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Participation of women in engineering education is considerably low in India, although it is increasing in recent years. Also, engineering is primarily treated as a male-dominated profession, and the authors do not find many women in this sector. What factors contribute to this significant gender differences in engineering education and labour market in India? In this context, this study aims to examine the factors that explain the gender variations in academic performance and labour market outcomes (placement and earnings) of engineering graduates in India.

The paper is based on primary survey data from fourth-year engineering students in Delhi, collected in 2018–2019, with a total sample size of 3186. The study uses Ordinary least square method (OLS) and Heckman selection model to analyse gender differences in academic performance and labour market outcomes of engineering graduates, respectively.

The study finds that academic performance of male students is around 10.4% more than female students. However, this difference is heavily influenced by various socioeconomic and institutional factors. Interestingly, 3% of female engineering graduates have received more job offers than males, which contradicts the common belief that women engineers face job discrimination in the labour market in India. However, the authors find that male engineers earn around 7% more than female engineers shows the evidence of pro-male gender wage inequality in earnings. The findings support that there is a considerable variation in academic performance and earnings between male and female engineering graduates.

While the authors find some literature in the area of gender difference in the academic performance and labour market among university graduates in India, studies in the field of engineering education are sparse. In a context where fewer women are found in the field of engineering education along with low participation in the labour market, the findings of this study significantly contribute to the policy making.

This viewpoint article presents perspectives on the intersection of AI and the diverse elements of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) and is a foundation for discussion on this juncture. It also exhibits the advantages of integrating AI and PsyCap in learning organizations and the challenges and future directions associated with the same.

The article exhibits the juncture of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in context to learning organizations. It also highlights the various AI tools that can be used to manage diverse PsyCap attributes in learning organizations. The approach is to present a starting point for discussion on the intersection of the two concepts and how learning organizations can leverage them to create sustained competitive advantage.

Artificial Intelligence Systems can be used to enhance self-efficacy, promote optimism, cultivate hope and build resilience in learning organizations. A strategic approach with continued evaluation of AI tools is the key. However, challenges like privacy and unethical issues, biasness and management of human- AI intervention have to be taken into consideration for effective integration of AI tools and Psychological Capital.

The research in the domain of Artificial Intelligence and related technologies is not a new phenomenon. However, there is a possibility to understand that AI is not a competitor to human ingenuity but a facilitator to it. Through this article an effort is made to ignite the conversation on the topic and it can be a starting point for future research on the integration of the two perspectives.

An undergraduate civil engineering programme is assessed for its relevance to the building construction sector. Its contrast from the existing curriculum structure is also highlighted.

The curriculum is clustered into 15 groups based on disciplines. A pairwise comparison of groups is conducted by experts from the building construction sector. Expert judgements are analysed using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) to determine the groups' order based on their importance in preparing students for a career in the building construction sector.

Concrete Technology, Structural Design and Analysis, and Building Technology and Town Planning emerged as the three most essential course groups, followed by Construction and Project Management, Surveying, and Geotechnical and Allied. Foundational Science and Math, Hydrology/Water Resource Engineering, and Computing and Programming came last in the order.

Relying on a curriculum from a specific region, generalizability to other geographical areas is limited. The perspective of building construction sector professionals excludes the views of other stakeholder groups within the sector.

The study allows universities in general to enhance students' job prospects in construction by calibrating course group priorities and aligning skills with industry needs, thereby potentially improving employability, and boosting the industry-academia relationship.

Fuzzy AHP has been utilized by building construction industry experts to assess the relevance of an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum. Findings serve as a valuable reference for implementing positive curriculum changes to potentially enhance student employability.

This paper aims to study the interlink between work-life integration, job contentment and employee engagement. The notion of how far work-life balance (WLB) policies have a throwback on employee engagement has been presented with shreds of evidence of previous studies carried out in the timeline of 2005–2021 in India. The purpose is to bring forward comprehensive studies together, which are available on piecemeal form in the fragmentary form, to draw a firm conclusion about work-life integration policies and their parallelism with job engagement and organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, this study intends to develop a theoretical framework using Dubin’s methodology on organizational effectiveness in relation to work-life integration, job contentment and employee engagement.

This study is based on systematic literature review of papers reviewed from across databases of Scopus, Emerald, EBSCO and Google Scholar. The keywords used for the search were WLB, work-life integration, job satisfaction, job contentment and organizational effectiveness and also a combination of these words was used to pull down the relevant papers. A systematic literature review was undertaken on the topics of work-life integration, employee engagement and organizational effectiveness. These articles were then read and scanned with the overview on abstract and further these articles were selected on the basis of relevance to the current study. Those articles which showed interconnectedness between the identified variables of organizational effectiveness in relation to work-life integration, job contentment and employee engagement as antecedents were reviewed and a theoretical framework model is put forth using first part of Dubin’s methodology (1978) for theory building. The posited Model named A4 on organizational effectiveness using deductive approach is built on constructs, interaction, logic and propositions (Whetten, 1989).The theory will be functional in nature. With the given wealth of evidence, the injecting effect of work-life integration on employee engagement and pouring impact on organizational effectiveness becomes more transparent and clear. The authors have proposed a model for better organizational effectiveness through work-life integration policies.

One of the essential ingredients for better employee engagement is work-life integration policies, and organizational effectiveness becomes the by-product of the same. Innovative and friendly WLB policies assist employees to be more productive, dedicated and committed, resulting in better employee engagement which in the long run benefits the company in terms of effectiveness. WLB policies help to flatter down the burgeoning impact of complex work life on employee productivity and engagement. This paper concludes on the healing effects of WLB policies on employee engagement and organizational effectiveness and also proposes a model at the end. The posited model presents the antecedents for achieving organizational effectiveness.

Because the study is conceptual in nature with the proposed model, more empirical-based studies by experts with relevant stakeholders will add more rationalization to the current study.

Organizational effectiveness is the key to survival in today’s complex and competitive world. The authors investigated how organizational effectiveness can be achieved with WLB policies, which can have a linear impact on employee engagement, and ultimately organizations can bear the flowerings of positive output. This linkage and coupling between WLB policies, job contentment, employee engagement and organizational effectiveness deserve attention which the authors have attempted to explore. The outcome and results of the study will contribute to the existing literature in a more meaningful manner and will assist human resource development and policymakers to achieve organizational goals with driving employees. Managers will gain insight into the identified theoretical framework model for its implementation in organization. Future researchers with empirical studies can test the proposed theory to determine its success at organizational level.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices are gaining momentum globally but their implementation becomes problematic due to the presence of barriers. So, this study aims to identify the barriers to CSR implementation among manufacturing enterprises, develop their classification and establish relationships among the barriers.

An exhaustive list of barriers was identified from the literature, and following surveys and expert opinions, 19 critical barriers were extracted. Interpretive structure modelling was used to understand the hierarchal and contextual relationships among barriers of CSR implementation.

The results show that are no autonomous variables present in the study. The proposed conceptual framework presents the hierarchy and interlinkage of barriers to CSR implementation in manufacturing enterprises. The results also indicate that rigidity in culture and corruption in the system and within the governance system of the country are the two most influential barriers that impede CSR implementation in manufacturing enterprises.

The interactions among CSR barriers provide policymakers, industrial practitioners and managers with a framework to recognise and evaluate mutual relationships and interlinking among barriers. CSR training and undertaking CSR in collaboration can help medium enterprises overcome these barriers and prepare strategies to mitigate their impact.

In recent years, both homeowners and the research community have shown a growing interest in home automation devices and smart homes. About one-third of all primary energy resources are used by homes worldwide, which consume significant energy. This has raised concerns regarding energy accessibility and the quick depletion of energy sources, the growing need for building services, the improvement of comfortable lifestyles and the increased time spent at home. This study aims to offer a comprehensive and significant examination of state-of-the-art intelligent control systems used for managing energy and ensuring comfort in smart homes.

After conducting a comprehensive search in the Scopus database, a total of 55 articles were carefully selected. Using the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4 SLR) technique for systematic reviews, the current study synthesized prior research on energy efficiency in smart homes and conducted a detailed descriptive analysis to describe the current state of knowledge.

Future research on energy efficiency in smart homes could delve into various prospective areas that would strengthen existing knowledge and practices. Using innovative technologies in smart homes can reduce energy consumption in residential areas by offering convenience and improved features.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review focused on intelligent control systems for energy and comfort management in smart homes, as well as residents’ interaction with indoor comfort.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exploratory analysis of the demographic factors and investors’ characteristics, which cause changes in the extent of overconfidence level and its constituents among the individuals.

A survey has been conducted to explore the determinants of overconfidence and its constituents with the help of a well-structured close-ended questionnaire. The four constituents of overconfidence considered for the study are “better than average effect,” “planning fallacy,” “self-attribution” and “positive illusion.” The collected data are analyzed with the help of t-test, ANOVA and standard ordinary least square regression.

The results show that those who earn high, have more dependents, share the earning responsibility, have high investment frequency, less time horizon and more investment experience and invest in large cap stocks are more subject to the overconfidence. The study also concludes that gender, age and general education do not affect the level of overconfidence.

The results of the study are useful for the market regulators, financial educators, stock market advisors and individual investors in avoiding costly investment mistakes, especially when transiting from one category of demographic and investment characteristics to another category of demographic and investment characteristics.

The study is unique in itself, as it contributes an instrument to quantify the level of overconfidence among the individual investors. Moreover, the study attempts to explore the impact of all demographic and investment characteristics in one go, which makes it a valuable contribution in the existing literature.

Women Empowerment means boosting the social, economic, political, and legal strength of women to secure equal right and make them confident to claim their rights. India has focused on women's empowerment to reduce domestic abuse and gender violence in recent decades. The study analyzes the relationship between women's empowerment and gender-based violence, employing a non-linear regression model using the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5, 2019–20 data. In the present study gender-based violence is measured on the basis of spousal violence and women's empowerment is represented by women who are currently married and usually take part in three household decisions, women who worked in the past year and were paid in cash, women who own a house or land (alone or with others), women who use their own bank or savings account, and women who use their own cell phone for each state. Analysis of the result shows a link between women's empowerment and gender-based violence and a large disparity among states.

This study is a part of two sequential studies (quantitative and qualitative) carried out to study the impact of managerial communication on employees’ attitudes and behaviours. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using the critical incident technique, this study explores the effects of managerial communication practices on employees’ happiness, job performance, commitment, absenteeism, and turnover intentions. Totally, 101 employees in three manufacturing organisations in eastern India narrated critical incidents related to happiness and superior performance, unhappiness and inferior performance, absenteeism, and the desire to stay or quit. The incidents were further content-analysed.

Results revealed that collaborative approach, respect and recognition, flexible working arrangements, trust, clear direction, autonomous and challenging tasks are important indicators to make employees happy and drive them towards superior performance. Contrarily, the dominant nature of the superior and more bossism than required, humiliation, biased approach, and lack of flexible working arrangements are detrimental to employees’ performance. Collaborative approach, respect/recognition, person-job match, autonomous and challenging tasks, flexible working arrangements, brand image, and location near hometown are the propellers for continuing service in organisations. Contrarily, hierarchical/dominant approach, humiliation, lack of respect and recognition, biased approach – different rules for different people, monotonous and boring assignments, and uncompetitive pay are the propellers for not continuing service in organisations. Humiliation, lack of flexible arrangements, and overwork are the causes for employees’ absenteeism.

This study is not without limitations. First, there were some critical incidents with apparent overlapping content areas. To overcome this situation, the authors decided to give preference to the primary theme emerging out of an incident. Second, the observations made in this study were limited to descriptions of what happened in only three organisations. This limits the ability to generalise the results.

Organisations can train supervisors to develop people-centric communication practices, communicate with respect and recognition, implement flexible working arrangements, improve job design, involve employees in important decisions, offer them with autonomous and challenging tasks, so that employees realise their full potential and become happy contributors to their organisations.

The study attempted to capture employees’ lived experiences and provided them with narrations of situations that are commonly and uniquely experienced.

Through the lens of social exchange theory and organisation support theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the passive, aggressive, and assertive styles of managers/supervisors that influence perceived supervisory support and to test whether the support increases employees’ satisfaction with the communication of supervisors and their organisation‐based self‐esteem. It also assesses whether employees’ communication satisfaction and their self‐esteem influence employees’ performance, commitment and absenteeism.

In total, 400 employees from ten manufacturing firms in India were studied through questionnaire survey. Standard instruments were used to assess the constructs. A scale was developed to measure the communication style of managers and a single item to assess absenteeism.

Results revealed that assertive style of communication lends maximum support to employees. Perceived supervisory support at the workplace enhances employees’ satisfaction with communication of supervisors and organisation‐based self‐esteem. Satisfaction with communication fosters a strong emotional bond with organisations and the emotional bond with organisations reduces employees’ absenteeism.

The paper shows that employees’ organisation‐based self‐esteem increases their job performance. Organisations can conduct training programs to develop an assertive communication style in their managers/supervisors to increase the support to subordinates; thereby its positive consequences will follow in increasing employees’ performance and commitment and reducing absenteeism.