Vol. 17 No. 4(J) (2025)

University faculty members play a central role in knowledge production and student development. In Moroccan public universities, however, academic staff operate in challenging conditions characterized by limited recognition, weak academic leadership, and perceived organizational injustice. These conditions tend to foster continuance commitment, driven primarily by job security and constrained labor market opportunities, raising questions about its impact on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between organizational commitment—particularly continuance commitment—and OCB among Moroccan university faculty members, while assessing the mediating roles of academic leadership and perceived social justice. A quantitative research design was adopted, based on survey data collected from faculty members in Moroccan public universities. The hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modelling. The results show that continuance commitment does not directly promote OCB. While academic leadership significantly influences perceptions of social justice, neither leadership nor social justice mediates the relationship between commitment and OCB. Citizenship behaviors appear instead to be primarily driven by normative obligations and professional responsibility rather than by managerial or governance mechanisms. Qualitative insights further reveal a strong professional focus on teaching and research, accompanied by distancing from administrative and managerial processes. These findings highlight a distinctive contextual pattern in Moroccan higher education, where OCB develops independently of leadership and justice mechanisms. The study contributes original empirical evidence from a non-Western academic context and underscores the need to rethink governance, leadership development, and human resource management practices in public universities.

The financial performance of construction companies depends significantly on their ability to manage financial risks. This study examined the effect of financial risk management on the financial performance of construction companies focusing on three dimensions: risk identification, risk assessment and evaluation, and risk management strategy. Guided by Modern Portfolio Theory, the study adopted a crosssectional survey design and collected data from 191 construction companies selected through proportionate sampling. Structured questionnaires were used for data collection and the validity and reliability of the instruments were confirmed through expert review and Cronbach’s Alpha. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression. Findings revealed that all three financial risk management components were positively associated with financial performance. Risk identification showed a significant but modest relationship with financial performance (r = .300, p < .01), while risk assessment and evaluation exhibited the strongest association (r = .591, p < .01). Risk management strategy also demonstrated a significant positive relationship (r = .428, p < .01). Hierarchical regression results further indicated that risk assessment and evaluation contributed the largest increase in explained variance (24.9 percent), followed by risk management strategy (7.1 percent), whereas the influence of risk identification diminished after additional predictors were introduced. Overall, the models explained 42.7 percent of the variation in financial performance. The study concludes that financial risk management significantly improves financial performance, particularly when firms invest in thorough assessment and evaluation of risks and implement structured mitigation strategies. It recommends that construction firms adopt comprehensive risk management frameworks, strengthen analytical capacities and integrate proactive financial planning tools to enhance profitability, reduce exposure to uncertainty and improve long-term sustainability.

This study examines how the absence of crowds affects effort-based and skill-based performance in professional football. Using “ghost games” from the 2019/2020 season of the German football Bundesliga as a natural experiment, the analysis follows a within-subject design. It employs Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and linear regression models, including the interaction between home advantage and ghost games. Previous studies showed a decline in home advantage when matches are played without fans. Distinguishing between effortbased and skill-based performance, we argue that this effect is primarily driven by tasks involving physical effort, whereas the technical precision of home teams rather improves in ghost games. This study advances the behavioral understanding of home advantage and highlights how crowd presence can simultaneously motivate and constrain performance.

This article examines how changes in property rights protection, resulting from the collapse of formal institutions during the Syrian conflict, have influenced entrepreneurial activity. The study draws on qualitative research conducted in 2021 and is based on semi-structured interviews with 46 entrepreneurs in the town of Amuda in northeast Syria, complemented by secondary data from local institutions and media sources. The findings reveal a distinctive pattern of entrepreneurship in a conflict-affected context. Following the Syrian regime’s loss of control over much of the region after 2012—previously characterized as a highly predatory state—and the emergence of a weak Autonomous Administration with limited institutional capacity, informal institutions assumed an increasingly important role in regulating economic activity. In this environment, informal social mechanisms, alongside the disruption of traditional supply chains, contributed to improved perceptions of property rights protection. As a result, Amuda witnessed the emergence of a new wave of predominantly productive and non-conflict-related entrepreneurship, rather than entrepreneurship driven solely by necessity or war-related opportunities. These findings challenge the prevailing consensus in the literature that entrepreneurship in conflict settings is primarily necessity-based. Instead, the study highlights the importance of context-specific institutional configurations and calls for a reassessment of dominant assumptions within conflict economics and entrepreneurship research.

This study investigates the relationship between human capital and graduate employability in public universities in South-Western Uganda. It aims to provide empirical evidence on how university human capital influences graduates’ labor-market readiness. Guided by a positivist paradigm, a cross-sectional design was employed. Data were collected from 377 graduates and 122 academic and administrative staff across three public universities. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesized relationship between human capital and graduate employability. Results indicate a significant positive relationship between human capital and graduate employability. Universities with skilled, motivated, and professionally competent staff enhance graduates’ employability by developing relevant skills and supporting processes that ensure these skills are effectively acquired. Deficiencies in human capital constrain the development of employability outcomes. University leaders should strategically invest in human capital through targeted recruitment, continuous professional development, and performance management linked to employability outcomes. Curricula should embed employer-valued skills such as critical thinking, communication, adaptability, and problem-solving. Strengthening institutional employability support, including career services and industry engagement, is critical for translating staff capacity into labor-market-ready graduates. The study contributes to the literature by highlighting the central role of academic and administrative staff in shaping graduate employability in resource-constrained public universities. It provides context-specific evidence from Uganda, clarifying how staff competence, motivation, and leadership collectively influence labor-market outcomes.

Premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) remains a major public health challenge in Latin America and the Caribbean, threatening progress toward Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.4, which calls for a one-third reduction in premature NCD mortality. We examine trends and future trajectories of mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases among adults aged 30–70 years using monthly World Bank data from 2000 to 2024. The ARIMA modeling framework is employed to capture both long-run persistence and short-run fluctuations in mortality dynamics. Estimation results reveal strong persistence in premature NCD mortality, as evidenced by a positive and statistically significant autoregressive coefficient, alongside a negative and significant moving-average component indicating partial shock correction. Model diagnostics confirm stationarity and invertibility, supporting the reliability of forecasts. Projections indicate a gradual decline in premature NCD mortality, converging toward approximately 13.32% by 2046. While this trend reflects continued improvement, the projected level remains unacceptably high and insufficient to fully achieve SDG 3.4 targets. The findings underscore the urgency of strengthening NCD prevention, early diagnosis, and health-system capacity to accelerate mortality reductions in the region.

We examine the interaction effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports as a capacity to import (ECI) on trade balance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We utilize balanced annual panel data for 20 SSA countries from 2005 to 2024, obtained from the World Development Indicators. The Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methodology is used to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Empirical findings reveal a positive and statistically significant interaction between FDI and ECI. Specifically, the coefficient of the interaction term (FDI*ECI) is 0.217378, indicating that a simultaneous 10 percent increase in FDI inflows and ECI improves trade balance by approximately 2.2 percent. We recommend that SSA economies adopt integrated strategies that attract export-oriented FDI while promoting export diversification, industrial upgrading, and productive capacity development to achieve sustainable trade balance improvements.