acquire higher international performance of firms in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analysis are processed to test the proposed hypotheses empirically.

The results from the SEM test revealed that the network relationships and utilization of EPPs fully mediate the effect of IEO on international performance. These results indicate that not only IEO is an important factor of network relationships but also the utilization of EPPs and international performance for born global firms. IEO can motivate managers to find the right network relationships and ultimately improve company performance. The IEO of the initiative has strong impact on the performance of international firms.

There is a comprehensive view among the relationships of IEO, entrepreneurial competencies and the network utilization of government EPPs, international performance in the context of born global firms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in detail.

Lean manufacturing is one of the leading paradigms for fast and proficient manufacturing but its proper implementation is a foremost task due to certain barriers affecting lean and can be handled when utilized with RFID technology. With this aspect in view, the purpose of this paper is to enlighten and present a thorough literature study that can show how RFID-based lean manufacturing is helpful for handling barriers affecting lean manufacturing in light of previous literature available.

In order to achieve this purpose a systematic literature review is conducted to justify the impacts of RFID technology for handling barriers. The aim of this systematic literature review is to initially find the barriers affecting lean implementation and then to explain the properties of RFID-based lean manufacturing which are highly feasible to handle detected barriers.

An interrelation is generated in this study which provides a clear indication that the properties of RFID carry significant effects to handle detected barriers in the operational, managerial and financial regime of manufacturing companies. The detected barriers that affect lean implementation are company’s cultures, top management commitment, poor employee administration, lack of finances, unbalanced inventory control, unstable customer handling and longer lead times. The properties of RFID-based lean manufacturing like operational visibility, inventory control, production control, minimized lead times and the real-time data information (to facilitate top management and employees on shop floor) are extremely helpful to control these barriers.

The originality of this study is the provision of clarity provided to both academicians and practitioners by citing and utilizing previous research studies which undoubtedly indicates positive impacts of RFID on lean implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical solution for the problem of steady laminar flow and heat transfer characteristics of viscous incompressible fluid.

For this purpose a two dimensional code has been developed to simulate the natural convection heat transfer along a vertical cylinder, for four different geometries: from vertical cylinder in infinite medium; from a vertical flat plate in an infinite medium; from an open assembly of a finite vertical cylinder; and from an open rectangular pitch assembly of cylinders.

The effects of various parameters of interest have been discussed through simulations. The Nusselt numbers of constant wall temperature and constant heat flux cylinders calculated numerically and compared with Lee et al. and Heckel et al., respectively, and are found within reasonable agreement. For large radius, a vertical cylinder has been treated as a vertical flat plate, so that the curvature effects become negligible. For the case of vertical flat plate, Nusselt number has been compared with analytical relation for the local Nusselt number given by Jaluria.

The natural convection has been studied for four different geometries: the flow regime in all the case studies has been assumed to be Laminar.

Computer code developed for current study can be applied to many other geometries to simulate natural convection heat transfer.

The purpose of this paper to construct the fundamental solution of partial differential equations in the generalized theory of thermoelastic diffusion materials with double porosity.

The paper deals with the study of pseudo oscillations in the generalized theory of thermoelastic diffusion materials with double porosity.

The paper finds the fundamental solution of partial differential equations in terms of elementary functions.

Assuming the displacement vector, volume fraction fields, temperature change and chemical potential functions in terms of oscillation frequency in the governing equations, pseudo oscillations have been studied and finally the fundamental solution of partial differential equations in case of pseudo oscillations in terms of elementary functions has been constructed.

The purpose of this study is to find the multiple branches of the three-dimensional flow of Cu-Al₂ O₃/water rotating hybrid nanofluid perfusing a porous medium over the stretching/shrinking surface. The extended model of Darcy due to Forchheimer and Brinkman has been considered to make the hybrid nanofluid model over the pores by considering the porosity and permeability effects.

The Tiwari and Das model with the thermophysical properties of spherical particles for efficient dynamic viscosity of the nanoparticle is used. The linear similarity transformations are applied to convert the partial differential equations into ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The system of governing ODEs is solved by using the three-stage Lobatto IIIa scheme in MATLAB for evolving parameters.

The system of governing ODEs produces dual branches. A unique stable branch is identified with help of stability analysis. The reduced heat transfer rate has been shown to increase with the reduced ϕ2 in both branches. Further, results revealed that the presence of multiple branches depends on the ranges of porosity, suction and stretching/shrinking parameters for the particular value of the rotating parameter.

Dual branches of the three-dimensional flow of Cu-Al₂ O₃/water rotating hybrid nanofluid have been found. Therefore, stability analysis of the branches is also conducted to know which branch is appropriate for the practical applications. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is novel and there is no previously published work relevant to the present study.