Background Health literacy is expected to help individuals deal with the required infection control and knowledge to cope with the COVID‐19 pandemic. Objectives This study examined the impact of health literacy on Covid‐19 awareness and protective behaviours of university students in Pakistan. Methods An online questionnaire was used to collect data from students at three universities in Punjab. The approved questionnaire contained 12 statements related to HL, 21 items towards Covid‐19 awareness, and 11 statements related to protective behaviours, along with some demographic data. Data analysis used Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. Results Health literacy of university students positively predicted their Covid‐19 awareness and protective behaviours indicating that students with high health literacy were likely to be more aware of Covid‐19 and adopt health protective behaviours. There were gender and rural/urban differences. Conclusions The results demonstrated an urgent need for planning a needs‐based health literacy programme focusing specifically on Covid‐19 literacy in Pakistan. This research might help policy‐makers, NGOs, and health librarians devise suitable programme.

This study examined the impact of personality traits on the knowledge sharing behavior of academicians in the public sector. The data were collected from 237 respondents using a questionnaire. The results showed that the personality trait openness to experience had a significant and positive impact on the knowledge sharing behavior and its sub-dimensions such as written contributions, organizational communication, personal interactions, and communities of practice. Furthermore, the personality traits extraversion and agreeableness positively predicted the knowledge sharing behavior for the dimensions of communities of practice and organizational communication, respectively. The results of this study would be helpful for the administrative staff of universities to develop programs to promote a knowledge sharing culture in universities and improve collaborative learning, research, organizational effectiveness, and performance. It would also be a worthy contribution to the existing literature as only a limited number of studies have addressed the role of personality traits in the knowledge sharing behaviors in the academic environment of a non-western country.

This study examined the effect of information literacy (IL) on work performance with mediating role of lifelong learning and creativity among journalists in Pakistan. A cross-sectional survey using an online questionnaire was conducted in the press clubs of four provinces (e.g., Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Baluchistan) and the federal capital Islamabad for data collection. The received 1084 responses were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicated that IL of journalists had a direct and indirect but positive influence on their work performance. The lifelong learning and creativity skills also mediated the relationship between IL and work performance. This study provided empirical evidence for how IL directly influence work performance and indirectly with the mediated role of lifelong learning and creativity. These pragmatic insights may inform academicians and enterprises about the IL importance at workplace for enhancement of organizational performance and achieving a competitive advantage. Such results may also initiate an instruction program for existing as well as for prospective journalists to impart IL education. This study could be a worthy contribution to the existing IL research in the workplace context in general and of journalists’ workplace in particular as no such study has appeared so far.

This research investigated the regulatory challenges faced by Islamic banking from the perspective of Islamic bankers in Pakistan. The data were collected through crosssectional survey using a questionnaire from 152 bankers, selected through stratified convenient sampling, working at different Islamic banks of Lahore. The mean scores for overall 68 statements as well as for its sub

This study intended to investigate the current issues in the regulation of Islamic banking from the perspective of Islamic bankers in Pakistan. A cross-sectional survey of 165 bankers, recruited through stratified convenient sampling procedure, working at different Islamic banks in Lahore was conducted using a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were applied using SPSS for data analysis. The results indicated that a large majority of the survey participants had postgraduate level of education, experience from 6-15 years, and belonged to either middle management or senior management. These participants perceived that limited role of policy institutions, gap in theory and practice, poor perception of people about Islamic banking, lack of short-term and long-term avenues, regulators’ preference of Shariah auditing rather than Shariah supervision, lack of financial services availability/branch networks, limited product offerings, non-availability of IB courts to resolve disputes, non-availability of research centres for Islamic banking, lack of trained staff, shortage of training opportunities and inadequacy of the curriculum for Islamic banking were the key issues faced by Islamic banking in Pakistan. However, the least issues that Islamic bankers faced were related to IB institutional and regulatory structures. The results generated evidence based pragmatic insights for policymakers and regulators in making strategic decisions for the development and growth of Islamic banking in Pakistan. This research makes a worthy contribution to the existing literature as no such study has addressed particularly the regulatory issues of Islamic banking in Pakistan.