Linking Authentic Leadership to Transactive Memory System, Team Innovativeness, and Selling Performance: A Multilevel Investigation.

In today's complex selling environment, it is challenging for sales leaders to enhance the effectiveness of their sales teams. The aim of this study is to observe the impact of authentic leadership on salespersons' internal and external behaviors under B2B selling context [i.e., transactive memory system (TMS), innovative work behavior, and customer-directed OCB] and their consequences in team selling performance. Respondents of our survey included salespersons and managers working in the sales departments of pharmaceutical companies. By using structural equation modeling, the dyad responses from 348 matched salespeople-managers were analyzed. The findings disclose that authentic leadership behavior has a stronger relationship with the TMS, innovative work behavior, and customer-directed OCB. Our results also indicate that innovative work behavior and customer-directed OCB are potentially mediated between authentic leadership and team selling performance relationship. The theoretical implication of these results for managerial practice is also discussed.

Do Agriculture Technologies Influence Carbon Emissions in Pakistan? Evidence based on ARDL technique.

Pakistan is an agrarian country, and the usage of agriculture technologies has increased in this country over the period of time. Extensive use of agriculture technologies may have detrimental impact of environment quality through an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. This study examines the impact of agriculture technologies on carbon emissions in Pakistan by using the annual time series data for the period 1973-2018. For long-run and short-run analysis, autoregressive distributed lag model is applied and the results reveal that cointegration exists among the variables. Long-run results show a significant positive impact of pesticide and economic growth on carbon emission, whereas short-run results confirm the positive effect of economic growth on carbon emissions in Pakistan. This study has important policy implications, such as to increase sustainable economic growth through agriculture sector; there is a need to introduce green technologies that produce less carbon emissions.

Investigating the nexus among sulfur dioxide emission, energy consumption, and economic growth: empirical evidence from Pakistan.

Developing countries like Pakistan majorly depend on fossil fuels for achieving higher economic growth but have sloppy environmental rules and regulations in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). As a result, energy consumption is considered the primary cause of environmental degradation. Besides CO2 emission, environmental degradation is also associated with emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2). The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among SO2 emissions, energy consumption, economic growth, and FDI in Pakistan. By applying the 3SLS method, study has estimated the scale effect, composition effect, and technique effect. The scale effect and technique effect findings indicated that capital stock, FDI, and SO2 emissions all had a significant impact on GDP. When the capital accumulation effects of FDI were considered, the relationship between FDI and stock of capital was found to be positive. According to the technique effect results, FDI, population density, and energy consumption were all significantly related to SO2 emissions. The study came to a conclusion with significant policy implications.

Impact of better cotton initiative on health cost and pesticide exposure of women cotton pickers in Punjab, Pakistan.

Cotton picking is an exclusive work that is performed only by women in Pakistan. They are directly exposed to pesticide as cotton picking is usually done without protective measures which cause destructive effects on their health. Better cotton standard system involves trainings of cotton pickers to use precautionary measures and avoid pesticide exposure. The current study has been conducted to explore the health cost of women cotton pickers in conventional versus better cotton in Punjab, Pakistan. Primary data were collected from 600 cotton pickers through an organized questionnaire from three districts (Layyah, Toba Tek Singh, and Bahawalnagar). Ordinary least square method was used to find the pesticide exposure and socioeconomic factors affecting the health cost of women cotton pickers. The study shows that total cost per person, cost of medication, productivity loss, cost of accompanied person, and dietary expenses in better cotton are significantly less than those in the conventional cotton. Cost of precautionary measures in better cotton is significantly higher than conventional cotton as better cotton pickers are trained to use precautionary measures. Moreover, education, distance from hospital, and precautionary measures affect health cost significantly. Results suggest that education should be improved in rural areas. Better cotton standard system should be promoted in Pakistan through education and other training programs. Women cotton pickers should be encouraged to use protective measures.

Relationship between adaptation to climate change and provincial government expenditure in Pakistan.

Public expenditures on adaptation to climate change have direct effects on budgets of governments. Such direct impacts on government budgetary allocation have been analyzed in the developed countries and very little research is available considering highly vulnerable and exposed developing countries which are facing huge threats of climate change. The current study is designed to bridge this information gap by examining the effects of climate change adaptation on public expenditures in Pakistan employing provincial level data over the period of 1990-2016. Adaptation expenditures included both overall government expenditures and expenditures on communal amenities and housing. In addition to a fixed effects estimation, we employed long difference model to analyze the impact in the long run. Results indicated that variations in temperature and rainfall were significantly related with public expenditures. Short run and long run scenarios showed that rising temperature caused an increase in public expenditures. The effect of rainfall on total public expenditure was positive and statistically significant while rainfall and expenditure incurred on communal amenities and housing were negatively related in the long run. The study posits important policy implications.

Climate change-induced human conflicts and economic costs in Pakistani Punjab.

Understanding causes of interpersonal conflicts, related costs, and the effects on investment in agriculture are important concerns of social sciences. The present study was designed to explore these aspects in relation to climate change, since rising temperature and precipitation are considered crucial causal factors in fueling interpersonal conflicts. The study used cross-sectional data collected from rural farm households from a large district of Pakistani Punjab. Cost of conflicts was estimated using standard economic methods whereas factors affecting interpersonal conflicts were estimated through employing logit model. The study found that interpersonal conflicts cost US$135 per month for following the proceedings of the conflicts filed in the court. Households involved in conflicts spent significantly very few resources in purchasing farm inputs which in turn declined productivity of maize (28%) and sugarcane (19%). Warm temperature, precipitation, and windstorm were perceived by households as causal factors for interpersonal conflicts. Socioeconomic characteristics namely, farm size, livestock, family size, and high monthly income of household, were significantly associated with interpersonal conflicts. The study concludes important policy implications.

Linking environment, malaria, and agricultural returns: a labor time use analysis at different stages of production using 3SLS.

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of disease on time spent by family and hired labor on farm activities. The effect of illness on cost incurred on farm activities and revenue earned from agriculture has also been examined in detail. The reason behind choosing malaria is because of its strong association with the quality of surrounding environment especially in the case of farm workers who are compelled to work in the environmental conditions quite suitable for the transmission of malaria. The effects of health shocks due to malaria are segregated according to three stages of production: land preparation, field management, and harvesting stages. Simultaneous equation model was employed using cross-sectional data collected from 252 farm workers through a pre-tested questionnaire. Farmers' living environment was found to be contributing in the spread of disease. Results also show that malaria affects labor time at harvesting stage as it is more labor-intensive stage of production. We find that malaria significantly affects the health of farm workers and their families forcing farm families to substitute family labor with hired labor. Further, the cost incurred on cure of disease significantly adds to the cost on agricultural production. This consequently leads to a substantial reduction in revenue. The effect of the cost incurred on prevention and cure of disease was also found negative on revenue. The study suggests that, in order to make farmers more productive, there should be malaria interventions specifically targeting the health of farmers. It is also suggested that, for successful malaria interventions especially in irrigated areas, the magnitude of the disease on different stages of production should be given due consideration.

Effect of intervention on employees' intentions to use environmentally sustainable work practices: A field experiment.

Owing to the growing public concerns about environmental sustainability, the importance of sustainable workplaces has increased. Despite knowing that employees can play a vital role in achieving workplace sustainability, less attention has been paid to understand how employee attitude toward the use of environmentally sustainable work practices (ESWPs) can be developed. We examined the effect of intervention on employees' knowledge about ESWPs. Subsequently, a latent change model was tested to examine the effect of change in knowledge on change in intentions through change in employee attitude toward ESWPs. A pretest-posttest design was used in a field quasi-experiment (N = 51) where 28 and 23 employees from restaurant industry were assigned to experiment and control groups, respectively. Employee knowledge about ESWPs and other variables were measured by using questionnaires from existing literature. The results indicate that intervention improved employees' knowledge by 87% (mean difference = 1.91; p < 0.01) compared with those who did not receive intervention (mean difference = 0.17; p > 0.05). The change in knowledge caused a significant change in attitude and, subsequently, the intentions to use ESWPs. Workplace sustainability can be achieved by using knowledge-based persuasive interventions to improve employees' knowledge, attitude, and intentions toward using ESWPs.

Rural household preferences for cleaner energy sources in Pakistan.

Dependence of rural population on traditional fuel sources namely biomass has increased because of easy accessibility and affordability. The use of biomass fuels results in many environmental and health-related hazards. Rural households have little awareness about the ill effects of using biomass energy sources. This study investigated the patterns of rural household energy use and identified the role of information on the effects of biomasses on human health, in addition to other factors influencing households' choices of energy sources. For this purpose, primary data from 196 households were collected from four districts of the Punjab province in Pakistan. Results showed that use of clean energy sources was limited to basic appliances and 90% of the respondents depended on biomass fuels. Estimates of the multivariate probit model showed that awareness about adverse impacts of biomass fuels as energy sources were significantly related with the choice of energy sources. Further, household head's education level, household income, landholding, children under the age of 5 years and higher number of adult females were significantly related with the cleaner energy source choices. Distance to market increased the probability of the use of biomass energy sources. The study concluded that awareness campaigns regarding the benefits of using clean energy sources should be launched through print and electronic media while targeting rural women.

Environmental and economic impacts of better cotton: a panel data analysis.

Better cotton is introduced with the aim of a reduction in the use of environmentally detrimental farm inputs in order to attain sustainable cotton production. The present study is designed to assess the environmental and economic effects of better cotton in Pakistan using panel data comprising of two cropping seasons, 2015 and 2016. Panel methods were used in the present study. Findings show that better cotton increases the gross margin by 37% and yield by 9%, whereas it results in decreasing seed rate by 6%, fertilizers by 7%, pesticides by 7%, and irrigation by 14%. Since better cotton involves more labor use due to higher yield, labor increases by 3%. The study concludes that better cotton is more economically and environmentally sustainable than conventional cotton. The study suggests that public private partnership will be a good strategy to diffuse better cotton technologies among the farming communities.

Dengue fever in Punjab, Pakistan: Knowledge, perception and adaptation among urban adults.

Climate change and weather variations are strongly associated with the incidence of dengue fever, outbreak risk in Pakistan and other developing countries. Knowledge and adaptation measures can affect the incidence and outbreak risk of dengue fever. The present study attempted to determine the knowledge, perception and adaptation to dengue fever by the respondents in Faisalabad, Pakistan employing cross-sectional data. The respondents who suffered and those that did not suffer from dengue fever have reported that electronic and print media were important sources of awareness about dengue fever. Around 59% respondents who did not suffer from dengue fever reported knowledge of being affected by dengue fever and 67% did not perceive that the symptoms of dengue fever would appear after mosquito biting. Logit model was employed to examine the factors affecting the adaptation measures to reduce the incidence of dengue fever. Education, family size, adults, income and perception were significantly related adaptation to dengue fever. The respondents that suffered from dengue fever were highly probable to use the adaptation measures compared to the respondents that did not suffer from dengue fever. Findings of the study might be helpful for the public health authorities to devise policies on improving awareness of dengue fever among the masses and sensitizing population to use adaptation measures.

Health hazards and adoption of personal protective equipment during cotton harvesting in Pakistan.

The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) during cotton harvesting is critical for securing better health for female cotton pickers in the developing countries where health facilities are not sufficiently available to the masses in the rural areas. Despite increasing the efforts in increasing awareness about the benefits of PPE among the farm workers, a vast majority of the farm workers including pickers don't use the PPE. The present study examines health impacts of cotton harvesting in Pakistani Punjab along with the factors affecting the use of PPE among the cotton pickers. Cross-sectional data collected from Vehari district is used. The study estimates health cost and the use of PPE among the young and elder cotton pickers. Headache, sleeplessness, cough, flue/fever, skin and eyes problems are reported by the young and elder cotton pickers. Personal protective equipment is rarely used during picking. However, the young pickers relatively adopt more PPE compared to the elder cotton pickers. Health cost of cotton picking is US$2.96 and 3.06 per season during the year for the young and elder cotton pickers, respectively. Results of logit model show that health cost, age, education below 8th grade, perception of temporary impact and health problems are important determinants of adopting PPE among the cotton pickers. The findings of the study conclude that the use of PPE can be realized through proper training and education of cotton pickers and farm workers.

Economic growth, CO2 emissions, renewable waste and FDI relation in Pakistan: New evidences from 3SLS.

First attempt has been made to find the effects of foreign direct investment on environmental pollution and economic growth, in addition to finding the determinants of foreign direct investment inflows in Pakistan using the annual data set for the period of 1980-2014. Simultaneous equation model has been used to find relation between the variables of concern. Results from technique and composition effects show that increase in economic growth leads towards more pollution emissions. Scale effect shows stock of capital and labor have positive effect on the economic growth of Pakistan while pollution has negative effect on growth. In case of capital accumulation effect, economic growth and foreign direct investment have positive and significant effect on stock of capital. Although increase in economic growth increases pollution, however, economic growth declines as pollution crosses a certain limit. Foreign direct investment is also found positively related with pollution.

How hard they hit? Perception, adaptation and public health implications of heat waves in urban and peri-urban Pakistan.

Heat waves threaten human health given the fast changing climatic scenarios in the recent past. Adaptation to heat waves would take place when people perceive their impacts based on their knowledge. The present study examines perception level and its determinants resulting in adaptation to heat waves in Pakistan. The study used cross-sectional data from urban and peri-urban respondents of Faisalabad District. The study employs a health belief model to assess risk perception among the respondents. Logistic model is used to determine factors affecting level of knowledge, perception and adaptation to heat waves. Around 30% of peri-urban respondents have a low level of knowledge about the fatal impacts of heat waves. Risk perception of heat waves is very low among urban (57%) and peri-urban (66%) respondents. Households' knowledge on heat waves is significantly related to age, gender, education, wealth and access to health services. Determinants of perception include knowledge of heat waves, age and joint effect of marital status and knowledge while income level, family size, urban/peri-urban background, perceived barriers, perceived benefits and cues to action significantly affect adaptation to heat waves. To reduce deadly health impacts, mass awareness campaigns are needed to build perception and improve adaptation to heat waves.

Pesticide exposure in the local community of Vehari District in Pakistan: An assessment of knowledge and residues in human blood.

The present study is based on cross-sectional data collected from rural and market areas of Vehari District in Pakistan to assess public awareness of pesticide risks and determine the levels of exposure to organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the local community. Blood samples were collected from 56 volunteer donors (VDs) including children, female workers, farm workers involved in pesticide business, farm workers involved in pesticide spraying activities, and people who were living away from agricultural fields. Blood analysis showed that VDs who were involved in spraying activities had significantly higher levels of OCP residues in their blood samples than VDs from the other groups, with mean concentrations of 1.13, 0.92, 0.68 and 1.96ngmL-1 for pp-DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, and endosulfan, respectively. However, VDs who were living away from agricultural fields had significantly lower levels of pesticide residues in their blood samples, with mean concentrations of 0.30, 0.19, 0.14 and 0.41ngmL-1 for pp-DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, and endosulfan, respectively. A survey of 179 volunteer respondents (VRs) showed that a significant proportion of the VRs had little knowledge of using the recommended amounts of pesticides (65.9%). Furthermore, the majority of the VRs was found using limited protective measures during pesticide use (62.6%) and was practising unsafe storage of pesticides (87.7%). In addition, most farm workers (88.8%) reported an increasing trend in pesticide use in their farms each year. Knowledge of pesticide risks on human health increased with formal education and training. Poor knowledge regarding pesticide risks and handling among inhabitants of Vehari District contribute to high exposure levels to OCPs, particularly among farm workers. Findings are useful for policy formulation aimed at reduction of pesticide exposure in Pakistan.

Occupational hazards and health cost of women cotton pickers in Pakistani Punjab.

BACKGROUND: Farm workers and female cotton pickers are exposed to residual impacts of pesticide use in cotton production, in addition to dust, ultraviolet radiation, etc. Cotton picking causes various health hazards among cotton pickers with varied health cost. A soil bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is incorporated in cotton seed through genetic modification and it has resistance against certain bollworms of cotton. So it is considered that Bt cotton fields have less pesticide exposure compared to non-Bt cotton fields. This study was designed to examine and compare the impacts and health cost of cotton picking among female cotton pickers working in Bt and non-Bt cotton fields. METHODS: The study used the data collected from Vehari district of Pakistani Punjab. Health hazards and associated health cost of the respondents involved in Bt cotton picking were compared with those who harvested non-Bt cotton. Comparative use of the personal protective measures among those respondents was also examined. Health cost function and its determinants were analyzed using ordinary least square method. RESULTS: Findings of the study showed that 61 % cotton pickers from Bt cotton households reported one or more health effects of pesticide during picking season whereas this percentage for non-Bt cotton households was 66 %. Health impacts included skin problems, headache, cough, flu/fever, eye irritation and sleeplessness, however, percentage of these health impacts was comparatively higher among non-Bt cotton households. Health cost from exposure to pesticide use in cotton was US$ 5.74 and 2.91 per season for non-Bt cotton and Bt cotton households, respectively. Education, picking in Bt cotton fields and preventive measures were significantly related with health cost. CONCLUSION: Cotton pickers working in Bt cotton fields are found to have less occupational health hazards compared to those working in non-Bt cotton fields. Thus generating awareness among cotton pickers for adopting precautionary measures during harvesting and the use of Bt cotton seed can result in a decline in the ill-effects of cotton picking.