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Excessive working capital or paucity of the same can impair the profits and health of an organization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of working capital management (WCM) on the profitability of firms for a sample comprising of non-financial companies in countries of South East Asia, South Asia and East Asia.

Analytical modeling has been used to estimate the impact of WCM on profitability with the help of financial data of the companies listed in major indices of the target countries (India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan). The mathematical model presented in the paper has been tested using two-step-generalized method of moments.

The study reveals a non-linear relationship between profitability of a firm and WCM for 11 economies of the Asia Pacific region.

The results are subject to the differences in the market dynamics of different economies (countries). Moreover, the limitations of the specific statistical method used to verify the model apply to the model too.

The research can be used as a tool by the firms (global as well as local) to ameliorate their performance by understanding the effects of WCM on profitability in different global markets and adjusting their working capital accordingly.

The research on the impact of WCM on profitability of the firms of South East Asia, South Asia and East Asia is a new effort and tries to make the importance of WCM more luciferous.

The digital learning and learning & development (L&D) at workplaces in corporates is having a significant challenge, where only about 1% of the week is spent on L&D by the employees. There are an array of recent L&D reports–by Deloitte, 2019; Skillsoft's, 2019; LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report-2019; UK L&D Report-2019; FICCI-NASSCOM and EY “Future of Jobs” Report-2017–which have clearly been indicating that the digital learning is fast-emerging as one of the realistic option. The employees invest their time and energy for skilling/up-skilling/re-skilling for remaining relevant to the emerging business context under volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) world and also coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is being researched.

The L&D interventions have primary objective of enhancing skills, competencies and career growth among employees, and the learning engagement styles/ systems are undergoing dramatic paradigm shifts. There is dire need to understand the impact of sweeping changes with Industry 4.0 and HR 4.0; however, there are only a few industry-centric studies that are available to assess the impact of technology on L&D with digital learning. Hence, there is a need to study the factors influencing various segments of workforce in large corporates, where the learning engagement with digital learning is fast-emerging among corporates.

Given the digital learning / L&D context in corporates, this research paper has attempted to review and analyse the opportunities, challenges and emerging trends with respect to leveraging technology and innovation to enhance L&D to deliver the business goals, under the 70:20:10 framework, with case analysis of ten different corporates (across different industry sectors) viz., Genpact, Nexval, Airbus, Siemens, AstraZeneca Pharma, HPCL, HGS (BPM), HP, Flipkart and IBM. The A-to-Z of Talent Management and Leadership Development (adopted version from India Leadership Academy, Publicis Sapient, 2019) best practices are analysed, summarized and presented to indicate emerging trends in Industry 4.0 era.

This study has been carried out for just ten major corporates/ multinational companies (MNCs) operating in various sectors. The sample size used is relatively less; therefore, the study can be carried out with a larger sample size and deeper data analysis and insights across countries/continents. At present, this can be considered as a base-research for undertaking deep-dive analysis. The sectoral analysis and cross-industry perspectives require consideration in next studies. To address the sector-specific issues, the research can be undertaken for either a particular sector such as manufacturing, automotive, IT/ITeS, telecom, aviation, agri-tech and pharmaceutical, knowledge-based industries, etc. or comparative analysis across few related sectors required.

This research has provided/shall provide a basis to understand the various factors that influence the L&D and digital learning ecosystem in large corporates. It is expected to provide a practical and also strategic perspective towards effective usage of digital learning systems (both in-house and open systems) for enhancing the effectiveness of L&D in the context of VUCA World and HR 4.0 around us. The proposed hypothesis of “The Digital Learning is the “Future of HR”, especially for the L&D in large Corporate Academies (in the context of Industry 4.0)” stands justified.

The clear shift from training culture to “Learning Culture” is possible and feasible with strategically planned digital learning/ L&D interventions, which benefits the corporates, employees, customers and the society at large.

To the best of our knowledge, probably this is one of the first paper in the analysing the industry best L&D/Digital learning practices from an practitioners and academic perspective, as we live in the era of bit-sized and byte sized micro-learning. This study contributes to the academics by providing insights on possible digital learning policies that can be practiced by large corporates, where the “ownership of learning and career growth” is transferred onto the employees. The result of this study complements the evolving digital learning trends, in line with science of self-driven and lifelong learning principle.

Banks in the South Asian region are the fulcrum of economic growth and development as they provide means to development credit and working capital, trade and infrastructure finance and are seen as custodians of the trust in the financial system. This paper aims to study the nature of banking sector linkages for the region.

The dependence structure between deposits and lending rates individually for the banks of the South Asian countries are studied using time invariant and time varying family of copula functions. The degree of connectedness is further studied by Diebold and Yilmaz methodology.

Results indicate poor levels of banking integration in the region as the dependence parameter for both deposits and lending rates was around 0 for the sample countries, thereby confirming poor banking sector integration in the region.

Policymakers of the region are interested in the co-movements of the interest rates to understand the cross-sector risk management and any systemic risk pressures for the regional economies. Corporates in these countries are scouting out for competitive borrowing rates to lower their cost of capital.

Rationale for examining the banking sector linkages is that the South Asian countries are at different stages of economic growth and development and this region in particular is the fastest growing region in the world and has largely increased its trade integration with the world albeit having lowest levels of intra-regional trade integration.

This is a first of a kind of studies to examine the banking sector linkages in South Asia.

This study aims to examine the differences in the impact of three leadership styles (transactional, transformational and creative) on intraorganizational online knowledge-sharing and employee creativity. Specifically, we use self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the impact of these three leadership styles on four aspects of online knowledge sharing (knowledge donating, knowledge collecting, lurking and active lurking) and the moderating role of organizational innovation on these relationships.

Data were collected from 361 employees of business-to-business organizations in Vietnam to support all our hypotheses. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

Transformational, transactional and creative leadership were found to affect online knowledge sharing, wherein creative leadership had the most potent effect. Online knowledge sharing was found to mediate the impact of three types of leadership on employee creativity. The results also showed that organizational innovation moderates the influence of leadership on online knowledge sharing.

This paper extends the current knowledge management research on online knowledge sharing by studying two new behaviors (lurking and active lurking), linking diverse leadership styles to these behaviors and employee creativity, and exploring the moderating role of organizational innovation. Our findings shed light on the complexity of the relationship between leadership and online knowledge sharing. This study also provides valuable implications for practitioners to help them choose the most appropriate leadership style for their digitalization process to ensure optimal outcomes.

BigBasket.com, an online supermarket established in December 2011 in Bangalore, India, had become one of the major players in the Indian online grocery market by the end of March 2016.₁ Run by Innovative Retail Concepts Private Limited, BigBasket.com was operating in more than 23 cities across the country in 2016. The online grocery market in India was in a stage of growth and transformation, fuelled by India's large urban population who sought a lifestyle of convenience and ease. It had also attracted many entrepreneurs who competed fiercely with each other in a market characterised by thin margins. Intense competition ensured that only a few companies were able to survive and sustain themselves. One of these companies was Big Basket, which succeeded in spite of the competition, attracting Series D_a funding worth USD 150_b million from the United Arab Emirates-based Abraaj Group in March 2016.₂

Purpose: Worldwide economies have been shattered by the alarming increase in Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in Banking Sector. In India, the rise in NPA levels gives a clear insight into the health of industry and state. This study aims to determine how NPAs in India impact the profitability of eight banks chosen from the public and private sectors; specifically: Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of India (BOI), UCO Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB), HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank; during the period 2009/2010 to 2017/2018.

Design/methodology/approach: The study utilised IBM SPSS version 20 application to carry out our statistical analysis of measures of central location (mean and median), measures of dispersion (standard deviation), to carry out the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test to check the normality of data, the Mann–Whitney U test (for two groups) for median comparison between private and public sector banks and the Kruskal–Wallis test (for more than two groups) for median comparison for more than two banks. p ≤0.01 and p ≤0.05 were the two-tailed significance level used for determining the significance of all statistical tests.

Findings: Trend analysis and statistical tests show that the trend in public sector banks to have NPAs is higher compared to private sector banks, and losses arising from NPA impact the banks’ profitability.

Practical implications: It is apparent that NPAs are a large threat to banks in India as it reflects the state of the Indian economy. The growth of the economic cycle is predominantly dependent on the smooth and profitable functioning of private and public sector banks. This current study focusses on and compares the impact of NPAs on the profitability of public and private sector banks. NPAs have grown exponentially more in the case of public sector banks than private sector banks, which has affected the former banks’ financial health and performance. Increases in the level of NPAs adversely affect the working style and long-term stability of public and private sector banks in the economy.

Social Implications: NPAs have a negative influence on the profitability of the banks as well as on the economic growth of the country too. However, it is recommended that management in the banking sector, particularly the public banks, should use various preventive and recovery strategies to reduce the risk of failure and to keep track of NPAs to stay safe.

Originality/value: This study aims to determine how NPAs in India impact the profitability of eight banks chosen from the public and private sectors; specifically: PNB, BOI, UCO Bank, PSB, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank; during the period 2009/2010 to 2017/2018.

COVID entered the world in 2019 as a pandemic and the intensity of this health crisis is only increasing in several regions. Therefore, it is critical to study and detect the public's frame of mind, government and economists' perception regarding the COVID crisis, as well as the primary worries that the public has expressed, and how this evolves over time. Responsive measures towards COVID-19 from the Indian economy have been explored as a key objective. Moreover, efforts have been made to explore recovery in India through economists and policymakers. Data have been explored through online interviews of key economists which were published in leading newspapers and covered through media channels such as NDTV, CNBC, etc. Moreover, various newspapers and reports were explored to understand government initiatives to address COVID-19 in India. The study's findings show how essential economic recovery from the second wave is in India, and how it may be achieved by strong fiscal and monetary policies, as well as specific attention to impoverished households, small and micro-businesses and increased employment. The short-term focus of the developing economic strategy must be on giving crisis relief to the most unprotected segments of society since long-term system stimulation is impossible.

India is one of the world's largest exporters of products and services. Given the outstanding contribution of services in India's foreign trade, this study examines the changing international trade pattern for India. It is a nation that is heavily dependent on imports and exports. This study examines the changing international trade pattern for India with the existence of certain global disruptions. The analysis highlights a growing trade surplus in services and an increasing trade deficit (i.e. imports higher than exports) in goods. India needs to have policies in place to emerge as a strong economy in this post-pandemic era. This chapter provides a set of examples based on the research findings. The research suggests that the growing economy and supportive government policies offer greater opportunities for the country in the longer period if urgent policy initiatives and support are extended to existing and potential manufacturing and services sectors. It ultimately seeks to highlight key opportunities, challenges and suggestions to protect and promote India's international trade.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of playfulness on innovative consumers’ pre-order behavior for new products.

Drawing upon self-congruity theory and early adoption literature, the effects of playfulness and innovativeness on pre-order behavior and the role of self-congruity are tested using four experimental studies that are analyzed using generalized linear model (GLM) and structural equation modeling.

Results indicate that playfulness amplifies the advance-purchasing propensity, especially when the pre-launch information cues come from a credible source.

This paper refines playfulness measurement scales and proposes how both enjoyment- and creativity-based playfulness amplify the purchase intention among innovative consumers. The results assist product managers in developing advanced marketing plans before a new product is launched.