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

With rising concerns about the steep increase in air pollution in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, several factors-particularly motorised transportation, construction, and stubble burning in neighbouring states-are being identified as contributing to this hazard. However, in order to make effective policy decisions, there is a need for a holistic approach that identifies the root causes of the problem. The use of system dynamics simulation offers a novel systems thinking approach to understand Delhi's air pollution, taking into account the dynamic nature of the air pollution system as well as the complex interdependencies among the various factors and sources of air pollution. © 2019 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.

Recent studies in macro accounting suggest that changes in aggregate accounting earnings can predict quarterly GDP growth in the USA. Our objective in this study is to test the robustness of the association between aggregate earnings and real GDP growth across multiple countries and for different definitions of aggregate earnings. We test whether aggregate earnings changes predict future economic growth in eight countries–Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and the USA. We find positive evidence regarding the generalisability of the aggregate earnings–real GDP relation in an international context. In additional tests, we find that economic forecasters appear to underreact to aggregate earnings information. Our results show that aggregate earnings lead economic growth and forecasts of real GDP growth can be improved by incorporating aggregate earnings information. Further, we also test if negative earnings changes contain more information than positive earnings changes and find only modest evidence in favour of this hypothesis. The results are robust to alternative statistical methodology and the removal of the USA data from the sample. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

While there is much emphasis on authentic green practices, there is rising concern about the common practice of ''greenwashing'' or unsubstantiated claims about good environmental policies. Consequently, tourism businesses need to provide tangible evidences to create trust in their green claims. This paper, building on a sequential mixed method approach of data collection, proposes a potential green service encounter (GSE) framework by which hotel management can reassure customers and secure long-term patronage. Moderating role to two key contextual variables, travel purpose and environmental values of travelers, is investigated. Practical implications indicate that hotels should offer guests opportunities for enhanced involvement in GSE that help build consumer trust. The trust building process is dependent on a traveler's environmental values but independent of trip purpose. The GSE framework conceptualization included interviews with 25 green hotel guests and a panel of experts while empirical validation involved a sample of over 500 respondents.

Firms utilise both internal and external knowledge reservoirs in order to innovate. This study explores the drivers of innovation specifically, role of business groups, alliances, degree of internationalisation and financial slack on innovation. Hypotheses are tested using patent data on a sample of Indian firms. Group affiliation, financial slack and degree of internationalisation are found to positively impact innovation output. This study contributes towards the nascent literature on innovation in the Indian context. © 2019 World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd.

[No abstract available]

While there has been extensive research and practitioner interest in regulated industries, the classification of regulated industries, as used in many previous studies, is dated, not comprehensive and lacks consensus. This paper provides an alternative classification of regulated industries in India based on several parameters of regulation. The usefulness of the classification index is demonstrated by showing how regulated industries differ from non-regulated industries in terms of political connections and industry concentration. © 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare and analyze the modern productivity estimation techniques, namely, Levinsohn and Petrin (LP, 2003), Ackerberg Caves and Frazer (ACF, 2006), Wooldridge (2009) and Mollisi and Rovigatti (MR, 2017) on unit-level data of 324 Indian industries for the period 2009-2015. Design/methodology/approach: The paper first analyzes different issues encountered in total factor productivity (TFP) measurement. It then categorizes the productivity estimation techniques into three logical generations, namely, traditional, new and advanced. Next, it selects four contemporary estimation techniques, computes the industrial TFP for Indian states by using them and investigates their empirical outcomes. The paper also performs the robustness check to ascertain, which estimation technique is more robust. Findings: The result indicates that the TFP growth of Indian industries have differed greatly over this seven-years of period, but the estimates are sensitive to the techniques used. Further results suggest that ACF and Wooldridge yield the consistent outcomes as compared to LP and MR. The robustness test confirms Wooldridge to be the most robust contemporary technique for productivity estimation followed by ACF and LP. Originality/value: To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that compares the contemporary productivity estimation techniques. In this backdrop, this paper offers two novelties. First, it uses advanced production estimation techniques to compute TFP of 32 diverse industries of an emerging economy: India. Second, it addresses the fitment of estimation techniques by drawing a comparison and by conducting a robustness test, hence, contributing to the limited literature on comparing contemporary productivity estimation techniques. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication preferenc;s reported by different generations in the Indian workplace, as well as investigating the relationship between communication preferences, communication climate and employee satisfaction with the organizational communication. The authors therefore examined managers’ preferences for different communication media across two different generations, as well as their perceptions of the communication climate and their overall satisfaction with their organizations’ communication. Design/methodology/approach: The authors tested an interaction model comprising ease of use of communication medium, communication climate and communication satisfaction, on 822 Indian managers belonging to two different generations. In doing so, they used a survey to investigate managers’ preferences for different media, their perceptions of the communication climate within their organizations and their overall satisfaction with the communication that takes place. The authors drew on studies on media richness theory, on communication climate and on inter-generational differences. Findings: The findings show that while communication satisfaction in general was low across both generations, Generation Y employees recorded the lowest levels of satisfaction. In addition, a manager’s generational category does not moderate the relationship between media use and communication satisfaction, but it does moderate the relationship between communication climate and communication satisfaction. In terms of the ease of use associated with different types of media, the differences between the generations were largely stereotyped, although moderate media (VC, chat, voicemail) were preferred over rich media (face-to-face meetings) or lean media (fax, memos and emails), by all managers. Practical implications: Senior management in India must shed their bureaucratic mind-set to promote openness in the communication choices that are considered acceptable, leading to more effective decision-making and problem solving. Mobile phones, chats, wikis, podcasts, video-conferencing and email should be officially embedded into the organizational communication culture to facilitate state-of-the-art knowledge management practices. More multi-generational teams and mentorship programmes need to be implemented to make a wider variety of media acceptable to all managers, which will in turn improve communication satisfaction. Originality/value: This study is original in that it unpacks the influence of media use and communication satisfaction across Gen X and Gen Y, who will be moving into more senior positions in India in the next decade. In doing so, it provides a snapshot of organizational communication in an important emerging economy and provides recommendations as to how organizational communication may be made more effective in the future. Organizations in India and elsewhere can improve their organizational communication by enhancing transparency and by making a wider variety of media accessible, and therefore acceptable, to different generations of managers. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The study investigates price discovery in the Indian stock market and finds that spot market plays a dominating role in price discovery when it is estimated for the entire period as a whole. However, periodic measures of price discovery suggest that it does not remain the same throughout the period, but varies with time. Panel data analysis also indicates that spot market is more efficient in price discovery for majority of size and sector panels. Finally, while market state-related variables are found to impact information shares in a majority of the cases, macroeconomic announcements rarely predict the price discovery. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Purpose: In the current study, the significance of extreme positive returns has been investigated in the pricing of stocks in the Indian equity market. This study aims to understand if investors in India have a preference for lottery-like stocks. The existing literature provides support for MAX effect in several countries, where risk seeking in the form of gambling is an acceptable form of social behavior, suggesting a preference for lottery-like stocks. This motivates the authors to investigate whether such preference for lottery-like stocks is prevalent in a country such as India with a different cultural setting, where gambling is not socially and legally encouraged. Design/methodology/approach: The MAX effect is tested in the Indian market for the period from January 2003 to March 2017. The average number of firms per month in this study is 2,949. Univariate and bivariate portfolio-level analyses, as well as Fama MacBeth regressions, are conducted to observe the difference between average raw and risk-adjusted returns between the stocks lying in the highest and lowest MAX deciles. Several tests have been performed for checking the robustness of the findings. Findings: Unlike the extant literature, the authors have not found any evidence of a negative relationship between extreme positive returns and expected returns. The univariate and bivariate analyses suggest that high MAX deciles over-perform low MAX deciles. Fama Macbeth regressions also do not support the negative relationship documented for other markets. This suggests that investors are not euphoric about lottery-like stocks in India. One may devise profitable trading strategies by going long on high MAX deciles and short on low MAX deciles. Originality/value: This study finds a behavioral aspect of Indian investors, which seems to be in contrast to that of other countries. While there is a strong preference for lottery-like stocks in other markets, investors in India do not end up overpaying for such stocks in the market. This tendency might be an outcome of a different social and regulatory setting in India. In view of the fact that India is increasingly becoming an important investment destination, it becomes important to devise investment strategies based on the peculiarities of this market rather than simply extrapolating the findings of other markets. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This study attempts to investigate the presence of post event over- or under-reaction in stock markets of the top 10 countries by market capitalisation. An event is defined as an extreme price movement beyond a pre-defined threshold. Intra-day stock returns at 10-minute frequency starting from June 2009 till May 2016 have been analysed using average cumulative returns (ACR) and average cumulative abnormal returns (ACAR) for a 6-day duration after the event. It appears that there is presence of over- or under-reaction in 8 out of a total of 10 countries, and investors display psychological biases which lead to profit making opportunities. © 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to systematically review and analyze the literature in the area of liquidity of financial markets. The study summarizes the key findings and approaches and highlights the research gaps in the extant literature. Design/methodology/approach: A variety of reputed databases are utilized to select 100 research papers, from a large pool of nearly 3,000 research papers spanning between 1972 and 2018 using systematic literature review methodology. The selected research papers are organized to provide an in-depth analysis and an account of the ongoing research in the area of liquidity. The study uses bibliometric network visualization and word-cloud analyses to compile and analyze the literature. Findings: The study summarizes the recent approaches in the liquidity research on aspects such as methodologies followed, variables applied, sub-areas covered, and the types of economies and markets covered. The article shows that the literature on liquidity in the emerging markets (e.g. China and India) is deficient. Overall, the following research areas related to liquidity need further exploration in the context of emerging markets: liquidity beyond the best bid-ask quotes, intraday return predictability using microstructure variables (e.g. order imbalances), impact of algorithmic-trading and volatility of liquidity. Originality/value: To the best of authors’ knowledge, in the recent past, a detailed account of the literature on liquidity has not been published. It provides a comprehensive collection and classification of the literature on the liquidity of financial markets. This would be helpful to the future researchers, academics and practitioners in the area of financial markets. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to take a micro-foundational perspective to identify the effective leadership style and employee work behavior in achieving the goals of sustainability. It also aims to identify the mechanism through which leaders influence employees’ performance. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on existing literature for model creation and proposition development to understand the leadership style and employee behavior that would be effective in achieving sustainability goals. Findings: In achieving the multifaceted goals of sustainability, servant leadership style is effective in mobilizing the resources and implementing the sustainability strategies among stakeholders. By enhancing interpersonal trust and psychological empowerment, servant leaders positively influence the work role behavior of the employees. Furthermore, the work performance of employees helps in achieving sustainable development. Research limitations/implications: This study draws on the theory of micro-foundations to establish how individual-level factors help in realizing the macro goal of sustainability. It throws light on the growing need to cultivate micro-level leadership skills and employee behaviors to have effective organizational sustainability performance. It is imperative for the organizations to be socially responsible along with achieving the business goals. Originality/value: This study responds to the call of studying micro-level actions in the context of sustainable development. It extends the current knowledge by developing a causal model linking leadership and employee performance through interpersonal trust and psychological empowerment. Moreover, it presents testable propositions linking interpersonal trust and psychological empowerment. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The problem of designing a spanning tree on an underlying graph to minimize the flow costs of a given set of traffic demands is considered. Several new classes of valid inequalities are developed for the problem. Tests on 10-node problem instances show that the addition of these inequalities results in integer solutions for a significant majority of the instances without requiring any branching. In the remaining cases, root gaps of less than 1% from the optimal solutions are realized. For 30-node problem instances, the inequalities substantially reduce the number of nodes explored in the branch-and-bound tree, resulting in significantly reduced computational times. Optimal solutions are reported for problems with 30 nodes, 60 edges, fully dense traffic matrices, and Euclidean distance-based flow costs. Problems with such flow costs are well-known to be a very difficult class of problems to solve. Using the inequalities substantially improves the performance of a variable-fixing heuristic. Some polyhedral issues relating to the strength of these inequalities are also discussed. Copyright: © 2019 INFORMS.

This study provides new insights into certain recent developments in derivatives trading in India. Specifically, it examines the implications of introduction of short-selling for pricing efficiency of the Nifty 50 index derivative contracts of National Stock Exchange of India. The empirical results suggest that the introduction of short-selling, supported by a well-functioning security lending and borrowing market, has significantly reduced the overpricing of Nifty 50 index put options. Moreover, the introduction of this short-selling mechanism has lessened the underpricing of Nifty 50 index futures. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The current paper assessed the relationship between the Dark Triad Traits of the management teachers and the Students Rating of Instruction Quality. Furthermore, it also examined the moderating effects of the teachers’ traitedness and the students’ agreeableness on the above relationship. Using the data obtained from the teachers (n=202) and post-graduate students (n–604) of 19 elite management schools in India, the current paper has found a curvilinear relationship between the teachers’ Dark Triad Traits and the Students Rating of Instruction Quality. Additionally, the results have revealed the moderating effects of the teachers’ traitedness and the students’ agreeableness. The implications of the findings in theory and practice have been discussed. © 2019, © 2019 Society for Research into Higher Education.

In this paper, we propose a Generalised-Fuzzy-TOPSIS method as a versatile evaluation model. The model is suitable for different types of fuzzy or interval-valued numbers, with or without subjective weights of criteria being defined by evaluators. Additionally, we extend the final ranking step of the TOPSIS method, which is the calculation of closeness coefficient based on the separation from Negative Ideal Solution (NIS) and proximity to Positive Ideal Solution (PIS). Experiments show that with the same focus on PIS and NIS distances, our proposed ranking is identical to TOPSIS, and also performs very well when varying the distance weights. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated with relevant examples of technology and material selection in the context of additive manufacturing. Sensitivity analyses, based on subjective weights of criteria, degree of optimism, evaluators’ weights in group decision making, and distance weights, are presented to assist managers in making more informed decisions. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms have been used successfully to solve a wide variety of combinatorial optimization problems. In the recent past many modifications have been proposed in ACO algorithms to solve continuous optimization problems. However, most of the ACO variants to solve continuous optimization problems lack ability of efficient exploration of the search space and suffer from the problem of premature convergence. In this work a new ACO algorithm (ACO–LD) is proposed that incorporates Laplace distribution based interaction scheme among the ants. Also, in order to avoid the problem of stagnation, an additional diversification mechanism is introduced. The proposed ACO–LD is tested on benchmark test functions taken from Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2014 (CEC2014) and the results are compared with four state-of-the-art algorithms reported in CEC2014. ACO–LD is also applied to solve six real life problems and the results are compared with the results of six other algorithms reported in the literature. The analysis of the results shows that the overall performance of ACO–LD is found to be better than the other algorithms included in the present study. © 2017, The Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM), India and The Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with three modes of firms’ exit (voluntary liquidation, involuntary liquidation and acquisition) in a mutually exclusive environment. In particular, three modes of exit are treated as independent events given that different causes and consequences exist for each exit mode. The data set is a panel of 4,408 US manufacturing firms spanning over the period 1976–1995. Design/methodology/approach: The discrete choice model is used to establish a relationship between modes of exit and a set of explanatory variables, which are specific to the firm, industry and macroeconomic conditions. Use of panel data encourages us to estimate a random effects multinomial logistic regression model, which allows exit modes as mutually exclusive events and at the same time controls the firm-specific unobserved heterogeneity in the sample. Findings: The analysis suggests that the determinants of voluntary liquidation are age, size, profitability, technology intensity and inflation level. The determinants of involuntary liquidation are size, leverage, profitability and inflation level. For acquisition, determinants are age, size, advertising intensity, Tobin’s q, GDP growth, inflation level and interest rate. The findings suggest that exit modes have a different set of determinants and the scale of effects of some common determinants such as age, size and profitability differs between exit modes. Research limitations/implications: The analysis presented in this study relies on data from US manufacturing firms only. Thus, there is a need to explore the determinants of exit modes in other countries as well using the proposed econometric model. Practical implications: The findings presented in this paper are useful for managers and policymakers to design strategies/actions for avoiding particular mode of exit. Originality/value: This study provides empirical evidence on the differences in factors associated with exit modes and confirms the existence of mutually exclusive nature of exit modes. Findings suggest that for future empirical studies on firm exit, the exit modes must be treated as a heterogeneous event. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.