Successful new product development projects and extant research literature advocate for inclusion of inputs pertaining to the supply chain at early stages of product development to proactively identify risk averse product design concepts. To this end, we devise an analytical framework to converge upon product design concept(s) that would be associated with lesser supply chain risks, usually function of both technical and commercialization considerations. The high-level and constituent lower-level supply chain risks are represented by parent and root nodes respectively within the devised Bayesian network driven research framework. Thereafter, a quantitative measure denoted as SCRI (supply chain risk index) is evolved that yields overall composite risk numbers corresponding to respective design concepts at different risk states. Validation and comparison of the devised method with an extant study illustrates the consistency and reliability of the study. It is found that the risk propensity of a particular design concept is inversely related to the probabilistic utility of that particular concept. The case of a construction power tool of a global firm is used to demonstrate the methodology. Our research addresses an important future research pathway as argued by Hosseini et al. (2020) that extant research literature is devoid of decision-making frameworks focused on measurement and analysis the propagation of risks on complex networks. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

This study investigates the effects of economic policy and financial market uncertainties on Indian imports. For this purpose, we consider a panel of 97 commodities imported to India during the period: September 2011 to January 2019. We utilize two panel estimation techniques, the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Cross-sectionally Augmented Distributed Lag (CS-DL), for the analyses. In the short-run, we find that economic uncertainty leads to more imports to India. Conversely, in the long-run, it has a dampening effect. Our estimates also reveal that both domestic and global economic uncertainties have a considerable impact on Indian imports. However, we do not find any noticeable impact of financial market uncertainty on the imports. For robustness purposes, we also make use of aggregated import data for a longer time-horizon. These results fairly validate the findings of the commodity-level analysis. Finally, our sectoral-analysis suggests that the imports of primary products are more sensitive to the policy uncertainty than those of the manufacturing products. Given that, our study offers detailed policy suggestions in the context of an emerging economy. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

The present study contributes to the literature on Machiavellianism by determining how Machiavellianism leads to impression management (IM) motives. Using a longitudinal survey design, we obtained data from 404 young professionals (Mage = 24.38 years; SDage = 1.72 years) and tested a mediation model where Machiavellianism associates with IM motives through social astuteness and networking ability. This empirical study contributes to the theory on Machiavellianism by providing preliminary evidence of the mediating effects of social astuteness and networking ability on the positive relationship between Machiavellianism and IM motives. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

This paper analyses the impact of a newspaper-based uncertainty associated with infectious diseases (EMVID) on the level, slope and curvature factors derived from the term structure of interest rates of the US covering maturities from 1 year to 30 years. Results from nonlinearity and structural break tests indicate the misspecification of the linear causality model and point to the suitability of applying a time-varying model. A DCC-MGARCH framework is thus applied and the results indicate significant predictability of the three latent factors from the EMVID index at each point of the entire sample, and also provide evidence of instantaneous spillover. Finally, the results of measuring safe-haven characteristic of the US Treasury market show that US treasuries with long-term maturities as captured by the level factor are consistently negatively correlated with the EMVID index, i.e., they act as a safe-haven, with the slope factor (medium-term maturities) following this trend since 2007, and the slope factor (short-term maturities) also showing signs of a safe-haven since May of 2020. Overall, the findings provide reasonable evidence that US Treasury securities can hedge the risks associated with the financial market in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

This study theoretically examines the role of the ethical rating agencies. First, in an infinitely repeated game framework, it shows that hotels with low environmental, social, and governance risk would prefer to signal their worthiness to isolate them from risky ones. Next, by employing the Bayesian approach, this study shows that a socially responsible investment (SRI) would advise a hotel to obtain an ethical rating when the expected value of sample information turns positive. This analysis could guide future empirical investigation and policy frameworks about the ethical screening. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

We conduct a comparative assessment of the spillovers of three types of Fed's monetary policy surprises, i.e., Fed funds rate (FFR), Forward guidance (FG), and Large-scale asset purchases (LSAP) on monetary autonomy in the periphery economies (PEs). We find these shocks to be significant in causing loss of monetary autonomy in the PEs. We also find that the macroprudential tools mitigate the degree of such impairment. This holds for two types of macroprudential policies, i.e., borrower-targeted and financial institutions-targeted. We find both of them to be most effective against the FFR shocks. Comparing the macroprudential tools, we find the financial institutions-targeted tools to be more effective than the borrower-targeted ones in mitigating the degree of impairment against all types of Fed shocks. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of major public road transport organizations in India. The contribution of the paper lies in integrating four multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques to assess the relative performance of public road transportation systems on twenty-three criteria across two consecutive years. The paper classifies the criteria into functional heads and establishes the relative importance of heads using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP). The efficiency scores of each organization referred to as a decision-making unit (DMU) were computed for the classified heads using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The multicriteria optimization and compromise solution technique "VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje"(VIKOR) was used to assign a final rank to each of the DMUs using computed efficiency scores and established weights. Finally, we analyzed the performance of the DMUs across the two consecutive years using the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI). Our key findings are as follows: First, the performance of all DMUs has improved in the second year with respect to the first year; second, significant improvement is observed in the "expenses"functional head which carries a substantial weight among the functional heads; third, barring few DMUs, the performance of the majority of DMUs has worsened in the "accident"functional head; fourth, while few DMUs have been consistently very good performers in both the years, there are also few DMUs which have consistently performed poorly in both the years. The inferences drawn from the study can be leveraged for future policy formulations by the state government and local municipal corporations and for sharing best practices among the DMUs. © 2020 Anand Kumar et al.

The asymmetric vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and deliveries is considered. This paper develops four new classes of valid inequalities for the problem. We generalize the idea of a no-good cut. Together, these help us solve 45-node randomly generated problem instances more efficiently. We report results on a set of benchmark instances in literature. In this set, we are able to show an order of magnitude improvement in computational times over currently published results in literature. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

Due to high consumption of energy, its associated concerns such as energy security and demand, wastage of resources, and material-energy recovery are leading to the importance of sustainable energy system development. This is a high time to assess the sustainability in energy systems for meeting the requirements of energy with an enhanced economic, ecological, and social performance from a nation context. The energy system plays a significant role in deciding the economic progress of emerging economies such as India, China, Brazil, and Africa. In this paper, an original attempt has been made to list and evaluate important indicators for sustainability assessment of energy systems development and management in an emerging economy especially India. Firstly, based on the analysis of the extant literature and then followed by expert opinion, potential key sustainability assessment indicators for energy systems development and management were identified. Further, grey based Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory technique to understand the causal interactions amongst indicators and segregate them into cause and effect groups, is used. This work can provide useful aids to decision making bodies, sustainability practitioners and business organisations in selective implementation, monitoring and control of sustainable strategies in energy systems development and management and meeting sustainable development goals of clean energy in a nation context. © 2019

Information Technology (IT) infrastructure has been integral to operational excellence approaches towards sustainable supply chains. The paper explores the crucial barriers to IT implementation in the largely unorganized logistics sector of an emerging economy, India. Through a comparative study using two separate expert-groups, representing the organized and unorganized logistics sectors respectively, the paper analyses their views on the criticality of barriers in each sector and highlights the sector-specific problems that hinder effective IT implementation. Considering the profiles of the expert groups used, the paper implements Fuzzy-ISM and Fuzzy-MICMAC analysis for one group and IRP for the other to capture and analyze their opinions appropriately. The results obtained from the analyses show that the barriers concerning IT implementation in the unorganized logistics sector (ULS) substantially differ from those concerning the organized logistics sector (OLS) as perceived by the corresponding sector experts. The study ranks the barriers in the two sectors and highlights the focus areas that require immediate attention to strengthen the IT infrastructure of Indian ULS, which suffers mainly from behavioral issues at the organizational level. Focused attention to unorganized sector's requirements can revive the sector and smoothen its transformation to an organized one as exceedingly demanded by the recent e-commerce boom. The work is perhaps the first to address the Indian ULS. It implements a unique approach: seeks inputs from two different expert groups, implements tools appropriate to the respective panel profiles, and compares their opinions to identify the specific and different requirements of the Indian ULS with respect to IT implementation. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the adaptive market hypothesis (AMH) for 21 major global market indices for the period 1998–2018. These market indices cover the 16 largest global financial markets. Design/methodology/approach: Quantile-regression methodology is employed to examine the market efficiency of a large number of financial markets from America, Europe and the Asia–Pacific region. Findings: The results show that the returns in higher quantiles are negatively autocorrelated, and those in lower quantiles are positively autocorrelated. This evidence is stronger for the tails of return distribution. The positive autocorrelation (momentum effect) suggests market underreaction, and the negative autocorrelation (reversal effect) suggests overreaction. Overall, market efficiency appears to be time-varying and conditioned to the state of the market. Originality/value: This study offers considerable evidence in favor of the AMH, for a large number of financial markets. These markets are substantially different from each other in terms of geography, nature of operation and size of the economy. The results from this study would be helpful to the academics, regulators and practitioners interested in financial markets. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This paper performs a systematic review of the research literature in the field of agritourism. In the study, using a structured literature review methodology, established as well as emerging research clusters have been identified for epistemological analysis. Such analysis helps in the identification of key research topics, interrelations, and collaboration patterns in the field of agritourism and other research areas involving similar concepts. Graphical mapping of the agritourism research field is done using visualization of similarities (VOS). VOS software analyzed bibliographic data of 459 research publications obtained from Web of Science and Scopus databases from a period of 1980–2019. This graphical mapping illustrated the authors’ and countries’ contributions, their collaboration, and publication pattern over the period. This paper gives insights about majorly studied research themes and also identified common areas of current research interest and potential directions for future research. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Knowledge transfer, both tacit and explicit, is critical. In India skill development in most small and medium scale industries are heavily dependent on utilization of local skills and learning curve is long especially in skill based industries. This study discusses and develops a model based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) framework (both simple and fuzzy based) for selecting the right process to impart knowledge. Additionally, study charts demonstrate and verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed AHP-based algorithm. Finally, sensitivity analysis tests the stability of the priority ranking. A comparison is also made by applying fuzzy models to the AHP technique. We conclude from both AHP and fuzzy AHP analysis that the most stable approach to impart training to a variety of subjects with different learning curves and intellectual and motivation levels is through animation displays. Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

[No abstract available]

The paper aims to recover the critical role of banks in defining the relationship between Financial Development and growth. We hypothesize that Banks can positively motivate templatized GDP growth. A System GMM estimation of GDP growth in a sample of high growth emerging markets from Asia investigates if bank stocks contain information beyond the monetary and banking aggregates. In a sample of emerging markets with 5 % GDP growth, bank stocks create 0.22 % of GDP growth for every 1 SD excess return in a weighted portfolio of bank stocks. The chosen emerging markets are homogenous based on WGI Indicators from World Bank. This coefficient is much higher than the recovered relationship presented by Cole et al. (2008). Government ownership of banks and close monitoring of banks is found to be a positive for the overall economy while the market index is found to be not so informative about economic growth. A relook at a GMM system study from Cole et al. (2008) shows better growth for emerging market investors without compromising quality. The research establishes the advantages of selecting emerging markets portfolios that reward better governance. A set of homogenized emerging markets can engender higher causative effects between banks and GDP growth allowing investors to focus on investment opportunity. © 2020 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The emerging Information and Communication Technology play a vital role in electronic agriculture. The application of such technologies as blockchain, Internet-of-Things, wireless sensor networks, cloud computing, and machine learning can improve the agri-food supply chain efficiency and quality management. However, there is little evidence on the determinants of blockchain integrated ICTs adoption for the supply chain actors and their propensity to embrace and use such technologies. To bridge this research gap in the literature, we identify a few potential drivers of blockchain technology adoption, considering the grape wine supply chain and employing a rating-based conjoint analysis. The study finds that dis-intermediation, traceability, price, trust, compliance, and coordination and control in order of their relative importance and utilities can influence the supply chain actors’ adoption-intention decision processes. The adoption factors further rationalize the design for a modular, scalable, interoperable, and cost-effective architecture for supply chain integration and sustainability. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between Chief Executive Officer (CEO) narcissism and firm performance. Further, it examined the moderation effects of CEO duality and top management team (TMT) and board member agreeableness on the CEO narcissism–firm performance relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on survey data from 373 CEOs in the automobile industry in India. The paper used mixed method research where CEO narcissism and TMT agreeableness has been measured using survey instruments, other data such as firm performance has been captured using secondary sources. Findings: The study confirms that the relationship between CEO narcissism and firm performance is curvilinear, meaning that narcissism can positively impact firm performance to a point, but may become counter-productive or ineffective beyond that. Further, CEO duality and TMT and board member agreeableness significantly impact this relationship. Originality/value: This paper fulfills an identified need to study how CEO behavior can affect variance in firm performance. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications and offer suggestions for future research. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The marketing of immersive and competitive online gaming products has proliferated in recent times. Consumption has also shown a substantial increase, especially among children. Such elevated levels of gaming have adversely affected children’s overall well-being. This paper aims to examine the role of parental attachment variables in enhancing children’s self-control behavior in counteracting the adverse effects of excessive gaming. The role of gender in excessive gaming is also studied. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual framework is tested that examines the direct relationship of features of parental attachment with excessive online gaming behavior and an indirect effect through the mediation of a child’s self-control construct using structural equation modeling. Findings: The findings indicate that parental attachment through self-control can play a significant role in limiting excessive gaming behavior among vulnerable young gamers. Excessive gaming behavior was more pronounced for boys than girls. Alienation explained excessive gaming behavior among girls, while communication was significant for boys, but in a reversed direction. Research limitations/implications: All possible antecedent variables from the literature, like parental rearing style, that may further contribute to developing a comprehensive theoretical framework could not be studied. Practical implications: The study suggests that the priming of children achieved through parental attachment relationships may help prevent excessive gaming behavior among vulnerable young gamers. Originality/value: This study addresses the gap in the understanding of parental attachment features related to excessive gaming among different genders. It also establishes the role of the intervening mechanism of a child’s self-control in regulating behavior in relation to excessive gaming in the Indian context. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are essential tools to further policy objectives across the world. However, in the past few decades, heated debates on the performance of SOEs vis-à-vis private sector enterprises have surfaced. In India, SOEs have long played an important role in the economy and only recently have undergone the trend of privatization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze existing research and to conclude whether private enterprises perform better than SOEs. Design/methodology/approach: A review of available literature on performance comparisons of public and private sector enterprises is carried out, and differences between public and private enterprises are studied. Finally, theoretical propositions on the differences in objectives of public and private enterprises in the Indian context are enumerated. Three propositions are tested using data on Indian SOEs available in the public domain. Findings: Performance comparisons of public and private enterprises have focused merely on technical productivity or financial aspects and have thus left out the wide scope of social, economic and political objectives of SOEs. Literature on the nature of SOEs indicates that there are certain fundamental differences in the objectives of public and private sector enterprises. Further, the basic theoretical assumptions tested have been found to be, prima facie, valid in the Indian context. The paper thus establishes a case for further research to develop a comprehensive technique for the comparison of public and private sector enterprises in the Indian context. Originality/value: Extant research on the subject of comparing public and private entries has limited itself to technoeconomic considerations and has not taken into account the different objectives/nature of these enterprises. The study established a case for diverging from the present discourse privatization and private sector supremacy. The same could have far-reaching consequences for policymakers, especially in developing countries. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Luxury is exclusive, expensive and provides social recognition. There is an emergence of masstige brands in Indian economy and also globally. Masstige brands are expressed as new luxury different from the traditional luxury though distinction needs more clarity. The current empirical study is from masstige consumer perspective and is exploratory in nature for understanding perceptions of Indian consumers through brand associations toward masstige brands in comparison to luxury brands based on free association method. Data was collected from 54 respondents. It is identified that masstige brands can be differentiated from luxury brands along functional, financial, social as well as individual brand values. The findings may be useful for masstige brands’ marketers to develop promotional strategies. © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.