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Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the organisations in the form of increased job demands which manifested through increased workload, time pressure, etc. Similarly, stress and burnout engulfed the employees. Remote work became the new normal post-pandemic. Remote workers require more engagement. This has brought Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the forefront for engaging employees in the new normal.

Purpose: With limited studies on AI-enabled employee engagement in the new normal, this study investigates and proposes a conceptual framework of employee engagement in the context of AI and its impact on organisations.

Methodology: A systematic review and meta-synthesis method is undertaken. A systematic literature review assisted in critically analysing, synthesising, and mapping the extant literature by identifying the broad themes.

Findings: Since many organisations are turning to remote work post-pandemic and remote work requires more engagement, organisations are investing in AI to boost employee engagement in the new normal. Several antecedents of employee engagement such as quality of work life, diversity and inclusion, and communication are facilitated by AI. AI helps enhance the quality of work life by playing a major role in providing fair compensation, safe and healthy working conditions, immediate opportunity to use and develop human capacities, continued growth and security, work and total life space, and social relevance of work life. This has led to positive organisational outcomes like increased productivity, employee well-being, and decreased attrition rate. Furthermore, AI helps in measuring employee engagement. The various tools of AI, such as wearable technology, digital biomarker, neural network, data mining, data analytics, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), etc., have gone a long way in engaging employees in the new normal.

Global warming and climate change have created an urgency for change in the global system. This change is envisaged through regulations, financing, policies, technology and innovations related to all of them. In this chapter, I argue that such a techno-centric, piecemeal, mechanistic and transactional approach is bound to fail unless we have a spiritual foundation and a sustainable community building strategy. All work of the society ultimately aims for a group of people living together harmoniously. Thus, sustainability transition has to be founded on commonalities of consciousness often found in ‘intentional’ communities – a group of people bounded by a common aspiration/faith and living together. The chapter analyses the case of Auroville, located in Puducherry, India, and its 54-year history to draw conclusions about sustainable community building and discuss its implication for a low-carbon, equitable, net-zero society.

This study aims to explore the connections between intellectual capital and academic performance in Lahore, Pakistan’s higher education institutions (HEIs). The research delves into the mediation effect of dynamic capabilities, such as acquisition and exploitation, between intellectual capital and innovation within these educational institutions.

Grounded in the insights from a comprehensive literature review, the methodology uses a pre-tested questionnaire. Faculty members from private universities in Pakistan were chosen as the study's unit of analysis. Using a convenience sampling technique, data was gathered from 342 teachers and then analyzed using Smart (PLS) 3.3.3.

The results demonstrate that intellectual capital positively affects innovation. Acquisition and exploitation further mediate this influence, improving academic performance. Applying the knowledge-based view theory, the study confirmed the significance of all the posited hypotheses, underlining the positive interrelationships within Pakistan’s academic institutions.

The novelty of this research lies in its specific focus on the HEIs in Pakistan, demonstrating how intellectual capital and dynamic capabilities foster innovation, thereby enabling these institutions to maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving educational landscape.

This chapter is focused on India's destination marketing strategies that promote religious tourism. It sheds light on the Government of India's initiatives to attract faithful tourists to sacred locations including holy temples and places of interest for spiritual pilgrims. The tourism business in India has gone through numerous phases of growth. This research reveals how the state government and central governments have stepped up their commitment to develop tourism, including religious tourism, on multiple fronts. It confirms that India can be rightly considered as the land of faith, as spirituality and religion are very prominent, as evidenced by its holy temples and landmarks, located in different regions of the subcontinent. In conclusion, it discusses about the challenges for the future, and elaborates on the opportunities related to promoting religious tourism to target faithful pilgrims and other visitors to “Incredible India.”

India is the birthplace of four major religions which are Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. It is a country where people of all religions live in peace and harmony. Many tourists experience different forms of harassment during their pilgrimage journey, for example, fleecing, extortion of money, harassment by beggars, persistence by vendors and priests, fraud, sexual harassment, and other unacceptable behaviors. In order to appreciate the extent of harassment encountered by tourists, an in-depth study was conducted on the reviews provided by tourists on TripAdvisor's (Indian) website. This study characterizes harassments through ethnographic research approach of published reviews. A total of 260 reviews of 28 top Hindu temples are considered for all the states and union territories where the top Hindu pilgrim centers are located, (excluding Nagaland) according to TripAdvisor. The concerned reviews are categorized and further investigated through a primary data collection in proportion with the reviews received in respective temple sites in the study. through structural equation modeling (SEM). Important factors have been identified for future policy issues and recommendations in these most crowded places with unique mass tourism practices.

Bengali sports history features very few women; some examples include enquiry into the representation of women in cricket stadiums as spectators (Naha, 2021) and the history of physical education in a women’s college (Bhattacharya, 2009). Likewise, young adult sports fiction in Bengali hardly engages with girls, with the notable exception of Moti Nandi’s Kalabati novels. This series of nine novels features the eponymous character as a high school student and a cricketer between 1984 and 2005. Belonging to a zamindar family, it is the possession of cultural capital post-abolishment of the zamindari system which allows Kalabati to play cricket. Situating the novel amidst India’s entry into neoliberalism, this chapter employs close reading to examine the ways adopted by the protagonist to manoeuvre new gender roles in conjunction with traditionally ascribed ones. Kalabati’s participation in a sport and a range of physical activities dominated by men goes against the societal codes prescribed for women. Despite that, masquerade and performativity allow Kalabati to assert her agency. Through alternately impersonating men and performing hyper-femininity, she effortlessly adjusts herself to different bodies, etiquettes and markers of gender identity. The fluidity in gender identities and emphasis on performance opens up the straitjacketed discussions around the former. This chapter argues that Kalabati’s exceptionality as a sportsperson is both an embodied and a genealogical trait.

In the present knowledge economy, intellectual capital (IC) is regarded as one of the significant determinants of efficiency, profitability, and ultimately value of a firm. This chapter empirically investigates the ramifications of the IC on the level of efficiency of the firm. In addition, exploration of the changing dynamics in the relationship between IC and firm level efficiency in the face of global economic crisis is of special interest of this chapter. In attaining the objectives of the study, a comprehensive database of 299 manufacturing firms (chosen randomly from a stratification of six BSE manufacturing industry subsectors) were utilized during the period from 1999–2000 to 2013–2014. Firm level efficiency scores and implications of IC (as measured by employing Pulic's Value Added Intellectual Capital Model) on the level of efficiency of the firms were examined simultaneously using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Empirical results revealed that IC significantly determines the efficiency of the manufacturing firms during the period of study. However, the impact of financial crisis was not robust in changing the synergy between efficiency and IC. Size, age, and leverage were also found to be significant determinants of efficiency during the period of study.

In general, the optimal reactive power compensation could drastically enhance the performance of distributed network by the reduction of power loss and by enhancement of line loadability and voltage profile. Till now, there exist various reactive power compensation models including capacitor placement, joined process of on-load tap changer and capacitor banks and integration of DG. Further, one of the current method is the allocation of distribution FACTS (DFACTS) device. Even though, the DFACTS devices are usually used in the enhancement of power quality, they could be used in the optimal reactive power compensation with more effectiveness.

This paper introduces a power quality enhancement model that is based on a new hybrid optimization algorithm for selecting the precise unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) location and sizing. A new algorithm rider optimization algorithm (ROA)-modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) in fitness basis (RMPF) is introduced for this optimal selections.

Through the performance analysis, it is observed that as the iteration increases, there is a gradual minimization of cost function. At the 40th iteration, the proposed method is 1.99 per cent better than ROA and genetic algorithm (GA); 0.09 per cent better than GMDA and WOA; and 0.14, 0.57 and 1.94 per cent better than Dragonfly algorithm (DA), worst solution linked whale optimization (WS-WU) and PSO, respectively. At the 60th iteration, the proposed method attains less cost function, which is 2.07, 0.08, 0.06, 0.09, 0.07 and 1.90 per cent superior to ROA, GMDA, DA, GA, WS-WU and PSO, respectively. Thus, the proposed model proves that it is better than other models.

This paper presents a technique for optimal placing and sizing of UPQC. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that introduces RMPF algorithm to solve the optimization problems.

This study aims to find the best location for constructing green energy facilities in India and reducing CO₂ emissions. Incorporating green energy is a priority for many countries under the Paris Agreement. This task is challenging due to factors that affect implementation, and making the wrong decision wastes resources. India’s goals are net-zero emissions by 2070 and 50% renewable electricity by 2030. Other developing nations should emulate India’s renewable energy strategy. India ranks fourth in renewable energy and wind power, and fifth in solar power capacity. This research aims to identify the best locations in India for implementing green energy projects.

To identify the optimal green energy implementation sites in India, this research uses the hybrid multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in an uncertain environment. This research uses the Delphi method to identify the most suitable green energy implementation sites in India. It adapts the elements for this investigation. In addition, the utilization of the Fermatean fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment technique is implemented to effectively prioritize the factors that impact the selection of these sites. This study used the MEREC method (method based on the removal effects of criteria) to identify the most suitable areas in India for implementing green energy. The highest accuracy is attained through the amalgamation of these hybrid methods.

Following the computation data by hybrid MCDA in uncertainty environment, NP Kunta in Andhra Pradesh emerges as the recommended green energy site among the 11 considered. Also among the factors political strategies and objectives hold the highest priority among them.

This study is pioneering in its efforts to provide a comprehensive perspective on the development and management of green energy operations in India. The study proves advantageous for diverse sites in the successful adoption and management of green energy. The study is additionally valuable in informing policy development aimed at promoting the use of green energy by employees through the utilization of MCDA methods in uncertain environments.

This study investigates the impact of business strategy on earnings management practices for financial and non-financial firms in Oman. To assess the research objective, 430 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2019 were employed in the study. Using regression analysis, the findings suggest that differentiation strategy positively affects earnings management in financial sector firms. In addition, cost leadership strategy positively affects earnings management in non-financial sector firms. This indicates that business strategy is associated with company leaders managing their earnings while they are trying to survive through competition. These findings are useful for regulators, as they can introduce mechanisms to curb earnings management practices and instil more faith in investors.