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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reflect on the value of e-mails for recruiting and interviewing in a specific context in qualitative research, and second, to reflect on the benefits of the reflexive practice in sharing the research experience for gaining a deeper understanding of the field. The purpose is to raise points for consideration in research design for the e-mail method in this type of study.

The paper draws on reflexivity and integrates fieldwork experiences to present the shared reflections and insights into the enabling and constraining aspects of using e-mail interviews with hard-to-access participants such as senior executives of international businesses.

Closer consideration needs to be given to the use of e-mail interviewing in the research design for such studies, especially regarding culturally held preconceptions about the research environment and how the inevitable challenges in engaging in cross-border research may be resolved.

The paper yields unanticipated insights into the potential of e-mail interviewing for studies that require responses from key informants who are otherwise unlikely to participate in the research. The paper brings greater transparency to researchers regarding the realities of using the method in this context, and thus, it expands the hitherto small repertoire of such studies in qualitative international business research. The contribution also lies in the value of deliberately creating a space for reflexive conversations that open the possibility of more profound understandings in qualitative research.

This paper examines the ethical tensions in social entrepreneurship (SE) research by focusing on the ethical consequences of obtaining ethics approval in a university in the developed world while executing fieldwork for data collection in a developing country. It aims to offer insight into ethical research practice to protect vulnerable research participants from being further silenced and marginalised by the dominant social order that developed world universities embody.

The ethical tensions are described through narratives drawn from a Filipino Ph.D. candidate's experience. The candidate obtained ethics approval from the university in New Zealand and collected interview data from social enterprise beneficiaries in the Philippines. A critical reflexive lens carves a space for a deepened understanding of these ethical tensions.

This paper offers critical insights into ethical SE research involving participants from vulnerable communities. These insights suggest that closer consideration needs to be given to contextual sensitivity, particularly on the part of researchers and research ethics committees, in crafting ethical data collection protocols. Findings also show how it is important for the indigenous researcher to filter ethical protocols through their local knowledge.

The paper uses critical reflexivity to examine ethical tensions in SE research involving vulnerable beneficiaries. It offers insights into ethical research procedures and practices that engender mindfulness of the contextual and relational aspects of doing SE research in the developing world.

This paper aims to characterise the “social” in social entrepreneurship (SE) by examining social value creation (SVC) from the perspective of vulnerable beneficiaries within a developing country context. It uses the lens of care ethics to garner insights into SVC based on what beneficiaries care about in their work engagement with social enterprises.

The exploratory paper implements a multiple case study approach to theory building, which considers the rich, real-life developing country context wherein much SVC occurs. Data collection primarily uses in-depth interviews with beneficiaries in accordance with socially sensitive research methodologies involving vulnerable participants.

The findings offer an ethical view of SVC that is premised on what is of value to beneficiaries in SE. The authors find that SVC is a multi-dimensional and reciprocal process that is shaped as beneficiaries work for social enterprises. The reciprocal nature of the process engenders beneficiary altruism, which may heighten vulnerability and lead to the dark side of SE.

Many of the problems SE tries to address are situated in developing countries. The findings may enable social entrepreneurs, policymakers and social enterprise organisations to develop more responsive and more impactful solutions to social problems in developing countries. They further suggest that beneficiaries must not be looked upon merely as passive recipients of value but as active participants in the SVC process.

This paper contributes to critical SE discourse by giving voice to beneficiaries in SE.

Quality education can be provided to underprivileged section in developing economies by the collaborative effort of private-paid schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore and highlight the model which can be adopted by a private school in imparting education to girls coming from lower income strata. It also highlights how synergies could be attained by sharing of resources in terms of infrastructure and utilities.

Data are gathered through multiple sources via literature and interviews with variety of people including CEO, principal and students. Data on profile of students were provided by the school.

Achieving quality education for girls of low-income strata is possible by efficiently utilizing the resources of a private-paid school. The school operates in second shift when the infrastructure is lying idle without any use. The mammoth cost of building a school can be saved and funds can be diverted for running it. Successful experiments like Prerna shows very distinctively how well-defined intervention strategies and innovation to methodologies using existing infrastructure can provide meaningful access to education not only to girls but to all.

Can the model be adopted by government of developing economies by making it compulsory for every private-paid school.

Findings confirm that quality education to underprivileged girls is a reality at a minimum possible cost.

A learned and well-informed girl is in a better position to take life decisions. In a country like India, where cost act as a deterrent to girl child education this model provides a solution to an extent, bringing relevance of education in their lives by right empowerment approach through focused discussions in the form of critical dialogues on sensitive issues related to marriage, sexual abuse, domestic violence, health and others.

This paper provides case-based evidence of how a successful private-paid school can participate in bringing a paradigm shift in providing quality education to underprivileged girls. It helps in understanding dynamics of sustaining such project.

This paper examines how some specific psychological characteristics and stress levels of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) key decision-makers (founders/managers) (KDMs) influence firm goal attainment based on two firm aspiration types.

This study hypothesizes that perceived resilience, social skills (self-promotion, ingratiation, expressiveness, social adaptability), and stress of SME KDMs will differently influence firm performance goal achievement based on firm historical versus social aspirations. IBM AMOS v27 is used to test these hypotheses on survey data of 267 Australian SME KDMs.

The study reveals that KDMs’ perceived resilience, social skills and stress differentially impact the achievement of firm performance goals when selecting firm-level historical and social aspirations. Resilience and some specific social skills can even have a detrimental effect on achieving firm goals when applying historical and social aspirations. Historical aspirations are based on the firm’s performance history, while social aspirations are based on the performance of a reference group of competitor firms. The differences in the relationship between these characteristics and the two aspiration types are also explained. Furthermore, the study reveals the important role of perceived stress levels in achieving firm performance goals, using both aspiration types.

This study is the first to investigate how the perceived use of some specific psychological characteristics of SME KDMs influence the ability to meet firm performance goals based on the discretionary use of historical and social aspirations and the relationship between these aspiration types. In this context, the paper explains the reasons for the differences and similarities in their use. Thus, this study provides an important empirical contribution to research on the emergent domain of micro-foundational SME goals.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted all economies, businesses and societies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and present a case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of its relevance amidst the turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The authors use a directed content analysis approach to retrieve relevant information from news articles using Thomson Reuters’ Eikon^® and Bloomberg^® databases. Based on stakeholder theory, the authors evaluate some of the CSR initiatives undertaken by organizations around the world. The authors then undertake a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses standard to provide possible implications for organizations.

The findings suggest that in response to the pandemic, corporations from both developed and developing countries have been pursuing CSR measures for stakeholder engagement. The systematic literature review signals positive outcomes that companies might expect at the organizational level. The paper concludes by suggesting research propositions that indicate effective CSR at a time of crisis like COVID-19 encourages stakeholder partnerships and helps to gain a competitive advantage.

The authors present an overview of the CSR responses taken by firms globally in response to the pandemic by way of stakeholder engagement. The authors analyze the stakeholders targeted through such initiatives and report possible implications based on the extant literature. The findings of the study can be used to understand the various transitions that happen in an unprecedented situation like COVID-19 at all levels of business and society.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamics of capital structure for businesses in China and India. Whether and how they adjust their capital structures to witness the trade-off behaviour in the light of different macro-level factors.

Firms listed on the National Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange over the period of 2009-2018 are used for the study. System generalized method of moments proposed by Blundell and Bond (1998) is deployed due to the use of dynamic short panel data.

Indian firms revert to their target leverage ratios at a higher rate as compared to Chinese firms (30 and 20 per cent, respectively). Further, the inflation rate, bond market and stock market development are significant factors impacting leverage in the case of India, whereas bond market development significantly impacts leverage in the case of China. These results are robust across various definitions of leverage and other firm and institutional control variables.

This study has implications for various stakeholders. The study highlights that development in financial markets and economy impact the financing decisions and should be a cause for concern for the financial managers and policymakers. Thus, managers can use the findings of the study if they desire to maintain their target capital structures for better firm valuation and the policymakers can support them in achieving the same. Even, the investors can make informed investment decisions considering macro-level factors impacting firms’ financing choices.

It is believed to be the first piece of research effort to consider the novel paradigm of the macro-level factors impacting the target leverage to estimate the adjustment speed. Secondly, it is a pioneering study, which attempts to compare the trade-off behaviour of the top two emerging economies of the world.

The present study aims to analyse the literature on capital structure theories for the last 21 years to identify the existing gaps and themes for prospective researchers in this domain.

A sample of 183 articles published from 1999 to 2019 in the Scopus database using “capital structure theory” and “leverage” as keywords was analysed on various basis. A citation analysis was also performed to recognize impactful authors and papers.

The findings revealed that though the capital structure research studies were highly focussed on developed economies, with time, research studies in developing markets are increasing. Further, the capital structure research studies were largely conducted by considering all the industries together, whereas the focus on a particular industrial sector was meagre. Almost all the studies were empirical, thus providing scope for primary research. Various forms of regression were popular econometric techniques used in this area of late. This review highlighted the dominance of trade-off theory to elucidate the capital structure of firms, irrespective of the status of the economy. The comprehensive review uncovered the existing gaps and identified major themes evolving in the capital structure domain.

Unlike a traditional review paper, this study classifies sample articles based on several parameters and depicts a graphical presentation of the findings to cover research gaps, avenues, evolving themes, key aspects, impactful authors and their papers, etc. in the capital structure domain. It provides ready-made information available for prospective research studies in this field.

This study aims to attempt to construct a new mathematical model of the generalized thermoelasiticity theory based on the memory-dependent derivative (MDD) considering three-phase-lag effects. The governing equations of the problem associated with kernel function and time delay are illustrated in the form of vector matrix differential equations. Implementing Laplace and Fourier transform tools, the problem is sorted out analytically by an eigenvalue approach method. The inversion of Laplace and Fourier transforms are executed, incorporating series expansion procedures. Displacement component, temperature and stress distributions are obtained numerically and illustrated graphically and compared with the existing literature.

This study is to analyze the influence of MDD of three-phase-lag heat conduction interaction in an isotropic semi-infinite medium. The current model has been connected to generalize two-dimensional (2D) thermoelasticity problem. The governing equations are shown in vector matrix form of differential equation concerning Laplace-transformed domain and solved by using the eigenvalue technique. The combined Laplace Fourier transform is applied to find the analytical interpretations of temperature, stresses, displacement for silicon material in a non-dimensional form. Inverse Laplace transform has been found by applying Fourier series expansion techniques introduced by Honig and Hirdes (1984) after performing the inverse Fourier transform.

The main conclusion of this current study is to demonstrate an innovative generalized concept for heat conducting Fourier’s law associated with moderation of time parameter, time delay variable and kernel function by applying the MDDs. However, an important role is played by the time delay parameter to characterize the behavioral patterns of the physical field variables. Further, a new categorization for materials may be created rendering to this new idea along MDD for the time delay variables to develop a new measure of its potential to regulate heat in the medium.

Generalized thermoelasticity is hastily undergoing modification day-by-day from basic thermoelasticity. It has been progressed to get over from the limitations of fundamental thermoelasticity, for instance, infinite velocity components of thermoelasticity interference, in the adequate thermoelastic response of a solid to short laser pulses and deprived illustrations of thermoelastic performance at low temperature. In the past few decades, the fractional calculus is used to change numerous existing models of physical procedure, and its applications are used in various fields of physics, continuum mechanics, fluid mechanics, biology, viscoelasticity, biophysics, signal and image processing, control theory, engineering fields, etc.

This paper aims to develop a holistic understanding of the state of implementation of the Basel III regulation in India. It offers essential insights related to its impact on the macroeconomy, non-performing assets, capital flows and modifications required for the Indian banking sector. Another central aspect of this study is the identification of challenges faced by bankers in implementing Basel III in India.

A survey was conducted with the help of a well-structured close-ended questionnaire. It was based on six themes identified after a comprehensive review of the literature. Seven experts validated the construction of the questionnaire. A total of 18 responses (42.8%) were received.

The findings substantiate the importance of Basel III regulations. Although high costs and roadblocks are involved in its implementation, yet, the benefits are notable. Banking experts sense the necessity to modify the Tier 1 ratio, risk-weights and ratings. It is felt that credit ratings will impact the capital and investment flows received by India.

The number of responses limits the ability to conduct several statistical tests.

The findings support the industry’s view that Basel III focuses more on industrialized countries and that many emerging countries lack the technology and infrastructure to implement it.

Since the implementation of Basel, the norm is a continuous process; the findings provide vital insights to regulators and academicians focusing on the Indian banking sector about its current state to aid in developing a future roadmap. This paper delivers important values as follows: a holistic view of banking experts on Basel III in India, required modifications, its impact and future scope of research in this area.