Background: Higher education institutions across the world moved to e-learning in response to the disruptions caused by the pandemic. While e-learning has an advantage for students that they can attend to their courses from anywhere at their convenience, yet the sudden disruptive shift to e-learning during the pandemic saw students facing many challenges, which had strong ability to induce mental health issues among the students. This study aimed at examining the impact of COVID-19-induced e-learning on the university students’ stress perceptions in Oman. Results: A total of 966 usable responses were received. The results showed that 96.9% (moderate stress = 82.5% and high stress = 14.4%) reported having experienced stress through e-learning during COVID-19. The results further indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between perceived stress and the students’ academic performance. The family support and institutional support were observed to have a significant effect on students’ stress perception. Conclusions: Students are away from the physical campuses over a year now, continuing their courses and programs online. The numerous challenges they are facing through e-learning, together with the prevailing uncertainty, have intensified stress among them. The continued stress over time will not only affect their academic performance, but their mental and physical health as well, as the stress has proven to be one of the major causes of various physical and mental disorders. While e-learning seems to emerge as a new normal, the students require proper attention, help, and support from their families and institutions. The institutions should revisit their online courses and program delivery mechanisms, methods, and practices to ensure that students are not over stressed.

The study is conducted to comprehend the relation of the oil sector with Oman’s economic growth. Oman is an abundant oil country, and the oil sector plays an influential part in its economic development. The data were gathered from a range of 1989 to 2018 from the National Center for Statistics and Information of Oman; it published the statistical year for variables including oil revenue, oil price, gross capital formation, total revenue, and production or export of Crude Oil. The data were analyzed with the help of the ARDL cointegration approach and Granger causality test. The results enlighten that economic performance is significantly affected by the oil price, crude oil production, and gross capital formation, and the total revenue and oil revenue insignificantly influence it. The impact of export has a substantial adverse influence on economic growth. The variables have long-run granger cause on each other while short-run causal bidirectional relation exists among economic performance, crude oil production, and export of Crude Oil. The study helps Oman’s Government understand the importance of the oil sector and aids in maintaining or forecasting the oil revenue and government spending to retain a stable economy.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyse the role of internal social capital and external social capital in determining the financial and non-financial performance of the firm and the effect of manager’s intangible capabilities on internal social capital and external social capital of firm in the context of the manufacturing sector of India. Design/methodology/approach: The data for this study is collected from 417 managers of manufacturing firms through a structured questionnaire and is analysed through SPSS and AMOS by performing confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings: Findings reveal that a manager’s business experience, financial literacy and intellectual capital significantly enhance the firm’s internal and external social capital. Furthermore, it has been found that the internal social capital of the firm has the potential to enhance the performance of the firm in financial and non-financial terms. The external social capital also significantly derives from the firm’s financial performance; however, it has not significantly impacted its non-financial performance in the current study. Research limitations/implications: These findings provide many implications in theoretical and practical terms because the literature regarding social capital and the linkage among social capital, intangible capabilities and firm performance will be enhanced. The strategymakers and policymakers can also benefit from this study’s implications for making better strategies and policies regarding social capital and the firm’s performance. Originality/value: Past studies, though, examined the influence of social capital on business performance. However, no prior research addresses the phenomenon through which social capital can determine business performance while undertaking the role of a manager’s intangible capabilities in such a model. Therefore, the current study is the first to study the interrelationship among the manager’s intangible capabilities, social capital, and firm performance.

This study aimed to know the impact of management accounting systems on firm financial efficiency while considering the CEOs risk-taking propensity. The Data was collected with the help of a self-administered questionnaire-based survey from the manufacturing sector of India. Used purposive sampling technique to collect data from 338 respondents. Results have shown that the broad scope management accounting system and integrator’s impact is insignificant on firm financial efficiency. In contrast, the effects of timeline and aggregation are significant on firm financial efficiency. Simultaneously, the mediation of risk-taking propensity is significant in all the cases except for integrator and firm financial efficiency. The researcher has adopted the latest and useful tools and techniques for exploring the problem. This study is a valuable addition. It is practically inducing the higher management and CEOs to follow the high-risk and high return concept while implementing the organizations’ management accounting system. This study is also helpful for organisations that are willing to enhance financial efficiency by employing novel methods.

The objective of this research is to find impact of foreign direct investment on manufacturing industries in Oman. The study utilized a quantitative research method which applied primary and secondary data obtained from Oman's World Bank database (1984-2018). The primary data were collected from a research questionnaire administered to 410 respondents from nine industrial sectors, namely: Textile, Petroleum goods, Electronics, Automotive, Food & Beverages, Agriculture & Fishery, Publishing, Chemicals and Pharmaceutics. The results of this study also revealed that the spillover impacts on domestic companies, like novel technology, marketing strategies, organizational skills, money, jobs, export growth, diversifying of economy and greater competition, lead to enhanced domestic market efficiency and boosted productivity in skill-spreading host economies with the highest impact accompanied with Capital and Technology spillover.