The Politics of Common Sense? Pointers for Pakistan’s Political Economy

There has been little academic research on Pakistan’s political economy for some decades now. Analysis of transition, structural transformations and their resulting impact on the formation of social classes have been missing. Zaidi1 correctly notes that “Akhtar’s is amongst the very few, and most recent contribution that provides a substantive understanding of Pakistan’s political economy”. Some of the key questions, not answered completely or avoided all together in Akhtar’s book, especially those that relate to the subject of religious class/or Islamization and the notion of secularism and secularist elite, have been raised by Akbar S Zaidi in his brilliant review of Akhtar’s book. The present review focuses on more substantive theoretical and empirical issues raised by Akhtar’s class analysis of Pakistan’s political economy. Framed

Analyzing Business Processes: Proposing and Testing a Model of Employee and Organizational Performance

This study analyzes business processes in public and private sector organizations with respect to key performance variables such as business process orientation, business process innovativeness and business process efficiency. After presenting a theoretical framework, a model is proposed and tested to examine the impact of business processes on employee and organizational performance. Proportionate stratified sampling method is used to collect data from employees of domestic scheduled banks in Pakistan through a structured questionnaire. With a response rate of 19%, a total of 474 completely-filled questionnaires were received, constituting the sample size of this study. This empirical investigation uses factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques like simple linear regression and partial least squares to test the proposed model. SPSS 15.0 and visual partial least squares (VPLS) 1.04 were used for data analysis. The findings validate the proposed model, with significant direct and indirect correlations observed between business process variables and employee and organizational performance. This study strongly supports a process-based view of business performance. A process approach is of immense importance in Pakistan given that inefficient business processes are the overwhelming norm in businesses over there. Key Words: Business Processes, Business Process Analysis, Business Process Orientation, Business Process Innovativeness, Business Process Efficiency, Employee Performance, Organizational Performance