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The purpose of this paper is to examine how managers in Nepalese business organizations and non‐profit non‐government organizations understand and practice strategic management and to what extent such understanding and practices differ from those in western countries.

In‐depth case studies of eight business organizations and non‐government organizations (NGOs) were prepared based on multiple data collection such as interviews and review of reports and the cases were analyzed to identify several themes for discussion of similarities and differences in the views and practices of strategic management.

Managers in Nepal have developed some shared understanding of key aspects of strategic management and practice some important aspects of strategic management; much remains to be done in order for them to develop a clear strategic focus so that they could develop their abilities to compete with global players and to create competitive advantages.

This study suggested several avenues for future research for more systematic and data‐driven studies on the roles of international exposure on managers, international partners, national culture and other macro environmental conditions on strategic management practices in Nepal and South Asia.

The research findings are useful for managers of business organizations and non‐government organizations to develop their strategies for superior performance in South Asian countries characterized by volatile business environment and resource constraints.

NGOs which work for social development need to improve their strategic management practices with more rigorous and resilient strategic implementation in Nepal.

This research is unique in the context of Nepal and will be useful in similar contexts. The findings contribute to understanding the strategic management practices in a unique culture.

This chapter explores the multiple boundaries traversed and accompanying acts of translation entailed in the provision of expertise by anthropologists. The chapter begins with an overview of the asylum process, the criteria constituting persecution, and a description of the bureaucracy and procedures by which asylum is determined. The role of expert witness is then introduced with a focus on the rules of federal evidence that paved the way for greater anthropological involvement in the provision of expertise. The next section reviews some of the extant ethnographic literature to date on the asylum process, highlighting the role of dissonance as a recurrent theme in two different respects: the dissonance that occurs between the asylum applicant and the legal setting, and the dissonance that is created between the asylee and his or her body in the aftermath of trauma. The crafting of the affidavit is then analyzed to illustrate the boundary crossings and acts of translation involved in the appraisal and understanding of asylum, including the traversal of difference in scale, temporality, and the construction of social reality, particularly those espoused by anthropology and law. I suggest that contributing to the protection of human rights through the provision of expert witness is a necessary and mutually beneficial collaboration whereby anthropological evidence, insight, and knowledge provide positive content to legal rights. I conclude that anthropologists are uniquely well qualified in the interlocution of persecution, likening the provision of expertise to fieldwork, as a series of border crossings and acts of translation.

Banks in the South Asian region are the fulcrum of economic growth and development as they provide means to development credit and working capital, trade and infrastructure finance and are seen as custodians of the trust in the financial system. This paper aims to study the nature of banking sector linkages for the region.

The dependence structure between deposits and lending rates individually for the banks of the South Asian countries are studied using time invariant and time varying family of copula functions. The degree of connectedness is further studied by Diebold and Yilmaz methodology.

Results indicate poor levels of banking integration in the region as the dependence parameter for both deposits and lending rates was around 0 for the sample countries, thereby confirming poor banking sector integration in the region.

Policymakers of the region are interested in the co-movements of the interest rates to understand the cross-sector risk management and any systemic risk pressures for the regional economies. Corporates in these countries are scouting out for competitive borrowing rates to lower their cost of capital.

Rationale for examining the banking sector linkages is that the South Asian countries are at different stages of economic growth and development and this region in particular is the fastest growing region in the world and has largely increased its trade integration with the world albeit having lowest levels of intra-regional trade integration.

This is a first of a kind of studies to examine the banking sector linkages in South Asia.

The recent high food price and volatility, as well as economic recession, have reversed the last decade's progress in reducing hunger and poverty. This aim of this paper is to conduct a factor and sequential typology analysis to identify groups of countries categorized according to five measures of food security.

The recent high food price and volatility, as well as economic recession, have reversed the last decade's progress in reducing hunger and poverty. This paper conducts a factor and sequential typology analysis to identify groups of countries categorized according to five measures of food security – consumption, production, imports, distribution, and agricultural potential – by using indicators from 175 countries. The analysis first identifies five distinct food security groups, measured by the levels of nutrient intake, and then further splits these groups based on indicators of food production, trade security, and agricultural potential.

The results suggest that the terms of “developing country” or “low income country” can be inaccurate in the discussion of food security because they are too general and can actually mask the extreme heterogeneity in different aspects of food security. The results also indicate that different responses are needed by different types of food‐insecure countries to address their unique food and economic challenges.

The typology of food security and linkage between agricultural potential and food security contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of different policy interventions under a country's unique conditions.

Personality characteristics have a significant impact on the economic segment of women entrepreneurs. Due to gender biases or other factors, women entrepreneurs are fewer in India than in other countries. The purpose of this study is to identify the personality factors and challenges that affect their growth and success.

Logistic regression was used to show the impact of personality characteristics and firm performance and the moderating effect of challenges between personality characteristics and firm performance.

The findings revealed a significant impact of personality factors on firm performance, the absence of moderating effects of challenges and the presence of a mediation effect of enterprise age and enterprise location.

This research will help policymakers adopt policies and plans to reduce obstacles and challenges so that the economic conditions of women’s entrepreneurship can transform.

Women in the 21st century still live in a male-dominated patriarchal society because they face the problem of financial capital.

The results show the impact of personality traits and challenges on the firm performance of women’s entrepreneurship.

The paper presents the facts on the policy challenges and opportunities in the way forward of trade and economic co-operation in South Asia amid the coronavirus disease 2019, which comes to be the least economically integrated region worldwide. Due to tense geopolitics in South Asia, trade is heavily biased toward extra-regional markets despite of existing regional trade agreements (TAs) in the region.

Having tested the stationarity of data with structural break, the paper uses intra-regional trade in addition to other domestic economic variables as exogenous regressors in autoregressive distributed lag multivariate framework, hence raising the quality of statistical inference.

This paper highlights that intra-regional trade significantly affects the economic welfare as measured by Gross Domestic Product per capita of the people from the region, hence raising the need for higher regional trade openness. If trade barriers are overcome, all the South Asian countries will gain through effective implementation of regional TAs.

The study relies on the multivariate technique with regional trade share as the main exogenous variable. In addition, the regulatory and economic conditions of all countries are different which also tends to affect the mutual degree of trade relations.

Over the economic reasons, the manmade barriers owing to political differences are the root cause for the low intra-regional trade. Amid the pandemic, South Asian courtiers have the high time to leverage the bilateral trade for mutual benefits. India being the largest economy can play a decisive role in pushing forward the regional trade bloc – South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – for achieving its objective through multilateral engagements in a wider perspective.

The present study makes pioneer efforts to examine the dynamic linkages between regional trade and economic growth. The results provide new insight into the dynamics of benefits driven by trade interdependency.

This chapter looks at the way the forces of globalization and, contextual factors together have shaped the trajectory and outcomes of education in the South Asian region which comprises India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. External influence on the education of this region is not at all a recent phenomenon. The arrival of rulers from Central Asia, the spread of Christianity and Islam through trade connections during the first millennium and finally, the British Colonialism influenced the nature of education in the region historically. The social context, for example, the caste system or discriminatory gender norms also determined the access to education and the ways through which it developed over time.

The introduction of the 22 member countries of the 4+10+2+6 model of the Asian economy is the immediate task. Japan, Korea, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar constitute the now-famous 4+10 model. Following the principle of inclusion, Mongolia, Chinese Taipei, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka, as they belong to the regional map of the continent of Asia, are the eight remaining member countries (see Chapter 1). An overview of Asia's 22 member continental economy the AE-22, with its 3.6 billion people (2006) who have made the region of Asia their home in a land area of 20.5 million km² should be welcome. To put these figures in perspective, the AE-22 comprises only 13.7 percent of the world's land area, but is home to over half the world's population. Tables 2.1–2.4, presented below, illustrate the various figures relating to population, land area, GDP, and GDP per capita of the member nations of the AE-22.

Purpose – This empirical article aims at studying whether, how, and to what extent the South Asian countries have or are planning to move in the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) direction.

Design/methodology/approach – By applying the institutional perspectives, the article seeks to explore the roles and contributions of international financial institutions in the dissemination of public sector accounting reform ideas, particularly IPSASs ideas in South Asia. Document search represents the major method of collecting data for this study.

Findings – The present article demonstrates that the majority of the South Asian countries have envisaged the adoption of the cash basis IPSAS as a way forward in order to implement accrual accounting. International financial institutions have seemingly created a myth in the region that accrual accounting cannot be introduced without first complying with the cash basis IPSAS. However, the countries’ efforts are to a large extent directed at adapting rather than adopting IPSASs in all material respects. In relation to this, the article suggests that the acceptance of IPSASs in South Asia is better understood in terms of legitimacy.

Research limitations/implications – It is beyond the scope of this article to cover the ongoing public sector accounting reforms in South Asia other than IPSASs reforms as well as to reveal accounting changes at other levels than central government level.

Practical implications – The article raises doubts as to whether and to what extent the cash basis IPSAS will help public sector management reforms in South Asia.

Originality/value – Given the paucity of consistent research efforts on the topic in Western English language literature, the present article strives to bring ongoing IPSASs reforms in South Asia into the international arena. The article also contributes to the growing body of the comparative public sector accounting research by presenting the similarities and differences in government accounting reforms, particularly IPSASs reforms, in South Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the macroeconomic determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) for the top five South Asian economies, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, and to examine whether these factors are the same for each.

This study employs fully modified ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares estimation methods.

This study shows that South Asian economies have a number of FDI determinants in common. For example, market size and human capital are the two most common factors attracting FDI in each country (except for Nepal, which revealed a negative correlation between FDI and market size). Other factors, such as infrastructure, domestic investment, lending rates, exchange rates, inflation, financial stability/crisis, and stock turnover entered into regression with both positive and negative signs, thereby indicating that the underlying theories on FDI do not provide a clear prediction of the direction of the effect of a particular variable on FDI.

This paper studied the effects of demand-side factors on FDI. A comparative study of the supply-side factors may add further knowledge.

This paper provides evidence to show that the determinants of FDI are indeed country-specific. Thus, to design a suitable FDI policy, it would not be wise to solely rely on other economies’ FDI experiences.

This paper provides updated evidence on factors that are essential to promoting or deterring FDI in South Asian economies.