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3852 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2022

Dynamic vehicle allocation policies for shared autonomous electric fleets

Yuxuan Dong, René De Koster, Debjit Roy, and Yugang Yu

Transportation Science

In the future, vehicle sharing platforms for passenger transport will be unmanned, autonomous, and electric. These platforms must decide which vehicle should pick up which type of customer based on the vehicle’s battery level and customer’s travel distance. We design dynamic vehicle allocation policies for matching appropriate vehicles to customers using a Markov decision process model. To obtain the model parameters, we first model the system as a semi-open queuing network (SOQN) with multiple synchronization stations. At these stations, customers with varied battery demands are matched with semi-shared vehicles that hold sufficient remaining battery levels. If a vehicle’s battery level drops below a threshold, it is routed probabilistically to a nearby charging station for charging. We solve the analytical model of the SOQN and obtain approximate system performance measures, which are validated using simulation. With inputs from the SOQN model, the Markov decision process minimizes both customer waiting cost and lost demand and finds a good heuristic vehicle allocation policy. The experiments show that the heuristic policy is near optimal in small-scale networks and outperforms benchmark policies in large-scale realistic scenarios. An interesting finding is that reserving idle vehicles to wait for future short-distance customer arrivals can be beneficial even when long-distance customers are waiting.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Earnings-based borrowing constraints & corporate investments in 2007–2009 financial crisis

Ankitkumar Kariya

Journal of Corporate Finance

Recent work on the debt composition of non-financial firms finds that most of the large firms’ debt is cash flow-based with earnings-based borrowing constraints (EBCs), limiting the maximum debt relative to firms’ EBITDA. During the 2007–2009 crisis, EBCs tightened in the leveraged loan market. Consistent with the reduction in the supply of credit, I find that investments and debt issues of firms with binding EBCs reduce significantly compared to control firms. Furthermore, firms with binding EBCs cut their share repurchases and total payout during the crisis. In the cross-section, the reduction in investments and total payout is larger in the subsample of firms whose marginal borrowings are more likely to come from cash flow-based debt.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Policy uncertainty and behavior of foreign firms in emerging economies

Amit Karna and Shamim S. Mondal Viswanath Pingali

Management Decision

Purpose – This study aims to examine how foreign and domestic firms react to policy uncertainty in an emerging economy. In addition, the study investigates if older foreign firms better adapt to policy uncertainty than newer entrants. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses pharmaceutical sales data on India’s cardiovascular segment for January 2011–May 2016. The authors use fixed fixed-effects panel data regression to measure the market reactions of foreign and domestic firms faced with policy uncertainty.

Findings – While domestic and foreign firms react similarly to anticipated policy changes, foreign firms react more adversely to policy uncertainty. Among foreign firms, early entrants respond less adversely than new entrants.

Research limitations/implications – Foreign firms are able to cope with anticipated policy changes in similar vein as the domestic firms by way of a priori reading of the host country’s regulatory landscape. The foreign firms’ response to policy uncertainty is significantly different from domestic firms. The difference between the market response of foreign and domestic firms decreases over time.

Practical implications – The authors’ findings demonstrate that adaptability is the key for new foreign firms to face policy uncertainty. Foreign firms can respond to policy changes, especially the unanticipated ones by imbibing local practices. Social implications – The authors’ findings suggest that enhanced policy uncertainty hurts foreign firms more adversely than domestic firms, and newer foreign firms are more hurt with policy uncertainty than the existing ones. Such uncertainty could also have unintended consequences for consumer welfare.

Originality/value – The authors’ study uses two natural experiments in the same industry within short periods of time. The comparison offers key insights on the differences in domestic and foreign firm responses to the two types of policy uncertainty.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Imprinting effects of exposure to the Indian independence movement on export intensity of firms

Saikat Banerjee, Amit Karna, and Sunil Sharma

Journal of Business Research

Extending the concept of historical imprinting and organizational learning, we propose that the prior exposure to the Indian independence movement negatively influences the export intensity of firms. Firm-specific characteristics such as business group affiliation and entrepreneurial orientation act as dynamics of amplification and encourage to utilize the organizational learning gained from the historical imprinting. Business group affiliation strengthens the negative relationship between prior exposure to the Indian independence movement and export intensity. Entrepreneurial orientation strengthens the moderating effect of business group affiliation and prior exposure to the Indian independence movement on export intensity resulting in a three-way interaction effect. We test the hypotheses using panel data of 1,817 Indian firm-year observations for 309 firms from 2007 to 2016. We also discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Work from home amenability and venture capital financing during COVID-19

Jagriti Srivastava and Balagopal Gopalakrishnan

Applied Economics

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on venture capital financing of firms. We find a significant shift in the profile of firms that obtain venture capital financing during the pandemic-induced economic crisis. Firms in industries that are more amenable to work from home obtain greater amounts of financing. Growth-stage firms operating in amenable industries are able to obtain higher financing than early-stage firms. The higher financing obtained by firms in amenable industries is driven by venture capital funds focused on the domestic market. Additionally, the higher financing is obtained from a single venture capital investor rather than a consortia of investors. Taken together, the preference of venture capital funds indicate a less risk-averse behavior in financing firms amenable to remote working. The findings of our study using monthly firm-level data provide insights on venture capital financing during the pandemic.

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Journal Articles | 2022

From fear to courage: Indian lesbians’ and gays’ quest for Inclusive ethical organizations

Ernesto Noronha, Nidhi S. Bisht, and Premilla D’Cruz

Journal of Business Ethics

This paper focusses on the experiences of Indian lesbians and gays (LGs) who are subjected to unethical acts of workplace bullying which get manifested through constant guesswork, comments and questioning about their sexual identity in the hostile Indian context. Given this, LG participants usually opt for secrecy and lead a double life, using ‘passing’ and ‘covering’ strategies to manage economic, social and psychological risks. Nonetheless, this paper rewrites the negative tenor of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals research by underscoring how LG participants move from fear to courage in their endeavour to live authentic lives while considering the broader organizational and social context. We argue that their courage is manifested mainly through deliberate micro-disclosures and a sense of defiance which can be enhanced if organizations are designed to be more inclusive and ethical. Consequently, participants defined inclusive ethical organizations as having conducive environments with trustworthy, supportive, secure, fair, unbiased and safe non-discriminatory policies open to the idea of diverse sexual orientations. Our findings point to the fact that, first and foremost, organizations must be crafted and sustained to be courageous within a hostile social climate, for employees to overcome their fears.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Work life balance indicators and Talent Management approach: A qualitative investigation of Indian luxury hotels

Sunil Buddhiraja, Biju Varkkey, and Stephen McKenna

Employee Relations: The International Journal

Purpose – The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) it captures the work–life balance (WLB) experiences of front-office employees to inductively classify a set of WLB indicators for the locally owned Indian luxury hotels and (2) it further examines the existing WLB practices of the select hotels with the lens of talent management (TM) approach of key human resource management (HRM) practices (Thunnissen, 2016). Design/methodology/approach – To explore and classify WLB indicators, an exploratory, qualitative approach is utilized by administering seven focus group discussions involving 70 front-office employees working in Indian luxury hotels. Seven in-depth interviews with HR professionals were triangulated with secondary data to capture and analyse the existing WLB practices of sampled organizations. Findings – Four clusters of WLB indicators that are grounded in the lived experiences of front-office employees are identified and presented. Interview data from human resource representatives unveil that hotels consider existing WLB practices as key HRM practices with an inclusive TM approach. The findings also surface the differences in expectations of front-office employees and WLB practices followed by the hotels. Research limitations/implications – First, the paper addresses the issue of WLB from employees’ perspective which is crucial for designing effective WLB practices. Second, the paper contributes to the existing TM literature from the perspective of WLB practices. Originality/value – The originality of the study is grounded in the employees’ lived experiences to classify the WLB indicators for India and further examine the WLB practices through the lens of the TM approach.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Women’s labor force participation and household technology adoption

Gautam Bose, Tarun Jain, and Sarah Walker

European Economic Review

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Journal Articles | 2022

Big-4 auditors and audit quality: A novel firm life-cycle approach

Sonali Jain and Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla

Meditari Accountancy Research

Purpose – Firm-specific factors such as size, profitability, growth, risk and complexity, in addition to agency-related issues determine both auditor selection and firm life-cycle stage. This paper aims to examine whether and how the effect of Big-4 auditors (B4As) on client firms’ audit quality varies across firms’ life-cycle stages. Design/methodology/approach – The sample comprises 1,813 firm-year observations in India’s emerging economy from 2011 to 2020. The Modified Jones model and Jones (signed, unsigned) model are used to compute discretionary accruals/audit quality. The authors use Koh et al.’s (2015) methodology to determine the firm life cycle. Findings – The authors’ key findings show that the client firms employing B4As have superior audit quality than those employing non-Big-4 auditors (NB4As). The authors also show that the life-cycle stage significantly impacts the relationship between B4As and a firm’s audit quality. Furthermore, B4A client firms report superior audit quality vis-à-vis NB4A firms only in the birth- and decline-stages. The audit quality of growth- and mature-stage B4A and NB4A client firms is not significantly different. Practical implications – Implications for managers include the decision to hire B4As. Given that B4As earn a significant fee premium, managers leading birth- and decline-stage firms should hire B4As, while managers of growth- and mature-stage firms should not. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the moderating effect of the firm life-cycle stage on the selection of B4As and their impact on audit quality.

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Journal Articles | 2022

The olfactory experience (in retail) scale: Construction, validation and generalization

Subhadip Roy and Priyanka Singh

Journal of Service Management

Purpose – Measurement scales for sensory experience in retailing exist for sight, touch and sound. In the present study, the authors aim to develop the olfactory experience (OEX) scale in the context of retailing.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on literature review and six studies that follow standard scale development protocols (combined n 5 1,203), the authors develop and validate a three-dimensional OEX scale. The scale is further validated in the final study in a different market set-up than the first five.

Findings – The authors found the three dimensions of OEX as (scent) company, congeniality and congruity. The OEX scale is found to be generalizable and valid across different cultural and market set-ups. In addition, the OEX (i.e. the scale) was found to effect psychological and behavioral outcomes of the consumer in a significant manner.

Research limitations/implications – The present study contributes to the domain of sensory experience in retailing with the OEX scale and provides three new dimensions of OEX for the academicians to further explore.

Practical implications – The OEX scale provides a ready to use tool for the retailer to gauge the level of OEX in the store and to predict consumer attitudes and behavior.

Originality/value –The study is the first to develop a scale for OEX in retailing or for that matter in consumer behavior.

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