A Proposed Islamic Microfinance Impact Assessment Methodology

Impact assessment of microfinance programs have been remained the foremost concern of microfinance stakeholders for optimal policy measures. The existing literature regarding the impact assessment varies from parametric to experimental methods to evaluate the performance of microfinance programs across the world however; the literature is lacking a single measure to reveal maximum possible changes in socioeconomic variables resulting from microfinance institutions’ intervention. This study aims to develop a composite index for evaluating the performance of microfinance programs in multi-dimensional contexts. The study exposes a set of eight “diverse indicators” to evaluate the performance of a microfinance program on a wider socioeconomic scale. The dimensions of the index are consist of economic (Income, saving) and socioeconomic (poverty, access to basic facilities, family empowerment) indicators. The changes in deprivations of household, based on the selected indicators, reveal the intensity of success of a microfinance program towards their goals. Finally, we have developed an index by the interaction of incidence and intensity of socioeconomic deprivations. The index is named as “Multidimensional Microfinance Deprivation Index”. This is an index developed in the same line as multidimensional poverty index. The implications of this study are three folds; firstly, it will open up a new dimension of literature in the field of microfinance including Islamic microfinance by instigating an important area. Secondly, it may provide a better alternative to microfinance’s stakeholders to investigate the impact assessment of microfinance programs on a wider socioeconomic scale rather than a few economic. Last but not the least, the study integrates diverse socioeconomic indicators, after assigning weights and adjustment to portray an overall picture of the performance of microfinance in terms of uplifting the socioeconomic conditions of the poor and financially marginalized people.

Impact of Transformational Leadership on Job Stress and Job Performance.

Leadership is a significant factor affecting the performance of employees in organizations. Job stress is a serious problem faced by employees in the working environment that affects job performance and it is a major issue of all employees at present. This study examines the impact of an independent variable Transformational leadership, on two dependent variables i.e. job stress and job performance. The impact of transformational leadership on two dependent variables i.e. the job stress and the job performance is separately analyzed. In a survey, the data is collected using a questionnaire as research instrument. Survey is conducted on the banks located in Islamabad. The respondents are the middle and lower line managers of the banks of Islamabad. The sample size for this study is 300 respondents. The conclusion shows that either transformational leadership has any impact on the job stress and the job performance or not. Descriptive statistics and linear regression is used to draw results. Findings of this research study show that there lies a significant negative relationship of transformational leadership with job stress and transformational leadership has significant positive relationship with job performance.