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This study investigates how enhancing slum dwellers' capabilities influences their entrepreneurship development and contributes to urban poverty reduction, providing insights for social policy design.

A quantitative research design is adopted applying structural equation modeling to survey data from 585 beneficiaries of social welfare schemes across Indian slums.

Educational, economic and sociocultural capabilities positively impact quantitative and qualitative dimensions of slum entrepreneurship development, which reduces urban poverty, supporting the hypothesized relationships grounded in the Capability Approach.

The cross-sectional data limits causal inference. Wider sampling can improve generalizability. Capability antecedents of entrepreneurship merit further investigation across contexts.

Integrated policy initiatives focused on education, skill building, access to finance and markets can leverage entrepreneurship for sustainable urban poverty alleviation.

Enhancing slum dweller capabilities fosters entrepreneurship and empowerment, enabling people to shape their own destinies and reduce deprivations.

The research provides timely empirical validation of the Capability Approach and evidence-based insights to inform social policy aiming to alleviate urban poverty via entrepreneurship in developing countries.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2023-0514.

The study aims to examine the impact of social assistance schemes introduced by the Indian government on poverty alleviation in urban slums.

To accomplish the study's objectives, primary data were collected from 585 beneficiaries of government schemes operating in India's northwestern state using a multistage sampling technique (Punjab). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) technique reduced the total dataset to its minimum factors. Then, using second-order confirmatory factor analysis, the data's validity and reliability were determined. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques such as one-way ANOVA, t-test and structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study's findings indicate that social assistance provided by the Government of India has a direct and substantial influence on poverty alleviation in urban slums. The study demonstrates how access to basic credit financial services through social assistance programmes has improved the lives of urban poor households living in slums and assisted them in escaping poverty.

The investigation was undertaken among a few limitations. First, the in-depth investigation of the study is restricted to only the northwestern state of India solely because of limited resources and time availability. Second, the study focuses primarily on the perspectives of beneficiaries of the social assistance schemes in India. Still, it might be expanded in the future to include additional stakeholders such as bank executives, business colleagues and municipal town panchayats.

Due to policymakers' increased emphasis on poor households living in urban slums, this topic is critical for studying many issues.

The research explores gaps in social welfare schemes to direct policymakers and government authorities to take appropriate steps to aid the urban poor people in sliding out of poverty.

By examining the influence of the Indian government's social welfare schemes on poverty reduction in slums, this study contributes to the literature on public assistance schemes and poverty alleviation. This article can assist policymakers in developing nations in increasing financial capability among disadvantaged urban families on a national and international level.

This study aims to examine the effect of social responsibility practices on competitive advantage. It focuses on analyzing how strategic initiatives addressing social responsibility practices influence banks’ competitive advantage (CA).

Data were collected from 463 customers of selected commercial banks in Ethiopia. Self-administrative questionnaire was used to collect data. The study was a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2023. The study used a structural equation model to test relationships between variables.

This study’s empirical findings show that social responsibility practices positively affect CA. This suggests that banks actively engaging in social responsibility practices can boost their CA.

The study only targeted customers as respondents and did not include other stakeholders such as employees and the community. This recommended that future research should include these stakeholders. This study relied solely on quantitative data. Future studies could consider incorporating qualitative data to complement the quantitative findings. The study’s sample was limited to Ethiopia’s banking sector. Other service sectors and manufacturing sectors will be considered in future studies to examine the relationship between social responsibility practices and CA.

This study provides insights for banks operating in dynamic markets by providing the strategic implications of social responsibility. Banks can strategically leverage social responsibility practices to gain an advantage in a competitive market. Banks should continuously innovate and adapt their social responsibility strategies to address evolving societal needs and emerging challenges and consider social responsibility an integral component of their strategic planning. The findings of this study can enhance managers’ understanding and enable them to better oversee their social responsibility initiatives to attain a sustainable CA.

This study highlights businesses’ pivotal role in society beyond profit generation. The research findings emphasize the interconnectedness of business success and social responsibility. By integrating social responsibility practices into their operations, companies enhance their CA and contribute to society’s greater good. This underscores the importance of promoting a corporate culture that values social responsibility as a cornerstone of business success.

Empirically examining the relationship between social responsibility practices and CA contributes to the overview of the conceptual and practical base of social responsibility practices into strategic importance. The study provides insight into the importance of social responsibility practices in enhancing CA in developing country’s contexts.

The authors aim to report empirical linkages between the US and Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) financial stress indices catalyzing catalyzing dependent economic policy initiatives (an extended version of Singh and Singh, 2017a).

Initially, the study develops financial stress indices for the respective BRIC financial markets. Later, it captures linkages among the said US-BRIC indices by using Johansen cointegration, vector autoregression/vector error correction models (VECM), generalized impulse response functions, Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality, variance decomposition analyses and bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model under constant conditional correlation framework, in general. Markov regime switching and efficient causality tests proposed by Hill (2007) are also used.

Overall, there are both short-run and long-run dynamic interactions observed between the US and Indian financial stress indices. For rest of the markets, only short-run interactions are found to be in existence. The time-varying co-movement coefficients report financial contagion impact of the US financial crisis on Russian and Indian financial systems only. Contrary to this, Brazilian and Chinese financial systems are largely exhibiting interdependence with the US financial system. Efficient causality tests report indirect impact of the Russian financial system on Brazilian via auxiliary Indian financial system.

The present study is the first of its kind capturing linkages among the US-BRIC financial stress indices by using diverse econometric models. The results support different market participants and policymakers in understanding effectiveness and implementation of economic policies while considering their cross-market interactions as well.

The design and implementation of an interpretive framework to study historically marginalized issues in management is a distinct area of research. This paper aims to propose a multi-method interpretive framework, integrating a historiographical approach and an archival investigation, and use the case of business responses to disability in colonial and post-independence India to elucidate the proposed framework.

This paper provides a summary of a proposed framework for the historical study of marginalized social issues using an interpretive paradigm. It also outlines the advantages and limitations of the proposed framework.

This paper makes a methodological contribution in multi-method interpretive research design for the historical study of socially constructed issues, neglected because of deep prejudice and social exclusion, that offer complex challenges for modern businesses seeking inclusive workplace strategies.

This paper proposes a research framework that contextualizes social issues in history (historiographical study) and cases of business responses to these issues (archival study) for the examination of historically marginalized issues in the business–society relationship.

The purpose of this study is to examine how formal and informal institutions play a role in the Iranian context in shaping corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and practices.

Using a multiple case-study approach combining comparative and cross-sectional methods with semi-structured interviews, primary data was collected from eight corporations that actively participated in CSR activities in Iran. A microanalysis approach was used to examine the meanings and dynamics in the data. Through thematic analysis and pattern-matching techniques, the authors separately examined the roles of formal and informal institutions. Cross-case analysis was used to highlight the cases’ similarities and differences.

This study demonstrates that both formal and informal institutional structures exist in Iran and that both types influence CSR. This study also shows that informal institutions (such as personal values, culture, religion, traditions, charity and philanthropy) play a more explicit role than formal institutions (such as legal regulations and laws) in shaping CSR adoption policies and practices. The results indicate that, among institutions linked to CSR, formal and informal institutions are complementary and potentiate each other in Iran. Nevertheless, compared to formal ones, informal institutions play a more prominent role in shaping CSR policies and practices.

The authors recognize that, although the eight corporations are large, and although they interviewed their key personnel, they do not claim that these findings are generalizable, owing to the qualitative nature of the study and the small number of selected corporations.

This study makes relevant theoretical and empirical contributions. First, it contributes to the growing body of CSR literature that highlights the necessity of linking informal and formal institutions. Although the CSR literature lacks research on informal institutions in developing economies, researchers have yet to push forward and explore how the CSR adoption process works in developing economies that have influential informal institutions.

This study aims to explore the role of the Indian merchant class in 19th-century colonial India in addressing the social concerns of disability. Specifically, it addresses why and how business engaged with disability in colonial India.

This study’s methodology entailed historiographical approach and archival investigation of official correspondence and letters of business people in 19th-century colonial India.

Using institutional theory, the study’s findings indicate that guided by philanthropic and ethical motives, Indian businesses, while recognizing the normative and cognitive challenges, accepted the regulative institutional pressures of colonial India and adopted an involved and humane approach. This manifested in the construction of asylums and the setting up of bequeaths and charitable funds for people with disability (PwD). The principal institutional drivers in making of the asylums and the creation of benevolent charities were religion, social practices, caste-based expectations, exposure to Western education and Victorian and Protestantism ideologies, the emergence of colonial notions of health, hygiene and medicine, carefully crafted socio-political and economic policies of the British Raj and the social aspirations of the native merchant class.

In contrast to the 20th-century rights-based movement of the West, which gave birth to the global term of “disability,” a collective representation of different types of disabilities, this paper locates that cloaked in individual forms of sickness, the identity of PwD in 19th-century colonial India appeared under varied fragmented labels such as those of leper, lunatic, blind and infirm. This paper broadens the understanding of how philanthropic business response to disability provided social acceptability and credibility to business people as benevolent members of society. While parallelly, for PwD, it reinforced social marginalization and the need for institutionalization, propagating perceptions of unfortunate and helpless members of society.

With the globalization and liberalization in terms of increasing financial flows across the countries, the policy makers around the world are not independent in the context of monetary and fiscal policy initiatives. In this regard, this paper aims to attempt to quantify and capture long run, short run as well as time-varying linkages among the two financial stress indices, namely, Kansas City Financial Stress Index (KCFSI) and Indian Financial Stress Index (IFSI) across the monthly period (2004 to 2014).

Owing to the non-existence of a standardized financial stress index with regards to the Indian financial system, the study has developed an index/stress indicator using principal component analysis. Furthermore, to comprehend the linkages, the study uses bivariate Johansen cointegration model, vector error correction model, impulse response functions (IRF), variance decomposition analysis (VDA), Toda-Yamamoto’s Granger causality test and, finally, bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (BVGARCH) (1,1) model under constant conditional correlation (CCC) framework.

The results report a stochastic trend among the two indices wherein the US financial system acts as a source of a shock causing disequilibrium in the long run co-movement. About 40 per cent of the adjustments take place in one month and rest in the coming months. Both the IRF and VDA report a greater degree impact of the US financial stress on the Indian financial system. Moreover, there is a uni-directional short run causality running from the stress in the US financial system to the Indian financial stress. Furthermore, the co-movement between the US and Indian financial stress reached to its maximum significant level during the sub-prime crisis even confirmed by the Markov switching model results.

Overall, the results provide an insight to the financial market investors both domestic as well as international in their act of risk management. The financial stress prevailing in an economy further has an impact on different economic factors like foreign exchange rates, interest rates, yield curves, equity market returns and volatility. So, the empirical results support strong implications for the Indian policy makers as well as investors in the Indian financial markets.

The present study contributes to the literature in three senses. First, the study considers indices reflecting financial stress in the Indian as well as US financial system. Second, the study captures long run as well as short run linkages among the financial stress indices relating to a developed and an emerging market. Finally, the study uses CCC-BVGARCH (1,1) model to account for the time-varying co-movement among the financial stress indices. This helps in comprehending time-varying nature of the co-movement of the stress in the financial system prevalent in the respective markets.

This paper aims to attempt to capture the intertemporal/time-varying risk–return relationship in the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) equity markets after the global financial crisis (2007-2009), i.e. during a relative calm period. There has been a significant increase in advanced economies’ equity allocations to the emerging markets ever since the financial crisis. So, the present study is an attempt to account for the said relationship, thereby justifying investments made by the international investors.

The study uses non-linear models comprising asymmetric component generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic model in mean (CGARCH-M) (1,1) model, generalised impulse response functions under vector autoregressive framework and Markov regime switching in mean and standard deviation model. The span of data ranges from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2014.

The ACGARCH-M (1,1) model reports a positive and significant risk-return relationship in the Russian and Chinese equity markets only. There is leverage and volatility feedback effect in the Russian market because falling returns further increase conditional variance making the investors to expect a risk premium in the expected returns. The impulse responses indicate that for all of the BRIC markets, the ex-ante returns respond positively to a shock in the long-term risk component, whereas the response is negative to a shock in the short-term risk component. Finally, the Markov regime switching model confirms the existence of two regimes in all of the BRIC markets, namely, Bull and Bear regimes. Both the regimes exhibit negative relationship between risk and return.

It is an imperative task to comprehend the relationship shared between risk and returns for an investor. The investors in the emerging economies should understand the risk-return dynamics well ahead of time so that the returns justify the investments made under riskier environment.

The present study contributes to the literature in three senses. First, the data relate to a period especially after the global financial crisis (2007-2009). Second, the study has used a relatively newer version of GARCH based model [ACGARCH-M (1,1) model], generalised impulse response functions and Markov regime switching model to account for the relationship between risk and return. Finally, the study provides an insightful understanding of the risk–return relationship in the most promising emerging markets group “BRIC nations”, making the study first of its kind in all the perspectives.

This paper aims to attempt to re-capture the stock market contagion effect from the US to the BRIC equity markets during the recent global financial crisis in a multivariate framework. Apart from this, the study also identifies optimal portfolio hedging strategies to minimize the underlying portfolio risk during the period undertaken for the purpose of study.

To account for the dynamic interactions, the study uses vector autoregression (p) dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (1,1) model in a multivariate framework, coupled with a monthly heat map relating to the co-movement between the US and the BRIC equity markets during the period 2007-2009. Finally, by following the studies, Hammoudeh et al. (2010) and Syriopoulos et al. (2015), the time-varying optimal portfolio hedge ratios and weights are computed.

The results report a contagion impact of the US subprime crisis (following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers) on the Indian and Russian stock markets only. On the other hand, a higher degree of interdependence between the US and Brazilian market has been observed. The US and Chinese equity markets indicate a relatively lower level of interdependence among themselves. The optimal hedge ratios are found to be most effective for a portfolio comprising the US and Chinese stocks even during the crisis period. A US investor should invest approximately 30 cents in the Indian market and rest of the 70 cents in the US market in a US$1 portfolio to minimize the portfolio risk without lowering the expected returns. During the crisis period (2007-2009), the optimal portfolio weights indicate a higher weightage to the BRIC stocks.

The results support the construction of optimal US–BRIC stock portfolios and provide an insight to the investors and policy makers both domestic as well as international, with regard to the contagion impact and interdependence, especially during a crisis period.

The study uses a DCC model in a multivariate framework instead of bivariate, wherein all the markets are factored into a single interaction framework across a very long period (2004-2014). Second, a heat map of monthly correlation combinations has been created for the period 2007-2009, to comprehend the contagion impact or interdependence among the markets. Finally, the study ascertains time-varying optimal hedge ratios and portfolio weights for a two asset portfolio, from a US investor viewpoint, making the study first of its kind in all the perspectives.