Mian Sajid Nazir

Academic dishonesty and perceptions of Pakistani students

Purpose – Academic dishonesty has been a matter of great concern in higher education for last few decades. The dishonest behavior of students at graduate and undergraduate level has become a severe issue for education and business sectors, especially when the students exercise same dishonest practices at their jobs. The present research aims to address this matter by investigating the perceptions of students towards academic dishonesty and exploring the security and penalties for dishonest acts of students.Design/methodology/approach – A well‐structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 958 respondents studying at graduate and undergraduate levels in different Pakistani universities.Findings – It has been found that students involve in academic dishonest acts more frequently about which they believe to be less severe. Moreover, they also suggested lower or no penalties for the same dishonest acts which are perceived as less severe.Practical implications – The results provide a strong implica...

Impact of political events on stock market returns: empirical evidence from Pakistan

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between uncertain political events and Pakistani Stock Markets from May 1999 to December 2011. Design/methodology/approach - – Using the mean-adjusted return model and event study methodology and by comparing the market efficiency between the two government style, i.e. autocratic and democratic, the authors determined that how uncertain political events are affecting Pakistani Stock Markets. Findings - – The empirical result shows that political events have an impact on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) returns. Moreover, the paper derives from the results that the KSE is inefficient for a short span of time, after 15 days KSE absorbs the noisy information. The political situation in Pakistan was more stable in autocratic government structure than in democratic structure but it is difficult to state that the stock markets are more efficient in Autocracy because only few events took place during an autocratic regime and magnitude of events was not same in the autocratic and democratic government structure. Originality/value - – This study is unique in its nature as it examines the effect of multiple political events on stock market returns in Pakistan simultaneously and is expected to contribute significantly in the capital market literature of Pakistan in particular.

Reviewing Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives of Tobacco Industry in Pakistan

The performance of the firms in corporate sector is heavily dependant upon the corporate governance practices (Nazir et al. 2009) as well as consideration of social responsibility into the general managerial practices of firms, the dimensions of socio-cultural environment into business procedures and compliance with other ethical and regulatory issues. The researchers have focused on the incorporation of corporate environmental governance issues into business practices in order to gain a competitive advantage for the firms (Wise and Ali, 2008; Mitra et al. 2008). However, a little has been found on the corporate environmental governance issues and practices of Pakistani firms in tobacco industry since the concept of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility is newer for the emerging economies like Pakistan. This shows study tells about the two companies and their corporate responsibility towards the society. Pakistan Tobacco Company and Lakson both are in same business which is risky to health for customers but they are considering Corporate Social Responsibility and environment safety for generating goodwill in the minds of customers and stakeholders.

Role of Institutional Shareholders' Activism in Enhancing Firm Performance: The Case of Pakistan

Globalization and financial breakdown of many corporate conglomerates in the developed world engrossed the attention of researchers and policy makers towards the need and importance of an effective corporate governance system for resolving the agency conflict between the stakeholders and managers, and hence a firms’ success. Among corporate governance mechanisms, how ownership is structured between all the shareholders of a firm is considered to be of much importance. The purpose of this article is two-fold: first, to analyze the impact of institutional ownership on firm performance and, second, to throw some light on the two scenarios of institutional ownership prevailing in Pakistan’s capital market. In the first scenario, financial institutions have a board representation (active financial institutions), while in the second scenario, financial institutions do not have board representation (passive financial institutions). Using the data of 200 non-financial Pakistani firms listed at the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) from 2005 to 2011, the results revealed that institutional ownership significantly impacts a firms’ performance. It is also found that the firm performance can be enhanced through effective monitoring by active financial institutions that have long-term stakes in firms through board nomination.

Real Earnings Management and Future Performance

Managers manipulate firm’s earnings through real activities to show good performance in the current period. This article determines whether there is any impact of these earnings manipulation in future financial performance or not. A panel data analysis technique generalized least square (GLS) method was used for analysis. The sample includes 119 firms listed in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) for the years 2004–2011. The article provides evidence that firms engaged in real earnings management (REM) activities through sales manipulation to report higher earnings have worse financial performance in future. It reveals that earnings manipulation seems helpful and appealing in current situation but creates problems in future.

Occupational health and safety issues in the informal economic segment of Pakistan: a survey of construction sites

This research covers the current status of occupational health and safety (OHS)-related practices in the informal construction segment of Pakistan. Data were collected, through interviews, from 316 construction sites employing 3577 workers. The results of the study reveal that both employers and workers lack knowledge of OHS laws/standards and no practices of this nature are enacted at these construction sites. Alarmingly, work-related accidents, whenever they happen, are not given due attention and there is no formal injury-report system. The informal construction industry employs a huge portion of the informal workforce, and lack of OHS happens at tremendous human cost. These research findings may thus play their role in strengthening the case for reforms in the sector. This study, if properly utilized, may also enable employers of the sector by increasing their knowledge about OHS practices and, as a result, trying to offer safer environments for their workers.

Earnings management through overproduction and subsequent performance: an empirical study in Pakistan

This study aims to find the impact of real earnings management on future financial performance. Abnormal cost of production is considered as proxy of real earnings management which is calculated by using model of Dechow et al. (1998). It has been investigated that how abnormal cost of production affects financial performance measures; return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS) and price to earnings ratio (PE). Manufacturing sector of Pakistan is selected for analysis and data is collected from year 2004 to 2011. Generalised least square regression has been applied for analysis. It has been revealed that firms engaged in real earnings management through overproduction face lower financial performance in subsequent years.

Impact of financial development and credit information sharing on the use of trade credit: Empirical evidence from Pakistan

Abstract Pakistan is an emerging economy and characterized by a less developed financial system where trade credit is extensively used by listed manufacturing firms (LMFs). This study is focused to investigate the effect of financial development (FD) and credit information sharing (CIS) on the trade credit used by LMFs. For this purpose, dynamic panel model is estimated by applying system GMM (two-step) estimator on the financial data of 327 manufacturing firms listed in PSX Pakistan for the period 2005–2015. Results of the study reveal that FD and CIS have significant effect on the use of trade credit by LMFs in Pakistan. It is found that increase in financial depth increases the supply of funds to the private sector, and resultantly suppliers provide more trade credit to LMFs. While in response to increase in the lending rate, suppliers reduce the transfer of costly funds to LMFs through trade credit. Furthermore, negative relationship between CIS and the use of trade credit is in accordance with the substitution hypothesis. Results of the study have practical implications for the managers of firms and policy makers alike.