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The people of South Asia are deeply religious and all facets of their lives including their endeavours to achieve material advancement are affected greatly by religious beliefs and values. In what ways, and to what extent, non‐economic factors, specifically religious beliefs, affect economic behaviour in any society, is a matter of considerable controversy among economists. The theorists question the advisability of applying non‐economic factors to economic phenomena which presuppose “specialisation”, division of labour and have narrow scope of study. They contend that non‐economic factors lack objectivity for want of rigorous analysis and quantification. Also, cultural factors change but slowly, and thus, in the analysis of the short‐run process of change, these non‐economic factors do not have much relevance. Karl Marx contended that the social and cultural phases of human evolution are the consequence rather than the causes of economic factors. This atomistic conception of social process, is, however, criticised by some social scientists like Schumpeter. They maintain that “economic man” is a myth and that the unity of social life and its inseparable connection with various elements preclude any dissection of concrete reality into political, social, cultural, ethical and economic parts. The indian Planning Commission is cognisant of the inter‐relation between non‐economic factors and economic development. The Planning Commission suggests that:

Economic planning, which as a concept emerged as a socialistic idea, is now considered an important aspect of all national economies with varying political and ideological persuasions and at different stages of socio‐economic development. There are as many types and forms of economic planning as the number of countries, because each country formulates a plan according to its political and economic environments and goals of the national economy. In a general sense, the term economic planning can be defined as formulation of control and regulation of economic activity by public agency with a view to achieving well‐defined objective(s). Since the key questions implicit in this definition such as formulation of economic policies, regulation and control of economic activity and goals and objectives of the national economy, are closely related to the political structure of a society, the techniques and patterns of economic planning thus become intricately woven with its political system.

Economic policy reforms, characterised by a market‐driven, privatised policy regime, are being adopted as a strategy by India to promote economic development. As markets become liberalised, public sector organisations face extreme vulnerability unless they can identify and develop the competencies necessary to thrive in these competitive markets. This paper, drawing on the resource‐based view, aims to identify the pre‐reform capabilities of public sector organisations in India and similar developing country contexts that would be relevant even in the post‐reform context.

An interpretative and theoretical approach is used to put forth the arguments and a framework is proposed to explain the possibility of deriving competitive advantages from pre‐reform capabilities in the post‐reform context.

Several unique capabilities of Indian public sector organisations can be identified using the resource based perspective which can be leveraged in the post‐reform context. They have superior resource‐picking capacity compared to private firms, especially for government‐regulated resources, international financial assets and modern technologies. Their internal integrative managerial systems and structures offer them an advantage in meeting the competitive demands of speed and promptness. Under effective leadership, the loyalty of a large workforce and their number of years of experience gives them an advantage of effective coordination and knowledge sharing and flow. Also, their capability in delivering economies of scale and scope due to their size and supply chain integration gives them a cost advantage over others.

This paper takes a practical approach. It accepts the existing organisational culture, processes and systems of public sector organisations as given and matters of long‐term change, and identifies existing capabilities in the current organisational context that could help them survive better.

Unlike most papers that focus on how policy changes affect public sector organisations or those that conduct a comparative analysis with the private sector on various parameters, the main focus of this paper is to identify existing capabilities that can be leveraged by public sector organisations for effective adaptation in the new scenario.

Ideas regarding the basic character of humanity assume importance wherever people interact with one another — from the family to the political state, to the business enterprise. These conceptions, ranging from pessimism to optimism, from notions that evil, predatory competition on the one hand to goodness, co‐ operation and virtue on the other characterise the intrinsic disposition of people, derive from the culture to which the individual belongs, moulding his values and conditioning his behaviour. They not only affect the quality of human relations present in any collectivity, but exercise critical influence on the theories and practices of social control. The understanding of a range of social parameters is considerably enhanced when viewed from the perspective of prevailing cultural ideas about human nature itself.

This study aims to examine the determinants of ethical decision-making (EDM) of professional accountants in Sri Lanka, drawing on Rest’s (1986) four-component EDM model. The level of corporate collapses and fraud, coupled with the high level of corruption in Sri Lanka, has highlighted the importance and the timely nature of this research in the EDM processes of Sri Lankan accountants.

Data was collected from a sample of 315 accountants through a questionnaire survey that included four written ethical vignettes and was analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling techniques.

The findings revealed a significant relationship between ethical awareness and ethical judgement, providing support for Rest’s model. However, the study does not support Rest’s model on the direct relationship between ethical judgement and ethical intention. Intrinsic religiosity and moral intensity significantly influenced the ethical awareness of accountants. Several determinants including accountants’ age, education, intrinsic religiosity, organisational ethical culture, familiarity with the professional ethical code and moral intensity influenced ethical judgement. However, the findings did not report any significant relationships between the study’s variables and ethical intention.

The study adds to the existing literature by providing a bigger picture of how various determinants work together in one EDM model and demonstrating that the EDM of accountants is multifaceted. The new finding on an insignificant relationship between ethical judgement and ethical intention implies that the Rest’s EDM process may be mediated and moderated by other constraints blocking accountants’ intention to act due to various pressures in a corrupt society, Sri Lanka, where accountants operate.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some key factors that influences ethnic entrepreneur’s decision in starting-up a new business in Aberdeen, Scotland.

The authors set out to investigate the motives, drivers and attitudes of ethnic minorities in seeking entrepreneurial opportunities. The authors conduct in-depth face-to-face interviews with 25 ethnic entrepreneurs from a variety of nationalities and cultures originating mainly from the Indian subcontinent region. This includes entrepreneurs from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and some others. The motivations varies according to their culture, traditions, religion and other environmental factors influencing on their decision to start-up.

The results reveal some interesting influential factors that lead to the successful start-up decision. These include a positive mindset, self-efficacy, strong determination, knowing of the market and local business culture and good financial management.

This paper is based on empirical research and new data have been collected specifically for this research. The authors hope the new findings from this research work will enhance the understanding about ethnic minority businesses in the context of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Under the classical mean-variance framework, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the properties of the instability of minimal variance portfolio and then propose a novel penalized expected risk criterion (PERC) for optimal portfolio selection.

The proposed method considers not only a portfolio’s expected risk, but also its instability that is quantified by the variance of the estimated portfolio weights. This study tests the out-of-sample performance of various portfolio selection methods on both China and US stock markets.

It is very useful to control portfolio stability in real application of portfolio selection. The empirical results on both US and China stock markets show that PERC portfolio effectively controls turnover and consequently the transaction cost, and that is why it is so competing compared with other alternative methods.

The findings suggest that the rebalancing turnover and the associated transaction cost that is usually ignored in theoretical analysis play a very important role in real investment.

For investors, especially institutional investors, the rebalancing turnover and corresponding transaction cost must be carefully addressed. The variance of the estimated portfolio weights is a good candidate to quantify portfolio instability.

This study addresses the important role of portfolio instability and proposes a novel expected risk criterion for portfolio selection after the quantitative definition of portfolio instability.

Typically, international capital budgeting is carried out using the adjusted net present value (NPV) approach. In this article, we present an alternate method for valuing international investments; one that is based on the option pricing theory developed by Black and Scholes (1973). We show that when (a) the decision being valued involves an irreversible investment, (b) the investment decision can be postponed, and (c) uncertainty is resolved gradually over time, using the option pricing approach may be more appropriate than the NPV approach. Applying the traditional NPV approach to value investments such as the decision to enter a new market, expand production, suspend operations temporarily or liquidate operations, may lead one to underestimate their value. This is because the naive NPV criteria is a static valuation method that ignores a firm's flexibility to postpone projects, to abandon them, or to shut down operations temporarily.

The purpose of this paper is to posit a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and various facets of job performance. So far, theoretical explanations of such curvilinearity have been inconclusive and ambiguous. The current study draws from literature on organizational commitment to present an additional psychoeconomic explanation for curvilinearity. Further, it brings together job design, job stage, and conservation resource models to investigate moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on the organizational tenure-job performance relationship.

It is a longitudinal field study at two time periods using a sample of employees (n=679) in 19 job profiles from 13 different public sector organizations.

The current study found a mediated curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance from continuance commitment. The data show moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on the mediated curvilinear organizational tenure-job performance relationship.

Prior research based on industrial and business organizations provides substantial evidence to expect a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance. That is, after an employee has spent a considerable amount of time in an organization and learned virtually all aspects of the job, further organizational tenure may cease to produce additional job performance improvements. However, scholars predicting curvilinear relationship have focused predominately on empirical verification with inconclusive and ambiguous theoretical explications. Therefore, the aim of the present study is twofold. First, it attempts to describe the ambiguous relationship between organizational tenure and job performance by examining the mechanism behind curvilinearity. Second, it examines motivational job characteristics as possible moderators that may affect the relationship.

This study focuses on enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of employee performance prediction to enhance decision making and improve organisational productivity. By introducing advance machine learning (ML) techniques, this study aims to create a more reliable and data-driven approach to evaluate employee performance.

In this study, nine machine learning (ML) models were used for forecasting employee performance: Random Forest, AdaBoost, CatBoost, LGB Classifier, SVM, KNN, XGBoost, Decision Tree and one Hybrid model (SVM + XGBoost). Each ML model is trained on an HR data set covering various features such as employee demographics, job-related factors and past performance records, ensuring reliable performance predictions. Feature scaling techniques, namely, min-max scaling, Standard Scaler and PCA, have been used to enhance the effectiveness of employee performance prediction. The models are trained to classify data, predicting whether an employee’s performance meets expectations or needs improvement.

All proposed models used in the study can correctly categorize data with an average accuracy of 94%. Notably, the Random Forest model demonstrates the highest accuracy across all three scaling techniques, achieving optimise accuracy, respectively. The results presented have significant implications for HR procedures, providing businesses with the opportunity to make data-driven decisions, improve personnel management and foster a more effective and productive workforce.

The scope of the used data set limits the study, despite our models delivering high accuracy. Further research could extend to different data sets or more diverse organisational settings to validate the model’s effectiveness across various contexts.

The proposed ML models in the study provide essential tools for HR departments, enabling them to make more informed data driven decisions with regard to employee performance. This approach can enhance personnel management, improve workforce productivity and fostering a more effective organisational environment.

Although AI models have shown promising outcomes, it is crucial to recognise the constraints and difficulties involved in their use. To ensure the fair and responsible use of AI in employee performance prediction, ethical considerations, privacy problems and any biases in the data should be properly addressed. Future work will be required to improve and broaden the capabilities of AI models in predicting employee performance.

This study introduces an exclusive combination of ML models for accurately predicting employee performance. By employing these advanced techniques, the study offers novel insight into how organisations might transition from a conventional evaluation method to a more advanced and objective, data-backed approach.