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The purpose of this paper is to examine financial market integration in major South Asian financial markets: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Also to identify the required policy interactions and structural changes vital for broader economic integration.

This research opted for an empirical study employing co‐integration and causality techniques using a sample of stock and bond market data for major South Asian countries.

Empirical results show that both stock and bond returns are co‐integrated, indicating common stochastic trends. Stock market integration appears to be much stronger compared to the less developed and data deficient bond markets.

The study relies on widely cited empirical methodology. However, adopting alternative specifications and also allowing for time variant factors while examining inter‐linkages between stock and bond markets seem to be appropriate for robustness of results.

Increased integration would help in reducing arbitrage opportunities in these financial markets, having implications for market participants and promoting economic growth through financial deepening, in general. Since the degree of integration is dependent on policy and institutional infrastructure, ongoing efforts to develop financial sectors and reforms would need to be accelerated to further strengthen the degree of convergence between securities markets.

The paper fulfills an identified need to examine financial market integration in the SAARC region, using data for both stock and bond markets. This is the first study to use bond market data for SAARC countries and it also adds to the limited literature of bond market integration.

This study aims to investigate accounting practices within a non-Western (Indigenous) context and provide insights into alternative accounting approaches and perspectives.

This study adopts an interpretive research approach to gain an in-depth insight into the functioning of accounting in Solomon Islands’ unique cultural and social-political context. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain insights into the perceptions and meanings held by participants concerning Western accounting practices and their limitations.

The findings provide unique insights into different interpretations of accounting and accountability through two distinct cultural lenses – Western and non-Western. The complementary and rival explanations on what accounting and accountability are doing and what accounting and accountability should be doing will help close the gap in knowledge and contribute to shaping a better world for Indigenous people.

Implications for practice involve fostering collaborative efforts among individuals, communities, leaders and institutions to harness cultural strengths through accounting. Additionally, continuous capacity building and education are essential to develop accounting skills, enhance financial literacy, promote professional expertise and build a pool of skilled accountants with local knowledge to support Indigenous communities.

This study is original and provides novel insights supporting the need for accounting to recognise the importance of Indigenous perspectives, adapt to cultural sensitivity and integrate cultural norms and values into accounting practices to make an impact and achieve greater social and moral accountability.

Implementing enterprise risk management (ERM) systems in construction firms of developing countries like India is critical for targeting strong risk management strategies that support their growth. It requires such firms to holistically understand the major barriers in terms of their definitions, relationships with one another and interdependencies. Thus, this study aims to identify, model and analyze the barriers to implementing ERM in construction firms using interpretive structural modeling (ISM).

This study used a Delphi process to identify barriers to the implementation of ERM in Indian construction firms, ISM to model them and Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement (MICMAC) to analyze their interrelationships.

The study’s results revealed that individual-level factors are the most important among the barriers present at the lowest level in the hierarchical model, whereas organizational commitment with the highest dependence power is present at the highest level in the hierarchical model.

Since the usage of ERM in the construction industry is highly culture-dependent and may have regional nuances, the data on ERM usage might accurately reflect the Indian construction industry but may not apply to other regions.

This study can be used to develop effective strategies to improve the implementation of ERM in construction firms in developing countries like India.

ERM is crucial for managing risks in Indian construction firms due to the high degree of complexity and uncertainty associated with construction projects coming from changes due to technological advancement, regulatory changes, changes in consumer preferences, global competition and other socioeconomic and political factors.

The study’s results will help researchers and practitioners working in the construction industry of developing countries like India to identify the challenges in adopting ERM systems. It will guide construction firms to appropriately develop risk management strategies for managing the inevitable risks in their complex project environments. This will help improve their contribution to the country’s economic development.

The purpose of this research is to establish a conceptual model to understand the impact of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) on the transition of a Circular Economy (CE). Also, the paper explores the combined impact of TPM, I4.0 and CE on the sustainability performance (SP) of manufacturing firms.

The conceptual model is proposed using the dynamic capability view (DCV) and empirically validated by partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using 304 responses from Indian manufacturing firms.

The results suggest that I4.0 positively impacts TPM, CE and SP, also showing TPM's positive impact on CE and SP. In addition, CE has a positive influence on the SP of manufacturing firms. Furthermore, CE partially mediates the relationship between I4.0 and SP with TPM and SP. The study also identifies TPM, I4.0 and CE as a new bundle of dynamic capabilities to deliver SP in manufacturing firms.

The present research adds to the knowledge and literature on DCV by identifying the importance of CE in the settings of I4.0 and TPM, especially in the context of sustainability. Also, the current study offers a new set of dynamic capabilities and provides some significant future recommendations for researchers and practitioners.

This paper aims to present an off-site construction (OSC) readiness maturity model for assessing the readiness of offsite construction companies in the Indian construction sector.

The research was conducted in three stages. The first stage consisted of a detailed literature review to document 17 different variables affecting the OSC adoption in India. In Stage 2, 15 semi-structured interviews were carried out where the participants were asked to refine those variables for the Indian context and define what would be different levels of attainment. In the third stage, another set of 5 semi-structure interviews was performed to validate the maturity levels and definitions.

A three-level OSC readiness maturity model is presented for discussion. This describes 17 variables at different levels of maturity.

The proposed OSC readiness maturity model guides construction practitioners in India through a structured process to enable them to assess their OSC readiness in the market. This assessment enables them to evaluate and benchmark their processes through the strategic and operational phases. The maturity model also identifies the areas of concern and the scope for further development or change to secure the optimal advantage of OSC methods.

The research produced a model to assess the readiness of OSC adoption in the Indian construction sector. Although the model has been applied to the Indian construction sector, it can easily be modified to accommodate other OSM contexts.

In 1992, a Kaq’chikel woman, Vera, told a tale of shapeshifting and dreams to me and the woman with whom she was staying while teaching weaving classes in Northern California. Laughingly, we were exploring the question of power between man and woman. Asked why she, a young woman, was the first to leave her town, Santa Catarina, to travel to North America, she cited a “lineage of power” back to her grandparents that turns on gender and reproductive roles. The following is a synopsis:The Nawal (Shapechanging) WifeHer grandfather had first a bad wife. This wife had no children. She was a woman who went out into the night and ran wild as a lion. The husband grew to be afraid and suspicious, even though she gave him something to make him sleep as if he were dead. One night he awoke anyway; his wife was not beside him. He went out of the house, taking his machete. He waits and he waits, and then it is big, crying “aieee”…“aieee” in the night and it is coming close, it is coming closer and he slashes with his machete, he slashes his machete and she dies. He knew and yet did not “know” that it was his wife. The head of the animal, which was now human, uttered words. She did not finally die until she was returned to the house of her father the next day.

Epidemics not only affect the public health but also are a threat to a nation's growth and economy as well. Early prediction of epidemic can be beneficial to take preventive measures and to reduce the impact of epidemic in an area.

A deep neural network (DNN) based context aware smart epidemic system has been proposed to prevent and monitor epidemic spread in a geographical area. Various neural networks (NNs) have been used: LSTM, RNN, BPNN to detect the level of disease, direction of spread of disease in a geographical area and marking the high-risk areas. Multiple DNNs collect and process various data points and these DNNs are decided based on type of data points. Output of one DNN is used by another DNN to reach to final prediction.

The experimental evaluation of the proposed framework achieved the accuracy of 87% for the synthetic dataset generated for Zika epidemic in Brazil in 2016.

The proposed framework is designed in a way that every data point is carefully processed and contributes to the final decision. These multiple DNNs will act as a single DNN for the end user.

This paper examines the alternative frameworks adopted in empirical research in accounting in developed and colonised developing countries, and suggests that a more appropriate methodological framework is necessary to explain the emergence and subsequent development of the accounting profession in the colonised developing countries. In this regard, the paper rejects the claim that the expansion of the Western-based accountancy bodies into colonised developing countries is inevitable. Rather it posits the view that the influences of the U.K.-based Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (ACCA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) and the dominance of Western accounting practices in the colonised developing world are intertwined with the local historical, global and cultural circumstances. Therefore, the problematique of imperialism is critical and significant for understanding the context in which the accounting profession has developed in former colonised countries. Bearing this in mind, the paper argues, then, that in order to adequately and validly investigates accounting issues in any former colonised developing nation; one has to adopt the frameworks of cultural imperialism and globalisation to fully contextualise the nature of accounting in colonised developing countries.