Indian Companies Research Articles

A COMPARATIVE STUDY: AMAZON V/S FLIPKART

Internet has become powerful and basic tool for every person's need and the way people work by integrating various online management tools using internet, online shopping has made it easy for everyone with their product variations and simple way to buy things. An attempt has been made critically to examine and compare various aspects such as customer satisfaction, product range, user experiences, market share, customer service and many more of two big E-tailors i.e. Flipkart and Amazon. Amazon is a global e-commerce and technology conglomerate founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It started as an online bookstore and has since evolved into one of the world's largest online retailers. On the other hand Flipkart is a prominent Indian e-commerce company founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007. Initially an online bookstore, it has grown to become a comprehensive online marketplace offering a wide array of products. Both these big players have made their own mark in India, but who is going to be ultimate winner? or be the top one, is going to be “A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON AMAZON AND FLIPKART” which delivers the information about the different strategies that helped the company to be successful in e- commerce market. Keywords: Product Authenticity, Customer Service, Consumer Attitude, Consumer Perception.

Impact of IND AS Implementation - A Study on Profitability of Select Indian Companies

Impact of IND AS Implementation - A Study on Profitability of Select Indian Companies

A Comparative Study of Profitability Analysis of Selected Listed Pharmaceutical Companies with Special Reference to Top 5 Pharma Companies in India

Profitability refers to the profits or gains a business makes in relation to its expenses. It helps to determine the future strategies of business, whether to invest or not and the performance of the business by analysing the currentfinancial position of the venture or firm. In this paper an attempt to assess the profitability position of selected pharma companies (on the basis of market capitalization). The annual report of last 5 years i.e. from 2018-19 to 2022-23 were analysed to know the position of pharma companies in terms of profitability. By analysing annual reports, it is found that among the selected pharma companies Sunpharma and Torrent Pharmaceutical are secured the top position (based on mean and C.V.) and in both based on mean and C.V. Cipla held the last position.

Impact of economic policy uncertainty on financial flexibility before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThis study examines the influence of economic policy uncertainty on financial flexibility before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Few prior studies have examined this association specifically for debt and cash flexibility.Design/methodology/approachUsing quarterly data from 2016 to 2022, 1014 observations were collected from the S&P Capital IQ database for listed tourism companies in India. The pre-pandemic period is defined as 2016 Q1 to 2020 Q1, whereas the pandemic period is from 2020 Q2 to 2022 Q3. The data are analysed using ordinary least squares, probit, logit and difference-in-difference (DID) estimation.FindingsThe evidence of this study suggests a negative association of economic policy uncertainty with debt flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also suggest that COVID-19 induced economic policy uncertainty results in high cash flexibility. This meets the expectations for the crisis period, as firms are likely to hold more cash and less debt capacity to manage their operations. The results are robust for various estimation techniques.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to one emerging country and is specific to one non-financial sector. Future research could extend to more emerging countries and include other non-financial sector companies.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research are useful for tourism sector managers as they can effectively manage their cash and debt flexibility during crisis periods. They will need to prioritise cash flexibility over debt flexibility to manage operations effectively. Policymakers need to provide clear and stable economic policies to help firms manage their debt levels during a crisis.Originality/valueTo the best of the author's knowledge, no existing studies have investigated the influence of economic policy uncertainty on the financial flexibility of tourism companies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study establishes a novel set of critical determinants, such as economic policy uncertainty.

Is ESG Data Financially Viable? A Case of Stock Price Synchronicity

According to the information efficiency view, stock price synchronicity reflects the degree of integration of firm-specific information with market-level information. Stock price synchronicity is higher (lower) when there is a higher (lower) level of integration between the firm and the overall market information. As the disclosure of environmental, social and governance data provides more firm-specific, non-financial, value-relevant information to the market, stock prices reflect such information efficiently. It leads to more information efficiency and lower synchronicity of stock prices. Against this backdrop, the present study examines the relationship between ESG and its component scores and stock price synchronicity using a sample of 163 Indian companies reporting their ESG scores through the Thomson Reuters database from 2011 to 2021. The findings of the study confirmed that the ESG score and the scores of its components (except the governance score) have a significant negative impact on stock price synchronicity and a significant positive impact on idiosyncratic volatility. This is consistent with the information efficiency viewpoint, implying that ESG disclosure has value relevance in the capital market and that investors in the Indian market consider ESG information when making investment decisions.

Beyond the Number Games: Understanding the Farmer Producer Companies in India and the Way Forward

The paper analyses the trends, patterns and performance of Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) in India. The paper aims at understanding what determines the success of FPCs and also explore whether the current policy focus on a targeted development of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) a good idea. The study tries to identify the critical common factors of successful FPC ventures. The study also analyses the issues, challenges and bottlenecks faced by selected FPCs and attempts to understand the best practices, the interventions and alternatives of the selected FPCs. The paper would help in understanding the existing and expected institutional arrangements for and around FPCs in order to make the business ventures robust. We used data provided by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) to explore the trends and patterns. A cross-case analysis was done to assess the performance and to draw inferences on critical common factors for success. The study shows that FPCs are emerging among other legal forms of FPOs. They are prominent in few states, which have enabling environment, enterprising farmers and have a history of collective action. The study shows heterogeneity in the product, functioning, how they work, deal with the issues and mechanisms of FPCs. The paper proposes establishing ‘incubators’ to handhold and support FPCs and different modes and categories for financing them. The macro- and micro-level understanding of FPCs drawn on the country-level data and the specific cases would add to the existing knowledge around FPCs in India. The contextual analysis of FPCs is of interest to global researchers and agri-development professionals, to identify the sectoral challenges, bottlenecks and the issues, which FPCs experience as business ventures. The paper creates possibilities for policy makers to design effective policy responses and strategies to strengthen FPCs in India and also benefit the global south by suggesting the learning from the model.

Is There Any Impact of CSR on Financial Performance? Evidence from Indian Firms

The sceptical attitude towards linking corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) forms the basis of this study. The available literature concentrates only on the positive side of CSR activities and benefits derived from them. The Companies Act, 2013, has made it mandatory for Indian companies of a certain turnover and profit to use 2% of their profits from the past three years on CSR activities. Given this background, this study examines the impact of CSR on the financial performance of the business itself. The economic legitimacy of CSR is also probed, that is, does CSR have a positive economic impact? For this examination, the Pearson Fixed effects panel regression analysis was performed on Nifty 50 companies during the period 2010–2018. Data regarding financial performance variables was obtained from Prowess IQ database. The CSR data was collected from the companies’ annual reports and content analysis was done using NVIVO software. The results of the study provide insights into the corporate response to the mandatory requirement of CSR activities and their impact on the company’s financial performance. The results of the study conclude that there is no significant influence of CSR on the financial performance of Indian companies.

Increasing Employees’ Efficiency through Workforce Management

The study aims to find out the degree of influence of different factors affecting workforce management and to suggest some measures to increase the workforce management by strengthening the HR factors taken under study. It is a descriptive study. The organization studied is a top Indian real estate company in Delhi. The sample size of the study is 30. The study indicates that workforce management procedure has been effective and systematic to a large extend. Nevertheless, there has been more apprehension/disagreement from some quarters/section of the employees. This is indicative of the fact that there’s always a room for improvement and enhancement. Referral should be taken on priority basis as it is a speedy source of recruitment and gives the sense of loyalty among the employees. Performance appraisal should be undertaken on regular basis and proper feedback on performance should be given by the superior.

Does ESG Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Indian Companies

This research paper explores the association between ESG i.e.; Environmental, Social, and Governance factors, and the financial performance of 37 Indian companies. It shows how ESG financial execution influences the profitability of companies and its contributions toward sustainable development. It employs various regression models including pooled OLS, fixed effect, and random effect models as well as dynamic panel regression. This study results positively significant connection between ESG performance and firm performance in terms of capital efficiency. Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) - these various financial metrics have demonstrated this positive connection. To support our findings this study employs both static and dynamic panel analysis. The insights of this paper are valuable for the stakeholders including policymakers, corporate managers, and investors who are interested in ESG principles and in understanding the relationship between ESG practices and companies financial performance. Key Words: ESG; Firm Performance; Sustainability; GMM Model.

Financial Performance Evaluation of Indian General and Standalone Health Insurance Companies: A Grey Relational Analysis Approach

Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) is adopted in various disciplines and research areas. It turned out to be an effective and practical real-world application. The objective of this study is to evaluate the financial performance of 23 Indian general insurance companies (GICs) and 4 standalone health insurance companies (SHICs) for the years from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022 using GRA proposed by Deng (1982). It incorporates the negative values in the analysis. The results rank the GICs and SHICs according to their financial performance. Among the GICs, Shriram insurance stands first with higher grey relational grade score, followed by the companies Go Digit General Insurance Limited, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Limited. Among the SHICs, Care health Insurance stands first with higher grey relational grade score followed by Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited, Niva Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited and Star Health & Allied Insurance Company Limited. It is suggested that insurance firms should focus more on profitability ratios and operating ratios in order to improve their financial position.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN INDIA-CURRENT SCENARIO AND CHALLENGES

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was made mandatory in India by the Companies Act of 2013, thus the evaluation of CSR activities over the years has become inevitable. Any unit or business derives a lot from the society so it is the responsibility of the business or unit to contribute some portion of its annual profits. The belief that it should be allocated for the society is getting stronger today. As a result, this provision was made mandatory under Section-135 of the Companies Act, 2013. The main objective of this research paper was to know the meaning of CSR and to get information about the existing CSR legal framework. Also, to know the present rank of Indian companies, states in CSR activities and to study what problems in implementation of CSR in India have been observed in recent years. The entire data for this research has been obtained from secondary data. This information is presented in a simple table and classification. From the findings of the study, it is known that most of the Indian companies are still not registered on the portal of CSR, and the number of companies has been decreasing in recent years which is a matter of concern for India. Identified development areas of corporate social responsibility and disparity in spending by states were also observed and other challenges are studied in this paper. Government and key stakeholders have to play an active role to overcome this problem. KEY WORDS: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Company, Sustainable Development, Stakeholders

Corporate Social Responsibility in Selected FMCG Companies in India: A Content Analysis

CSR is a very broader concept that addresses the various topic related to health care, sanitation and safety, environmental effects, contribution to economic development, relief efforts etc. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the CSR activities carried out by the selected FMCG companies in India. The official websites of the selected FMCG companies were analyzed for this study. The most preferred CSR activities were observed to be health hygiene and nutrition, environment sustainability, water and sanitation projects and women empowerment etc.

Physicochemical Study, Chemical Profiling and Molecular Docking Study for Standardisation of the Homoeopathic Drug Damiana

Abstract Introduction Damiana has been used as aphrodisiac in ethnomedicine for centuries. However, the use of Damiana in homeopathy is diverse, e.g. for migraine treatment of, amenorrhoea, spermatorrhoea, urinary tract infection and prostate related issues. However, this medicinal plant is non-native to India. Hence, it is imperative to investigate the quality of the medicine samples available and prepared in India. Hence, we undertook in-depth chemical analysis of the raw drugs and the commercially available samples of this medicine. Materials and Methods The reported chemical study includes determination of the physicochemical parameters of the raw drug involving, foreign matter, loss on drying, extractive values in different solvents, ash values total fixed oil and total volatile oil. Also, the study includes the analysis of the in-house and commercial mother tinctures consisting of, pH, organoleptic parameters, total solids, total phenol content, ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy and high performance thin layer chromatography. Phytochemical screening of the mother tinctures and extracts of the raw drugs in different solvents was done. A preliminary molecular docking study was done to evaluate the applicability of apigenin as the homoeopathy-specific marker. Result In-house mother tincture, mother tinctures from Indian and multinational companies show similar quality. Molecular docking revealed that apigenin may be a good candidate for homoeopathy-specific marker. Conclusion Our study provides pharmacopoeial standards which show that even for exotic plants the quality of mother tinctures from Indian and international companies is similar.

Nature of corporate environmentalism in large-listed Indian firms: empirical evidence from Indian companies

Nature of corporate environmentalism in large-listed Indian firms: empirical evidence from Indian companies

Legitimising CSR through the institutional backup – gauging compliance of the Indian corporate sector in the mandatory regime

PurposeThis study aims to calculate the corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditure made by companies as per the provisions of Section 135 of Companies Act 2013 and check the status of compliance/non-compliance of these provisions in the mandatory regime of CSR.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of top 500 Indian companies listed on Bombay Stock Exchange, the study compares the CSR expenditure required to be incurred by companies with the actual CSR expenditure made by them over a time span of seven years and calculates the extent of surplus or deficit attained by them starting from the year of inception of CSR provisions, 2014–2015, till the most recent year, 2020–2021.FindingsThe findings indicate that the average CSR expenditure made by Indian corporate sector is less than the mandatory requirement. More than half of the companies do not comply with the CSR regulations of the country. Even the “Most Profitable” companies fail to contribute the minimum required amount towards social activities akin to their counterparts in the “Less” and “Least” profitable categories.Practical implicationsThe disobedience towards the statutory provisions implies that Indian companies are non-compliant towards CSR guidelines despite the regulative institutional pressure that makes CSR a mandatory practice to legitimise it.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the CSR literature in the light of the transformed regulative institutional environment in India. It includes a comprehensive analysis of compliance of companies with the revised statutes over all the years since the inception of new mandatory guidelines on CSR till the most recent time period on a representative sample, thus, making the findings robust and generic with respect to India.

Investigating the effect of risk reduction strategies on the construction of mega infrastructure project (MIP) success: a SEM-ANN approach

PurposeManaging mega infrastructure projects (MIPs) is more complex because of time, size, social, environmental and financial implications. This study aims to address the management approaches, complexity and risk factors involved in MIPs. The study focuses on project success criteria and their individual effects on the success of MIPs.Design/methodology/approachTo address the challenges and identify the most influencing factor for the success of MIPs, the study deployed a cross-sectional survey approach. Six hundred eighty-two usable samples were collected from the respondents to understand the impact of predetermined factors on the success of MIPs. The structural equation model and artificial neural network approach were used to derive the importance of factors affecting the success of MIPs.FindingsThe study's outcome confirms that all three influencing factors: feasibility studies, community engagements and contract selection, have a significant positive impact on the success of MIPs. Community engagement amongst all three has the most influential predictor for the success of MIPs.Originality/valueThe developed model will enable practitioners and policymakers from Indian construction companies and other emerging nations to concentrate on recognized risk reduction variables to enhance project success criteria and project management success, especially for MIPs.

Identifying and prioritizing the stakeholder linkages of dairy-based farmer producer companies in India: An analytical hierarchy process

The present study was proposed to identify stakeholders involved in the formation of FPCs, as related to the dairy-based farmer producer companies. The proposed study was conducted in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, as these three states are the major milk-producing states of India as well as have the highest number of dairy-based farmer producers. Four farmer producer companies from each state were selected randomly, based on three criterias. The sample size was 90 (60 officials of FPCs and 30 experts) for the study. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources. A semi-structured interview schedule based on the Satty,s nine continuum scale was developed to collect data related to stakeholder analysis. The study reported that 12 stakeholders were actively involved in the formation of FPCs. The farmers were the most important stakeholder and got the first rank in the AHP priority ranking.The linkage among the stakeholders were found medium to strong. Interest influence matrix categorized stakeholders into Key players, Context setters, Subjects and Crowd. The study suggests that there is a huge need to enhance and coordinate the backward and forward linkage among stakeholders for developing a sustainable ecosystem for the long-term viability of FPCs.

Identifying and prioritizing the stakeholder linkages of dairy-based farmer producer companies in India: An analytical hierarchy process

The present study was proposed to identify stakeholders involved in the formation of FPCs, as related to the dairy-based farmer producer companies. The proposed study was conducted in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, as these three states are the major milk-producing states of India as well as have the highest number of dairy-based farmer producers. Four farmer producer companies from each state were selected randomly, based on three criterias. The sample size was 90 (60 officials of FPCs and 30 experts) for the study. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources. A semi-structured interview schedule based on the Satty,s nine continuum scale was developed to collect data related to stakeholder analysis. The study reported that 12 stakeholders were actively involved in the formation of FPCs. The farmers were the most important stakeholder and got the first rank in the AHP priority ranking.The linkage among the stakeholders were found medium to strong. Interest influence matrix categorized stakeholders into Key players, Context setters, Subjects and Crowd. The study suggests that there is a huge need to enhance and coordinate the backward and forward linkage among stakeholders for developing a sustainable ecosystem for the long-term viability of FPCs.

Lean Logics versus Cultural Logics: Case Study of a Japanese Automobile Company in India

Lean Logics versus Cultural Logics: Case Study of a Japanese Automobile Company in India

A Contribution of Women Entrepreneurs in Economic Development of India

A woman plays a crucial role in development of any country and contributes as an employee in different -different sectors. Some educated women have occupied top position like Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Managing Directors (MD) and Chief Information Officer (CIO). Woman holds 36% of senior management positions in mid-market companies in India, compared to 32% globally, a survey from Grant Thorton reveals. Name of some women entrepreneurs are Kiran Mazumdar shaw (Biocon), Vinita Singh (Sugar Cosmetics), Chitra Gurnani Daga (CEO-Thrillophilia.com), Khushboo Jain (Impactguru.com) and Shreya Lamba (Munmun Co). These female entrepreneurs play a crucial role in the Indian economy and have a significant effect on it by generating employment, accelerating development and fostering prosperity. As per recent figures, women comprise 14 percent of the total entrepreneurs in India, which works out to 8 million.