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This paper aims to explore the drivers and barriers in the transition of the social responsibility agenda of large, emerging economy (EE) firms from non-strategic philanthropy to strategic corporate sustainability. This study also suggests a strategy that such firms may adopt for obtaining the desired corporate social responsibility (CSR) manifestation.

The paper follows an in-depth case study approach of a large, family-managed Indian firm in a pollutant industry – Sudarshan Chemicals. The article is based on direct observation and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, namely, senior management, employees and the local community members (villagers) in the company’s plant in Maharashtra.

The study exposes a lack of alignment between firm size (large) and firm CSR manifestation (small) as the key challenge that EE firms face in transforming their social responsibility agenda. Stuck in the mould of non-strategic corporate philanthropy, even large EE companies are not exposed to the three essential elements of the Western conceptualization of CSR, namely, stakeholder pressure, environmental concerns and integration into core business. Sudarshan’s small-firm CSR orientation can be seen as symptomatic of most Indian companies which are family-led, family-managed businesses.

Faced with strong drivers to incorporate CSR, EE firms can strategize to leap-frog from philanthropy to corporate sustainability through obtaining the desired CSR manifestation.

The significance of this paper lies in the “on the ground”, detailed and empirical study of the drivers and challenges faced by a large Indian company, as it proactively sought to transition from the philanthropy orientation towards strategic CSR/sustainability. The paper identifies the major challenge large, Indian corporates are likely to face going forward, as they respond to drivers in a globalized business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to fabricate an ethanol sensor which has bio-friendly and eco-friendly properties compared to the commercially available ethanol sensors.

This paper describes the construction of a highly sensitive ethanol sensor with low ppm level detection at room temperature by integrating three techniques. The first deals with the formation of organic/inorganic p-n heterojunction. Second, tuning of structural parameters such as length, diameter and density of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanostructure was achieved through introduction of the Fe dopant into a pure ZnO seed layer. Furthermore, ultra-violet (UV) light photoactivation approach was used for enhancing the sensing performance of the fabricated sensors. Four different sensors were fabricated by combing the above approaches. The structural, morphological, optical and material compositions were characterized using different characterization techniques. Sensing behavior of the fabricated sensors toward ethanol was experimented at room temperature with and without UV illumination combined with stability studies. It was observed that all the fabricated sensors showed enhanced sensing performance for 10 ppm of ethanol. In specific, FNZ (Fe-doped ZnO seeded Ni-doped Zn nanorods) sensor exhibited a higher response at 2.2 and 13.5 s for 5 ppm and 100 ppm of ethanol with UV light illumination at room temperature, respectively. The photoactivated FNZ sensor showed quick response and speedy recovery at 18 and 30 s, respectively, for 100 ppm ethanol.

In this study, the authors have experimentally analyzed the effect of Fe (in ZnO seed layer and ZnO NRs) and Ni (in ZnO NRs) dopants in the room temperature sensing performance (with and without UV light) of the fabricated ethanol sensors. Important sensing parameters like sensitivity, recovery and response time of all the fabricated sensors are reported.

The Fe doped ZnO seeded Ni doped Zn nanorods (FNZ sample) showed a higher response at 2.2 s and 13.5 s for very low 5 ppm and 10 ppm of ethanol at room temperature under UV light illumination when compared to the other fabricated sensors in this paper. Similarly, this sensor also had quick response (18 s) and speedy recovery (30 s) for 100 ppm ethanol.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to empirically examine the impact of disaggregate, eco-efficiency-based measures of corporate environmental performance (CEP) on corporate financial performance (CFP) of Indian companies. Further, recent theories contending a bidirectional causality between them is also explored.

Secondary data of 224 Indian S&P 500 companies from 2002 to 2011 are used to run panel data regression models for examining the impact of CEP measures on accounting-based CFP measures.

The empirical results are statistically significant and provide evidence for a positive association of eco-efficiency-based CEP metrics on CFP metrics, thereby supporting Porter's win–win hypothesis. Further, the results evidence a positive bi-directional causality between CEP and CFP for one period time lag signalling possibility of mutual reinforcement in CEP–CFP relationship.

The study has used data for the period 2002–2011 and eco-efficiency metrics – energy, water and material efficiencies due to availability.

The results have implications to both corporate managers as well as policymakers across all industries for emphasizing on eco-efficiency-based (proactive) environmental sustainability initiatives to enhance both financial and environmental bottom lines.

The study contributes to scarce empirical literature analysing the impact of CEP on financial performance. To the best of authors's knowledge, event studies, portfolio studies and perceptual data-based empirical studies exist in India. This study is unique in that it examines long run effect of eco-efficiency-based CEP metrics which is pertinent in a rapidly growing emerging market – India, where, eco-efficiency is considered quintessential for sustainable development.

Entrepreneurs may wish to be selective about which relatives to include or exclude in their businesses. For example, their child might be inept but their niece might be outstanding. What aspects of kinship systems affect their ability to make these sorts of choices? What enables them to bend their ties of kinship and marriage to the interests of their business? Most broadly, what dimensions of kinship lend themselves to tactical or instrumental actions? This question is sweeping just as my meaning of “entrepreneurs” is very broad: those who take actions with the goal of growing their capital (Stewart, 1991). This capital may take the form of newly started ventures, dynastic firms, or even in precapitalist systems other social forms, for example, rural estates farmed by followers.

This study uses a meta-analysis approach to analyse the impact of applying corporate green accounting practices as vital sustainable development tools on firm performance. This study aims to examine the moderating effects of country-specific variables and characteristics on the association between corporate green accounting and firm performance.

Three databases were used for a meta-analysis of 68 independent studies involving 19,625 subjects conducted over 25 years from 1996 to 2020.

The results show that corporate green accounting positively affects firm performance, but country-specific variables do not moderate this association. The positive association between corporate green accounting and firm performance was enhanced when it was measured in terms of environmental costs. Subgroup analyses revealed that study characteristics are significant source of heterogeneity in the corporate green accounting indicators-firm performance association.

The findings suggest that firms should strategise to integrate environmental costs into their respective financial accounting frameworks, which would help managers justify the contribution of their firms towards environmental protection.

Accessing accurate and timely information on corporate environmental functioning can assist national policymakers in framing appropriate legislation on environmental protection and sustainable development.

Although meta-analysis has been used previously in accounting research (Guthrie and Murthy, 2009; Alcouffe et al., 2019), to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a meta-analytical technique to examine the impact of corporate green accounting on firm performance.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the corporate governance practices in the UK. The authors adopt a case study approach and use content analysis, using internal and external media releases as well as annual reports to analyse the impact of the pandemic on governance practices.

The research design is qualitative in nature and adopts a case study approach. HSBC, an international bank, is used as the case study and a content analysis of internal and external information released after the COVID-19 outbreak is used. Themes arising from the analysis are discussed and recommendations are made.

Results from the thematic analysis show that firms must be resilient in difficult times, follow sustainable practices and are attentive to the well-being of their employees. Firms must address the adequacy of IT Infrastructure and assess the IT related risks during these times.

The pandemic crisis triggered unprecedented changes in the manner the firms are governed and managed. The recommendations made by the study have practical implications for firms who can adopt them to be make the business resilient and sustainable.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of the pandemic and analyse firms’ responses to the crisis in the corporate governance context. This study contributes to the corporate governance literature by providing insights of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Provides a review of the position of women in management in a number of countries. Describes how in almost all countries, management positions are dominated by men. Concludes that, although many similarities were found in women’s work experience across cultures, cultural factors accounted for the unique experiences of women in a given country.

This work shows the results of a systematic literature review on biomedical text mining. The purpose of this study is to identify the different text mining approaches used in different application areas of the biomedical domain, the common tools used and the challenges of biomedical text mining as compared to generic text mining algorithms. This study will be of value to biomedical researchers by allowing them to correlate text mining approaches to specific biomedical application areas. Implications for future research are also discussed.

The review was conducted following the principles of the Kitchenham method. A number of research questions were first formulated, followed by the definition of the search strategy. The papers were then selected based on a list of assessment criteria. Each of the papers were analyzed and information relevant to the research questions were extracted.

It was found that researchers have mostly harnessed data sources such as electronic health records, biomedical literature, social media and health-related forums. The most common text mining technique was natural language processing using tools such as MetaMap and Unstructured Information Management Architecture, alongside the use of medical terminologies such as Unified Medical Language System. The main application area was the detection of adverse drug events. Challenges identified included the need to deal with huge amounts of text, the heterogeneity of the different data sources, the duality of meaning of words in biomedical text and the amount of noise introduced mainly from social media and health-related forums.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, other reviews in this area have focused on either specific techniques, specific application areas or specific data sources. The results of this review will help researchers to correlate most relevant and recent advances in text mining approaches to specific biomedical application areas by providing an up-to-date and holistic view of work done in this research area. The use of emerging text mining techniques has great potential to spur the development of innovative applications, thus considerably impacting on the advancement of biomedical research.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of food additives, caffeine and total sugars in locally manufactured beverages in Mauritius and ascertain their compliance with national and international norms.

In total, 48 beverages: 21 soft drinks, 14 ice teas, 5 fruit drinks, 5 nonalcoholic sparkling drinks and 3 tonic waters were analysed for the level of sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K and saccharin), preservatives (benzoic and sorbic acid), colours (tartrazine, sunset yellow, quinoline yellow, allura red, amaranth, ponceau 4R, carmoisine, erythrosine, brilliant blue, green S and patent blue), citric acid, caffeine and total sugars. High-performance liquid chromatography methods used to quantify the levels of total sugars, caffeine and additives were validated against parameters such as linearity, recovery, accuracy, precision and limit of quantification.

Out of 48 beverages, 13 contained at least one sweetener. The most frequently used sweeteners were acesulfame K and aspartame. Benzoic acid was present in 27 samples (42.32–168.03 mg/L). Sorbic acid was present in 14 beverages (13.01–180.38 mg/L). Citric acid (0.7–4 g/L) was present in all the 48 beverages, while caffeine was present in 20 samples in the range of 14.01–129.42 mg/L. Nine samples contained at least one artificial colour and the most frequently used colours were tartrazine, sunset yellow, brilliant blue and carmoisine. The average level of total sugars present in the beverages was 10 g/100 ml. The validation parameters obtained showed evidence for method suitability.

Beverages sold by individuals on the street, small restaurants and markets were not analysed.

This study provides an overview of the chemical composition of soft drinks and their compliance with Food Regulations. It also paves the way to investigate weaknesses, knowledge, attitudes and practices of local manufacturers, which leads to non-adherence to Regulations regarding food additives.