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Entrepreneurial innovation has been the most important source for improvement in firm performance. Innovation in family firms has become the focal issue in firm strategy. In today’s high-velocity environment, the dynamic organizational adaptation is essential for sustainable competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of changes in external environment and the relationship between changes in the economic environment and family firms’ innovation in response to the environmental shift.

The authors designed a survey questionnaire to obtain primary data for the study. The survey consists of family firm structure, innovation drivers, governance, core competence and performance. Authors applied a random stratified sample method in selecting samples to reflect the population in family firms.

The study identified market conditions, technology and regulation as innovation drivers. The authors found that these innovation drivers have positive effects on family firm performance, although the technology variable is the only statistically significant variable at the conventional statistical significance level.

The authors expected to have better response rate, and wish to have more observations. The authors would have stronger results if you could get more data.

Family firms need to respond to the high velocity of environment and to develop capabilities that understand the nature of changes in economic environment and take effective steps. The study findings offer guidelines for the managers of how to manage the firms in the dynamic environment.

Family firms should use this results to develop strategies to deal with various economics situations.

The study identifies innovation drivers in family firms. The study contributes to finding and empirical testing of family firm innovation drivers. Findings of the study are valuable for managing the high velocity of today’s economic environment: changes in markets, technologies and regulations.

Developing the right sourcing strategy in managing the firm’s supplies is critical for today’s managers. They realize the long‐term impact of their sourcing strategies (make or buy, supply‐base structure, and nature of customer‐supplier relationship) on the profits and the efficient functioning of the organization. The study examines and evaluates changes in these strategic choices. The study revealed the following: small and lower labor productivity firms rate their internal suppliers better than external suppliers; obtaining supplies nationwide from a limited number of suppliers is the prevalent supply‐base structure; and customer‐supplier relationship is deepening.

The purpose of this paper is to outline considerations and steps taken to introduce electronic reporting and verification from systems design and multidisciplinary collaborations to gap analysis and devising solutions. It also evaluates carefully placed forcing functions’ impact on verification rates.

A multidisciplinary workgroup was formed to stop print and establish electronic reporting. The electronic verification's success was assessed by weekly activity analysis.

Introducing a verification forcing function markedly improved verification activity. Thereafter, non-verified results stabilized at 7 percent up to 75 weeks post-implementation.

This paper illustrates how results reporting and verification could be implemented in a tertiary hospital using a mixed electronic and paper record. Factors that were critical to success include stakeholder engagement and applying systems design that focussed on patient safety as a key priority. The electronic reporting system was augmented by strategically inserted forcing functions, clear clinical-responsibility lines and ancillary alert systems.

The systems design method's value in managing non-critical but abnormal results appears to have been under-appreciated. This paper describes how systems design could be used to improve health information delivery and management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the total factor productivity (TFP) gap between the USA and eight Latin American countries for the period of 1970-2000.

The paper provides an explicit application of TFP estimation by employing a growth accounting approach (Solow Residual) in the presence of non-constant returns to scale and a non-parametric approach (DEA – Malmquist Index) while relaxing the scale-related constraint. A macro-based economic model of innovator and follower countries is employed to explore the linkage between technology gaps and innovations, labor productivity, trade openness, foreign direct investment, and adult workforce illiteracy rates. A pooled model and a fixed effects model are used to determine the factors of the technology gap between the innovator and the follower countries.

The results show that the labor productivity gap, adult work force illiteracy rates, patent filing gap, and trade openness are significant determinants of the technology gap between innovator and follower country.

Latin American countries would benefit from the technology diffusion from an innovator country; but a minimum threshold of human capital, such as adult workforce illiteracy rates and patent filing has to be met. The authors find government policies on trade openness also have large effects on technology limitations in foreign countries.

This paper is of value to researchers, policy makers, and economic development specialists trying to improve the rate of technology adoption and innovation.

In the present investigation, hydromagnetic boundary layer flow of Walters’-B fluid over a vertical porous surface implanted in a porous material under the action of a strong external applied magnetic field and rotation is presented. In several industrial applications, the external applied magnetic field is strong enough to produce Hall and ion-slip currents. Thus, the influence of Hall and ion-slip currents is also considered in this analysis. The flow through configuration is generated because of time varying motion of the free-stream and buoyancy action.

Regular perturbation scheme is used to obtain the solution of the system of coupled partial differential equations representing the mathematical model of the problem. Numerical computation has been performed to notice the change in flow behavior and the numerical results for velocity field, temperature field, species concentration, skin friction, rate of heat and mass transfer are presented through graphs and tables.

An important fact noticed that the exponential time varying motion of the free-stream induces reverse flow in the direction perpendicular to the main flow. Rising values of the strength of the applied magnetic field give increment in the fluid velocity in the neighbourhood of the vertical surface, this may cause because of the exponential motion of the free-stream. The behaviour of the Darcian drag force is similar as magnetic field on fluid flow.

In literature, very less research works are available on Walters’-B fluid where unsteadiness in the system occurs because of time varying motion of the free-stream. In this paper, the authors have made an attempt to study the action of Hall and ion-slip currents, rotation and external applied magnetic field on hydromagnetic boundary layer flow of Walters’-B fluid over a vertical surface implanted in a porous material.

Fully developed Casson fluid flow through vertical microchannel is deliberated in the presence of thermal radiation. The two predominant features of micro scale phenomenon such as velocity slip and temperature jump are considered. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The governing equations of the physical phenomenon are solved using Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg fourth fifth order method.

The outcome of the present work is discussed through graphs. This computation shows that entropy generation rate decreases with enhancing wall ambient temperature difference ratio and fluid wall interaction parameter. Also, it is found that Bejan number is fully retarded with rise in fluid wall interaction parameter. Enhancement in heat transfer or Nusselt number is achieved by increasing the wall ambient temperature ratio and fluid wall interaction parameter.

Casson liquid flow through microchannel is analyzed by considering temperature jump and velocity slip. This computation shows that entropy generation rate decreases with enhancing wall ambient temperature difference ratio.

This study aims to expose the flow phenomena and entropy generation during a; magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Poiseuille flow of water-based nanofluids (NFs) in a porous channel subject to hydrodynamic slip and convective heating boundary conditions. The flow caused by the uniform pressure; gradient between infinite parallel plates is considered steady and fully developed. The nanoparticles; namely, copper, alumina and titanium oxide are taken with pure water as the base fluid. Viscous dissipation and Joule heating impacts are also incorporated in this investigation.

The reduced governing equations are solved analytically in closed form. The physical insights of noteworthy parameters on the important flow quantities are demonstrated through graphs and analyzed elaborately. The thermodynamic analysis is performed by calculating entropy generation; rate and Bejan number. A graphical comparison between solutions corresponding to NFs and regular fluid in the channel is also provided.

The analysis of the results divulges that entropy generation minimization can be achieved by an appropriate combination of the geometrical and physical parameters of thermomechanical systems. It is reported that ascent in magnetic parameter number declines the velocity profiles, while the inverse pattern is witnessed with augmentation in hydrodynamic slip parameters. The temperature dissemination declines with the growth of Biot numbers. It is perceived that the entropy generation rate lessens with an upgrade in magnetic parameter, whereas the reverse trend of Bejan number is perceived with expansion in magnetic parameter and Biot number. The important contribution of the result is that the entropy generation rate is controlled with an appropriate composition of thermo-physical parameter values. Moreover, in the presence of a magnetic field and suction/injection at the channel walls, the shear stresses at the channel walls are reduced about two times.

In various industrial applications, minimizing entropy generation plays a significant role. Miniaturization of entropy is the utilization of the energy of thermal devices such as micro heat exchangers, micromixers, micropumps and cooling microelectromechanical devices.

An attentive review of the literature discloses that quite a few studies have been conducted on entropy generation analysis of a fully developed MHD Poiseuille flow of NFs through a permeable channel subject to the velocity slip and convective heating conditions at the walls.

Present study aimed to nanosilver-treat some commercially dyed denim fabric using an eco-friendly cross-linker of citric acid for possible application in the fabrication of sustainable antibacterial and nontoxic surgical gowns.

The conventional untreated surgical gowns are prone to bacterial attack making them unprotective and infection carriers. Thereby, nanosilver finishing of the surgical-grade dyed denim fabric was achieved via citrate cross-linking under the pad-dry-cure method. The hence treated denim fabrics were characterized for surface chemical, crystalline, textile, color and antibacterial attributes using both conventional and advanced analytical approaches.

The results expressed that the prepared denim specimens contained surface roughness at the nanoscale besides some alterations in their textile and color parameters. Both textile and comfort properties of the finished fabric remained in the acceptable range with effective antibacterial activity.

The silver nano-finished dyed denim expressed broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and qualified as a potential substrate in the fabrication of surgical gowns. Such sustainable application of nanosilver finishing could be perused for industrial implications.

This study presents citric acid as a crosslinking agent to impregnate the commercially dyed denim fabric for potential application in the fabrication of surgical gowns. The application of nanosilver on prior citrated dyed-grown fabrics could be a novel approach. This study used approximately all the reagents and auxiliaries as bio-based to ensure the nontoxicity and sustainability of the resultant fabric.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify several measures to examine the determinants of profitability for the listed Indian banks. The authors include both public sector (PSUs) and private sector’s banks in the study. The authors have taken all the banks that are registered on the Bombay stock exchange (BSE) in the sample. This paper also intends to identify the association between the net profit margin (PM) and return on assets (ROA) with the several other independent variables of the Indian banking sector including private banks and public banks over the past six years starting from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2017. Therefore, a sample of 39 listed banking companies and total 195 balanced observations are selected for the analysis purpose.

The authors have used profitability as a dependent variable represented by net PM, ROA and several financial ratios as independent variables. Financial statement and income statement of all listed banks were obtained from BSE and particular company’s website. Panel data regression has been analyzed with both the descriptive research techniques, i.e., fixed effects and random effects. The authors also verified both panel techniques with Hausman’s specification test, which is a widely used procedure for selecting a panel effect. The authors applied PP – Fisher χ², PP – Choi Z-statistics and Hadri to testing whether the data set is free from unit root problem and data set is a stationary series.

Results imply that interest expended interest earned (IEIE) and credit deposit ratio (CRDR) reduced the profitability of private banks in India. IEIE, CRDR and quick ratio (QR) reduced the profitability of public banks in India, while cash deposit ratio (CDR) and Advances to Loan Funds (ALF) increased the effectiveness of public banks. Under the total banks IEIE, CRDR reduced the profitability, on the other side, CDR, ALF and Total Debt to Owners Fund (TDOF) increased the profitability of total banks in India. Under the dependency of ROA, CRDR and TDOF reduced the return of private banks in India, while CDR, ALF and QR enhanced the profitability of private banks.

No variables found significant under public banks while taking ROA as a dependent variable. Under the overall banking data, CRDR reduced the profitability. On the other side, capital adequacy ratio and ALF increased the profitability of total banks in India. The findings of this study will support policy creators, financial executives and investors in constructing investment decisions.