Tourism is considered a competent driver of development in emerging economies. This study assesses the role of tourism in shaping the fundamental pillars of development in developing economies by targeting the case of Pakistan. Various econometric techniques and approaches were used to investigate the causal relationships of tourism with economic growth, energy and agriculture development, and poverty. This study highlights the important role of tourism in the development of emerging economies. The findings of our study suggest that a 1% increase in tourism significantly enhances gross domestic product (GPD) by 0.051%, foreign direct investment by 2.647%, energy development by 0.134%, and agriculture development by 0.26%, and reduces poverty by 0.51% in the long run. Hence, policy-makers should be informed that through public interventions, tourism can advance development by the design and implementation of integrated policies in developing economies. In addition, policy consistency and coherence are essential for competitiveness, sustainability, and maximizing benefits from tourism.

Tourism contributions to economic growth and well-being have been widely acknowledged; however, its impacts on the environment demand an integrated approach to policy improvement across institutions in the emerging economies for the development of sustainable tourism practices. This study investigates the causal relationship between tourism, economic growth (GDP, capital investment), energy consumption, and environmental pollutants in developing economies, explicitly focusing on the case of Pakistan. Various econometric procedures and techniques were applied to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings suggest that economic growth support tourism development. Tourists’ arrivals have a significant positive impact on energy consumption, capital investment, and CO₂ emissions; besides, environmental pollutant (CO₂) causes negative effects on tourism. The results suggest that a 1 unit increase in tourism increases CO₂ emissions metric tons per capita by 0.26 units in the long-run. A 1 unit increase in capital investment increases CO₂ emissions metric tons per capita by 0.21 units, and a 1 unit increase in energy consumption increases CO₂ emissions metric tons per capita by 0.51 units in the long-run. In the short-run, a 1 unit increase in tourism, capital investment, and energy consumption rises CO₂ emissions metric tons per capita by 0.045, 0.04, and 0.08 units, respectively. Sustainable tourism remains a sole option in developing economies to enhance the competitiveness of tourism as a tool for friendly developments. Thus, tourism policies are needed to be integrated with overall economic, environmental, and energy policies to encourage the shift towards sustainable tourism development to minimize environmental pollution.

This study explores hotel employees’ perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) within the proposed conceptual model under the umbrella of self-determination and needs satisfaction theory. The model examines dichotomous perceived CSR relationships – instrumental and volunteer CSR – with employees’ basic needs satisfaction, self-esteem, hedonic and eudemonic happiness, and innovativeness. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to examines the assumed hypotheses. The results established that hotel employees perceived instrumental CSR has a significant positive influence on the satisfaction of their basic needs, and perceived volunteer CSR impact employees’ self-esteem. Employees’ basic needs satisfaction demonstrated a significant positive influence on their hedonic happiness and self-esteem on eudemonic happiness. Both hedonic and eudemonic happiness contribute significantly to employee innovativeness, where, eudemonic happiness contribution is higher than hedonic happiness. The findings expand the literature on CSR by providing a better understanding of the core mechanism through which CSR can influence hotel employees’ happiness, where, a happy employee is a key to innovativeness, competitiveness, and better organizational performance.

This study attempts to assess the relationship between risk perception, risk knowledge, and travel intentions of Chinese leisure travelers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the framework of social contagion and risk communication theories by analyzing a sample of 1,209 travelers through structural equation modeling (SEM) and path analysis. We used the process macro of Hayes to analyze the moderation effects of age, gender, and education between risk perception, media and interpersonal communication, and risk knowledge. It was found that travelers were more concerned about self-efficacy than severity. Risk perception of travelers predicts the information-seeking process of tourists. This process helps travelers to accumulate risk information that influences their travel intentions. Travelers give more importance to interpersonal (contagion) communication in making a traveling decision. Demographic factors influence traveling decision-making; women travelers were found to be more risk resilient than men. Young travelers seek information at low- and old travelers at high-risk levels. Marketing implications also provided.

This study explores the vulnerability and resilience of the US Leisure and Hospitality industry sector-wise by taking employment levels in seven different business segments. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model approach was applied to daily time series data of employment and COVID-19 to assess each sector's fragility and resilience. The findings reveal that museums and historical places, performing arts, and sports are the worst influenced sectors and exhibit low resilience. The accommodation sector initially shows high vulnerability; however, it bounces back by showing high resilience compared to some of the other sectors. The rest of the sector presents the same story negatively influenced by pandemic but eventually reveals a sign of recovery. A detailed discussion with the theoretical and practical implications is provided.

In the past few decades, a firm’s innovative climate has received much attention in the context of innovative behavior, competitiveness, and business performance. The existing literature has relied to a great extent on innovative climate as an interacting factor and overlooked its role as an antecedent of various organizational phenomena. Furthermore, the interaction effects of the firm’s size and age on the relationships between innovative climate and other organizational variables have gone unnoticed. This study adds to the literature by empirically assessing the effects of the firm’s innovative climate on organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior as well as its consequences on the firm’s competitiveness and business performance. Additionally, it addresses the interaction impacts of firm size and age on the relationships between the abovementioned variables. This research achieves its goal by developing an integrative research design that analyzes complex relations using covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) and regression techniques on a dataset of 408 Chinese law firms. The results indicate that the firm’s innovative climate has a significant positive relationship with organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior. It is also found that organizational learning has a significant positive influence on employees’ innovative behavior. Meanwhile, organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior have a significant positive influence on firm competitiveness and business performance. Another important finding is that contextual factors, i.e., firm size and age, strengthen these relations. Theoretical and managerial implications, including links to firm size and age, are provided.