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.

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.

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.

Yadlapalli, A., Rahman, S., & Gunasekaran, A. (2018). Socially responsible governance mechanisms for manufacturing firms in apparel supply chains. International Journal of Production Economics, 196, 135-149. In the above mentioned paper, I found the following errors: In Table 8, for hypothesis H4b, the authors have demonstrated the value of b as 0.579, which is not in line with the value demonstrated in Fig. 3. The value given in Fig. 3 is equal to 0.456. Subsequently, the value of indirect effect for hypothesis H4b will also change and correct value should be 0.184. The value of c for hypothesis given in Fig. 3 is equal to −0.347 whereas in Table 8, it is given to be −0.38. Following these corrections, the total effect should be equal to −0.163. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.

We propose a novel deep learning hybrid recommender system to address the gaps in Collaborative Filtering systems and achieve the state-of-the-art predictive accuracy using deep learning. While collaborative filtering systems are popular with many state-of-the-art achievements in recommender systems, they suffer from the cold start problem, when there is no history about the users and items. Further, the latent factors learned by these methods are linear in nature. To address these gaps, we describe a novel hybrid recommender system using deep learning. The solution uses embeddings for representing users and items to learn non-linear latent factors. The solution alleviates the cold start problem by integrating side information about users and items into a very deep neural network. The proposed solution uses a decreasing learning rate in conjunction with increasing weight decay, the values cyclically varied across epochs to further improve accuracy. The proposed solution is benchmarked against existing methods on both predictive accuracy and running time. Predictive Accuracy is measured by Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and R-squared. Running time is measured by the mean and standard deviation across seven runs. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on several datasets such as the MovieLens 100 K, FilmTrust, Book-Crossing and MovieLens 1 M. The results show that the proposed technique outperforms existing methods in both non-cold start and cold start cases. The proposed solution framework is generic from the outperformance on four different datasets and can be leveraged for other ratings prediction datasets in recommender systems. � 2019

Purpose: The goal of this study is to investigate the nexus among TFP (total factor productivity), IT (information technology) capital accumulation, skills and key plant variables of 34 Indian industries for the period of 2009�2015. Design/methodology/approach: Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data series are extracted and formulated using Microsoft SQL server. The authors employ Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity. To investigate the linkages among productivity, IT, skills and key plant variables, the authors estimate specifications using system generalized method of moments (sys-GMM). Advanced estimation techniques such as Heckman two-step process, probit equations, inverse Mills ratio and panel cointegration are applied to overcome problems of nonstationarity, omitted variables, endogeneity and reverse causality. Findings: The results indicate that the level of IT capital influences the TFP of Indian industries, so does the level of skilled workers. The outcome suggests that intermediate capital goods, location and ownership type enable the strength of IT capital and that in turn boosts productivity. The authors fail to find any impact of regional factors and contractual labor on IT capital and productivity. While medium-level gender diversity is statistically significant to influence productivity, however, no complementarities exist between gender diversity and IT capital accumulation. The results also indicate that IT demand of Indian industries is sensitive to availability of skilled workforce, fuel and electricity and access to short-term funding. Originality/value: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the nexus among TFP, IT capital accumulation, skills and organizational factors using ASI unit level data. Besides this, the paper offers two more novelties. First, it uses Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity, which is used by a handful of studies in the context of India. Second, the study identifies factors that impact productivity growth, IT demand and its adoption in Indian industries and thus contributes to growth and development literature. � 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The civil aviation industry is critical to the economic development of any nation. Being a key infrastructure service, the performance of the civil aviation industry spills over to other segments of the economy. We investigate service failure among US airlines, using departure delay, and model its likelihood using mixed-logit regression. We characterize arrival performance for delayed departures using a service recovery/double deviation framework. We model the likelihood of different arrival possibilities using multinomial logistic regression. We use the chosen airline, temporality, and flight duration as predictors. Our key results include: (i) Afternoon/evening flights, and longer duration flights are more likely to depart late; (ii) Delta Airlines is most likely to depart on time; (iii) Southwest Airlines is best in recovering from delayed departures; (iv) United Airlines is most likely to aggravate delays. � 2020 Elsevier Ltd

We examine the interrelationship among foreign aid, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in South-East Asia (SEA) and South Asia (SA) during 1980–2016. The findings from alternative empirical estimations suggest that while foreign aid is negatively associated with FDI as well as growth, FDI positively influences growth. Further, governmental financial assistance to private sector for domestic investment turns out to be important in all empirical estimations insofar as positively associated with FDI flows as well as growth. We, therefore, infer that low-income SEA and SA economies should focus on channelizing governmental financial assistance to private sector for domestic investment, macroeconomic stabilization, trade openness, and efficient utilization of aid flows, in order to attract, absorb and reap the benefits of complementing FDI flows and sustaining higher economic growth. © 2020 International Management Institute, New Delhi.

This paper investigates the impact urbanization, industrialization, corruption, human development, energy consumption, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 61 developing economies of the global south region of Asia, Africa, and Latin America during the period 1990�2015. The empirical results show that the effect of corruption on CO2 emissions is indeed heterogeneous and contradictory. Specifically, results exhibit that due to immature economic system, and policy paralysis, corruption penetrates the developing economies, and eventually cause carbon emission and pollution. Furthermore, results reveal that FDI guided by clean development mechanism and involved in emission reduction projects in the developing economies play a predominant role to curb the CO2 emission, pollution, and environmental degradation. � 2020, � 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Shipping logistics is one of the very important criteria which can directly and indirectly affect the economy and GDP of any country. Shipping logistics depends on various factors which have been addressed by several authors in their previous studies. Studies in this literature are focused on selecting the most impactful factors among all the criteria. Methods used in this literature are fuzzy Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for multi-criteria decision analysis. These methods also helped in this literature to develop a new hybrid method �fuzzy TOPSIS AHP�. There have been no studies involving maritime logistics with comparative analysis of multi-criteria decision making i.e., fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS AHP. The literature involved large number of expert opinions on the factor prioritization of maritime logistics. Factors selected for prioritization are Environmental Sustainability, Supply and Demand, Operations and Port Selection. However, the research showed that the comparative analysis of the results was quite opposite to one another and proposed a new way for researchers to use the hybrid method of fuzzy TOPSIS AHP method in future research. The study aimed to improve the existing maritime model which can help professionals to get connected with the maritime logistics firms. The study also aims to contribute this model for researchers in their study related to maritime logistics. � 2020, Operational Research Society of India.

This research analyses the interactions and impacts of forest carbon projects on existing governance mechanisms viz. policies, institutions and implementation structures. It critically evaluates the assumption that forest carbon projects always result in improved governance of resources. Empirical evidence from a World Bank funded project in the state of Himachal Pradesh in India suggests that these projects might conflict with existing policies and complicate property relations on the ground. These projects might be used by powerful stakeholders as a tool to scuttle the progressive policy reforms. In the case of Himachal Pradesh, state bureaucracy and local elites have used forest carbon project to thwart the progressive policy provisions of HP common land vesting and utilisation (Amendment) Act 2001 and Forest Rights Act 2006, which were enacted to recognise individual and community rights on the community and forest lands respectively. Similarly, existing institutional issues related to lack of inclusiveness, participation and transparency have been exacerbated by the availability of increased resources from the project. Project activities such as fencing and changing land use of community pastures through plantations can adversely impact local livelihoods. Hence, it is imperative to undertake a comprehensive assessment of potential risks and conflicts before implementation of such projects. � 2019

This paper investigates the phenomenon of liquidity commonality in the Indian market, for the 3-year period spanning 2015�2017. Principal component analysis and canonical correlation analysis are performed on a number of liquidity proxies to provide the evidence of commonality. Following the market model of Chordia et al. (J Financ Econ 56(1):3�28, 2000), we show that the level of liquidity commonality for this order-driven emerging market is higher, as compared to that reported for quote-driven markets. There is evidence to suggest that both the inventory and information asymmetry hypotheses significantly contribute to the commonality in this important emerging market. Commonality is observed even at the deeper levels beyond the best prices, indicating a significant role of information asymmetry hypothesis. The study also provides evidence of specific intraday patterns in liquidity and �free-entry and free-exit� phenomenon. � 2020, Springer Nature Limited.

Conventional approaches to layout design of block stacked warehouses assume perfect staggering of product inflow leading to perfect sharing of space among products. Since such an assumption is seldom true, we argue that warehouses designed using the conventional approach may result in choking situations with large quantities of inventory waiting outside the storage areas. On the other hand, liberal space allocation such as in dedicated policy might lead to under-utilization of space. In this paper, we take a fresh look at the block stacked layout problem, modeling the effect of imperfectly staggered product arrivals using queuing theory. Analytical expressions are derived for arrival time and processing time coefficients of variation using warehouse parameters and design variables. Further, we develop a bi-objective optimization model to minimize both the space cost and waiting time. Our approach provides design options over a total space cost-waiting time trade-off frontier as opposed to singular design points given by conventional approaches. Computational experiments are conducted to derive further insights into the design of block stacked warehouses. � 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Purpose: This paper uses the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) framework of Zomeren et al. (2008) to explain the organising experiences of the informal sector workers engaged in large number in the world's largest shipbreaking industry located in the western Indian town of Alang. Design/methodology/approach: A single case study approach was adopted to understand the participation of shipbreaking workers in their trade union and factors that influence their participation. Findings: Sense of cohesive collective identity and injustice alongside efficacy considerations have shaped the organising experiences and affected the participation of informal sector workers in their union. The trade union was able to overcome the scourge of invisibility that has been one of the dominant features of informal sector employment. Research limitations/implications: This paper treated union participation as unidimensional. Besides, the subjective conceptualization of strengths of perceptions of injustice, identities and efficacy considerations could be a limitation. The paper does acknowledge the gendered nature of shipbreaking but have not actively pursued it as a part of our research. Practical implications: The findings of our study are an exemplar for those who intend to organise informal sector workers, especially precarious workers. The empirical findings allude to the role of trade unions in combating the invisibility, which is one of the defining features of informal sector workers through a distinctive, cohesive identity inculcated in those workers. Originality/value: This paper has borrowed the SIMCA framework to explore union participation. Organising experiences of precarious workers from the developing world provides a contextual and an empirical novelty to our study. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Forest carbon projects, in addition to climate mitigation and conservation benefits, are expected to improve local livelihoods and contribute to poverty alleviation across developing countries. Despite substantial investments over last decade, there is limited empirical evidence on the livelihood impacts of these projects especially across different socioeconomic categories. This paper aims to contribute to this knowledge gap through an analysis of the livelihood impacts across small, medium and large categories of participating farmers in a forest carbon project from the state of Haryana in India. Data from 107 households have been analysed to study the impacts in terms of foregone crop, fodder and fuel wood benefits. The analysis suggests that the project has adversely affected the livelihoods of all three categories of farmers. However, small and marginal farmers are the most distressed due to their low incomes, asset base and risk-bearing capacities. It raises critical project design issues such as binding land use, delayed accrual of benefits, static opportunity costs and displacement of existing economic activities, which have serious livelihood and equity implications. Unless these issues are addressed and strong safety nets are provided, forest carbon projects might create more poverty than wellbeing for marginal communities. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Across the globe, the awareness for environmental degradation and its harmful effects is rapidly growing. The whole world has come together to work in the direction to protect the environment. Consumers are increasingly becoming cautious towards the impact of their consumption pattern on environment and organisations can attain a competitive edge by leveraging this cautiousness by offering them green products/brands. However, it is importance for the marketers to understand that how increasing levels of sustainability awareness impacts other factors which explain pro-environmental behaviour of customers. To fill the existing gap in the current literature in this regard, the current study aims to build a structural model which includes social and environmental sustainability awareness in measuring customer altruism, buying intention, loyalty and customer evangelism. The theoretical model extends the existing framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and explores the decision-making framework regarding ethical behaviour. Through existing literature review and expert input, the indicators (variables) for each construct were recognised. After that, data was collected from 331 respondents through a structurally designed questionnaire; the hypothetical model was test using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique. The findings of the study indicate that sustainability awareness positively influence the consumer altruism which in turn enhances the consumer purchase intention, green brand loyalty and green brand evangelism and altruism can and can bridge value-action gap for green brands. Current analysis supports the view that there are significant positive associations among the identified constructs. � 2019 Elsevier Ltd

This study explores role of innovative capabilities in determining a manufacturing firm's response to stakeholder pressure for adopting sustainable practices. Drawing on the theory of conservatism, we delineate that the firm's response is idiosyncratic and undergirded in the nature of its innovative capabilities. Our empirical investigation reveals that the response to the stakeholder pressure is mediated by the nature of the firm's innovative capabilities. Indian manufacturing firms are identified as unit of analysis for this study. The individual manufacturing facilities implement the environmental practices. The findings suggest that the manufacturing firm's exposure to exploitative/exploratory innovative capabilities triggers sustainable behaviours with ephemeral focus and enduring focus. Further, the exploratory/exploitative innovation is capable of explaining idiosyncratic behaviour for the firms' sustainability practices adoption. The findings delineate, with analysis, that unlike China, regulatory stakeholder pressures in India inhibit the adoption of sustainable practices with enduring focus in manufacturing firms. � 2020 The Authors. Business Strategy and The Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

The article presents a unique approach to explore and evaluate the critical factors of supply chain management-marketing (SCM-M) interfaces in e-commerce. This article systematically identifies the critical factors of SCM-M interface in e-commerce using DeLone and McLean (D&M) Model of IS Success. The critical factors identified are used to form the dynamic scenarios based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) for strategizing the e-commerce success. To understand and evaluate the proposed research methodology, some scenarios were developed based on the critical factors of SCM-M interface in e-commerce. The analysis of these scenarios aid in identifying the improvement areas as well as strategizing and improving those areas of SCM-M interface in e-commerce for enhanced customer satisfaction and leveraging organizational success. � 2020, IGI Global.