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Presents findings from a study that investigated the propagation of quality management practices among Indian manufacturing companies over a period of 16 years from 1980 to 1996. Reports the findings of a mail questionnaire survey conducted on 500 selected companies from 14 manufacturing sectors. The extent to which quality management practices have been implemented is reported and the obstacles to adoption are identified. The spread of quality initiatives in various functional areas is analysed and discussed. The paper will be of particular interest to practicing managers as it identifies a number of policies that governments may use to stimulate the adoption of quality management concepts in developing countries.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the role of information asymmetry in the equity selling mechanisms chosen by the firms from an important emerging market, India. Specifically, the authors look into the choice between the two most popular mechanisms of equity issues – rights issue and private placement of equity.

This study introduces three analyst specific variables as proxies of information asymmetry as the conventional proxies are fraught with several disadvantages. First, the paper tests the choice between rights issue and private placement using a binary logistic model. In the second approach the authors use rights issue and segregate the private placements into preferential allotments and qualified institutional placements and test the impact of information asymmetry using a multinomial logistic regression.

The outcome of this empirical exercise shows that only those firms facing lesser information problems choose rights issue of equity. Private placements are chosen by firms facing higher information problems to circumvent information costs. The results remain invariant even after segregating the qualified institutional placements from private equity placement as the firms with information disadvantage choose to place equity privately.

In contrast to the conventional studies that focus on the debt-equity framework, the authors argue that the impact of information asymmetry is applicable even at disaggregated levels of equity selling mechanism.

Division of motor vehicle (DMV) offices serve a wide swath of Americans in all states and can therefore serve as excellent vehicles to study the quality of public services in the country. However, relatively little attention has been devoted in the academic literature to studying operations in DMV offices, especially as it relates to service quality and productivity. In an attempt to address the same, this paper aims to present the results of a study of DMV offices across the USA through a nationwide survey about vehicle titling and registration services, that received response from 31 of the 50 states and District of Columbia.

The authors use a mixed methods approach – a sequential unequal weight mixed methods approach starting with a quantitative analysis of DMV operational data followed by a qualitative case study approach. The primary data collected for this study were with a nationwide survey of the highest DMV office in each state, conducted through the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Out of the 50 states, 31 states and District of Columbia responded to the survey. In addition to descriptive statistical analysis performed to glean nationwide findings, Data Envelopment Analysis was used to determine efficiency of operations. Finally, extensive in-person interviews with senior managers of DMV offices in Ohio and Indiana were conducted to get more in-depth information for case studies and identification of best practices.

States exhibit significant variations in labor and capital productivity and based on Data Envelopment Analysis, Texas and Minnesota DMVs are the most efficient in terms of using their labor and capital inputs to maximize the number of transactional services rendered. The authors also find that while operational performance of vehicle titling and registration services is monitored by most DMV offices across the nation, assessment of customer satisfaction received much less attention. Among the states that do well on both are Indiana and Ohio; the case studies presented based on interviews with their officials that also identify best practices.

This research was limited to the USA as are its findings. Additionally, it focuses only on vehicle titling and registration at DMV offices because that represents the bulk of services performed by a DMV and the output is standard across all states. Nonetheless, a future study should be extended to other DMV services.

Given the finding that assessment of customer satisfaction is not widely practiced in DMV offices, DMV officials should address this by putting appropriate systems in place. Additionally, practitioners and state officials can use the findings of this study to develop best practices for their operations and also determine the most appropriate ways to structure the provision of those services that result in enhanced efficiencies and customer satisfaction.

DMV services are among the most widely used services offered by the government in the USA and the overall size and scope of services provided by them across the country is immense. Thus, any improvements in productivity and service quality has significant implications in terms of improving public satisfaction with government services.

To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first nationwide comparative study of DMV offices in the USA that focuses on service quality and analyzes productivity across the states. Additionally, the case study provided at the end of the paper identifies best practices from two states that have received national recognition for service quality which could be adopted by all DMV offices across the USA. The findings also conform/strengthen numerous hypotheses espoused in existing models and theories from service operations literature by providing evidence in their favor.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the financing practices of unlisted manufacturing firms in India. In particular, the authors seek to explore how unlisted firms finance their growth and the extent to which they rely on external source of finance. Additionally, they explore whether the determinants of indebtedness that explain the borrowing behavior of listed Indian manufacturing firms are capable of explaining the financing decisions of unlisted firms as well.

This paper uses panel data technique to determine the factors determining indebtedness of unlisted private manufacturing firms in India.

Unlisted Indian manufacturing firms are largely dependent on bank borrowing for their growth, and access to finance is largely dependent on collateral capacity. The authors results show that the dominant firm factors affecting indebtedness of unlisted firms in India are asset tangibility, firm growth, size, profitability and firm age. Institutional and macroeconomic factors are also observed to be significant influencers of indebtedness.

Unavailability of financial information for the required number of years has resulted in certain firms and sectors of the economy not being included in the sample, and has, hence, affected sample size and representation. Similar problems have limited the period of the study to only four years. The study does not include unlisted services sector firms in the sample, and, hence, its findings cannot be generalized in the context of unlisted firms in India.

There appears to be a strong case for both the policy-maker and financial economist to have a re-look at the financial constraints that unlisted firms face and redefine the role of the banks and financial institutions from being a passive provider of capital to that of a partner in ushering growth. Development of the financial intermediary sector in terms of its reach is expected to favorably influence growth of this sector.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the alternative sources of raising outside capital and the factors determining the capital structure of unlisted manufacturing firms in India.

This study investigates how this pandemic impacted the systemic risk in Indonesia’s Islamic commercial banks (ICBs) and conventional commercial banks (CCBs). The authors use quantitative methods, and systemic risk is measured using value at risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CoVaR). This study provides empirical evidence regarding the estimation and determination of systemic risk. By using spillover measures, the authors find a significant increase in systemic risk among the sample banks. The novelty in this research is the measurement of the level of banking risk in the dual banking system in Indonesia. This study makes profound contributions to the literature and suggests various policy recommendations, including identifying essential institutions and testing the benefits of policy responses in containing systemic risk. These findings need to be considered by the government and financial authorities in making accurate regulations and policies.

The purpose of the study is to evaluate whether nighttime luminosity sourced from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System satellite sensors is a suitable proxy for measuring poverty in Africa.

Our study performs wavelet coherence analysis to investigate the time-frequency synchronization between the nightlight data and “income-to-wealth” ratio for 39 African countries between 1992 and 2012.

All-in-all, the authors find that approximately a third of African countries produce positive synchronizations between nighttime data and “income-to-wealth” ratio and hence conclude that most African countries are not at liberty to use nighttime data to proxy conventional poverty statistics.

In differing from previous studies, the authors examine the suitability of nightlight intensity as a proxy of poverty for individual African countries using much more rigorous analysis.

The Hamilton canal in the western province of Sri Lanka is a man-made canal situated in an area with immense anthropogenic pressures. The purpose of this study is to identify the quality variations of the water in Hamilton canal and human perception about the present status of the water of the canal.

Sampling has been carried out in seven locations in the canal during dry and wet periods for water quality analysis. In situ field-testing and laboratory analysis have been conducted for physicochemical, heavy metal, oil and grease analysis of water. Only Pb, Cd, oil and grease were tested in the canal sediments. The samples were analyzed as per the standard methods of the American Public Health Association (APHA) Manual: 20th edition. A semi-structured questionnaire survey has been carried out to assess the human perception on the water of the canal.

The results revealed that average EC, Turbidity, Total Hardness, TDS, F⁻, Fe²+, Cl⁻, SO₄²⁻ and PO₄³⁻ of the canal water remained above the threshold limits of inland water standards. Concentrations of Pb and Cd were also above the standards in some locations. Oil and grease were in a very high level in water and sediments.

The water of the canal has been affected by nutrient, heavy metal and oil and grease pollution at present. Discharge of domestic, industrial, municipal wastes and sewage are the prominent reasons which have encouraged the deterioration of the quality of water in the canal.

A banking system is essential for financial stability, especially economic growth and development. The authors investigate the dynamic linkage of key banking system stability measures, namely, liquidity, capital, profitability, and credit risk. To this end, the authors employ Panel Vector Autoregressive (VAR) to a panel data set of country-level banking system indicators from seven developing countries; from March 2010 to December 2020 (308 country quarter observations). A nation is selected on the basis of similar characteristics large and bank-based economy with the considerably same stage of economic development. The authors find a remarkable resilient feature of the banking system in which both liquidity risk and credit risk appears significant only in the short run (within three quarters). Shocks from both risk sources dissipate quickly, suggesting an internal mechanism is at work. This study provides evidence of how a good performance of financial safety net should be.

To examine the impact of experience in terms of time period on TQM's effectiveness in improving performance of Indian manufacturing companies. To establish the impact of TPM support on TQM's effectiveness.

This is an empirical research with testing of hypotheses using t tests. The data are collected with the help of a questionnaire on six performance parameters, which are measured on a five‐point scale. The study considers three time periods (phases) of implementation and two improvement strategies, i.e. TQM alone and TQM supported by TPM (combined strategy), for the purpose of analysis. The analysis is based on valid responses from 111 manufacturing companies.

The performance improvements contributed by TQM in the transition phase have been marginal due to initial investments and efforts required as well as to country‐specific factors. The effectiveness of TQM in the stability and maturity phases is established in an Indian context. The synergetic effect of TPM support on TQM's performance is also established in an Indian context.

The paper establishes the long‐term effects of TQM on companies' performance in an Indian context. It also highlights various country‐specific factors, which led to marginal improvement during the transition phase. The paper also establishes that TQM with TPM support can be an effective strategy to improve competitiveness of Indian manufacturing companies.

This paper studies the two important factors which influence TQM's effectiveness. Although the study has been carried out in an Indian context, it is equally significant in a global scenario. This paper addresses a pertinent issue of simultaneous implementation of TQM and TPM, which is commonly found in industry but not adequately researched.

This paper reviews the literature on opportunistic maintenance (OM) as new advance maintenance approach and policy. The purpose of this paper is to conceptually identify common principle and thereby provide absolute definition, concept and characteristics of this policy.

A conceptual analysis was conducted on various literatures to clarify a number of principle and concepts as a method for understanding information on OM. The analysis involves the process of separating the compound terms used in the literatures into a few parts, analyse them and then recombining them to have more clear understanding of the policy.

The paper discussed the maintenance approach, genealogy, principle, concept and applications of OM both in numerical analysis and real industry. OM policy is developed based on combination of age replacement policy and block replacement policy and in practical; OM is applied as the combination of corrective maintenance which is applied when any failure occurred, with preventive maintenance (PM) – a planned and scheduled maintenance approach to prevent failure to happen. Any machine shutdown or stoppages due to failure is the “opportunity” to conduct PM even though it is not as planned. The characterization of OM was provided in order to present its theoretical novelty for researchers and practical significance for industries.

To date, there is no publication that reviews the OM in-depth and provides clear understanding on the topic. Therefore, this paper aims to show lineage of OM and the current trend in researches. This discussion will pave the way of new research areas on this optimal maintenance policy. Clear definition and principle of OM provided in this paper will trigger interest in its practicality as well as aid industries to understand and conduct OM in operation plant.

This paper discussed the available literature about OM in various perspectives and scopes for further understanding of the topic by maintenance management professionals and researchers. Therefore, OM can be widely studied and applied in real industry as it is an effective and optimal maintenance policy.