Mohammad Ali Jinnah University

Brand anthropomorphism, defined as the act of personifying brands, has gained significant attention from research scholars within the current market. The present research investigates how brand anthropomorphism, a powerful branding strategy, promotes brand attachment, particularly in the confectionery industry. The study employs the theory of attachment and anthropomorphism. Responses from 463 participants were collected via social media, specifically from those who interacted with anthropomorphised brands used in the confectionery industry. PLS-SEM was employed to analyse the relations between variables and examine the mediating role of attachment with the brands. Results confirmed that anthropomorphic brands significantly enhance attachment and help strengthen brand love, thus inspiring consumers towards a positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). The analysis reveals that brand attachment fully mediates the effect of anthropomorphism on brand love and partially mediates its impact on eWOM. The results propose that brand humanisation can be a powerful approach to building emotional connections, driving consumer encouragement, and strengthening brand perceptibility through eWOM. The research provides valuable insights for marketers, highlighting the importance of anthropomorphism in fostering stronger consumer relationships with the brand, leveraging these bonds to establish long-term relationships and promote a positive eWOM.

This study examines the role of silence as a feminist discourse in the Pakistani Television drama Working Women (2023), analyzing its portrayal of women's oppression, agency, and resistance within a patriarchal society. Using Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the research explores how linguistic and non-linguistic cues-particularly silence-reveal intersections of gender, power, and ideology. The drama's dialogues and character portrayals are analyzed across textual, discursive, and social levels to demonstrate how silence operates as both a site of subjugation and a tool of empowerment. The analysis identifies eight core themes, including patriarchal oppression, workplace silence, and the normalization of women's suffering. Findings reveal that silence is not merely the absence of speech but a socially constructed mechanism that reflects constrained agency and resistance. The study argues that this critical decoding of silence models a vital media literacy competency: the ability to deconstruct how media texts encode complex power dynamics. The study concludes that Working Women subverts traditional passive femininity, serving as a potent resource for feminist media literacy education, framing silence as a complex communicative act that exposes systemic and audiences to discourse in Pakistani media.

Purpose This study investigates the neurological foundations of investment decision-making by exploring how specific neurotransmitters influence behavioral biases among retail investors. It aims to extend the dialogue between neurofinance and behavioral finance by providing empirical evidence of neural activity during trading. Design/methodology/approach An experimental design was used using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology to monitor brainwave patterns in six retail investors while they engaged in real-time trading. This study captured neural responses associated with attentional states, emotional arousal and cognitive processing, focusing on theta, alpha and beta waves. Findings The EEG data revealed consistent patterns of neurotransmitter-linked brain activity during investment decision-making. Increased beta activity in the frontal cortex corresponded with focused attention, while theta and alpha wave patterns were associated with emotional regulation and cognitive reflection. These findings underscore the neurochemical basis of behavioral biases such as risk aversion and overconfidence, offering partial alignment with the semi-strong form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers one of the first empirical validations of neurotransmitter involvement in financial behavior using real-time EEG data. It opens new pathways for integrating neuroscience into financial theory – particularly within culturally and ethically sensitive domains such as Islamic finance – and provides a foundation for future development of neuroadaptive, Shariah-compliant financial advisory tools.

The purpose of the research study is to examine the impact of Oil Rents and some Macroeconomic Determinants on Economic Growth in Pakistan using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modelling approach. The study investigates the dynamic relationship between Economic Growth (GDP) and other Macroeconomic indicators such as Oil Rents (OIL), Consumer Price Index (CPI), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Gross Capital Formation (GCF), and Unemployment (UNEMP) for the period 1971–2021. The unit root test of Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) was used to check the stationarity characteristics of the variables. The findings indicate that the variables are co-integrated at mixed orders, with CPI, GCF, and OIL being stationary at level I(0), and the remaining variables FDI and UNEMP being stationary at level I(1). The results confirm the appropriateness of the ARDL approach for analyzing short-run and long-run relationships because none of the variables are integrated at order I(2). The optimal lag structure ARDL (1,1,0,1,1,0) was determined by the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and the ARDL model was estimated using this structure. The empirical results show that the explanatory variables together have an impact on Economic Growth as supported by the statistically significant F-statistics. The ARDL bounds testing approach confirms the existence of a strong long-run cointegration relationship between GDP, Oil Rents, and Selected Macroeconomic Determinants as the calculated F-statistics is greater than the upper critical bounds at all conventional significance levels. The long-run estimation results show that Gross Capital Formation has a positive and highly significant impact on Economic Growth, which indicates that investment and capital accumulation play a vital role in improving the economic performance of Pakistan. Likewise, the long-run effect of Oil Rents is positive and statistically significant, indicating that the use of oil-related economic activities is a positive contributor to growth if used properly. Although Inflation and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are found to have a negative effect on GDP in the long run, the size of this negative effect is small. Meanwhile, Unemployment does not have a statistically meaningful impact on GDP. The short-run ARDL Error Correction Model (ECM) results also support the existence of a stable adjustment mechanism towards the long-run equilibrium. The Error Correction coefficient is negative and highly significant, which suggests that deviations from equilibrium are corrected quickly over time. The short-run determinants are found to be Gross Capital Formation, which is the most important positive determinant of Economic Growth, while short-run changes in Inflation and Oil Rents do not show statistically significant effects. The Model Diagnostic tests, such as the Breusch–Godfrey Serial Correlation Test, Breusch–Pagan–Godfrey Heteroskedasticity Test, Jarque–Bera Normality Test, Ramsey RESET Test, and CUSUM Test, confirm that the estimated model is statistically sound, correctly specified, and has no major econometric issues.

This study examines human resource audit practices and challenges that manufacturing organizations in Pakistan are facing. The manufacturing sector in Pakistan faces limited HR capacity and gaps in compliance systems that affects organizational performance. However, there is limited understanding of how HR audits are actually performed and implemented in this context. In this study, a qualitative research method was used, and data were collected through semi structured interviews from 15 experienced HR professionals in the manufacturing industry of Pakistan. For qualitative data analysis, NVivo-14 software is used, where a six steps thematic analysis approach of (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was applied to generate and interpret the appropriate themes. The findings of the research demonstrated the key processes, challenges and benefits associated with HR audits. The results discovered that along with the challenges HR audit practices also have significant value for the manufacturing sector. On the basis of these findings, an HR audit framework is proposed which is designed to address the unique needs and limitations of manufacturing organizations in developing economies. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are enormous for HR professionals and policy makers as they can be used as a roadmap towards streamlining HR audits to create organizational agility and regulatory compliance. Overall, this study contributes to the existing literature by offering a practical framework that helps improve the effectiveness of HR audits by aligning compliance, competitiveness and long-term sustainability in emerging economies.