Search results

Given the relevance of female directors in the governance of any firm, this paper aims to examine their effect on firms’ financial performance by investigating their general impact and segregating the same into different subgroups based on Kanter’s theory.

To achieve the purpose, this study selects a sample of the top 100 listed Indian firms for the period of 2014–2018 and gathers the data pertaining to the variables under consideration from the respective firms’ annual report and corporate database Capitaline Plus. For undertaking the investigation, the authors have segregated the sample into three groups, i.e. firms with boards having less than 10% of female directors are called skewed boards; firms with boards having female directors that range from 10% to 20% are called as tilted board; and firms with boards having sizable representation of female directors of above 20%. To examine the performance impact of overall female directors and their different subgroups, the authors have used a generalized estimating equation model. For the robustness test, the authors have used the fixed-effect model.

The authors find a significant positive impact of the overall percentage of female directors on the financial performance of firms. Additionally, the results indicate that boards with a titled group of female directors and boards with a sizable representation of female directors significantly positively impact firms’ performance. However, the authors fail to extricate any significant performance impact of boards with a skewed group of female directors.

First, the study reveals that despite prevailing nepotism in India, female directors, owing to their core characteristics, can create a favorable perception of firms in the market. Second, it also works as an eye-opener for regulators by revealing the minimum threshold for female directors that a board should have to exploit the benefits of a gender quota rather than mere compliance with the requirements of the Companies Act, 2013. Third, it implies that more gender-diverse boards can improve a firm’s financial performance only if female directors range between the thresholds of 10% to 20%. Finally, the finding is significant for changing the business culture in India, where institutions are traditionally less supportive of women than in other emerging countries.

Departing from existing studies, which provide evidence on the performance impact of the overall percentage of female directors, the study unveils the differential impact of female directors on firms’ financial performance depending on their level of representation on the board. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the context of an emerging market to test Kanter’s theory.

Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a major milestone for a company. It allows a private company to issue shares to a much broader group of investors and become public. But conclusive evidence of the driving forces behind investors’ demand is yet to be identified. Therefore, the major purpose of this study is to assess the level of investors’ demand in IPO and how investors’ demand in IPOs is affected.

The study will employ 80 IPO companies of a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh, starting from 2013 to 2021 with application of linear and quantile regressions. Apart from that, t-test will be used to compare means of groups of Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms and IPOs under fixed-price and book-building mechanism.

Oversubscription is higher for IPOs issued through fixed-price method compared to book-building method, but no significant difference is found in oversubscription for Shariah firms compared to non-Shariah firms based on t-tests. The authors found IPO size, firm size, IPO risk, proportion of shares offered to public, and bank interest rate to have significant impact on the IPO demand. Some models found non-Shariah compliance status of IPO companies to be a significant factor for the investors to demand IPO. Quantile regression results found board independence to have a positive association with larger, less-subscribed firms and board size to have a negative relation with IPO demand, for smaller firms with high demand.

Future studies may apply the findings to other settings, especially into the reasons behind preference for non-Shariah-compliant firms and higher demand for IPOs during higher interest rate. Equity issuing firms and issue managers can benefit from this study by wisely deciding on the proportion of shares for public, issue size and board of director composition. Shariah considerations cannot be ignored given that more information on Shariah compliance is disseminated among investors despite current non-preference for Shariah-compliant IPOs. On the other hand, institutional investors and general investors should consider firm-specific, governance and macroeconomic factors in IPO investment. Likewise, regulators would do well to bring in quality IPOs with characteristics mentioned in this study for ensuring stability of the market.

The main contribution of the study is identifying determinants of IPO demand: faith, governance, macro issues – understanding whether one or many of the above factors drive investor demand in IPOs of a Muslim-majority country will be the main contribution.

This chapter analyzes the efficiency levels of a circular economy (CE) with an emphasis on transaction costs. It examines the governance aspect of CE activities in comparison to the predominant linear value creation. Extant CE research in business studies tends to be descriptive and lacks a theoretical foundation, particularly in understanding CE management. Transaction cost theory explains efficiency in economic organizing, lending itself to the study of arrangements that maximize resource efficiency at continued economic virtue. The conceptualization proposes that CE transaction costs are greater than those within the linear economy (LE), primarily due to the uncertainties about reciprocal dependencies, looping material complexities, exchanging novel information, and increased contracting efforts. Geographically bounded and institutionally homogeneous CE initiatives may curb these rising costs. By bringing efficiency concerns into CE analysis, the chapter demonstrates the applicability of transaction cost theory and highlights CE relevance to international business by pointing out spatial choice implications.

This paper aims to investigate the role of organizational and technological enablers and their arrangement and alignment with the external environment to facilitate supply chain integration (SCI), which consequently improves operational performance.

The paper uses a structural equation modeling approach and the data from 307 manufacturing firms from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey version VI for hypotheses testing.

The findings of the study reveal that (1) the alignment and particular arrangement of the sociotechnical organizational factors enable the SCI of a firm, (2) suitable organizational arrangements help in leveraging SCI under environmental pressures, and (3) SCI leverages the relationship between sociotechnical organizational factors and operational performance of the firm.

This paper informs managers that SCI leverages the operational performance of firms under heightened environmental pressures. Developing suitable manufacturing technologies infrastructure followed by organizational practices aligned with the manufacturing technologies make it easier to realize SCI.

This study explores the interaction of technological, organizational, and environmental factors as driving and enabling factors that help achieve SCI. Firms that develop an open and collaborative environment and use communication and integrative technologies to complement their work practices better cope with external pressures. These modern forms of working and the use of technologies facilitate SCI and leverage it effectively to positively impact firm performance.

This paper aims to introduce a model using a digital twin concept in a cold heading manufacturing and develop a digital visual management (VM) system using Lean overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) tool to enhance the process performance and establish Fourth Industrial Revolution (I4.0) platform in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

This work utilised plan, do, check, act Lean methodology to create a digital twin of each machine in a smart manufacturing facility by taking the Lean tool OEE and digitally transforming it in the context of I4.0. To demonstrate the effectiveness of process digitisation, a case study was carried out at a manufacturing department to provide the data to the model and later validate synergy between Lean and I4.0 platform.

The OEE parameter can be increased by 10% using a proposed digital twin model with the introduction of a Level 0 into VM platform to clearly define the purpose of each data point gathered further replicate in projects across the value stream.

The findings suggest that researchers should look beyond conversion of stored data into visualisations and predictive analytics to improve the model connectivity. The development of strong big data analytics capabilities in SMEs can be achieved by shortening the time between data gathering and impact on the model performance.

The novelty of this study is the application of OEE Lean tool in the smart manufacturing sector to allow SME organisations to introduce digitalisation on the back of structured and streamlined principles with well-defined end goals to reach the optimal OEE.

Recently, powerful instruments for biomedical engineering research studies, including disease modeling, drug designing and nano-drug delivering, have been extremely investigated by researchers. Particularly, investigation in various microfluidics techniques and novel biomedical approaches for microfluidic-based substrate have progressed in recent years, and therefore, various cell culture platforms have been manufactured for these types of approaches. These microinstruments, known as tissue chip platforms, mimic in vivo living tissue and exhibit more physiologically similar vitro models of human tissues. Using lab-on-a-chip technologies in vitro cell culturing quickly caused in optimized systems of tissues compared to static culture. These chipsets prepare cell culture media to mimic physiological reactions and behaviors.

The authors used the application of lab chip instruments as a versatile tool for point of health-care (PHC) applications, and the authors applied a current progress in various platforms toward biochip DNA sensors as an alternative to the general bio electrochemical sensors. Basically, optical sensing is related to the intercalation between glass surfaces containing biomolecules with fluorescence and, subsequently, its reflected light that arises from the characteristics of the chemical agents. Recently, various techniques using optical fiber have progressed significantly, and researchers apply highlighted remarks and future perspectives of these kinds of platforms for PHC applications.

The authors assembled several microfluidic chips through cell culture and immune-fluorescent, as well as using microscopy measurement and image analysis for RNA sequencing. By this work, several chip assemblies were fabricated, and the application of the fluidic routing mechanism enables us to provide chip-to-chip communication with a variety of tissue-on-a-chip. By lab-on-a-chip techniques, the authors exhibited that coating the cell membrane via poly-dopamine and collagen was the best cell membrane coating due to the monolayer growth and differentiation of the cell types during the differentiation period. The authors found the artificial membrane, through coating with Collagen-A, has improved the growth of mouse podocytes cells-5 compared with the fibronectin-coated membrane.

The authors could distinguish the differences across the patient cohort when they used a collagen-coated microfluidic chip. For instance, von Willebrand factor, a blood glycoprotein that promotes hemostasis, can be identified and measured through these type-coated microfluidic chips.

Identifying and prioritizing supply chain risk is significant from any product’s quality and reliability perspective. Under an input-process-output workflow, conventional risk prioritization uses a risk priority number (RPN) aligned to the risk analysis. Imprecise information coupled with a lack of dealing with hesitancy margins enlarges the scope, leading to improper assessment of risks. This significantly affects monitoring quality and performance. Against the backdrop, a methodology that identifies and prioritizes the operational supply chain risk factors signifies better risk assessment.

The study proposes a multi-criteria model for risk prioritization involving multiple decision-makers (DMs). The methodology offers a robust, hybrid system based on the Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IF) Set merged with the “Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution.” The nature of the model is robust. The same is shown by applying fuzzy concepts under multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) to prioritize the identified business risks for better assessment.

The proposed IF Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for risk prioritization model can improve the decisions within organizations that make up the chains, thus guaranteeing a “better quality in risk management.” Establishing an efficient representation of uncertain information related to traditional failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) treatment involving multiple DMs means identifying potential risks in advance and providing better supply chain control.

In a company’s supply chain, blockchain allows data storage and transparent transmission of flows with traceability, privacy, security and transparency (Roy et al., 2022). They asserted that blockchain technology has great potential for traceability. Since risk assessment in supply chain operations can be treated as a traceability problem, further research is needed to use blockchain technologies. Lastly, issues like risk will be better assessed if predicted well; further research demands the suitability of applying predictive analysis on risk.

The study proposes a hybrid framework based on the generic risk assessment and MCDM methodologies under a fuzzy environment system. By this, the authors try to address the supply chain risk assessment and mitigation framework better than the conventional one. To the best of their knowledge, no study is found in existing literature attempting to explore the efficacy of the proposed hybrid approach over the traditional RPN system in prime sectors like steel (with production planning data). The validation experiment indicates the effectiveness of the results obtained from the proposed IF TOPSIS Approach to Risk Prioritization methodology is more practical and resembles the actual scenario compared to those obtained using the traditional RPN system (Kim et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2018).

This study provides mathematical models to simulate the supply chain risk assessment, thus helping the manufacturer rank the risk level. In the end, the authors apply this model in a big-sized organization to validate its accuracy. The authors validate the proposed approach to an integrated steel plant impacting the production planning process. The model’s outcome substantially adds value to the current risk assessment and prioritization, significantly affecting better risk management quality.

This paper contributes to the literature as follows. First, it examines if option and stock compensations raise creditor's risk, and which one is more important than the other. Second, it explores if CEO's compensation interacts with CEO overconfidence to raise creditor's risk. Third, it investigates how banks use different loan terms to alleviate their credit risk.

This study used advanced regression analysis and use of generalized methods of moment methodology.

The results show that option compensation is more important than stock compensation in raising credit risk; option compensation interacts with CEO overconfidence, giving rise to a much higher credit risk; and covenant usage is more important than other loan contract terms in mitigating credit risk given that covenant use could not be substituted away by using other loan contract terms such as increasing interest rate, reducing principal or shortening loan duration. This paper has practical implications for credit markets.

The main implication is that hand-collect data are available up to 2010.

It informs creditors the potential sources of loan risk emanating from option rather than stock incentives; it informs creditors that option incentive interacts with CEO overconfidence rendering the credit risk bigger than expected, and it informs creditors the importance of using covenants vis-à-vis other loan contract terms for mitigating compensation and overconfidence risk.

Banks are alerted to the risk due to the interaction between overconfidence and compensations, implying that overconfident managers remunerated with options compensations are more risky than overconfident managers who are not remunerated as such.

This paper is original: (1) The authors show that option compensation is more risky than stock compensation from viewpoint of creditors. This has not been assessed. (2) Interaction between managerial compensation and managerial overconfidence has not been assessed before. (3) Use of different loan contract terms to alleviate risk from overconfident managers (who are prone to over investment but who are innovative according to the literature) has not been evaluated.

Theory of Constraints (TOC), though a well-established process improvement methodology in manufacturing, is still a novel philosophy for healthcare and an exhaustive review of literature is needed to summarize the key findings of various researchers. Such a review can provide a direction to the researchers and academicians interested in exploring the application of TOC in the healthcare sector. This paper aims to review the existing literature of TOC tools and techniques applied to the healthcare environment, and to investigate motivating factors, benefits and key gaps for identifying directions for future research in the domain of healthcare.

In this paper, different electronic repositories were searched using multiple keywords. The current study identified 36 articles published between January 1999 to mid-2021 to conceptualize and summarize the research questions used in the study. Descriptive analysis along with pictorial representations have been used for better visualization of work.

This paper presents a thorough literature review of TOC in healthcare and identifies the evolution, current trends, tools used, nature of services chosen for application and research gaps and recommends future direction for research. A variety of motivating factors and benefits of TOC in healthcare are identified. Another key finding of this study is that almost all implementations listed in literature reported positive outcomes and substantial improvements in the performance of the healthcare unit chosen for study.

This paper provides valuable insight to researchers, practitioners and policymakers on the potential of TOC to improve quality of services, flow of patients, revenues, process efficiency and cost reduction in different health care settings. A number of findings and suggestions compiled in the paper from literature study can be used for diagnosing, learning and making substantial changes in healthcare. The methodologies used by different researchers were analysed and combined to propose a generic step by step procedure to apply TOC. This methodology will guide the practising managers about the appropriate tools of TOC for their specific need.

Good health is always the first desire of all men and women around the globe. The global aim of healthcare is to quickly cure more patients and ensure healthier population both today and in future. This article will work as a foundation for future applications of TOC in healthcare and guide upcoming applications in the booming healthcare sector. The paper will help the healthcare managers in serving a greater number of patients with limited available resources.

This paper provides original collaborative work compiled by the authors. Since no comprehensive systematic review of TOC in healthcare has been reported earlier, this study would be a valuable asset for researchers in this field. A model has been presented that links various benefits with one another and clarifies the need to focus on process improvement which naturally results in these benefits. Similarly, a model has been presented to guide the users in implementation of TOC in healthcare.

This essay focuses on an argument that challenges the notion of market reform as a desirable idea. It examines how market requirements, accounting practices, political intervention and organizational conditions interact and create conflicts in the implementation of market reform. In our case study, we aim to elucidate the detrimental effects of expanding pricing mechanisms into areas typically untouched.

The essay adopts a critical perspective toward the marketization in the public sector organizations based on the authors' previous studies and observations of the reforms in Swedish schools over the last 30 years. The case is conceptualized within Callon’s framework of the sociology of worth.

The paper provides an example of market dynamics introduced without the presence of pricing and qualification mechanisms, resulting in a trial-and-error situation. In this context, we document and problematize a trend toward marketization that has had negative consequences for Swedish schools. In doing so, the paper shows how market requirements, accounting practices, political interventions and organizational conditions interact and create conflicts during the implementation of market reforms. The case shows the emergence of a new economic entity and its underlying rationale, the quantification/pricing mechanism, with a special emphasis on the role of accounting and the repercussions on subjectivities as values shift.

This paper follows up on the New Public Financial Management (NPFM) global warning debate on the emergence of pricing/charging mechanisms in public services. It provides a critical overview of the diffusion and relevance of accounting evaluation processes to sustain continuous reforms, despite claimed criticisms, limitations and (un)intended consequences. The paper also provides some reflections on new avenues for further research and some possible ways out for accounting studies.