Information and communication technology (ICT) developments and trends in recent years have had great impacts on banking sector worldwide. Therefore, the disruptive innovative technology has accelerated changes in the way of banking business. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that influence on Pakistani customer’s intentions to adopt internet banking. The sample used in this empirical study includes 265 responses of internet banking users collected through structured questionnaire. For statistical analysis, structural equation model (SEM) approach was used. The present study suggests that internet banking use increases as long as customer perceives it as useful tool. Findings confirmed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and attitude were the key constructs for promoting internet banking usage in Pakistan. Furthermore, the importance performance matrix analysis has shown that attitude was the most important factor. Thus, banks can focus on cultivation of positive attitudinal beliefs about internet banking among prospect cus-tomers.

The aim of this study is to recognize and scrutinize the barriers affecting the utilization of quality tools and techniques (QT&T) in manufacturing organizations. For this purpose, twelve barriers af-fecting the execution of QT&T in manufacturing organizations have been identified from literature analysis and experts’ opinion (academicians and industrial). Questionnaire-based survey has been utilized for the validation of identified barriers. Afterwards, an integrated model of QT&T has been developed by using interpretive structural Modelling (ISM) and Matriced Impacts Croisés Multi-plication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) approach. This research gives an apparent depic-tion to identify and handle the barriers by computing the effectiveness of each barrier. Barriers like accessibility of time and space, inability to change organizational culture and inadequate coordina-tion and teamwork are found to be the key barriers for utilization of QT&T in manufacturing organ-ization. The developed model will help the manufacturing organizations effectively utilize QT&T.

The aim of the study was to examine how consumers integrate into brand communities on social media network sites (SNSs) and how it affects overall satisfaction of social media sites users among students. The study depends on the service-dominant logic (SDL) to develop the constructs for hypotheses testing. The study used a cross-sectional survey research design. The data were col-lected using a web-based survey of university of Nairobi Students. In all, a total of 608 students participated in the survey. The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling with AMOS software. The results revealed that frequency of usage of SNSs and duration of usage positively affect the self –perceived relevance of SNSs. Also, the self-perceived relevance leads to building brand community which finally leads to customer satisfaction. The research was limited to only students of Nairobi and selecting students in itself, which is a limitation as well as limiting it to uni-versity of Nairobi. The younger or the millennial are not the only users of SNSs. We have older generations as well, who also use SNSs for various activities such as professional development among others. Understanding why consumers of social media network site would integrate brand community is seminal for both local and foreign firms doing business in a developing country. This would enable marketing practitioners to craft marketing strategies best for community brand building.

This paper presents the case study of fuzzy statistical process control which has been simulated for variable and discontinuous production within a particular time frame in a key manufacturing work-shop. In order to reduce waste production and increase productivity, dimensional inspection from raw product is categorized into three groups: product of type A, product of type B, and discard. In first part, the appearance characteristics of product is defined as fuzzy membership function as the input of the system in order to allocate the output obtained from fuzzy inference of product to one of the three quality levels. Afterwards, each quality level is assigned to its own group by means of Monte Carlo simulation techniques. In the second part, with fuzzy development of a multinomial p chart, the production process is illustrated as a control chart within the particular period of time.

This study aims to investigate the awareness level of Biomedical waste managements in healthcare facilities, and their perception among hospital waste management team, doctors, nurses, lab technicians and waste handlers in Northwest Delhi region in India. The study has been conducted through a questionnaire survey followed by the descriptive statistical analysis method. Questionnaire contains of 38 questions, where the first section deals with the hospital waste management team, the second section is for doctors, nurses and lab technicians, and the third section is for the waste handlers. Out of 311 respondents, there were 16 hospital waste management teams, 81 doc-tors, 92 nurses, 49 lab technicians and 73 waste handlers. It was surprising that only 40% (n=10) hospitals had any kind of waste treatment & disposal facility onsite, only 10% hospitals were using the latest technology and 60% hospitals shred the Biomedical waste before disposal. It was good to see that none of the hospital waste managements disposed the waste with general waste, and 40% of them were exhausting through government agencies and the remaining 60% were using private agencies to dispose the waste. Finally, all the hospitals maintained the record of waste generated. It is concluded that there was a lack of awareness about the biomedical waste generation, legislation and management among healthcare personnel, and they all needed regular audits and training pro-grams at all levels, and a proper management starting from waste generation to its disposal at sites.

Impulse buying occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and persistent urge to buy something immediately. This on-going research considers the affections generated by consumers towards the chocolate brand which is endorsed by a celebrity. The Dual Mediation Hypothesis Model (DMH) is used to ascertain the ad effectiveness of the product/ brand, in this research advertisement featuring the celebrity. The affections generated by the ad leads to generation of affection towards the brand leading to purchase a product/ brand. The chocolate brand selected for the research has high market share and manufactures chocolate based products catering to all classes of consumers. The research primarily focuses on the significance of affections generated by the advertisement for the product. The purchase decision for such products is usually based on consumer impulses and attitudes towards the product/ brand. A convenience sample of 116 individuals was considered for the research and the survey was done using questionnaire method. The findings from the analysis revealed that the consumers purchased the products due to the impulses and affections generated by the ad and brand. There was no clear linkage between the celebrity and brand which lead to purchase intentions of the product/ brand. The Dual Mediation Model was found to be applicable as the affections towards the brand and the ad resulted in purchase intention.

The aim of this paper is to integrate fuzzy approach into statistical process control in order to provide a comprehensive description of an operator’s performance. To this end, all influential factors in quality of a product are simultaneously controlled to assess the performance in each working day. Then a fuzzy x̄ chart is used for statistical modeling process during a month. This paper shows that the fuzzy controller chart can provide a good indication to evaluate a person's work performance.

The primary objective of this paper is to consider the influence of perceived usefulness, per-ceived ease of use, business innovativeness and product innovativeness on the adoption of mo-bile commerce. For the model of this study to be tested empirically, data were collected from mobile commerce users in Nigeria. A total of 405 questionnaires were used for the analysis via PLS-SEM. The results of the study revealed a positive and significant relationship between per-ceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, business innovativeness and product innovativeness. The results of this study provide some guides for mobile commerce practitioners.

Today energy is directly related with progress or growth of any country and every event requires a huge amount of energy. In today’s global competitiveness, demand for energy is very high and India is facing a problem of very poor energy supply. So, researchers and planners are worried about very poor productivity of thermal power plant and the most critical cause for this problem is high capacity waste at these plants. This paper focuses on causes of capacity waste and for this, DMAIC approach is adopted. The study also clears some myths of Six Sigma compatibility at process industries (thermal power plant) for performance improvement. After implementation of the first phase i.e. “Define”, the study confirms the competence of Six Sigma in defining the issue of capacity waste.

During the previous decades, policy makers have formulated policies for developing entrepreneurship in different countries in order to decrease unemployment and poverty toward sustainable development. Some of these policies include encouraging people to be an entrepreneur, opportunity creation, educating new skills to entrepreneurs and so on. In recent years an appropriate context has been formed for entrepreneurship development in Iran and some programs have been executed. Therefore, formulating appropriate frameworks to guide Iranian government in this way is a necessity. This paper evaluates the impact of entrepreneurship policies on opportunity to startup in Iran. The results of path analysis indicate that supportive financial and non-financial actions influence positively on opportunity to startup. In addition, education and culture also influence positively on opportunity to startup. Finally, legislation also positively influences on opportunity to startup.