The prevailing pandemic (COVID-19) has increased socioeconomic problems and caused psychological distress due to work uncertainty, specifically in emerging economies. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies have been severely affected. Particularly, work uncertainty is becoming a hindrance towards proactive work behaviour (PWB) that can be improved by an effective entrepreneurial leadership role and proactive personality attribute. Based on fortifying self-determination theory, this research answered the question to what extent proactive personality moderates the relationship between work uncertainty and PWB and strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and PWB. To empirically examine the study’s underlying theoretical framework, respondents were selected from SMEs working in Pakistan from the high-tech industry. Multisource data were accumulated from 420 workers and their leaders utilizing a two-wave, time-lagged research design. Conclusions revealed that entrepreneurial leadership first reduced individuals’ work uncertainty, which in turn, led to enhanced proactive work behaviour of employees. Furthermore, the results revealed that work uncertainty mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and proactive work behaviour. Moreover, proactive personality moderates the link concerning work uncertainty and proactive work behaviour, such that this association is significant only when proactive personality is low. Additionally, the moderated mediation analysis indicated that less proactive people, compared with their extraordinarily proactive colleagues, trusted entrepreneurial leadership to be more proactive in the workplace. These findings have important implications to induce PWB among employees.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to find the influence of brand experience on brand equity with the mediation of hedonic emotions, utilitarian emotions and brand personality among the smartphone users in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach The survey based on empirical method was used to administrate the questionnaire. The data were collected from a millennial generation in Sargodha city. Skewness, Kurtosis’s, correlation and regression techniques were used to analyze data. Findings The finding of this study shows that the hedonic emotions, utilitarian emotions and brand personality mediate the relation between brand experience and brand equity. The study will help brand managers and academia in understanding the hedonic and utilitarian emotional pattern, and the congruence between the personality and smartphone brand users and behavior pattern of young users. Research limitations/implications Research support the argument that promoting emotional aspects is significant for the sustainability of brand equity of the smart-phone brands. Segments other than young consumers would be more interesting to study. Practical implications This paper provides implications for smart phone marketers on smart phone consumption behavior. Marketing managers must link products attributes to the personality of the user and promote them that will emotionally attach users to the product. Originality/value This paper presents key findings on smart phone buying experience using utilitarian value approach followed by hedonic consumption approach and found to be significant predicators.

This paper discusses the impact of Publicity and Sponsorship on Brand Equity. Data were collected via a questionnaire distributed to almost all big cities of Pakistan among educated persons/university students. Hierarchical regression analysis of data from 200 respondents was used to test two hypotheses. The results show that Publicity and Sponsorship has a positive relationship with Brand Equity. When Publicity and Sponsorship is favorable, there is positive effect on Brand Equity. Further research should examine the role of public relations and advertisement in building Brand equity.

In this paper, we study 3–total edge product cordial (3–TEPC) labeling which is a variant of edge product cordial labeling. We discuss Web, Helm, Ladder and Gear graphs in this context of 3–TEPC labeling. We also discuss 3–TEPC labeling of some particular examples with corona graph.

Known upper bounds on the minimum distance of codes over rings are applied to the case of Z 2 Z 4 -additive codes, that is subgroups of Z α 2 × Z β 4 . Two kinds of maximum distance separable codes are studied. We determine all possible parameters of these codes and characterize the codes in certain cases. The main results are also valid when α = 0, namely for quaternary linear codes.