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The current study aims to evaluate the utilization of export incentives of the Indian Government. A model conceptualizing the relationships between incentive’s awareness, utilization, perception of utilization on export increase and overall performance was tested.

In total, 107 Indian exporters from the ten major exporting sectors of the Indian economy were chosen. The exporters within the sectors were chosen on the basis of the quota sampling technique. The top-most executive of the exporting house was interviewed using both structured questionnaire and in-depth method.

Results indicated that awareness impacted availing of incentives which led to the perception of enhanced export sales. Enhanced export sales led to the perception of an enhanced overall performance of the firm. Smaller firms believed more as compared to larger firms in the effect of export incentives on export sales growth. Recommendations have been provided to remove lacunae in various incentive schemes and improve utilizations.

The inability to extract firm-level financial data of the value of various schemes availed, exports sales increase, overall performance indicators is a limitation of the study.

The lack of awareness seemed to be the biggest roadblock for the Indian Government to make export incentive schemes successful. The Indian Government needs to customize the offerings of incentive schemes by incorporating the general perceptions of experts/users. Some less-used schemes can be done away with and some new schemes with less paperwork will be more useful.

There is scant literature in the Indian context on the study of export incentive schemes. There is even less empirical primary evidence available. This study is one of the first to provide a model for the utilization of export schemes and has great practical relevance for exporters and Indian Government alike.

In today's global economy, developing supply chain agility (SCA) and lean practices (LP) as resource-based view and dynamic capabilities are essential for firms to sustain their competitive advantage (CA) and enhance their operational performance (OP). The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a framework to investigate how CA is achieved through SCA and LP and how these, in turn, can enhance a firm's OP.

For data collection, the authors adopted the survey method using self-administered questionnaires. Two-source survey data were collected in two rounds (separated by a two-month lag time) from supply chain managers, operational managers and general managers. The purpose of collecting data in two rounds was to reduce common-method bias. Likert scale (1–5) was used in the questionnaire. Smart PLS 3 and SPSS 23 were used for the data analysis purpose.

SCA was found to directly and positively affect OP. LP also positively affected OP. In addition, CA fully mediated the relationship between SCA, LP and OP.

This study encourages the managers of manufacturing firms to adapt LP and their supply chains (SCs) to become agile and leverage the advantages of their implementation to improve their OP and succeed in the market.

This study is one of the first to investigate the effect of SCA and LP on OP. Furthermore, the first study examines CA's mediating impact on the relationship between SCA, LP and OP.

Manama, the capital city of the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a major port in the Arabian Gulf, a financial hub. Following the discovery of oil, Bahrain attracted skilled and unskilled expats. The Government initiated plans for urban development. Urban growth was at the expense of agricultural and desert lands in addition to reclaiming land from water bodies. Affluent Bahrainis moved to newer settlements. Low-income Bahrainis continued to live in the old quarters. Single male workers, mostly Asians, moved into dilapidated buildings in the old quarters of the city. The paper employs a mixed research approach. It uses Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems to account for urban transformations; and as well as document review, interviews, and a questionnaire to understand the process underlying these transformations and their outcomes. The results show how globalisation and neoliberalism led Manama to emerge as a global city. Cultural identity and geographic location within the Bahraini metropolitan area suggest these relationships are dynamic. Planners perceived Bahraini cities as a morphological phenomenon. They did not comprehend the complexity of the socio-cultural particularities of Bahraini cities. Revitalising the old quarters of Manama can serve as a national mega project, thus conserving its cultural identity.

The purpose of this paper is to fabricate and investigate sensing properties of a novel, flexible resistive tensile load cells based on multi-walled carbon nano-tubes (MWCNTs)/rubber composites. The use of carbon nanotubes makes it very attractive for being used as sensors.

On thin rubber substrate, MWCNTs powder was deposited and pressed at elevated temperature. Two types of samples were prepared: first sample was made by depositing MWCNTs suspension in water on the substrate, then the sample was dried at room temperature; the second sample was prepared by applying dry MWCNTs powder directly on the substrate.

The resistances of the cells made from wet MWCNT powder are much lower than those made with dry powder. It was found that the fabricated load cells were highly sensitive to the force and showed good repeatability. The resistance of the flexible resistive tensile MWCNTs/rubber composite load cells increased 1.37 times, on average, with the increasing force (up to 0.045 N). The sensitivity of the cells was equal to 142 N-1.

The device fabrication method used here provides a simple, less expensive and effective approach for preparing resistive tensile load cells.

A novel, flexible resistive tensile load cells using MWCNTs/rubber composites have been successfully fabricated and investigated. MWCNTs, in dry and wet form, have been deposited on thin rubber substrates by adopting a very simple and inexpensive technique.

This study aims at examining the effect of total quality management (TQM) practices on the financial performance ISO 9001:2008 certified manufacturing companies in Ethiopia with a mediating role of operational performance.

A cross-sectional survey research was conducted to meet the purpose. Data used for the study were solely primary data and were collected from the top and middle-level managers of different departments and senior experts working under the production/operation and quality management units of the target organizations. Data were obtained from 302 participants working in 73 companies using a self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was applied to test the hypotheses positing the structural link between TQM practices, operational performance and financial performance.

The findings show that TQM practices had a significant direct and positive effect on both operational performance and financial performance and that operational performance significantly affects financial performance. The bootstrapping output of the mediation analysis also established that operational performance partially mediates the causal link between TQM practices and financial performance.

The empirical evidence provided by the present study provides helpful insights and guidance to managers to make a good deal of investment in maintaining enhanced performance outcomes under the operations stream that eventually would lead to better financial outcome.

Being one of the first attempts to empirically examine the structural linkages among TQM practices, operational performance and financial performance in Ethiopian manufacturing organizations, this paper provides strategic insights on the importance of implementing TQM practices in a holistic manner for the achievement of better performance outcomes.

In this chapter, I will first conceptualize social movement theory before examining the importance of student movements and student activism. I then will link social movement theory to the university in Egypt. Next, I will contextualize university activism by describing the authoritarian structures of Egypt’s university system. Then, using secondary data sources, I will characterize university activism during the three transitional political periods (under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SACF), under President Morsi, and after the ousting of Morsi), and conclude with a discussion on the implications of student activism on future university reform.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance.

It is based on 53 African countries for the period 1998–2012 and interactive generalised method of moments is employed. Six governance indicators from the World Bank and two terrorism variables are used, namely, domestic and transnational terrorism dynamics.

The following main findings are established. There is a negative net effect on governance (regulation quality and corruption-control) when inclusive human development is used to reduce terrorism. There is a positive net impact on governance (voice and accountability and rule of law) when military expenditure is used to reduce domestic terrorism.

The authors have complemented the sparse literature on the use of policy variables to mitigate the effect of policy syndromes on macroeconomic outcomes.

The objective of this research is to identify the economic, demographic, sanitary and even cultural factors which explain the variability in the cross-section of returns in different markets globally during the first weeks after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Building on the event study methodology and using seemingly unrelated equations, the authors created several indicators on the impact of the pandemic in 75 different markets. Then, and using cross-sectional regressions robust to heteroscedasticity and using an algorithm to select independent variables from more than 30 factors, the authors determine which factors were behind the different stock market reactions to the pandemic.

Higher currency depreciation, inflation, interest rate or government deficit led to higher returns, while higher life expectancy, ageing population, GDP per capita or health spending led to the opposite effect. However, the positive effect of competitiveness and the negative effect of income inequality stand out for their statistical and economic significance.

This research provides a global view of investors' reaction to an extreme and unique event. Using a sample of 75 capital markets and testing the relevance of more than 30 variables from all categories, it is, to the authors' knowledge, the largest and most ambitious study of its kind.

Total quality management practices have been embraced by many quality-oriented firms around the world in order to improve performance in terms of quality, productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of TQM practices on various performance indicators specifically in the Indian manufacturing context. This paper focuses on developing an integrated model encompassing significant structural relations showing the linkage between TQM practices and multiple performance indicators – quality performance, customer satisfaction level, operating performance, employee performance, innovation performance, society results and financial performance. Apart from analyzing the direct relationship between constructs, the main purpose of this work is also to identify all the possible mediation effects of performance indicators on others using structural equation modeling (SEM).

An in-depth literature review was conducted to identify the key practices for the successful implementation of TQM in an organization as well as to explore TQM-performance effects. As a result, four TQM practices and seven performance indicators were identified. The data were collected from 260 Indian manufacturing organizations. After confirming the reliability and validity using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the proposed hypotheses were tested using SEM.

Through testing the proposed hypothesized structural model, the direct and indirect effects of TQM practices have been examined. Moreover, this work developed an integrated model showing the interrelationships between TQM practices and performance indicators identified. The findings gave an insight that the effective implementation of TQM practices assists in reaping benefits in the every facet of an organization. By implementing these practices effectively, managers can expect to realize improvement in all these performance areas.

This study is subject to certain limitations. Even if all variables were found to be reliable, valid and satisfactory non-response bias test results, the remote possibility of bias in the data might not be fully ruled out. There is a probability of occurrence of common method variance and common method bias, since the data for both dependent and independent variables were collected from the same respondents in the organization. Additionally data on performance indicators were based on the respondent’s assessment and awareness only. The mediating relationship between individual TQM practice and performance indicators can be investigated in future studies. Since society results are a necessity in future, the direct and indirect practices focusing toward this can be explored. In addition, there is a research scope to identify the moderating effect of contextual factors such as degree of TQM implementation, scope of operation and type of organization.

The findings of the research offer some potentially valuable insights into the relevance of TQM practices and its strong linkage on various performance indicators, through which the overall organization performance can be enhanced. By implementing these practices effectively, managers can expect to realize improvement in all these performance areas. Hence, the managers can adopt this approach to assess their organization’s level in the quality path and as a guideline in implementing TQM practices. They can also measure the impacts of TQM practices on multiple performance measures in order to evaluate their TQM initiatives. Especially the deployment of quality culture is a requisite to excel in the every facet of performance. The positive relationship between TQM practices and various performance indicators can motivate the managers to allocate resources in time, effort and capital for TQM implementation in pursuing quality, leading to customer retention and competitiveness. The findings of the study strongly suggest the need for the holistic implementation of TQM practices for the survival of the organization.

While there is a considerable volume of researches carried out to investigate the linkage between TQM and organization’s performance across the globe, still little is evidenced regarding the mediating effect of performance indicators on others, especially in the Indian manufacturing context. The present paper attempts to extend and add knowledge to this line of research and to bridge the gap and provide sufficient empirical evidence specifically in the Indian scenario. Thereby helps the organization to follow a guideline to improve the overall performance.