Siobhan Warrington, Mimi Coultas, Mitali Das and Effat Nur
In Bangladesh, as elsewhere, menstruation is surrounded by stigma, silence, and shame. Despite being a critical part of women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and…
Abstract
Purpose
In Bangladesh, as elsewhere, menstruation is surrounded by stigma, silence, and shame. Despite being a critical part of women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), it remains significantly under-researched and addressed. However, the focus on menstrual health (MH) programming is growing globally, with increased awareness of the importance of holistic and rights-based approaches. This case study aims to examine and reflect upon the MH landscape and programming in Bangladesh, assessing the progress, challenges, and potential ways forward.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study is based on a non-systematic review of recent global and national literature, eight semi-structured interviews, a review of national television adverts and the authors’ experiences of MH research and programming in Bangladesh.
Findings
Hygiene-based education delivered through schools is a common entry point for MH programming in Bangladesh, with limited activities conducted in communities (including with men and boys) and through media. The focus of MH programming has tended to be narrow, with insufficient recognition of the wider gender equality and health implications of menstruation. There are growing efforts to coordinate MH work by different agencies and to collectively advocate for increased government engagement. While significant progress has been made, this case study identifies several gaps and tensions that reflect the complexity of addressing MH.
Originality/value
This case study presents an overview of recent MH experiences and programming in Bangladesh. It recognises the different sectors, sites and stakeholders involved, and includes experiences and perspectives of practitioners, academics, and programme participants.
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Bijitaswa Chakraborty, Manali Chatterjee and Titas Bhattacharjee
One of the adverse effects of COVID-19 is on poor economic and financial performance. Such economic underperformance, less demand from the consumer side and supply chain…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the adverse effects of COVID-19 is on poor economic and financial performance. Such economic underperformance, less demand from the consumer side and supply chain disruption is leading to stock market volatility. In such a backdrop, this paper aims to find the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian stock market by analyzing the analyst’s report.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample includes a cross-sectional data set on selected Indian firms that are indexed in BSE 100. The authors calculate the score of disclosure tone by using a textual analysis tool based on the analyst report of selected BSE 100 firms' approach in tackling COVID-19’s impact. The relationship between the tone of the analyst report and stock market performance is examined. This empirical model also survives robustness analysis to establish the consistency of the findings. This study uses both frequentist statistics and Bayesian statistics approach.
Findings
The empirical result shows that tone has negative and significant influence on stock market performance. This study indicates that either analysts are not providing value-relevant and incremental information, which can reduce the stock market volatility during this pandemic situation or investors are not able to recognize the optimism of the information.
Practical implications
This study provides an interesting insight regarding retail investors' stock purchasing behavior during the crisis period. Hence, this study also lays out crucial managerial implications that can be followed by preparers while preparing corporate disclosure.
Originality/value
In the concern on pandemic and its impact on the stock market, this study sheds light on investors' preferences during the crisis period. This study uniquely focuses on analyst reports and investors' preference which has not been studied widely. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the Indian context, which aims to understand retail investors’ investment preferences during a pandemic.
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Niladri Das, Mitali Sen and J.K. Pattanayak
The purpose of this study is to assess the students' perception about the importance of incorporating environmental reporting practices, standards, and other issues in Management…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess the students' perception about the importance of incorporating environmental reporting practices, standards, and other issues in Management Accounting course.
Design/methodology/approach
Environmental issues provide a unique, timely, and important focus for developing a course in Indian management pedagogy, which shall help in demonstrating the usefulness of environmental accounting information in supporting corporate environmental strategies while assessing environmental performance. Assessment measurements that may capture the impact of reformed academic programs are necessary to judge the success and failure of management education reforms. This paper carries out such an assessment process by offering a course on environmental accounting as an intervention, to a sample of 28 management students enrolled in a higher educational institution in India imparting management education. A questionnaire is administered to these students before and after the intervention in order to understand the difference of their perception level.
Findings
The results suggests a significant difference in the perception level of students about the utility of incorporating environmental reporting practices in Management Accounting course before and after the administration of the reformed program.
Originality/value
The paper is unique in its attempt to understand the Indian management students' perception of knowledge and usefulness with environmental accounting in their regular course, from which a more detailed evaluation can be derived. Further work based on this preliminary finding may be used to develop a proposed environmental accounting course framework for management students in India.
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Mitali Sen, Kuhali Mukherjee and J.K. Pattanayak
The purpose of this paper is to identify the existing status of environmental disclosure practices in Indian core sector companies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the existing status of environmental disclosure practices in Indian core sector companies.
Design/methodology/approach
Waste disposal costs and other environmental liability costs are crucial information to be disclosed by core sector companies as they have direct impact on the environment. A content analysis of the annual reports of select core sector companies across four industries, viz. Oil and petrochemicals, Mining and minerals, Steel and Cement, has been undertaken to study the extent and nature of their environmental disclosures in their annual reports for 2007‐2008.
Findings
The study shows that the level of disclosure of environmental information varies across industries as well as companies and the information revealed in the annual reports is found to be more qualitative than quantitative.
Practical implications
The disclosure made by the core sector companies does not adequately cover the informational needs of stakeholders. However, the increasing disclosure trends can be considered as a first step toward improved environmental disclosure. The study therefore supports the need for a suitable framework for environmental disclosure, such that all the stakeholders can use it as credible information.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by evaluating voluntary environmental disclosures made by Indian core sector companies in their annual report. Further work based on this preliminary finding may be done to assess the status of environmental disclosure for a larger sample of Indian core sector companies.
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This paper reappraises the global and regional integration for 6 Southeast Asian stock markets. A time‐varying analysis based on Barari (2004) suggests that Malaysia, South Korea…
Abstract
This paper reappraises the global and regional integration for 6 Southeast Asian stock markets. A time‐varying analysis based on Barari (2004) suggests that Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand have shown significant movement towards international financial integration.The estimates based on TARCH model imply significant support for returns and volatility spillover effects from the World as well as regional markets to all the stock markets except Pakistan. The stock market liberalization measures such as First Country Fund, First Depository Receipt, and First Cross Listing appeared to have induced more positive return spillover effects from the World to India, Indonesia and South Korea. These results have policy implication for the international portfolio investors in sense that portfolio diversification advantages are rather less in Malaysia, South Korea compared to India and Pakistan which still provide higher returns through portfolio diversification.