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The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of deviation from the target investment in working capital (WC) (measured by net trade cycle (NTC)) on the profitability (measured by gross operating income (GOI) and net operating income (NOI)) of the listed non-financial Indian firms.

The study is based on the data collected on NTC, GOI, NOI and other variables pertaining to 242 listed non-financial Indian firms that form part of the Bombay Stock exchange 500 Index for the period 2012–2017 (1,452 firm-year observations). Following Banos-Caballero et al. (2010), the authors use a firm fixed effect regression as the benchmark regression for finding out the determinants of NTC of the sample firms. Furthermore, this study explores the impact of deviation (above and below target) from the target investments in WC on the firm profitability (GOI and NOI) employing fixed effect regression.

The result of this study reveals that Indian firms maintain a target NTC and try to converge in case of any deviations to it. Furthermore, the profitability of the sample firms was observed to be influenced by the deviation from the target NTC irrespective of whether the deviation was above or below the target investment level in WC.

This study highlights the importance of good WC management for firms due to the negative impact of the over- and under-investments in WC and contributes to the existing body of knowledge by suggesting that managers should keep close to the target WC and not deviate from this in order to maximize the firms’ profitability.

To the best of the knowledge of the researchers, this is perhaps the first study to examine the impact of firms’ deviation from their target investment in WC on the profitability for non-financial firms listed and operating in India.

The purpose of this study is to introduce working capital efficiency multiplier (WCEM) as a direct profitability measure of working capital management. The existing accounting measures in the literature establish an indirect approach to study the relationship between working capital efficiency and profitability of the firms.

Using the help of a set of companies from CMIE Prowess database, the study introduces WCEM as a direct profitability measure of working capital efficiency.

In this study, a new direct measure of working capital efficiency is introduced which is multiplicative in nature. WCEM is a product of three components, namely, WACC, ratio of the sum of trade receivables and inventories to trade payables and ratio of net working capital (NWC) to net sales.

The importance of direct measure like WCEM could be enormous in performance evaluation of a firm. It can be used as an indicator for choosing a suitable investment opportunity by an investor. This is due to the fact that the firm that is highly efficient in managing working capital is less exposed to liquidity risk. At the same time, the firm is less dependent on external financing. Therefore, such firms eventually create more value for their shareholders. Another indication that WCEM provides is to gauge the bargaining power of the firm and its competitive position in the market. Lower WCEM indicates higher bargaining power of a firm across the value chain, and its superior position relative to its competitors.

Most of the studies on WCM are of the empirical type and there is a complete dearth on theoretical framework. Researchers hereafter can consider WCEM as one of the financial performance variables in place of the existing measures such as return on asset (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), return on equity (ROE), gross operating income (GOI) and net operating income (NOI) and thereby can contribute new empirical insights through their research outcomes.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the efficiency of working capital management (WCM) on the performance of a sample of Indian companies and explore how the nature of the firm's business influences the significance and direction of this impact.

The data for this study were collected for the period of 2012–2018 for 414 non-financial firms listed on the Bombay Stock exchange. Fixed-effect regression models were run by taking Tobin's Q and return on equity (ROE) as dependent variables, and net trade cycle (NTC) and its components as explanatory variables in the presence of liquidity, leverage, size, age and growth as control variables. Sample firms were segregated into manufacturing, trading and service groups, and regression models were used for all the groups to understand the effect of the nature of a firm's business.

WCM efficiency has a significant impact on the performance of the sample firms. Non-financial Indian firms deliver better financial performance by maintaining lower NTC. Like NTC, its components also impact firm value and profitability. The results report that the significance of the relationship varies depending upon the nature of the firm's business.

The previous research studies had not used a sample of large number of Indian firms. Unlike previous studies, this study reports the influence of the nature of business on the relationship between WCM and firm performance. Further, this paper also examines how the individual components of working capital influence the performance of Indian firms.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the influence of independent directors (non-executive directors) on the market risks of the Indian banks.

This paper is based on the data collected over a period of seven years (2009-2016) for a set of 29 Indian banks that are the constituents of the National Stock Exchange 500 Index. The data for independent directors of the sample banks are extracted from the annual reports of the banks, whereas the data relating to the dependent and control variables are compiled from the Ace equity and the Reserve Bank of India databases. The study uses the panel data method for analysis of the collected data for the sample banks.

This study concludes that independent directors increase the market risks for Indian banks (measured through equity beta).

This is, perhaps, the first paper to look into the impact of independent directors on the market risks of Indian banks. The policymakers and banks may need to be aware of the risk implications of the findings of the study in the Indian context, such that the independent directors enable their banks in reducing the market risks.

This paper aims to investigate how firms growing at a high average rate over a period differ in their working capital management (WCM) efficiency from those growing at a low rate during the same period. It also examines how WCM efficiency impacts firms’ financial performance and how firms’ growth influences this relationship.

The authors have analyzed the difference in WCM efficiency of a sample of 431 nonfinancial firms during 2012 to 2019 by segregating them into above median growth (AMG) and below median growth (BMG) firms. The authors have used fixed effect regression to investigate the impact of cash conversion cycle, inventory days, accounts receivable days and accounts payable days on the financial performance and the effect of growth on this relationship.

This study finds that AMG firms manage their working capital significantly more efficiently than BMG firms. It also reports that the WCM efficiency impacts the profitability and valuation of firms positively; however, this relationship is more intense for firms growing at a high rate than for those growing at a low rate.

This research should contribute to the less researched area of WCM by finding the effect of growth on the relationship between WCM efficiency and performance. The evidence found in this study may be of interest for industry practitioners and managers in identifying WCM efficiency as an important driver for the financial performance of their firms.

The article aims to share the viewpoint of the author on the impact of the innovative teaching pedagogy adopted by him in teaching the accounting courses on the satisfaction of the participants in a premier Indian Business School.

The experiment was carried over by introducing an innovative teaching approach by the author among the first-year participants of the Management Program. At the end of the experiment, the participants were asked to rate the teaching approach on a five-point scale besides offering the qualitative feedback on the impact of the experiment on their learning outcomes.

The paper concludes that the participants were highly satisfied with the teaching approach adopted by the author.

The study contributes to the theory and practitioners on accounting education in many ways. First, it is offering evidence on the impact of teaching pedagogy on the satisfaction of the participants of the accounting courses of an emerging market business school. Second, the accounting educators of the emerging countries may replicate the experiment in their institutes. Third, the educators of other courses in the business schools may make an effort to measure the impact of the teaching approach on the feedback of their learners.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the impact of board size on the accounting returns and asset quality of Indian banks.

This paper uses ordinary least squares regression, robust regression and panel data methods for estimation, based on data collected for a sample of 29 Indian banks that are listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and form part of the NSE-500 index over a period of eight financial years 2009-2016. The data pertaining to the board size of the sample banks is collected from the annual reports of banks, whereas the data relating to return on assets (ROA) and ratio of the gross non-performing assets to total assets and control variables (bank age and bank size) is extracted from ACE Equity database.

This paper concludes that the size of the governing board has a positive impact on the accounting returns (measured through ROA) of the Indian banks. Further, board size is observed to be insignificant in determining the asset quality of Indian banks.

This paper contributes to the literature and practitioners in a number of ways. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on the impact of board size on the accounting returns and asset quality of Indian banks. The findings of the study contribute new theoretical insights to the body of knowledge on the influence of the size of the board, which may be useful for future researchers. Second, banks may enhance their financial performance by taking cognizance of the findings of this study. Finally, equity investors may make use of the findings of this article in deciding on whether to invest in a bank’s stock/lend to the bank based on board size of the bank.

This paper aims to explore the consumers’ and service-providers’ perspectives on the factors influencing adoption of e-services in rural India. The purpose is to enable better diffusion of technology for societal development in this digital era.

Using qualitative-based multiple-participant interviews, this study explores the factors affecting e-service adoption from two different perspectives. While interviews were conducted in five villages with 14 respondents to find out the perspectives of the consumers, this study also explores the service-providers’ perspectives through interviews conducted among 11 managerial respondents.

Catering to personal needs, improving perceived usefulness, value-added options, data analytics for better understanding customers and improving service delivery of the e-service are the major factors identified by the service-providers. The study also concludes that convenience, compatibility, societal influence and availability of value-added addition of the e-service are decisive in e-service adoption from the perspectives of the consumers.

The first limitation of this research is that there can be common method bias. Second, there were overlapping themes.

This study can help researchers working on the adoption of e-services in under-developed/developing countries. The findings of this study may help industries to focus on the determinants while designing the e-services for improving their rate of adoption.

This study will help in better diffusion of e-services in rural areas, which in turn will help in societal development in this digital era.

The focus is on societal development through the adoption of e-services in rural areas. To the best of the knowledge of the researchers, no qualitative study has been performed to capture the perspectives of both the service-providers and the consumers on the adoption of e-services in India.

This paper aims to study the comparison between a response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) in the modelling and prediction of surface roughness during endmilling of glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites.

Aiming to achieve this goal, several milling experiments were performed with polycrystalline diamond inserts at different machining parameters, namely, feed rate, cutting speed, depth of cut and fibre orientation angle. Mathematical model is created using central composite face-centred second-order in RSM and the adequacy of the model was verified using analysis of variance. ANN model is created using the back propagation algorithm.

With regard to the machining test, it was observed that feed rate is the dominant parameter that affects the surface roughness, followed by the fibre orientation. The comparison results show that models provide accurate prediction of surface roughness in which ANN performs better than RSM.

The data predicted from ANN are very nearer to experimental results compared to RSM; therefore, this ANN model can be used to determine the surface roughness for various fibre-reinforced polymer composites and also for various machining parameters.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of working capital efficiency (WCE) and its components on the composite financial performance of a sample of Indian firms.

Our sample includes 796 non-financial listed firms from 2015–16 to 2021–22. Sample firms’ profitability, liquidity, solvency, cash flow management, and financial and operational leverage have been used to classify them into companies with high composite financial performance (HCFP) and with low composite financial performance (LCFP) by using K-Means Clustering technique. A composite financial performance score (CFPS) of 1 has been assigned to HCFP and 0 to LCFP. We have used logistic regression models with fixed effect to estimate the effect of cash conversion cycle (CCC) and its components, i.e. inventory days, accounts receivable days and accounts payable days on CFPS in the presence of control variables such as growth, leverage, firm size, and age.

The study finds that CCC and inventory days are inversely associated with CFPS. This finding shows that the firms’ WCE leads to superior financial performance on a composite basis.

The research findings are based on samples drawn from the population of the listed Indian non-financial companies. Since the operation, financial practices, working capital policies, and management styles of firms vary greatly among nations, the results of this study should be extended to firms in other countries after taking into account the degree of resemblance to the sample firms.

The findings of this study hold significant value for industry practitioners, as they provide guidance in determining the optimal allocation of funds for working capital and devising strategies for effectively managing inventory levels, credit sales, and vendor payments in order to increase the overall value of the company. This study aims to help investors in building their investment portfolios by identifying companies with superior composite financial performance. Investors can enhance the construction of their investment portfolios by strategically selecting companies that demonstrate superior overall performance.

The results of our study will help companies improve their WCM strategies to enhance their overall value, and their significance increases manifold during economic downturns. Business firms that perform well by efficiently managing their working capital have a multiplier effect on the economy and society at large in the form of GDP contribution, labor income, taxes to the government, investment in capital assets, and payments to suppliers.

To understand the impact of WCE on firms’ performance, the extant working capital literature focuses on some specific characteristics such as profitability, valuation, solvency, and liquidity. The limitation of employing a single parameter is its inability to present the comprehensive performance evaluation of firms. This study is among the earliest studies that focus on the holistic evaluation of WCE's impact on the composite performance of a company.