Asif Yaseen

Privacy Preservation in e-Healthcare Environments: State of the Art and Future Directions

e-Healthcare promises to be the next big wave in healthcare. It offers all the advantages and benefits imaginable by both the patient and the user. However, current e-Healthcare systems are not yet fully developed and mature, and thus lack the degree of confidentiality, integrity, privacy, and user trust necessary to be widely implemented. Two primary aspects of any operational healthcare enterprise are the quality of healthcare services and patient trust over the healthcare enterprise. Trust is intertwined with issues like confidentiality, integrity, accountability, authenticity, identity, and data management, to name a few. Privacy remains one of the biggest obstacles to ensuring the success of e-Healthcare solutions in winning patient trust as it indirectly covers most security concerns. Addressing privacy concerns requires addressing security issues like access control, authentication, non-repudiation, and accountability, without which end-to-end privacy cannot be ensured. Achieving privacy from the point of data collection in wireless sensor networks, to incorporating the Internet of Things, to communication links, and to data storage and access, is a huge undertaking and requires extensive work. Privacy requirements are further compounded by the fact that the data handled in an enterprise are of an extremely personal and private nature, and its mismanagement, either intentionally or unintentionally, could seriously hurt both the patient and future prospects of an e-Healthcare enterprise. Research carried out in order to address privacy concerns is not homogenous in nature. It focuses on the failure of certain parts of the e-Healthcare enterprise to fully address all aspects of privacy. In the middle of this ongoing research and implementation, a gradual shift has occurred, moving e-Healthcare enterprise controls away from an organizational level toward the level of patients. This is intended to give patients more control and authority over decision making regarding their protected health information/electronic health record. A lot of works and efforts are necessary in order to better assess the feasibility of this major shift in e-Healthcare enterprises. Existing research can be naturally divided on the basis of techniques used. These include data anonymization/pseudonymization and access control mechanisms primarily for stored data privacy. This, however, results in giving a back seat to certain privacy requirements (accountability, integrity, non-repudiation, and identity management). This paper reviews research carried out in this regard and explores whether this research offers any possible solutions to either patient privacy requirements for e-Healthcare or possibilities for addressing the (technical as well as psychological) privacy concerns of the users.

Drivers of customer loyalty and word of mouth intentions: moderating role of interactional justice

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a conceptual model of the antecedents of customer loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) intentions with the moderating influence of interactional justice. Using data from 500 tourist respondents at six different tourist locations in the districts of the northern province of Pakistan, the study reported here extends the theoretical and empirical body of evidence regarding customers’ perceptions of the quality and value of hotel services and their impact on customer loyalty and WOM intentions. The moderating role of interactional justice perceptions is also studied. The results show that service quality and relationship quality are significant predictors of customer loyalty and WOM intentions. Perceived service value also significantly mediated all the conceptualized relationships. Interactional justice moderated the mediated relationships. Surprisingly, the image of hotels appeared insignificant and did not mediate the most of the relationships. The findings demonstrate that hotel marketers should not assume that all customers’ perceptions represent similar underlying value in developing loyalty and WOM intentions.

Dynamically Changing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Management in Cloud Computing

Managing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in cloud computing in a dynamic manner becomes a critical issue for cloud service providers. This is due to the emerging technology and the frequent and continuous change in cloud service requirements and techniques over the time. Current cloud SLAs management methods are rigorous in terms of SLA updation to incorporate new changes. Since updating any SLA, to meet any required change in cloud requirements and techniques, requires reformulation and remapping to all available SLAs (called public SLAs). This paper proposed a mechanism to dynamically manage cloud computing SLAs based on Real Options Analysis (ROA) concept. The proposed model maps the required changes to all public SLAs and sorts out the most related or suitable SLAs (solutions) based on options theory while recording the other solutions for any future change according to emerging circumstances. The technique incorporates any new change dynamically; by mapping it to a limited number of SLAs (recorded solutions) based on various options presented by ROA. The framework presented in this paper would provide a flexible solution in managing cloud SLAs in both cloud provider and the users perspectives.

Precursory effects on entrepreneurial behaviour in the Agri-food industry

Purpose Promoting entrepreneurship within agri-food sectors in developing countries can be a viable strategy towards economic development. Predicting which factors will foster entrepreneurial behaviour is somewhat complex. Specifically, a deeper understanding of precursory effects on entrepreneurial behaviour is required to enhance entrepreneurship in the agri-food sectors. This paper aims to explore what predicts the entrepreneurial decisions in the dairy industry of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach The research used an integrative framework built on the entrepreneurial event model and determinants of entrepreneurial intention. Using a partial least square approach to structural equation model estimation, this study tested a conceptual model and its hypotheses based on 174 cases sampled from Pakistan’s dairy industry. Findings The research showed that intention is a strong predictor to start entrepreneurial activities in the Pakistani dairy industry. Amongst precursory factors, perceived feasibility, readiness and conviction were found strongly linked to intention when explaining the causes of entrepreneurial start-ups. Surprisingly, the impact of attitude and triggering event was not significant in explaining the phenomenon under investigation. Practical implications The findings suggest that training and education programmes can enhance critical perceptions such as desirability, feasibility and conviction among farmers to become entrepreneur. For this purpose, government should establish dairy incubation centres in different cities and transform agricultural extension department to help farmers understand market-oriented dairy farming businesses and build their capacity in farm entrepreneurship. Originality/value This research attempted to shed light on fostering entrepreneurship in the context of agri-food sectors in developing countries such as Pakistan’s dairy industry.

Impact of service quality and trust on repurchase intentions – the case of Pakistan airline industry

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of repurchase intentions in the Pakistani airline industry. Though research on repurchase intentions has traditionally focused on service quality and satisfaction, recently scholars have proposed that word of mouth (WOM) and thin Pakistan’s airline industr trust also play a vital role in driving repurchase intentions for all services businesses. Design/methodology/approach The study employs structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized relationships among antecedents of repurchase intention drawing on a data set of 383 customers listed as “frequent flyer members” within Pakistan’s airline industry. Findings The results revealed that service quality and trust are directly associated with repurchase intentions as well as through the mediator of customer satisfaction. The findings hold important implications for marketers and academics. Originality/value This study makes original contribution to the body of knowledge in the services marketing sector by investigating the effects of service quality and trust through the mediation of customer satisfaction and brand image, and the moderation of WOM factors on predictors of repurchase intention.

Predictors of Organizational Commitment in Public Sector Hospitals of Pakistan—A Moderated Mediation Study

Organizational commitment, a psychological construction of responsibility towards the mission, is a mounting challenge in the healthcare sector of developing countries. The study aims at examining the factors including organizational cronyism, organizational politics, and informational justice and their moderated mediation relationships affecting employees’ perception of their job and improving their commitment towards their work in hospitals. A total of 496 medical house officers and post-graduate residents from public sector hospitals in Pakistan participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine the structural model and the measurement model for the constructs. Findings of this study revealed the significant positive effects of organizational politics, supervisor support, organizational cronyism and cynicism on reducing the level of commitment, however, informational justice appeared insignificant. The moderating role of Guanxi network appeared significant in decreasing the impact of counterproductive practices on a high level of commitment. The study concluded with explaining the underlying mechanism of organizational commitment in the service industry with a special focus on the health sector in Pakistan.

Entrepreneurial behaviour formation among Farmers: Evidence from the Pakistani dairy industry

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how farmers perceive and exploit business opportunities to foster entrepreneurship in developing country agriculture.,In total, 174 milk producers completed a face-to-face survey within a posttest- pretest research design. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.,Results revealed that intentions, channelled through desirability, feasibility and optimism, become a strong predictor to recognise the opportunity to be entrepreneurial; however, the presence of a munificent environment and participation in apprenticeship and training programmes are the main and direct source of exploiting farming business opportunities.,The major limitation of the study is that cross-sectional data collected only from milk producers in Pakistan, signifying a need to include other agricultural sectors across different developing countries for further contextualising the results.,Research on entrepreneurial behaviour among farmers is scant. This study emphasises how cognitive heuristics guide intentions influencing the process of opportunity formation, and a munificent environment and entrepreneurial skills trainings are necessary for starting dairy farming business with modern practices.