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It is well-known that women scientists are few in numbers in prestigious research organizations and still fewer in leadership positions. The purpose of this article is to analyze how organizational gender inequality is rationalized by scientists so as to highlight how discourse on equality reproduces gender at the workplace.

Data was collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with the scientists in four research laboratories dealing with medicinal drugs and chemical substances. It uses discourse analysis by Foucault as a theoretical lens to examine how gender inequality is rationalized and the power relations behind it. It adopts the perspective that socio-cultural beliefs form the basis of gendered practices in organizations.

It finds that the scientists refuse to blame the organization for inequalities by delinking gender issues from the organizational domain. This delinking occurs through rationalizing gender inequality as “social”, through separating informal behavior from the “system” and perceiving women as “privileged”. Such discourses while keeping intact the rationality and meritocracy of the organizations/institutions, reproduce the ideological “public-private dichotomy” and the male dominance at the workplace.

The findings indicate the need for extensive studies in India highlighting how gender is done in organizations, exploring men's role in undoing gender and government initiatives to create a climate of gender equality.

It highlights how discourse on gender equality/inequality at the workplace manifests dominance of men and represents an intersection of Indian social, organizational and institutional contexts at workplace. It also calls into question the applicability of the western concepts of “individualization” and “gender fatigue” to the Indian context.

This study aims to understand the socio-cultural context of Indian women's high-tech entrepreneurial experience. Despite a small proportion of women entrepreneurs, and the traditional gender dynamics among the educated middle-classes that appears to be antithetical to female entrepreneurship; women-led high-tech start-ups are on the rise.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with women founders at an academic incubator in an elite Indian Institute of Technology. The study was based on the post-structural feminist approach that women entrepreneurs are embedded in their socio-cultural and institutional context. During data collection, the Coronavirus lockdown provided a natural experiment, highlighting entrepreneurial response to unforeseen obstacles.

It finds that the context is significant in constructing opportunity, and in navigating challenges of gender and entrepreneurship. Further, in the process of construction of an entrepreneurial identity, women innovators not only reproduce, but also modify their context. Also, the experiences with academic incubator indicate positive results both for gender dynamics and enhancing an emergent entrepreneurial culture.

The study highlights that women's high-tech entrepreneurship has considerable potential for enhancing women's status in society through the support of academic incubator. This has certain implications for policy.

It provides an insight in to the hitherto neglected issue of women's high-tech entrepreneurship in India, and argues that a study of “social embeddedness” not only highlights constraints for women entrepreneurs unique to that context, but also the potential of women's entrepreneurship in advancing women's agency and gender equality.

Since liberalization in the 1990s, India has witnessed a growth in the number of educated middle-class women in professions. However, there are few women in leadership positions and decision-making bodies. While the earlier notion of the ideal woman as homemaker has been replaced by one which idealizes women of substance, a woman’s role in the family continues to be pivotal and is even viewed as central in defining Indian culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how and to what extent gender inequalities are reproduced in the organizations employing educated professionals.

Based on the perspective that gender is socially constructed, this paper analyzes gender inequality in Indian organizations through semi-structured interviews of men and women scientists in two private pharmaceutical laboratories.

The findings show reproduction of a gendered normative order through two types of norms and practices: one, norms and practices that favor men and second, socio-cultural norms that devalue women in public spaces which help to maintain masculinity in the workplace. Although these practices might be found elsewhere in the world, the manner in which they are enacted reflects national cultural norms.

The paper highlights how various norms and practices enacted in the specific Indian socio-cultural context construct and maintain masculinity at workplace depriving opportunities to professional women which affect their rise to leadership positions.

This paper aims to investigate the major challenges faced and lessons learned during the unplanned transition to online examinations (OE) at a traditional university following the COVID-19 pandemic.

This exploratory study involved two distinct samples (110 students and 30 instructors) drawn from a large public university and triangulated the qualitative and quantitative data to analyze how the university navigated the unplanned transition to OE.

The university faced several challenges related to a lack of proper institutional infrastructure, non-familiarity of the stakeholders with OE, lack of effective communication, limited student access to technology resources because of socio-economic impediments and academic integrity issues.

Short- and medium-term recommendations are proposed to enable continuity of teaching and learning in future emergency situations, including the establishment of technology-enabled exam centers, as well as strategies to assure instructor readiness for OE, academic integrity among students and the validity of the evaluation procedure for future OE.

This study shows how the unplanned transition to OE in a public university exposed new challenges for conducting OE, particularly in resource challenged emerging countries, where full integration of OE was a new experience and prior knowledge of potential issues was lacking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key factors affecting the success of women entrepreneurs who own and manage Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in UAE. The extant literature on the relationship between determinants of entrepreneurial success points to a lack of clarification of the link between success factors (Personal, environmental and other) and performance of women-owned SMEs particularly in UAE.

A self-administered questionnaire, through mail survey, is used to collect the data. Cronbach’s α test and factor analysis have been carried out to test the reliability of data and validate the hypothesis.

The results suggested that the personal, environmental factors and government support affect positively and significantly to the success of women-owned SMEs in UAE.

The study has some limits as to its potential for generalization owing to the sample size, wide geographic spread of respondents and time limitations with the respondents.

The results indicate that several factors including personal, environmental and government support are linked with the success of women entrepreneurs of UAE. The results of this study will provide some insights to policymakers and business practitioners to formulate the strategies intended to promote unveiled potential among women entrepreneurs in UAE.

Most of the studies focused on women entrepreneurship have taken either their motives or the hurdles faced by them into consideration. Moreover, only a few studies have been carried out in Arab world particularly in UAE. Therefore, this study is an attempt to fill the gap and contribute to a better understanding of UAE’s women-owned SMEs.

This paper aims to discuss the accounting treatment of one of the most popular instruments of financing in Islamic banks, which is Islamic leasing or Ijarah. This research undertakes an empirical investigation of the accounting practices of Ijarah followed by UAE’s Islamic banks. The main objective of this paper is to compare the accounting practices followed by UAE Islamic banks and accounting practices recommended by Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) for the accounting treatment of Ijarah.

This study also aims to examine the justification and explanation behind this practice and clarify the accounting treatment of Ijarah as defined in the regulatory framework and standards.

The author has found that the accounting treatment of Ijarah practiced by four UAE Islamic banks, it is clear that all of them are following IAS-17 and not FAS-8 of AAOIFI. The main difference is: FAS-8 issued by AAOIFI suggests that the accounting treatment for both Ijarah and Ijarah Muntahia Bittamleek be similar to operating lease transactions with certain exceptions. On the other hand, these Islamic banks are accounting for Ijarah as a financing transaction, just like finance lease – in accordance with IAS-17.

Taking out the right information from banks officials regarding Ijarah was a big hassle.

After considering the above-mentioned points, according to the researcher, Western accounting standards are not appropriate to be applied in Islamic financial institution because of their different nature and treatment of financial instruments. Therefore, Islamic banks and other Islamic finance professionals should consider making the standards of AAOIFI mandatory, and they should stick to these standards for information disclosure, building investors’ confidence, monitoring and surveillance. These standards would also ensure the integration of Islamic financial markets with international markets.

This study also aims to examine the justification and explanation behind this practice of bankers when the researcher approached these four banks, their officials mentioned that Ijarah contracts are similar to conventional form of financing, and it does not involve the central tenet of Islamic capitalism, i.e. to share risk and profit; therefore, they are justified and convinced to adopt IAS-17 in accounting for Ijarah transactions.

It is an original case study based on secondary research data.

The purpose of this paper is to present the diversity and equality perspectives from the national context of India and introduce a special issue about equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in India.

This special issue consists of six articles on current EDI issues in India. The first three of the contributions are focused on descriptions of diversity challenges and policies regarding caste and disabilities, while the remaining three papers address gender diversity.

In addition to providing an overview of this issue's articles, this paper highlights developments and current themes in India's country-specific equality and diversity scholarship. Drawing on the special issue's six papers, the authors show the relevance of Western theories while also pointing to the need for reformulation of others in the context of India.

The authors conclude with a call to further explore diversity in India and to develop locally relevant, culture-sensitive theoretical frameworks. Religious and economic diversity should receive more attention in future diversity management scholarship in the Indian context.

How does India experience equality and diversity concepts? How are India's approaches similar or different from those experienced in other countries? How do theoretical frameworks originated in the West apply in India? Are new, locally grounded frameworks needed to better capture the developments at play? These questions are addressed by the contributions to this special issue.

The main motive behind framing this paper is to provide a compromised solution for trapezoidal fuzzy number–multi-objective fully quadratic fractional optimisation model (TrFN-MOFQFOM) by avoiding ambiguities and confusion of decision-makers (DMs). Many researchers have used Taylor's series and parametric approach to transform fractional objective function into non-fractional ones, but Taylor's series expansion is valid only up to a neighbourhood. To avoid these extra efforts, this article suggests a methodology in which numerator of objective function is optimised under the condition of optimising denominator.

This paper suggests an efficient procedure to search for compromised solution of MOFQFOM with fuzzy coefficients using α-level set and FGP approach. Incomplete data in model is dealt with α-level set. Then after defuzzification, non-fractional models are built from fractional model to get optimal solution of every objective. Finally, the linear weighted sum of negative deviational variables is minimised to satisfy all objective functions up to maximum possible extent.

On applying suggested approach to the example given in end, the authors arrived at compromised solution having μO1(O1(x))=1 and μO2(O2(x))=0.71. The applied procedure requires less computational efforts and provides the preferred compromised solution.

This work has not been done previously by anyone. The idea being developed here of constructing non-fractional model by dealing numerators and denominators separately is completely new. 10; In the end, an algorithm, flowchart and numerical are also given to clarify the applicability of the suggested approach.

This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the research focusing on the decarbonization strategy of businesses, stock return performance, and investment styles.

The paper utilizes bibliometric methods and content analysis to present a broad overview of the research on the association between decarbonization strategies in businesses and financial performance in the last few decades. The final dataset contains 272 records published between 2001 and early 2021, available in the Web of Science (WoS) database.

The authors find a relatively small number of publications before 2010 and the research focus increases only after 2016. There exists limited knowledge on the links between climate change strategies and firm performance till date. The top management journals have also failed to respond to the importance of decarbonization strategies in firms and their relationship with stock returns and investment styles. Furthermore, there is a limited indication of publications from ecology and the environmental sciences, in general, being included or cited by the business and management research studies, thus highlighting weak network linkages between the two fields.

The study contributes to the literature on decarbonization strategies of businesses, and the strategies' relation with firm performance by consolidating the extant research and thus finding the research gaps and research areas that require further investigation.

For the industry professionals, this research provides a comprehensive repository of articles on incorporating decarbonization strategies in industry professionals' decisions on improving firm performance.

This paper examines the history and development of themes, related to firms' emission mitigation strategies, firm performance and investment styles, across the journal articles in the WoS database published from 2001 to early 2021. In addition, the authors highlight research directions and the need for research on sustainable strategies in businesses, stock return, and investment styles.

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is growing rapidly and the e-retailers are finding it pertinent to enhance customers’ online shopping experiences and engage them with e-commerce portals. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model of customer engagement, where credibility and usefulness of online reviews are found to trigger the adoption of reviews and customer trust that augments customer engagement.

A survey method design has been used to capture responses from 219 young customers (university students) of a reputed university in India. The hypothesized relationships have been examined through multiple regression analysis.

The findings of this study corroborate that the credibility and information usefulness of online reviews induce the adoption of reviews and propensity to trust e-commerce websites. The propensity to trust the reviews has been found to lead the adoption of reviews. The adoption of reviews is found to have a significant impact on the customer’ engagement with these portals.

The present study contributes to the theories of online marketing in the space of e-shopping, online reviews, customer trust, customer engagement and online shopping behavior. Further, this study provides a framework for managers to engage customers by triggering customers’ online trust through the facilitation of credible and useful reviews.

The study aims at understanding the role of different attributes associated with the online reviews’ credibility and information usefulness in driving customer engagement with specific focus on online shopping through the utility of online devices. The study is one of the pioneering empirical studies that explore the role of online reviews in driving customer engagement.