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This study aims to understand the investments made by Indian MNCs in different tax havens to optimize their tax liabilities. The study also aims to provide insights into the conceptual framework of such practices, highlighting potential benefits and risks and providing policy recommendations that promote transparency, fairness and sustainable economic practices.

The study involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative aspect analyzes investments made by Nifty 50 companies in tax haven jurisdictions from the financial data of the parent company from 2019 to 2023. The qualitative aspect involves a conceptual framework developed from previous studies and examining the role of various organizations in combating tax avoidance. This mixed-method approach enables a comprehensive understanding of the motivations, impacts and regulatory responses related to the use of tax havens.

The paper provides conceptual and descriptive insights on investments made by Indian MNCs in tax havens during 2019–21 to save tax. The study suggests that while investing in tax havens, businesses give more priority to ease of doing business and other considerations such as a lower tax rate.

The present study suggests policymakers about the effectiveness of current tax laws and their enforcement, highlighting loopholes and potential avenues for modification.

This paper assesses the reasons for Indian MNCs starting subsidiaries and making investments in different tax haven jurisdictions and suggests appropriate measures to avoid the menace of tax havens.

The increased interest among academicians to explore more about tax management behavior is evident in the literature on corporate tax avoidance. This paper aims to illustrate the multiple aspects that influence the tax avoidance behavior of corporations and its impacts through the systematic review method.

This study used “Tax Avoidance” OR “Tax Aggressiveness” OR “Tax Planning” as search strings to extract the relevant literature from the Scopus database. This study is a comprehensive analysis of existing literature on corporate tax avoidance behavior. Further, the keyword network analysis has been used to find out the most explored and dry research areas related to corporate tax avoidance behavior using VOSviewer software.

The study finds that taxation decision is an important managerial decision. Managers adopt tax avoidance tactics to boost postax profits to meet the shareholders’ expectations, particularly of risk-averse shareholders, and sometimes for their benefit also. With this, this study also finds that firms’ characteristics, political connections and corporate social responsibility activities also impact taxation decisions. In addition, the study identifies that tax-avoiding behavior has a contradictory impact on firm value, market growth and corporate transparency disclosure decisions.

The study assists the researchers by providing a brief overview of tax avoidance behavior, for corporates in understanding the implications of tax avoidance, and for policymakers to fix the taxation loopholes and bring necessary tax reforms.

This study adds to the existing literature by providing a thorough overview of theories, determinants and outcomes of corporate tax avoidance behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between operational risk management (ORM), size, and ownership of Indian banks. This is important in the context of financial crisis experienced by developed countries due to lax regulation.

ORM practices of Indian banks are proxied by excess capital (over the required minimum capital for operational risk). Size of a bank is measured as deposits plus advances. Our sample includes 61 Indian banks during the period from 2010 to 2013. The authors empirically examine the impact of bank size on excess capital using panel data regression model.

The results suggest that size of Indian banks is inversely related to excess capital held by them for managing operational risk. The inverse relationship implies that smaller banks hold higher excess capital over the required minimum as per Basel norms. There is no significant relationship between ownership (public, private and foreign) and excess capital held by banks for managing operational risk.

The study has implications for Indian banks given the high level of losses due to bad loans, and the implementation of Basel III norms by the central bank, i.e. Reserve Bank of India.

The study has implications for Indian financial system as a large percentage (about 33 per cent) of household savings are deployed in deposits with commercial banks and other financial institutions. The bank failure(s) can have disastrous consequences for the Indian economy as the capacity of the Indian financial system to withstand such shocks is highly doubtful.

There is very little evidence on ORM practices of Indian banks, and its relationship with size and ownership. The study assumes significance in the context of significant changes in the institutional and regulatory framework.

This paper aims to examine the impact of corporate governance practices on the level of financial disclosures made by the Indian firms. This assumes importance in the context of the role of financial disclosures in addressing the agency problem.

Financial disclosure score is computed by considering disclosures provided by the generally accepted accounting principles and is the dependent variable. The independent variable – corporate governance score – is an index comprising internal governance mechanisms. The authors empirically examine the impact of corporate governance practices on financial disclosure using multiple regression model for 200 large listed Indian firms.

The study suggests that quality of governance practices significantly improves financial disclosure practices of the firm. Particularly, the composition of the audit committee is effective in improving disclosures.

The finding has implications for policy makers and practitioners. It will help investors, lenders, and other stakeholders to assess firms’ financial disclosure quality. In addition, the findings, suggest the influence of governance practices on disclosure, might help in the formulation of appropriate policies about board structure and audit function. It is also a call to investors to emphasize on governance quality of the investing firms.

The study builds a case for an urgent intervention for improving the existing governance standards to advance the quality of financial disclosure in an emerging market context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the presence of independent board directors on financial performance in India.

This study used panel regression models on large listed Indian firms to investigate the impact on financial performance owing to the presence of independent directors.

The findings suggest that independent board directors in Indian contexts do not significantly affect financial performance.

This study has implications for the formulation of regulation related to appointment of independent directors and the extent of their representation on the board for them to be effective.

The proportion of independent directors on the board of the firm is influenced by the trade-off between the cost of having independent directors on the board versus the benefits to the firm and society.

The impact of the presence of an independent director on financial performance in highly concentrated ownership remains ambiguous.

The paper investigates how the interplay of women-specific human and social capital factors with ownership structure impacts her chances to get director level appointment in the light of recent amendments to the Indian statute.

The strength of the study lies in fitting a logistic regression model to the unique hand collected data on women director characteristics from 100 large listed Indian firms.

Counter intuitive findings reveal negative effects of social capital on appointment of independent women directors. This relationship gets reversed when social capital is moderated by ownership structure.

Companies may be influenced to take into cognizance the underlying gender biases prevailing in the highest echelons of management and employ un-gendered fair selection practices for board level appointments in order to progress towards gender balanced corporate boards.

The paper is a first of its kind that combines aspects of human capital and ownership structure using Indian data. By developing several new proxy variables to enrich the construct of social capital it contributes to the corporate governance literature and lastly, through main and interaction effects, the paper offers a deeper understanding about the impact of endogenous factors of corporate boards on women's representation at leadership levels in India.

This study aims to examine the transitions in hiring criteria by recruiting companies in top ten Quacquarelli Symonds ranked business schools in India during the pandemic.

Using an exploratory lens, an in-depth semistructured interview was conducted with 20 recruiting companies across industries and roles.

Content analysis suggests the changing preferences in hiring criteria and identifies six themes that have assumed importance during the pandemic period.

This study has implications for business school participants who need to change their preparation strategy during the placement season.

There is an opportunity for business schools to focus on these two soft skills, namely, self-management with self-discipline and oral and written communication across the platform. However, in the depth and diversity of soft skills training, there is often a shallow coverage of multiple skills. The rather focused approach to developing these two skills may go a long way in preparing work-delivery graduates who could hit the proverbial ground running as the first step into their careers.

This study contributes to hiring managers by suggesting the traits that may assume importance in the new normal where remote or hybrid working context is a necessity.

The purpose of this study is to focus on examining whether third-party assurance (TPA) and mandatory corporate social responsibility reporting (MCSR) matter in the association between philanthropic giving (PHG) and listed firms’ financial performance.

Using the Indian stock market as a testing ground, the study used interactive regression and panel regression to analyse 80 sustainability-reporting firms with 800 firm-year observations between 2010 and 2019.

The first findings show a positive association between PHG and financial performance (return on assets, ROA and stock price returns, SPR). Also, the study shows that the interactive variable of MCSR and PHG has a mixed association with financial performance. The second findings show a positive and statistically significant association between TPA and SPR. Also, the interactive effect of TPA and PHG has a negative association with return on equity (ROE) and a positive association with SPR. The third findings show a negative association between MCSR and financial performance (ROA and ROE) and a positive association with SPR. However, when a firm combines MCSR and TPA, the outcome is a negative association with ROE. The fourth findings show that MCSR has a positive association with TPA. The study control for any form of heteroscedasticity, serial correlation and endogeneity effects.

Managers, if given a choice, must opt for TPA over MCSR because the βcoefficient is higher in TPA than MCSR in PHG-financial performance nexus.

The study addresses the information asymmetry problem from the application of TPA and MCSR, which is new to an emerging economy context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of presidential tweeting about corporations on publics’ perceptions of and behavioral intentions toward those corporations. Specifically, the authors examined publics’ intentions to boycott or buycott (Friedman, 1996) Nordstrom, four months after President Trump’s tweet denouncing the company’s decision to discontinue his daughter’s clothing line.

An online survey was conducted among 517 American citizens using Qualtrics panels in June 2017. Respondents were compensated for their participation.

The authors found strong associations between perceived moral inequity and boycott intentions, and perceived business/economic nature of corporate action and buycott intentions. Furthermore, demographic characteristics associated with both types of perceptions were also examined. Younger, more educated respondents tended to accept Nordstrom’s actions as being routine business decisions, whereas conservative participants saw Nordstrom’s actions as being morally iniquitous.

This study is one of the first to explore the impact of presidential tweeting, albeit indirectly, on publics’ perceptions and intentions toward corporations who form the subjects of said tweets. Practitioners may utilize these findings to provide guidance to corporations who may be at the receiving end of presidential tweeting.

Takeovers play a critical role as an external corporate governance mechanism to ensure investor protection. There is a long-standing debate on whether the convergence of corporate governance to global standards can enable emerging economies to ensure investor protection. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of the takeover code, namely, Securities Exchange Board of India’s Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers (2011) in India from the lens of investor protection. It then compares the takeover provisions in India, the USA, the UK, Singapore and Australia to examine the extent of convergence and its implications for investor protection.

Using a cross-national comparative analysis of takeover mechanisms in common law countries, the study analyses the extent and relevance of convergence in form. The focus of the comparison is on regulations governing offer size, offer price, creeping acquisition and initial trigger limit for the mandatory open offer.

The findings suggest that certain provisions such as the initial trigger threshold for the mandatory offer and the offer prices of the Indian takeover code are converging with the standards in common law countries. However, the offer price determination based on market prices may not reflect true market value in an inefficient market like India. Other provisions such as creeping acquisition and offer size are not only diverging from the international standards but are also inconsistent with the key objective of investor protections of the Indian regulator.

Indian takeover regulation needs to converge to higher global standards to ensure adherence to improved investor protection. This needs to be done for the initial trigger limit for mandatory bid and offer prices, after accounting for the differences in institutional structure. The Indian regulators need to revisit provisions on the initial trigger, creeping acquisition to converge to the broader principle of investor protection.

This technical paper provides a comprehensive depiction of takeover mechanisms in an emerging economy context as a means of investor protection. Further using a comparative lens, it analyses the relevance of convergence of takeover laws. Thus, advances the theoretical knowledge of limited extant work on external corporate governance mechanism in an emerging economy context.