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This study aims to examine the effect of usage, value, tradition, risk, compatibility and complexity barriers on user resistance to mobile bookkeeping applications. Furthermore, it also explores how the relationship between these barriers and user resistance is mediated by technostress. Finally, the authors analysed the moderating impact of self-efficacy on the mediating effect of technostress between barriers and user resistance.

Structured questionnaires were used to obtain data from 325 respondents. A structural equation modelling technique was used to investigate the hypotheses.

The findings suggest that usage, risk and tradition barrier has a significantly positive effect on user resistance intention. Also, results suggested that technostress plays an important role in framing customers’ resistance intention. Finally, the mediation effect of technostress between risk barrier and user resistance is higher for users having low levels of self-efficacy compared with users with high levels of self-efficacy.

The present research enriches the existing literature, especially in the field of mobile bookkeeping applications, user resistance, technostress and innovation resistance theory. It would help bookkeeping application developers design their apps, keeping the major user barriers in mind.

This study aims to investigate the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) investment on the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) profitability in the Indian context.

This study used a framework based on the ICT investment and firm size, measuring the impact on profit before depreciation, interest, tax and amortisation of MSME by taking a random sampling of 300 Indian MSME manufacturing firm’s secondary data from the Prowess database. This framework was analysed using the design of experiment (DoE) technique.

The study showed that ICT investment has a significant positive relationship with profitability. This study examines the different ICT investment levels to predict investment strategies and fine-tune profit targets. The critical finding is that ICT investment maximises profit at one million rupees. This discovery aids MSME leaders’ sustainable business decision-making.

This study has an explicit limit to the Indian context, where the firm requirements of countries are different, and these findings need to be validated with many operating variables and applied to more firms with more data. Even so, as a theoretical implication, this study took a novel approach to ICT adoption (through ICT investment) in the Indian MSME sector with guiding levels of ICT investment for each type of firm (i.e. micro, small and medium). This study opens new avenues for investigating researchers and stakeholders by exploring other factors responsible for ICT adoption.

This study uniquely provides practitioners with the functional level of ICT investment for MSMEs in the Indian context. These finding guides top management to make strategic ICT adoption decisions with information symmetry. At the same time, these findings suggest financial institutions astern their credit programme to provide credit for ICT investment in MSMEs.

This study highlights the value of ICT as a practical resource for business owners that significantly makes MSMEs more informed and profitable, thus creating more jobs and incrementing the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

This study offers unique empirical findings on how decision makers in MSMEs maximise profits through optimal ICT investment levels depending upon the firm size in an emerging economy like India. There is evidence in the study to conclude that ICT is a need of MSME and has implications for firm performance.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are essential tools to further policy objectives across the world. However, in the past few decades, heated debates on the performance of SOEs vis-à-vis private sector enterprises have surfaced. In India, SOEs have long played an important role in the economy and only recently have undergone the trend of privatization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze existing research and to conclude whether private enterprises perform better than SOEs.

A review of available literature on performance comparisons of public and private sector enterprises is carried out, and differences between public and private enterprises are studied. Finally, theoretical propositions on the differences in objectives of public and private enterprises in the Indian context are enumerated. Three propositions are tested using data on Indian SOEs available in the public domain.

Performance comparisons of public and private enterprises have focused merely on technical productivity or financial aspects and have thus left out the wide scope of social, economic and political objectives of SOEs. Literature on the nature of SOEs indicates that there are certain fundamental differences in the objectives of public and private sector enterprises. Further, the basic theoretical assumptions tested have been found to be, prima facie, valid in the Indian context. The paper thus establishes a case for further research to develop a comprehensive technique for the comparison of public and private sector enterprises in the Indian context.

Extant research on the subject of comparing public and private entries has limited itself to technoeconomic considerations and has not taken into account the different objectives/nature of these enterprises. The study established a case for diverging from the present discourse privatization and private sector supremacy. The same could have far-reaching consequences for policymakers, especially in developing countries.

This paper aims to evaluate the adherence of media reports of suicide published in vernacular language newspapers against the World Health Organization guidelines.

The authors performed a content analysis of all suicide-related news reports published in the seven most widely circulated vernacular newspapers of Maharashtra. News reports published from April 2020 to May 2020 were included.

Among the 355 retrieved suicide reports, 39.2% reports were placed at a prominent position of the newspaper, 92.8% mentioned the name of a person, 93.8% mentioned the method of suicide, while 56.0% reported monocausal explanations for suicide. In contrast, 20.8% of news reports acknowledged a link with mental health disorders, while 0.3% news reports provided information about suicide prevention programs, and 0.8% mentioned suicide-related statistics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to report content analysis of suicide reports from Maharashtra state, which is one of the most developed states in India and has high rates of youth and farmer suicides.

The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of various content cues and characteristics on the followers’ online expressions of relationship quality. Second, the research aims to understand the moderating effects of content curation.

The sample comprised of 100 posts and 29,000 comments that were sourced from the Facebook pages of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The content was coded using the prior literature. Comments were manually coded using a deductive approach and captured the dimensions of relationship quality. Multiple regression was used to confirm the hypotheses.

Visuals, content popularity, volume of comments and content’s length have a positive effect on voters’ expressions of relationship quality. However, source credibility, argument quality, valence and interactivity did not have an impact. Additionally, content curation negatively moderated the effects of length and interactivity on expressions of relationship quality.

The findings emphasise the use of peripheral cues rather than the central route. Curating interactive and lengthy content should be avoided, however, curation of images and videos is well received.

The research contributes to the literature by understanding the role of marketer-generated content in building online relationships. Additionally, it explores the distinct impacts of created and curated content.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an adaptive fuzzy controller for STATCOM to damp low-frequency inter-area oscillation over wide operating range using wide area signals in multimachine power system.

In this paper tuneable fuzzy model is proposed where the parameters of the fuzzy inference system are tuned by using the adaptive characteristic of the artificial neural network. Based on back propagation algorithm and method of least square estimation, the fuzzy inference rule base is tweaked according to the data from which they are modelled. The wide area control signals, for the proposed controller, available in the power system are selected on the basis of eigenvalue sensitivity defined in terms of participation factor.

The effectiveness of the proposed controller with wide area signals is tested on two test cases, namely, two area network and IEEE 12 bus benchmark system. The comparative analysis of the proposed adaptive fuzzy controller is carried out with conventional STATCOM controller along with fuzzy-and neural-based supplementary controller all using selected wide area signals. The results show that neural network tuned fuzzy controller leads to better system identification and have enhanced damping characteristics over wide operating range.

In the available literature, numerous researchers have indicated the use of fuzzy logic controller and neural controller along with their hybrid schemes as STATCOM controller for improving the dynamics of the multimachine power system using local signals. The main contribution of the paper is in using the hybrid intelligent control scheme for STATCOM using wide area signals. The advantage of proposed scheme is that the performance of well-designed fuzzy system can be enhanced with the same training data that are used for designing a neural controller thus giving enhanced performance in comparison to individual intelligent control scheme.

The dynamic business environment and intense competition have mandated agility in operations for manufacturing firms. Effective inter-organizational collaboration can make operations more agile. This paper develops an interpretive model to explore the effect of supply chain collaboration (SCC) on supply chain agility (SCA) and, subsequently, on business performance.

A hierarchical model that illustrates the relationship between SCC, SCA and firm performance components is developed using total interpretative structural modeling (TISM). Also, statistical validation of the model has been performed.

The results indicate that the vision and alertness of the firm on the strategic front promote collaboration between supply chain partners. This creates operational agility, helping the firm to absorb fluctuations in demand, thereby enhancing business performance.

The opinion of most respondents was considered to develop the TISM framework over the fuzzy one, which necessitates a significantly more extensive data set. However, multiple discussions with participants can eliminate the prejudice of the majority approach. Also, the paper's development and validation were restricted to Indian manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The model can potentially be evaluated in large organizations to provide further insights.

The study blends the factors of SCC and SCA in a novel way to explain their combined impact on business performance. The TISM model addresses the “why” of theory development in addition to the “what” and “how” of it. Using triangulation in combination with the interpretative tool, this study additionally offers methodological value.

Prior studies mostly investigated the relationship between the cognitive characteristics of individuals and their pro-environmentalism, addressing the need for green hotel operators to understand the different green purchase patterns of consumers. The problem is that, although consumers claim they are concerned about environmental issues, their purchasing behaviour does not translate, in practical terms, into actually booking green hotels. In other words, the connection between altruism, environmental knowledge and consumer visiting green hotel is fairly unexplored in the literature. This study aims to analyze the relationships of three types of altruism and two types of environmental knowledge with attitude and intention.

An integrated theoretical research model was used, based on the value–belief–norm theory of environmentalism. The collection of 248 questionnaires was followed by subsequent empirical testing of the proposed hypotheses, which was performed using SPSS and AMOS.

The resulting outcomes show a significant positive relationship between green purchase attitude and intention. Further, the biospheric, altruistic and collectivistic values, as well as subjective and objective knowledge were shown to positively influence attitude and intention towards green hotel selection, respectively.

Because of the chosen online sampling method, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how visiting green hotel can be influenced by different types of altruism and environmental knowledge.

Rapid economic growth and urbanization in India have increased demand for municipal services. In response, privatization has emerged as a policy solution to a growing deficit in urban infrastructure and service provision. But, privatization assumes prior state ownership of those services. Certain waste management services, specifically doorstep waste collection, have never been truly public in the sense that private informal actors have historically provided them. The purpose of this paper is to examine the tensions and contradictions between two related policy imperatives – universal service provision and privatization – that appear to be guiding the municipalization of solid waste collection services in urban India.

Research for this paper relies on detailed analysis of key government documents (reports of various committees, regulations and laws) that have been important in defining municipal responsibilities for waste management in India from 1990 to 2016. In addition, where appropriate, research materials from the author’s doctoral dissertation fieldwork in Delhi from October 2012 to December 2013 have also been used.

An analysis of key policy documents revealed that the government’s efforts to document deficits in service provision ignored, and thus rendered invisible, the work of the informal sector. While a consensus on the need for universal waste collection service had emerged as early as the late 1990s, it was not until 2016 that municipal responsibility for service provision was codified into law. The rules issued in 2016 municipalized this responsibility while simultaneously opening up spaces for the inclusion of the informal sector in waste collection service provision.

This paper fills a gap in the existing literature on how policy interventions have brought the space of the doorstep into the ambit of the state such that it allows for the opening up of those spaces for the entry of private capital. Under the guise of universal service provision, the shift to municipalization and outsourcing to private corporations is not in fact privatization – service provision is already private – but involves the dispossession of informal workers and the transfer of their resource to the formal, corporate sector.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.