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Article
Publication date: 3 February 2012

Aaron Trinidade, Prasad Kothari, Zenon Andreou, Richard J.D. Hewitt and Paul O'Flynn

The purpose of this paper is to determine head and neck cancer patients' perspective of their follow‐up regime and to suggest ways in which these perspectives can be incorporated…

414

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine head and neck cancer patients' perspective of their follow‐up regime and to suggest ways in which these perspectives can be incorporated into current practice.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a prospective survey‐based study. A total of 263 patients consecutively attending a head and neck cancer clinic completed a survey about their experience of the follow‐up process in the post‐treatment period between January 2009 and October 2009.

Findings

The paper finds that, of the patients, 67 per cent (n=176) felt that the clinic met the goals they hoped would be achieved during their visit; 84 per cent (n=221) felt that their follow‐up visits were too frequent. In total 60 per cent (n=159) were booked to see both an allied health professional and the attending clinician. Of these, 84 per cent (n=134/159) felt that issues addressed at follow‐up with the clinician duplicated those addressed by the allied healthcare professionals. When asked about their opinion of a less intensive follow‐up system based on patients reporting problems and requesting appointments, 73 per cent (n=192) favoured it. When asked who they would like to contact first in such a system, most patients (n=118, 45 per cent) stated a clinical nurse specialist.

Practical implications

Current follow‐up regimes may be too prescriptive in their approach without taking patient perspective into consideration. Patients felt that being seen intensively for the first year, then having visits tapered off over the next two years and finally being seen according to symptoms thereafter to be appropriate and felt that this represented an overall better system.

Originality/value

These data suggest the need for a more patient‐focused, individualised approach to follow‐up in head and neck cancer.

Details

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0952-6862

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Article
Publication date: 5 June 2017

Tanvi Kothari

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that motivate women in India to become self-employed. Further, it demonstrates a systematic application of grounded theory to…

1252

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that motivate women in India to become self-employed. Further, it demonstrates a systematic application of grounded theory to understand how women entrepreneurs build their ventures’ success in India.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper throws light on the key tenets of grounded theory research and explains its use as a rigorous method for entrepreneurship research. Data were collected through 25 in-depth case studies of women entrepreneurs from diverse geographical, social, economical and industrial sectors in one of the world’s fastest growing emerging markets, namely, India.

Findings

The results of this inductive approach suggest that women-owned ventures’ path to building success is on one hand, based on their ability to recognize opportunities despite their non-business social network enhanced by their innovation capabilities. On the other hand, it is also based on their ability to find some market niches, i.e., entering into markets untapped by traditional men-owned small businesses. The author concludes that the women entrepreneurs’ paths to building competitive advantage in emerging markets manifests a number of features that are distinct from those of the women-owned businesses from developed countries. This study provides a holistic understanding of women entrepreneurs in emerging markets, an under-researched phenomenon by providing a framework to understand how they build their ventures’ success in a competitive environment.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is intended as a critical review of the factors influencing women entrepreneurship in India, thus the inductively developed framework is not tested.

Practical implications

The main message of the paper is that women entrepreneur’s ability to (simultaneously) sell products or offer solutions to niche segments (demand side) and capabilities to optimize resources by being innovative (supply side) facilitates their path to build success for their ventures. The findings of this study provide guidelines for policy makers in emerging markets to incorporate policies such that will enhance women’s entrepreneurship despite the social constraints faced by these women. The author demonstrates that women’s involvement in developing their businesses provides job opportunities and ensures that women are taking an active part in the development of the national economy.

Originality/value

This study fulfills the need to explore entrepreneurship by women, in emerging economies like India. Moreover, it is probably one of the first few studies in the literature that uses empirical evidence from a variety of settings to identify factors that motivate women in India to become self-employed and provides a dynamic framework on how women-owned ventures succeed.

Details

South Asian Journal of Business Studies, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-628X

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Article
Publication date: 8 July 2022

Murat Ocak, Serdar Ozkan and Gökberk Can

In this paper, the authors examine the association between the amount of continuing professional education (CPE) hours per staff and audit quality in terms of discretionary…

772

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, the authors examine the association between the amount of continuing professional education (CPE) hours per staff and audit quality in terms of discretionary accruals and audit opinion.

Design/methodology/approach

Several methodologies are adopted to test the hypotheses, including the ordinary least square (OLS) and logistic regression (Logistic). The authors also employ instrument variables regression with two least square (IVREG with 2SLS) and instrument variables probit model (IVProbit) to address the possible endogeneity and strengthen the validity of the main estimation results.

Findings

The main results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between CPE hours per staff and audit quality. As the authors grouped CPE into four areas (finance, auditing and accounting, tax, law and regulations and others) the results are more robust for the sub-sample “accounting and audit” and “others”. Moreover, the findings of this study suggest that CPE hours per staff do not affect audit quality significantly for Big4 audit firms compared to non-Big4 firms.

Research limitations/implications

The sample size of the present study is quite small because the transparency reports of the audit firms in Turkey have been available since 2013 and the authors could not reach some auditor demographics at the individual level and some attributes at the audit firm level. Besides, some alternative audit quality measures, such as audit effort, audit fees are not employed because they are not disclosed.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the audit literature using Turkish audit firms. The authors believe that the setting of Turkey may yield interesting results because of the data it provides.

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Article
Publication date: 29 November 2024

Arun G. Dsouza, Shridev Devji and Krishna Prasad

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) report readability and earnings management (EM). Additionally, the…

36

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) report readability and earnings management (EM). Additionally, the authors examine the association between CSR spending and CSR report readability to understand the clarity in disclosure when the firms’ investment in CSR is higher.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample for this study consists of 156 publicly traded firms in India spanning 2016–2021. The authors use the Fog Index to measure the readability of CSR reports and absolute discretionary accruals and absolute accrual EM as the proxy for EM. The empirical models are tested using a two-stage system GMM dynamic panel data model.

Findings

The authors find a negative association between the Fog Index and EM, indicating that the readability of CSR reports decreases when EM increases in a firm. Managers use complex words to mislead the stakeholders when there are more EM practices. The authors’ additional analysis shows a positive association between CSR spending and CSR report readability, indicating that the firm spends more reports on the initiatives more precisely, avoiding words with more syllables.

Originality/value

This study offers novel evidence by examining the readability of CSR reports published by Indian firms. Given the mandatory requirement of CSR in India, the readability of disclosures is associated with EM. The authors’ unique focus on CSR report readability provides a new direction for future researchers as they can explore the influence of regulatory mandates on CSR reporting practices.

Details

Society and Business Review, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5680

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Book part
Publication date: 7 February 2013

B.PanduRanga Narasimharao

Maladies afflicting the higher education system in developing countries are well represented by what is happening in India and have been discussed in detail by many researchers…

Abstract

Maladies afflicting the higher education system in developing countries are well represented by what is happening in India and have been discussed in detail by many researchers and educationists (Anandakrishnan, 2008; Balram, 2005, 2008). The Government of India has formulated different projects and programmes for improving the education scenario in the country. The successive education commissions from Radhakrishnan (1949) through Kothari commission (1966) discussed various issues related to the higher education system and suggested many steps to resolve them. Recently, the Committee to Advice on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (2009) headed by Yash Pal discussed the challenges faced by the Indian higher education system and recommended complete revamping of the higher education system and evolving it as an Indian model. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC, 2006–2009) in 2007 while recommending several measures to keep up the pace of higher education with the developments of knowledge society and knowledge economy observed that ‘We recognize that a meaningful reform of the higher education system with a long-term perspective is both complex and difficult. Yet it is imperative.’ The view that the reforms cannot easily be carried out is more strengthened by the fact that the vision and recommendations of the Kothari Commission of 1966 (based on which the 1968 educational policy was formulated) are still valid and useful even now (Sam Pitroda, 2007).

Details

Education and Corporate Social Responsibility International Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-590-6

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Book part
Publication date: 14 May 2018

Rajat Panwar, Shweta Nawani and Vivek Pandey

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) is typically conceptualized as a discretionary pursuit that firms voluntarily engage in, state intervention in CSR — which we call…

Abstract

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) is typically conceptualized as a discretionary pursuit that firms voluntarily engage in, state intervention in CSR — which we call legislated CSR — has been increasing globally. The nature and scope of CSR legislations, however, vary among countries. This chapter provides a broad overview of legislated CSR but it also presents a detailed analysis of a specific CSR legislation, the CSR law of India, in order to closely examine how and why CSR legislations emerge and what could be their implications for CSR.

Details

Corporate Social Responsibility
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-260-0

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Article
Publication date: 6 March 2023

Ajit Pal Singh and Nardos Fentaw Awoke

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total productive maintenance (TPM) practices and operational performance (OP) in soft drinks manufacturing…

1118

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total productive maintenance (TPM) practices and operational performance (OP) in soft drinks manufacturing industry, Ethiopia.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study acceptability and implementation of five TPM practices (i.e., dependent factors: autonomous maintenance (AUT); safety, health and environment (SHE); education and training (EDT); focused improvement; and planned maintenance (PLM)) in soft drinks manufacturing industry have been elaborated to ascertain the benefits accrued as a result of successful TPM practices (i.e., independent variables) on OP (i.e., dependent variables). A self-administered survey seven-point Likert scale questionnaire was used for primary data collection. By using simple random sampling technique a total of 100 useable responses resulted in a 66.66 per cent response rate. Descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (factor analysis, correlation, simple and multiple regression analysis) analysis were performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software (version-28) to identify the relationship and effect of TPM practices on OP. Five hypotheses were developed and tested.

Findings

Results show that four of the TPM practices were positively and significantly correlated with OP. Aggregate TPM shows positive and significant correlation with OP. Four hypotheses results revealed that the AUT; SHE; EDT and PLM practices have positive and significant relationship with OP and significantly improve OP. The results also show that the TPM practices have positive and significant relationship with OP and significantly improve cost effectiveness, product quality, on-time delivery and volume flexibility.

Practical implications

The benefits gained by TPM practices in selected soft drinks manufacturing industry have been highlighted, that could be genuine source of motivation to other companies to go in for TPM program. This research contributes to the literature by examining the contingency of various TPM enabling factors in the context of the Ethiopian soft drinks manufacturing sector, and it, therefore, provides direction to increase the success rate of TPM implementation. Study offers academics and practitioners a better understanding of the relationship and effect of the TPM practices on the OPs. Thus, practitioners will be able to make better and more effective decisions about the implementation of TPM practices for better OP results.

Originality/value

The relationship between the five factors TPM practices and OP has not yet been studied or reported in the case of soft drink manufacturing industry. The questionnaire manner and items developed, factor considered in this study, sampling method, deeply statistical data analysis techniques used, soft drink manufacturing industry, developing country like Ethiopia make this study unique and revealed the gap identification in this area. The study has contributed to the TPM literature with a better understanding of the five TPM practices and their association with a soft drink manufacturing industry OP that will provide valuable knowledge to top-management of manufacturing companies, to refine their current TPM practices and subsequently improve OP.

Details

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2511

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Article
Publication date: 16 November 2020

Soudamini Behera, Sasmita Behera, Ajit Kumar Barisal and Pratikhya Sahu

Dynamic economic and emission dispatch (DEED) aims to optimally set the active power generation with constraints in a power system, which should target minimum operation cost and…

139

Abstract

Purpose

Dynamic economic and emission dispatch (DEED) aims to optimally set the active power generation with constraints in a power system, which should target minimum operation cost and at the same time minimize the pollution in terms of emission when the load dynamically changes hour to hour. The purpose of this study is to achieve optimal economic and emission dispatch of an electrical system with a renewable generation mix, consisting of 3-unit thermal, 2-unit wind and 2-unit solar generators for dynamic load variation in a day. An improved version of a simple, easy to understand and popular optimization algorithm particle swarm optimization (PSO) referred to as a constriction factor-based particle swarm optimization (CFBPSO) algorithm is deployed to get optimal solution as compared to PSO, modified PSO and red deer algorithm (RDA).

Design/methodology/approach

Different model with and without wind and solar power generating systems; with valve point effect is analyzed. The thermal generating system (TGs) are the major green house gaseous emission producers on earth. To take up this ecological issue in addition to economic operation cost, the wind and solar energy sources are integrated with the thermal system in a phased manner for electrical power generation and optimized for dynamic load variation. This DEED being a multi-objective optimization (MO) has contradictory objectives of fuel cost and emission. To get the finest combination of the two objectives and to get a non-dominated solution the fuzzy decision-making (FDM) method is used herein, the MO problem is solved by a single objective function, including min-max price penalty factor on emission in the total cost to treat as cost. Further, the weight factor accumulation (WFA) technique normalizes the pair of objectives into a single objective by giving each objective a weightage. The weightage is decided by the FDM approach in a systematic manner from a set of non-dominated solutions. Here, the CFBPSO algorithm is applied to lessen the total generation cost and emission of the thermal power meeting the load dynamically.

Findings

The efficacy of the contribution of stochastic wind and solar power generation with the TGs in the dropping of net fuel cost and emission in a day for dynamic load vis-à-vis the case with TGs is established.

Research limitations/implications

Cost and emission are conflicting objectives and can be handled carefully by weight factors and penalty factors to find out the best solution.

Practical implications

The proposed methodology and its strategy are very useful for thermal power plants incorporating diverse sources of generations. As the execution time is very less, practical implementation can be possible.

Social implications

As the cheaper generation schedule is obtained with respect to time, cost and emission are minimized, a huge revenue can be saved over the passage of time, and therefore it has a societal impact.

Originality/value

In this work, the WFA with the FDM method is used to facilitate CFBPSO to decipher this DEED multi-objective problem. The results reveal the competence of the projected proposal to satisfy the dynamic load demand and to diminish the combined cost in contrast to the PSO algorithm, modified PSO algorithm and a newly developed meta-heuristic algorithm RDA in a similar system.

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Article
Publication date: 30 December 2022

Durga Prasad Dube and Rajendra Prasad Mohanty

As evident from the literature review, the research on cyber security performance is centered on security metrics, maturity models, etc. Essentially, all these are helpful for…

2185

Abstract

Purpose

As evident from the literature review, the research on cyber security performance is centered on security metrics, maturity models, etc. Essentially, all these are helpful for evaluating the efficiency of cyber security organization but what matters is how the factors of internal efficiency affect the business performance, i.e. the external effectiveness. The purpose of this research paper is to derive the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security and develop impact model to identify the most and least preferred parameters of internal efficiency with respect to all the parameters of external effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

There are two objectives for this research: Deriving the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security; Developing a model to identify the impact of internal efficiency factors on the external effectiveness of cyber security since there is not much evidence of research in defining the factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security, the authors have chosen grounded theory methodology (GTM) to derive the parameters. In this study emic approach of GTM is followed and an algorithm is developed for administering the grounded theory research process. For the second research objective survey methodology and rank order was used to formulate the impact model. Two different samples and questionnaires were designed for each of the objectives.

Findings

For the objective 1, 11 factors of efficiency and 10 factors of effectiveness were derived. These are used as independent and dependent variable respectively in the later part of the research for the second objective. For the objective 2 the impact models among independent and dependent variables were formulated to find out the following. Most and least preferred parameters lead to internal efficiency of cyber security organization to identify the most and least preferred parameters of internal efficiency with respect to all the parameters external effectiveness.

Research limitations/implications

The factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness constructed by using grounded theory cannot remain constant in the long run, because of dynamism of the domain itself. Over and above this, there are inherent limitations of the tools like grounded theory, used in the research. Few important limitations of GTM are as below in grounded theory, it is comparatively difficult to maintain and demonstrate the rigors of research discipline. The sheer volume of data makes the analysis and interpretation complex, and lengthy time consuming. The researchers’ presence during data gathering, which is often unavoidable and desirable too in qualitative research, may affect the subjects’ responses. The subjectivity of the data leads to difficulties in establishing reliability and validity of approaches and information. It is difficult to detect or to prevent researcher-induced bias.

Practical implications

The internal efficiency and external effectiveness factors of cyber security can be further correlated by the future researchers to understand the correlations among all the factors and predict cyber security performance. The grounded theory algorithm developed by us can be further used for qualitative research for deriving theory through abstractions in the areas where there is no sufficient availability of data. Practitioners of cyber security can use this research to focus on relevant areas depending on their respective business objective/requirements. The models developed by us can be used by the future researchers to for various sectoral validations and correlations.

Social implications

Though the financial costs of a cyber-attack are steep, the social impact of cyber security failures is less readily apparent but can cause lasting damage to customers, employees and the company. Therefore, it is always important to be mindful of how the impact of cyber security affects society as well as the bottom line when they are calculating the potential impact of a breach. Underestimating either impact can destroy a brand. The factor of internal efficiency and external effectiveness derived by us will help stakeholder in focusing on relevant area depending on their business. The impact model developed in this research is very useful for focusing a particular business requirement and accordingly tune the efficiency factor.

Originality/value

During literature study the authors did not find any evidence of application of grounded theory approach in cyber security research. While the authors were exploring research literature to find out some insight into the factor of internal efficiency and external effectiveness of cyber security, the authors did not find concrete and objective research on this. This motivated us to use grounded theory to derive these factors. This, in the authors’ opinion is one of the pioneering and unique contribution to the research as to the authors’ knowledge no researchers have ever tried to use this methodology for the stated purpose and cyber security domain in general. In this process the authors have also developed an algorithm for administering GTM. Further developing impact models using factors of internal efficiency and external effectiveness has lots of managerial and practical implication.

Details

Organizational Cybersecurity Journal: Practice, Process and People, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2635-0270

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Article
Publication date: 7 August 2007

Söhnke M. Bartram and Gordon M. Bodnar

Based on basic financial models and reports in the business press, exchange rate movements are generally believed to affect the value of nonfinancial firms. In contrast, the…

6776

Abstract

Purpose

Based on basic financial models and reports in the business press, exchange rate movements are generally believed to affect the value of nonfinancial firms. In contrast, the empirical research on nonfinancial firms typically produces fewer significant exposures estimates than researchers expect, independent of the sample studied and the methodology used, giving rise to a situation known as “the exposure puzzle”. To this end, this paper aims to systematically analyze the existing empirical evidence of the exposure phenomenon and to attempt to understand the possible source of the exposure puzzle.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a survey of the existing research on the exposure phenomenon for nonfinancial firms. A simple model of exposure elasticity is also used to demonstrate the substantial impact of operational hedging on exposure elasticities. Furthermore, the evidence on the nature of firms’ financial derivative usage is considered.

Findings

It is suggested that the exposure puzzle may not be a problem of empirical methodology or sample selection as previous research has suggested, but is simply the result of the endogeneity of operative and financial hedging at the firm level. Given that empirical tests estimate exchange exposures net of corporate hedging, both firms with low gross exposures that do not need to hedge and firms with large gross exposures that employ one or several forms of hedging, may exhibit only weak exchange rate exposures net of hedging. Consequently, empirical tests yield only small percentages of firms with significant stock price exposures in almost any sample.

Originality/value

If firms react rationally to their exposures, most firms will either have no exposure to start with, or reduce their exposure to levels that may be too small to detect empirically. Consequently, the exposure puzzle may not be a problem with methodology or theory, but mainly the result of endogeneity of operative and financial hedging at the firm level.

Details

Managerial Finance, vol. 33 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4358

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