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The study investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and dividend policy in the context of Indian firms, as well as how regulatory interventions in the form of mandated CSR can moderate this relationship.

A sample of the largest 500 companies listed on the National Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2019 is used in the study. The authors employ the system generalized method of moments since this estimation technique yields accurate and consistent findings in a dynamic panel data setting.

The authors find that CSR is positively associated with dividend payments. Increased incomes and lower financial constraints are the likely factors causing this relationship. Additional analysis suggests that the positive relationship is stronger for mature firms and for firms with higher information asymmetry. Financial reporting quality works in tandem with CSR to boost dividends. Regulatory interventions in the form of mandated CSR weaken the relationship. Finally, the speed of adjustment of dividends is relatively faster for socially responsible firms.

The positive association between CSR and dividends suggests that the interest of shareholders and other non-financial stakeholders can be reconciled. Additionally, businesses should attempt to strategically implement their CSR plans in accordance with the requirements of Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 to avoid any unfavourable moderating effects of the legislation. The results also show that CSR disclosures complement rather than serve as a substitute for financial disclosures.

The study is the first to evaluate the relationship between CSR and dividends in the context of India, which is a pioneer in passing legislation that mandates CSR for firms surpassing a threshold. The authors also identify financial constraints as a channel through which CSR affects dividends.

This study aims to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the cost of equity (CoE) capital of Indian manufacturing firms.

The study is conducted on a sample of 68 manufacturing firms listed on National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) 200, investigated for the period 2013 to 2018. To deal with the issue of endogeneity, the techniques of system generalized method of moments and two-stage least square have been applied.

The results suggest that CSR disclosure is positively linked with the CoE in the case of manufacturing firms, signalling that socially responsible firms in India bear a higher CoE. The findings indicate that investors do not treat CSR as a value-augmenting factor.

Firms should effectuate effective managerial and organizational changes to fulfil their social responsibility instead of window dressing their activities. Regulators in India must work towards more stringent enforcement of the act and make efforts to promote public awareness of CSR.

The integration of CSR activities with the economic operations of the business is imperative.

To the best of researchers’ knowledge, there is a lack of studies focussing on India, which serves as an ideal setting for the study owing to the latest legislation mandating CSR expenditure. The study focusses on manufacturing firms as these firms are more susceptible to contribute to environmental pollution, exploitation of natural resources and labour concerns.

Although decades of research on transformational leadership have resulted in a firm understanding of its consequences, the impact of environmental-conscious transformational leader on positive employee outcomes and underlying mechanism in environmental leadership–outcome relationship is not well examined. This study aims to examine a moderated mediation model of effects of environmental consciousness (EC) on the mediating role of perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR) in transformational leadership (ETFL) and pro-environmental behavior (PEB) relationship in energy-intensive industries.

In total, 320 self- reported questionnaires were collected from employees working in different Indian organizations across different sectors. All measures used in this survey were adopted from well-established scales. To minimize the effects of common method variance arising, the survey questionnaires were administered to the participants in two stages (with a gap of 14 days), with antecedents separated from outcomes. Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling and SPSS-process macro were applied for testing the hypothesized model.

The results revealed that ETFL positively correlated with PEB. The hypothesized moderated mediation condition was supported as the results suggest that PCSR mediated the ETFL–PEB relationship, and EC moderated this mediating pathway; i.e. indirect effects of ETFL on employee PEB via PCSR were stronger for employees with high EC.

In particular, this research provides implications for training and development of leaders. The study indicates the importance of environmental-conscious leaders in enhancing perceived PCSR and PEB of employees. Likewise, the finding found that PCSR mediates the ETFL and PEB relationship. Moreover, the indirect effect of ETFL on PEB through PCSR moderated by EC highlights the importance of managing and ensuring effective leader–employee relationship that facilitates ecofriendly initiatives.

The study is based on the data collected from energy-intensive industries. Thus, it provides insights into the role and importance of green leadership and green behavior in energy industries. It is one of the few studies in the energy-intensive industry in India that help the researcher to delve into future research on the same.

Reliability and maintainability estimation of any system depends on the identification of the best-fitted probability distribution of failure and repair rates. The parameters of the best-fitted probability distribution are also contributing significantly to reliability estimation. In this work, a case study of load haul dump (LHD) machines is illustrated that consider the optimization of failure and repair rate parameters using two well established metaheuristic approaches, namely, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). This paper aims to analyze the aforementioned points.

The data on time between failures (TBF) and time to repairs (TTR) are collected for a LHD machine. The descriptive statistical analysis of TBF & TTR data is performed, trend and serial correlation tested and using Anderson–Darling (AD) value best-fitted distributions are identified for repair and failure times of various subsystems. The traditional methods of estimation like maximum likelihood estimation, method of moments, least-square estimation method help only in finding the local solution. Here, for finding the global solution two well-known metaheuristic approaches are applied.

The reliability of the LHD machine after 60 days on the real data set is 28.55%, using GA on 250 generations is 17.64%, and using PSO on 100 generations and 100 iterations is 30.25%. The PSO technique gives the global best value of reliability.

The present work will be very convenient for reliability engineers, researchers and maintenance managers to understand the failure and repair pattern of LHD machines. The same methodology can be applied in other process industries also.

In this case study, initially likelihood function of the best-fitted distribution is optimized by GA and PSO. Reliability and maintainability of LHD machines evaluated by the traditional approach, GA and PSO are compared. These results will be very helpful for maintenance engineers to plan new maintenance strategies for better functioning of LHD machines.

In this era of technological advancement, the capabilities of devices and telecommunications have changed the pattern of media consumption among consumers. This study examined the research landscape and advancements in OTT services.

This study adopted a hybrid review consisting of bibliometric and thematic analyses to present advancements in the OTT platforms. A hybrid review integrates both systematic and narrative approaches by emphasizing a literature search strategy and the study selection process.

This study focuses on previous literature to understand recent developments in the domain. The authors derive six major OTT themes: OTT infrastructure and technology advancement, OTT consumption behaviour, shifting trends towards OTT platforms, viewers’ engagement in digital media, OTT in the global market, OTT policies and regulatory mechanisms.

The findings of this study will be useful for marketers/stakeholders associated with the entertainment and media industries, such as sales promotion teams, media planners/advertisers, content management companies and policy regulators, to penetrate OTT viewers.

The literature related to OTT is progressively rising, but it remains highly fragmented because of inconsistencies in the methodologies and theories used in the domain of OTT. This study offers directions in terms of theory, methodology and future research on OTT services.