Suchergebnisse

Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of board characteristics on CEO turnover performance relationship (TPR) in Indian listed firms.


Design/methodology/approach
A subset of the Standard and Poor's Bombay Stock Exchange 500 (S&P BSE 500) Index companies was analyzed over the period 2015–2019 using the logistic (fixed-effects) regression model.


Findings
It was found that a weak relationship exists between CEO turnover and firm performance. With respect to board characteristics, board size was found to have a significant role in strengthening the TPR. However, other characteristics, such as board independence, multiple directors, board meetings and board gender diversity, played no role in influencing the TPR.


Research limitations/implications
First, the study period is limited to five years, during which several sample firms did not face any CEO turnover event leading to small sample size. Second, this study considers only the board's gender diversity, whereas other types of diversity are omitted. Third, this study does not differentiate between insider and professional CEOs.


Practical implications
The findings suggest that regulators should focus on the effective enforcement of laws to strengthen the TPR and improve the monitoring role of boards, particularly in emerging economies like India, which face type II agency problems in addition to traditional principal–agent conflict. The results also offer implications for corporations, investors and academic researchers, highlighting areas that need considerable attention pertaining to corporate governance.


Originality/value
This study discerns the impact of several board-related characteristics on the TPR, particularly after the introduction of the new Companies Act 2013 in the emerging economy of India, where it has not been explored extensively.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on chief executive officer compensation (CEO COMP) and pay–performance relationship (PPR) in Indian listed firms.


Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 196 companies listed on the S&P BSE 500 (Standard and Poor's Bombay Stock Exchange 500) Index has been analyzed using the panel (random effects) regression technique over the period 2010–2019. In addition, the system GMM technique was used to deal with the endogeneity issue.


Findings
The study found that block ownership and ownership concentration negatively impact COMP measures and PPR. Board size also had a negative direct and moderating impact on CEO COMP; however, the linkages were generally insignificant, especially for total pay. Similarly, outsider blockholders were found to be playing an insignificant role. Further, board independence positively influences COMP levels and PPR, though the results were mixed with respect to significance. Finally, CEO duality positively and significantly influences CEO COMP and PPR. A comparison before and after the new Indian Companies Act 2013 also revealed similar results, particularly in the after period. It suggests that the new legislative initiative was not effective enough in improving the CG and, hence, the alignment of pay with performance.


Originality/value
This study investigates the direct and moderating impact of CG on CEO COMP in the context of emerging economy India. Further, it makes a comparison before and after the introduction of the new governance reform, that is, the Indian Companies Act, 2013. Moreover, providing support to the entrenchment effect, the study reveals that large shareholders expropriate minority shareholders' wealth by not aligning CEO pay with performance, making agency problems graver in emerging economies like India.

Blurring various boundaries of age, place of residence (urban/rural) and sociocultural–economic factors, the mobile phone has become an integral part of everyday life of almost everyone in this world. Through the identification of differences in accessibility and use of technology including the mobile phone, a digital divide is seen to be emerging, and what is of great concern is the emergence of a digital gender divide. The article is based on a study of mobile phone use by rural illiterate women in India, exploring whether three different parameters, namely, place of residence (rural or urban), gender and illiteracy, are hindering the use of the mobile phone or not. Nearly 85 per cent of the rural illiterate women studied were found to be using a mobile phone without necessarily owning it. It was their quickest means of communication and receiving information. A further improvement such as a community radio through which interaction with the outside world can be facilitated should be encouraged.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide lockdowns that followed the same have led to drastic changes in our lifestyles. While the lockdowns marked a global transition to a world of online services and products, the change was neither easy nor smooth for many. From lack of access to technology to the absence of skills to use it, the act of "going digital" was littered with challenges for people across the world. In the South-Asian country of India, this lack of access was further amplified by the presence of a gender digital divide. Among the women from various factions of the society, one such category affected by it was female entrepreneurs from small rural areas in India. These entrepreneurs were cut off from their clientele owing to a nationwide lockdown in the country imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19. Most of these women had no prior experience with technology (which is mobile phones in their case) but they not only negotiated access but used it to sustain and grow their entrepreneurial endeavors in a short duration of time. This study, through in-depth qualitative interviews with female entrepreneurs from small rural areas in India maps their usage patterns and their negotiations for domesticating mobile phones. The research found that the first two stages of domestication theory (appropriation and objectification) were easier to navigate for the women entrepreneurs, but gender expectations from them made the last two stages of incorporation and conversion challenging.

With the number of mobile phone subscribers increasing across all sections of society, this paper aims to understand if homeless women in shelter-homes of India have access to mobile phones and, if so, what are their usage patterns. Facilitated by issues ranging from domestic violence to lack of employment to forced migration and even to human trafficking and rape, women residing in the shelter-homes of India have a myriad of stories to tell. Not all of them have been on streets forever and many have the basic literacy to understand how to use a mobile phone. For the purposes of the study, the researchers engaged with women above 18 years of age up to the age of 45 in a series of open-ended interviews to understand their access to mobile phones and contextualize their homelessness within an affordances-based framework for mobile phone access. This paper takes into account the dual barriers of gender and the lack of a home to study the digital divide experienced by homeless women in India, expanding on how both these factors shape their access and usage, eventually bridging the digital divide, and whether mobile phones are required/desired by the women themselves. The study found that the women staying in shelter-homes see a window of hope in their use of mobile phones in the form of an independent financial future or an independent marital life, but the biased perception of using a mobile phone among women hinders women's access to and use of these devices, which ultimately results in the loss of any kind of opportunity before it has even been explored, perhaps leading to the loss of a chance at a bright future.

According to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) official website for coronavirus, the disease has spread to approximately 214 countries and regions. While the disease is spreading mercilessly around the world, science and technology are giving it an equal fight. The pandemic is a test of governments' medical capacity and their political will; it also raises several philosophical questions. It is a test of humans as a unit. A test of humanity as a whole. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is intended to imitate human cognitive functions. It will bring significant change to health care, driven by the growing accessibility of healthcare data and rapid advancement of analytics practices. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, AI is being used to assist and advise doctors in establishing a diagnosis, to support radiologists in refining image explanation, and help in the advancement of drug discovery research. The upsurge of new technologies gives rise to new questions. There is still considerable uncertainty in the field of Intellectual Property (IP) protection of AI-generated works. AI does not have legal personhood, so the question remains about whether it holds any IP rights. In this article, we discuss the IP rights of AI-generated works with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study is to determine the impact of international and national laws and treaties on IP rights for AI-generated solutions to the pandemic, as well as to study an alternative temporary mechanism to make IP widely available to mobilise resources and manufacture critical products to prevent, diagnose or treat COVID-19. The paper attempts to strike a balance between the needs of health care, life-threatening emergencies and IP rights by applying a utilitarian theory of IP law that denotes the «utility» of all people, aiming to secure «the greatest good for the greatest number».

Abstract
Although the issues related to sexuality are of prime importance in the contemporary world, in the Indian society they are closeted and ignored even today. Several social injunctions are conceptualized against men with alternative sexualities. To avoid social stigma, men refrain from coming out of the closet and accepting their natural sexual identity and orientation. However, there are certain playwrights who have addressed this otherwise taboo subject of sexuality on the Indian Stage. Mahesh Dattani is one amongst them. His plays firmly assert that gender and sexuality are concepts that are not confined to one's biological orientation, but rather go beyond it. They are conditioned by socio-cultural norms and hegemonic practices. He elucidates how the socio-cultural determinants of gender and sexuality contradict one's own individual instincts, sexual preferences and lived experiences. With reference to his famous play Do the Needful, this paper gives a brief account of the condition of Indian theatre pre- and post-colonization and projects the camouflaging techniques adopted by the discursive identities of gay people, for example, in order to conspicuously feature as straight and normal. It outlines the social constructions associated with gays in India and how these formations compel Indian men to internalize and succumb to the conventional norms of heterosexuality as the only acceptable norms.