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Spunlacing is a promising nonwoven technology for the production of fabric with good handle and better structural integrity. Structural parameters such as pore size, thickness and number of binding point/entanglement between fibres are decisive for good mechanical and comfort properties of nonwoven fabrics. This study aims to focus on the effect of different process parameters on the structural change in spunlace fabrics.

Spunlacing is purely a mechanical bonding technology where high-speed jets of water strike a web to entangle the fibres. Different spunlace nonwoven structures were produced by varying processing parameters such as waterjet pressure, delivery speed, web mass and web composition as per four-factor, three-level Box–Behnken design. The effect of these parameters on the structural arrangement was studied using scanning electron microscopy. An attempt has also been made to study the changes in pore geometry and thickness of the fabrics by using response surface methodology with backward elimination.

Significant structural changes were observed with variation in water pressure, web mass and web composition. The test results showed that fabric produced at higher waterjet pressure has lower mean pore diameter and lower thickness. The variation in mean pore diameter and mean thickness due to waterjet pressure is around 26 and 34 per cent, respectively, at 95 per cent significance level. The web composition and web mass also significantly influence the mean pore diameter and thickness at 95 per cent significance level. There is a strong positive correlation (r = 0.523) between mean air permeability and mean pore diameter of fabric, and this correlation is significantly linear. A strong negative correlation (r = −0.627) is found between weight and air permeability of fabric.

The delivery speed failed to show any significant effect; this is in contrary to the general expectation.

The effect of concurrent variation in waterjet pressure, web mass, delivery speed and web composition on the structure of spunlace nonwoven is studied, which was not reported in the literature. The effect of web composition on pore diameter of spunlace nonwoven is interesting finding. This study is expected to help in designing the spunlace nonwoven as per end uses and specifically for apparel application.

Market efficiency suggests that price of the security must reflect its intrinsic value by impounding all the available and accessible information. Asset pricing in capital markets has been an exceptionally dynamic area of scholarly research and is considered as a barometer for assessing market efficiency. This phenomenon was very well explained by several market pricing models and theories over the last few decades. However, several anomalies, which cannot be explained by the traditional asset pricing models due to seasonal and psychological factors, were observed historically. The same has been studied by several researchers over the years and is well captured in the literature pertaining to market asset pricing. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the research studies related to a few asset pricing anomalies, collectively referred to as “calendar anomalies”, such as – day-of-the-week, turn-of-the-month, turn-of-the-year and the holiday effects. In this pursuit, a thorough survey of literature in this area, published over the last 80 years (from 1934 to 2016) across 24 prominent journals, has been made and presented in a comprehensive, structured and chronologically arranged major findings and learnings. This literature survey reveals that the existing literature do provide a great depth of understanding around these calendar anomalies often with reference to specific markets, the size of the firm and investor type. The paper also highlights a few aspects where the existing literature is silent or provides little support leaving a gap that needs to be addressed with further research in this area.

The goal of the study requires a comprehensive review of the past literature related to calendar anomalies. As a consequence, to identify papers which sufficiently represent the area of study, the authors examined the full text of articles within EBSCOHost, Elsevier-Science direct, Emerald insight and JSTOR databases with calendar anomalies related keywords for articles published since inception. Further, each article was classified based on the anomaly discussed and the factors used to sub-categorize the anomaly. Once all the identified fields were populated, we passed through another article by constantly updating the master list till all the 99 articles were populated.

It is also important to understand at this juncture that most of the papers surveyed discuss the persistence of the asset pricing anomalies with reference to the developed markets with a very few offering evidences from emerging markets. Thus leaving a huge scope for further research to study the persistence of asset pricing anomalies, the degree and direction of the effect on asset pricing among emerging markets such as India, Russia, Brazil vis-a-vis the developed markets. Further, regardless of the markets with reference to which the study is conducted, the research so far appears to have laid focus only on the overall market returns derived from aggregate market indices to explain the asset pricing anomalies. Thus leaving enough scope for further research to study and understand the persistence of these anomalies with reference to various strategic, thematic and sectoral indices in various markets (developed, emerging and underdeveloped countries) across different time periods. It will be also interesting to understand how, some or all of, these established asset pricing anomalies behave over a certain time period when markets move across the efficiency maturity model (from weak form to semi-strong to strong form of efficiency).

The main purpose of the study entails a detailed review of all the past literature pertinent to the calendar anomalies. In order to explore the prior literature that sufficiently captures the research area, various renowned databases were examined with keywords related to the calendar anomalies under scope of current study. Furthermore, based on the finalized articles, a comprehensive summary table was populated and provided in the Appendix which gives a snapshot of all the articles under the current assessment. This helps the readers of the article to directly relate the findings of each article with its background information.

This paper is an empirical study of outsourcing practices in the banking sector in India. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the impact of factors which influence the decision makers' attitude towards outsourcing.

Based on a review of the existing literature, an attitudinal model of outsourcing was developed. This model was used to: identify the key factors of benefits, risks, roadblocks, and criticality of outsourcing; develop the instrument to measure the factors; and formulate hypotheses concerning the impact of these factors. The constructs in the instrument that measured these factors were validated by factor analysis.

The impacts of perceived benefits, perceived roadblocks, and perceived criticality on the attitudes towards outsourcing were found to be strong and statistically significant. The impact of perceived risk was weak and statistically insignificant. The model explaining the combined impact of these four factors on outsourcing attitudes was also statistically significant.

An important insight from this study is that the clients, at least in the banking sector in India, tend to value in outsourcing quality factors such as process improvement, services improvement and cost transparency more than cost savings. The results of the study provide a basis for rethinking the value proposition offered by outsourcing vendors and for refocusing the research on outsourcing of services in particular.

While most studies on outsourcing tend to be theoretical and/or focus on outsourcing from developed to developing countries, this is an empirical study focusing on outsourcing by organizations based in developing countries such as India. Therefore, the results are not confounded by differences in culture‐specific communications, business practices, and regulatory regimes between the countries.

Nonperforming assets in any banking system have stressed the economic health of nations. Resultantly, literature has given considerable impetus to predict failures and bankruptcy. Past studies have focused on the outcome of failures, while, there is a dearth of studies focusing on ongoing firms in bad shape. We plug this gap and attempt to identify underlying communication patterns for firms witnessing prolonged underperformance. Using text mining, we extract and analyze semantic, linguistic, emotional, and sentiment-based features in non-numeric communication channels of these poor-performing firms and their peers. These uncovered patterns highlight the use of vocabulary and tone of communication, in correspondence to their financial well-being. Furthermore, using such patterns, we deploy various Machine Learning algorithms to identify loser firm(s) way ahead in time. We observe promising accuracy over a time window of five years. Such early warning signals can be of critical importance to various stakeholders of a firm. Exploration of writing style-related features for any firm would help its investors, lending agencies to assess the likelihood of future underperformance. Firm management can use them to take suitable precautionary measures and preempt the future possibility of distress. While investors and lenders can be benefitted from this incremental information to identify the likelihood of future failures.

This hypothetical case study aims to revisit the classical model given by Henri Fayol whereby he put forward a set of 14 principles to guide managers in decision-making across organizations. The case study showcases the dilemma in which the top manager of an automobile company finds himself when some of the very basic principles – on which the whole discipline of management is founded – are ignored. It will also serve as an aid for faculty members in B-Schools to teach students the significance of basic management principles postulated many years back which stand relevant even in contemporary times.

This case study is based on a hypothetical scenario in the corporate world. Different incidents in a fictitious automobile manufacturing firm are presented and the corresponding principles given by Henri Fayol are inferred.

This case study highlights that decision-making gets complicated if fundamental principles of management are not complied with. The decision taken during each and every situation which has been discussed in this case study is contrary to the correct course of action as propounded by Fayol. Modern-day managers must acknowledge the relevance and importance of these principles for achieving success in business.

This case study underscores that even in this volatile business environment where most of the management practices are technology-driven, we cannot disregard the most elementary rules of management. The managers working at different levels in the organizational hierarchy may be guided to make the right decisions in situations similar to the ones described.

In today’s uncertain business environment, Industry 4.0 is regarded as a viable strategic plan for addressing a wide range of manufacturing-related challenges. However, it appears that its level of adoption varies across many countries. In the case of a developing economy like India, practitioners are still in the early stages of implementation. The implementation of Industry 4.0 appears to be complex, and it must be investigated holistically in order to gain a better understanding of it. Therefore, an attempt has been made to examine the Industry 4.0 implementation for the Indian manufacturing organization in a detailed way by analyzing the complexities of relevant variables.

SAP-LAP (situation-actor-process and learning-action-performance) and an efficient interpretive ranking process (e-IRP) were used to analyze the various variables influencing Industry 4.0 implementation. The variables were identified, as per SAP-LAP, through a thorough review of the literature and based on the perspectives of various experts. The e-IRP has been used to prioritize the selected elements (i.e. actors with respect to processes and actions with respect to performance) of SAP-LAP.

This study ranked five stakeholders according to their priority in Industry 4.0 implementation: government policymakers, industry associations, research and academic institutions, manufacturers and customers. In addition, the study also prioritized important actions that need to be taken by these stakeholders.

The results of this study would be useful in identifying and managing the various actors and actions related to Industry 4.0 implementation. Accordingly, their prioritized sequence would be useful to the practitioners in preparing the well-defined and comprehensive strategic roadmap for Industry 4.0.

This study has adopted qualitative and quantitative approaches for identifying and prioritizing different variables of Industry 4.0 implementation. This, in turn, helps the stakeholder to comprehend the concept of Industry 4.0 in a much simpler way.

This study aims to understand the effect of consumers' national identity (NI) on their willingness to buy (WTB) domestic (Indian) products vis-à-vis foreign (Chinese) products. Secondly, it explores the role of psychological ownership (PO) and consumers' animosity in explaining their WTB domestic products.

In this paper data were collected online from Indian consumers (N = 408) through the survey method, using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS AMOS Version 24 and the PROCESS SPSS macro, using mediations and moderated mediation models.

This study establishes the positive effect of consumers' NI on their WTB domestic products over Chinese ones. With a long history of hostility between India and China in the backdrop, the authors find a significant mediating role of PO and consumer animosity (CA) in the relationship between NI and WTB . The results also demonstrate that while consumer ethnocentrism (CET) positively moderates the mediating path via PO at all levels from low to high, it moderates the path via CA only at the mean and high levels.

This study applies the Psychological Ownership Theory, Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Attribution Theory to explore the interplay between consumers' NI, PO , CA and ethnocentrism in the Indian context. The study asserts the distinction between these constructs by analyzing the interaction and inter-relationships between these variables. Further, it provides a comprehensive understanding of Indian consumers' preference for domestic products over Chinese ones.

The objective of this research work is to study the artificial intelligence (AI)-based product benefits and problems of the agritech industry. The research variables were developed from the existing review of literature connecting to AI-based benefits and problems, and 90 samples of primary data from agritech industry managers were gathered using a survey of a well-structured research questionnaire. The statistical package of IBM-SPSS 21 was utilized to analyze the data using the statistical techniques of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Results show that better information for faster decision-making has been ranked as the topmost AI benefit. This implies that the executives of agritech units have a concern about the quality of decisions they make and resistance to change from employees and internal culture has been ranked as the topmost AI problem.