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The study presents various barriers to adopt big data analytics (BDA) for sustainable manufacturing operations (SMOs) post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemics. In this study, 17 barriers are identified through extensive literature review and experts’ opinions for investing in BDA implementation. A questionnaire-based survey is conducted to collect responses from experts. The identified barriers are grouped into three categories with the help of factor analysis. These are organizational barriers, data management barriers and human barriers. For the quantification of barriers, the graph theory matrix approach (GTMA) is applied.

The study presents various barriers to adopt BDA for the SMOs post-COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, 17 barriers are identified through extensive literature review and experts’ opinions for investing in BDA implementation. A questionnaire-based survey is conducted to collect responses from experts. The identified barriers are grouped into three categories with the help of factor analysis. These are organizational barriers, data management barriers and human barriers. For the quantification of barriers, the GTMA is applied.

The study identifies barriers to investment in BDA implementation. It categorizes the barriers based on factor analysis and computes the intensity for each category of a barrier for BDA investment for SMOs. It is observed that the organizational barriers have the highest intensity whereas the human barriers have the smallest intensity.

This study may help organizations to take strategic decisions for investing in BDA applications for achieving one of the sustainable development goals. Organizations should prioritize their efforts first to counter the barriers under the category of organizational barriers followed by barriers in data management and human barriers.

The novelty of this paper is that barriers to BDA investment for SMOs in the context of Indian manufacturing organizations have been analyzed. The findings of the study will assist the professionals and practitioners in formulating policies based on the actual nature and intensity of the barriers.

The aim of this paper is to know the cost of per use, to analyze the cost per use in different subjects, to analyze the most economical as well as expensive electronic database being subscribed by the University of Delhi, to identify the database(s) for cancellation and to highlight issues related to usage statistics.

Usage statistics have been collected from the publishers for the period under study of full-text databases in the counting online usage of networked electronic resource (COUNTER) JR1 excluding downloads from an archive and Indian databases not providing COUNTER compliance usage. Usages of foreign databases have been analyzed through different parameters like yearly average cost per down load, subject-wise average cost per down, most economical databases and most expensive databases have been identified. A total approximation cost has also been worked by adopting standards practice to know the saving of University of Delhi by subscribing these databases.

The study concludes that in case of foreign databases, the cost per use has increased by 41.77 per cent in the past 10 years and the cumulative average cost per use has been Rs.55.07 less than $1 if converted into US$. In case of subject, the cheapest cost per use has been from the databases providing statistical data (Rs.26.50) and the costliest cost per use has been from discipline social science (99–196.61), followed by management (Rs.37.33), general databases (Rs.40.58), science (Rs.41.66), humanities (Rs.48.73), technology (Rs.93.22) and computer science (Rs.102.09) per use. It has also been found that the Britannica Online has been the most economical database costing Rs.2.33 and World Intellectual Property Search as most expensive costing Rs.14,902.19 per use. The study concludes that University of Delhi have saved substantial amount by subscribing these databases instead of purchasing these article from open market. The study concluded that though the usage statistics is an important parameter for renewal or cancellation, it should not be the only criteria.

This study could not able to work out the cost per use of Indian databases, as they were not able to provide COUNTER statistics.

On the basis of the study, University of Delhi and institute may decide on renewal of these databases. The institute may take necessary action to promote these databases through information literacy program. On the basis of the study, University of Delhi and institute may decide on renewal of these databases. The institute may take necessary action to promote these databases through information literacy program.

This study is an empirical research based on original usage statistics provided by the publishers in COUNTER format. Earlier literature has also been studied and used. Proper citation and reference have been acknowledged. The study has been checked through plagiarism detecting software.

Liberty Shoes Ltd, had been experiencing falling sales and decreased production as a result of frequent strikes by workers. By 2010, total sales had fallen to INR 300 crores (from INR 500 crores in 2005). In the Annual Board meeting in 2010, Mr Shammi Bansal, the Executive Director expressed his concerns and told the board members that “they must learn to survive or be extinct”. The case study discusses how The Executive Director turned the company around and how the organization became a “learning organization”.

MBA and Executive MBA programs.

In 2004, Liberty Shoes Ltd, had a sales turnover of INR 500 crores. In the year 2006, this dropped to INR 300 crores as a result of regular staff strikes and low morale. However, by 2013, the company had registered sales of INR 800 crores and a growth rate of around 30 per cent on a year-to-year basis. With continued focused initiatives in the organization from 2010 the management aimed to reach a sales turnover of INR 1,000 crores by March, 2014. The contributing factors to this turnaround were the leadership roles which encouraged a learning organization culture with an emphasis placed on the importance of “communication”, “employee development” and “employee empowerment”.

Understand the role of a business leader in building a learning organization. Understand the factors contributing to the building of a culture of a learning organization. Understand the critical aspects and benefits to the organization from becoming a learning organization.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or emailsupport@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 6 Human resource management.

This paper explores the challenge of “fuzzy” assessment criteria and feedback with a view to aiding student learning. The paper untangles three guiding principles as mechanisms to enhance the effectiveness of assessment and feedback through overcoming the inherent challenges which stem from tacit judgement during assessment.

The paper applies a realistic evaluation methodology, with a framework for assessment and feedback consisting of three principles – Means, Opportunity and Motivation (MOM). Through in-depth interviews with undergraduate and postgraduate management students the paper identifies how and when the means, opportunity and motivation principles impact student learning through assessment and the utility of the feedback received on their learning.

The findings in the paper illustrate that students do not always understand the feedback they receive on their learning because they do not fully understand the criteria to which it refers due to the tacit dimensions of assessment. The findings substantiate the proposition that effective assessment processes must ensure that students have the means, opportunity and motivation to use feedback and to understand the criteria, a central component of which is understanding tacit dimensions of assessment.

The paper deciphers three practical implications for instructors related to (1) teaching, (2) course and program design and (3) the nature of the feedback instructors should provide.

While prior scholarship has flagged the challenge of “fuzzy” assessment and feedback, this paper identifies when and how the means, opportunity and motivation principles are manifested in the process of making the tacit components of assessment codified and actionable, a critical process in developing expert learners.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of various factors like profitability, growth opportunity, financial leverage, assets tangibility, operating cash flows, age and size of firm on working capital requirements (WCR) of manufacturing SMEs in India.

The paper uses a panel data regression model with fixed and random effect estimations. The data utilized in this study includes financial data of 254 manufacturing SMEs operating in India for the period 2010 to 2014.

The overall results of the study indicate that operating cash flow, financial leverage, profitability, sales growth and asset tangibility are the key drivers of WCR for Indian manufacturing SMEs. Profitability of firm and sales growth are found to be positively related to WCR. In contrast, asset tangibility, operating cash flow and financial leverage are found to be negatively related to WCR.

This paper investigates firm-specific factors while ignoring external factors like GDP growth, business indicators and industry type. Further research can be done to assess the effect of these external factors on WCR.

This research contributes to the working capital literature by providing empirical evidence on determining factors of WCR in manufacturing SMEs.

The authors present a systematic literature review on microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) effect on poverty and how they can ensure their sustainability. The purpose of this article is to review the effect of MFIs on poverty in South Asian countries. The analysis and review of the selected corpus of literature also provide avenues for future research.

A total of 95 papers from 49 journals in 4 academic libraries and publishers were systematically studied and classified. The authors define the keywords and the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the identification of papers. The review includes an analysis of the selected papers that give insights about publications with respect to themes, number of themes covered in individual publications, nations, scope, methodology, number of methods used and publication trend.

The literature indicates the positive effect of microfinance on poverty but with a varying degree on various categories of poor. The relation between poverty and microfinance is, however, dependent on the nation under the scanner. While sustainability and outreach co-exist, their trade-off is still a matter of debate.

This is the first systematic literature review on MFIs’ effect on poverty in South Asian nations. Additionally, the authors discuss the literature on the trade-off between sustainability and outreach for MFIs.

Patient satisfaction has been recognized as an important variable affecting healthcare behavior. However, there are limited data on the relationship between doctor post-graduate year (PGY) status and patient satisfaction with provider interpersonal skills and humanistic qualities. The authors aims to assess this relationship using an American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) questionnaire.

Participants were: patients attending a primary care clinic at a large urban academic hospital; and physicians treating them. The survey questionnaire was the ABIM patient satisfaction instrument; ten questions pertaining to humanistic qualities and communication skills with responses from poor to excellent. Mann Whitney U test and multi-variable logistic regression analyses were used to explore score differences by PGY level.

The postgraduate year one (PGY1) had higher patient-satisfaction levels compared to PGY2/PGY3 residents. The PGY1 level residents were more likely to score in the 90th percentile and this remained constant even after adjusting for confounders.

The research was a single-center study and may have been subject to confounding factors such as patient personality types and a survey ceiling effect. The survey's cross-sectional nature may also be a potential limitation.

Patient satisfaction varies significantly with PGY status. Though clinical skills may improve with increasing experience, findings imply that interpersonal and humanistic qualities may deteriorate.

The study is the first to assess patient satisfaction with PGY status and provides evidence that advanced trainees may need support to keep their communication skills and humanistic qualities from deteriorating as stressors increase to ensure optimal patient satisfaction.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of working capital efficiency (WCE) and its components on the composite financial performance of a sample of Indian firms.

Our sample includes 796 non-financial listed firms from 2015–16 to 2021–22. Sample firms’ profitability, liquidity, solvency, cash flow management, and financial and operational leverage have been used to classify them into companies with high composite financial performance (HCFP) and with low composite financial performance (LCFP) by using K-Means Clustering technique. A composite financial performance score (CFPS) of 1 has been assigned to HCFP and 0 to LCFP. We have used logistic regression models with fixed effect to estimate the effect of cash conversion cycle (CCC) and its components, i.e. inventory days, accounts receivable days and accounts payable days on CFPS in the presence of control variables such as growth, leverage, firm size, and age.

The study finds that CCC and inventory days are inversely associated with CFPS. This finding shows that the firms’ WCE leads to superior financial performance on a composite basis.

The research findings are based on samples drawn from the population of the listed Indian non-financial companies. Since the operation, financial practices, working capital policies, and management styles of firms vary greatly among nations, the results of this study should be extended to firms in other countries after taking into account the degree of resemblance to the sample firms.

The findings of this study hold significant value for industry practitioners, as they provide guidance in determining the optimal allocation of funds for working capital and devising strategies for effectively managing inventory levels, credit sales, and vendor payments in order to increase the overall value of the company. This study aims to help investors in building their investment portfolios by identifying companies with superior composite financial performance. Investors can enhance the construction of their investment portfolios by strategically selecting companies that demonstrate superior overall performance.

The results of our study will help companies improve their WCM strategies to enhance their overall value, and their significance increases manifold during economic downturns. Business firms that perform well by efficiently managing their working capital have a multiplier effect on the economy and society at large in the form of GDP contribution, labor income, taxes to the government, investment in capital assets, and payments to suppliers.

To understand the impact of WCE on firms’ performance, the extant working capital literature focuses on some specific characteristics such as profitability, valuation, solvency, and liquidity. The limitation of employing a single parameter is its inability to present the comprehensive performance evaluation of firms. This study is among the earliest studies that focus on the holistic evaluation of WCE's impact on the composite performance of a company.

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the thermo-mechanical interactions in an initially stressed nonlocal micropolar thermoelastic half-space having void pores under Lord–Shulman model. A moving thermal shock is applied to the formulation.

The normal mode technique is adopted to obtain the exact expressions of the physical quantities.

Numerical computations for stresses, displacement components, temperature field and change in the volume fraction field are performed for suitable material and are depicted graphically. Some comparisons have been shown in figures to estimate the effects of micropolarity, initial stress, voids, nonlocal parameter and time on the resulting quantities.

The exact expressions for the displacement components, stresses, temperature and change in the volume fraction field are obtained in the physical domain. Although numerous investigations do exist to observe the disturbances in a homogeneous, isotropic, initially stressed, micropolar thermoelastic half-space, the work in its current form has not been established by any scholar till now. The originality of the present work lies in the formulation of a fresh research problem to investigate the dependence of different physical fields on nonlocality parameters, micropolarity, initial stress, porosity and time due to the application of a moving thermal shock.

The purpose of this paper is to review research on working capital management (WCM) and to identify gaps in the current body of knowledge, which justify future research directions. WCM has attracted serious research attention in the recent past, especially after the financial crisis of 2008.

Using systematic literature review (SLR) method, the present study reviews 126 articles from referred journal and international conferences published on WCM.

Detailed content analysis reveals that most of the research work is empirical and focuses mainly on two aspects, impact of working capital on profitability of firm and working capital practices. Major research work has concluded that WCM is essential for corporate profitability. The major issues with prior literature are lack of survey-based approach and lack of systematic theory development study, which opens all new areas for future research. The future research directions proposed in this paper may help develop a greater understanding of determinants and practices of WCM.

Till date, literature on classification of WCM has been almost non-existent. This paper reviews a large number of articles on WCM and provides a classification scheme in to various categories. Subsequently, various emerging trends in the field of WCM are identified to help researchers specifying gaps in the literature and direct research efforts.

This paper contains a comprehensive listing of publications on the WCM and their classification according to various attributes. The paper will be useful to researchers, finance professionals and others concerned with WCM to understand the importance of WCM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no detailed SLR on this topic has previously been published in academic journals.