Indian Manufacturing Research Articles

Uncovering heterogeneity in the relationship between competition, corporate governance and firm performance using quantile regression on Indian data

This paper investigates the relation between product market competition, corporate governance and firm performance in Indian manufacturing industries covering the period 1995–2017. Evidence suggests that firm performance improves as competition increases. Besides, results depict heterogeneity in the conditional determinants of firm performance between competitive and non-competitive industries. We observe that at upper quantiles of Tobin's q, competitive firms have better performance than their non-competitive counterparts. Findings also suggest that exogenous factors, such as managerial efficiency or managerial incentives provided by the promoters in competitive firms, may be some of the unobservable factors increasing the net positive differences in Tobin's q between competitive and non-competitive firms. This has the implication that policy frameworks are different in competitive and non-competitive industries. Moreover, we observe that the enactment of Clause 49 in December 2005, which aimed at improving corporate governance in India, improved firm performance in less competitive industries. The findings therefore imply that competition acts as an external mechanism to discipline management and increases firm performance as a consequence. Thus, competition seems to act as a substitute for direct institutional reforms to improve corporate governance. The results have important policy implications. Since improvement in corporate governance has relatively more pronounced effect in non-competitive industries, policy efforts should be made in that specific direction.

Challenges of implementing industry 4.0 in achieving sustainable development goals: a case of Indian manufacturing organization

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to identify the implementation challenges of Industry 4.0 and circular supply chain during a pandemic in order to achieve sustainable development goals. Based on the literature review and discussion with experts, combined challenges of implementing Industry 4.0 for developing a circular supply chain were identified. A combination of ANP and Fuzzy TOPSIS approaches has been adopted for the proposed research as the network model with dependence and feedback improves rankings derived from the alternatives and can make better decisions for optimal challenges. The ANP approach has been utilized to evaluate the weights of the criteria using Super Decisions software 2.10 version for reliability and accuracy of the results, while Fuzzy TOPSIS approach has been used to prioritize the alternatives. A case example of an XYZ barrel manufacturing organization has been selected for the illustration of the proposed research. Four experts from the manufacturing organization were selected to review the preliminary draft of the questionnaire. The main findings are identifying and prioritizing 5 major challenges and 15 criteria for implementing Industry 4.0 technologies in circular supply chain during the pandemic. The results of the study demonstrate that organizational is the major challenge, while sustainable development challenge is the least prioritized. Data security and privacy, technological development and big data and analytics are the essential criteria for implementing Industry 4.0 and circular supply chain principles. The findings of the research may help academicians, researchers, and industrialists in their decision-making to ensure the smooth implementation of Industry 4.0 and to develop a circular supply chain.

Development of a model of critical failure factors for integrated LSS–AM practices in Indian manufacturing industries: a fuzzy TISM approach

The purpose of the present study is to identify the critical failure factors (CFFs) for implementing integrated practices of lean six sigma (LSS) and agile manufacturing (AM) in Indian manufacturing industries and develop a framework that prioritizes the CFFs. Total nine CFFs were identified through a vast review of research articles. A framework of CFFs was developed by the fuzzy-total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach with the help of academia and industry experts’ opinions. Fuzzy-MICMAC (Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement) analysis was performed to categorise CFFs into four clusters. The findings of the present study suggest that there are nine CFFs to LSS–AM implementation in Indian manufacturing industries. From the fuzzy-TISM model it is revealed that top management commitment and organisational culture change CFFs are major roadblocks to LSS–AM implementation strategy in any organization. Further, this research helps LSS–AM decision-makers and practitioners to prioritize CFFs based on their driving and dependence. Accordingly, they can make strategies to mitigate these CFFs and create a smooth pathway for the LSS–AM implementation process. This in turn can enhance the performance of the organization. This study is one of the pioneer studies of the integration of LSS–AM CFFs, which analyzed the contextual relationship among the CFFs through fuzzy-TISM.

Internationalisation, employment generation and wage premia: evidence from Indian manufacturing firms

AbstractThe study investigates the impact of internationalisation on employment and wages in the Indian manufacturing sector by using an extensive plant‐level dataset. Using system generalised method of moments (GMM) and quantile regression estimators, we find strong evidence of the dampening effect of exports and imports on wages, whereas a positive impact of foreign investment on wages. However, the magnitude of the impact of internationalisation on wages reduces marginally at higher quantile levels. The impact of imports and exports on employment generation is slightly ambiguous though overall indicates a beneficial impact.

Do IFRS convergence affects firm performance? Picturing Indian-listed manufacturing firms

PurposeThe study has endeavored to assay the nexus between the converged version of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the performance of the Indian-listed manufacturing firms.Design/methodology/approachThe study has randomly accessed the data of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed Indian manufacturing firms using the Prowess IQ database. It has covered 2014–2016 as pre-IFRS and 2017–2020 as the post-IFRS convergence period. Moreover, the study has followed a longitudinal research design with cross-sectional time-series data and has used the difference-in-difference (DiD) technique to assess the effect of the IFRS convergence on firm performance (FP).FindingsThe results have indicated that the adoption of the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) has unlikely reported better FP. It has concurred policy implications as full adoption rather than convergence could reap the benefits of the IFRS.Originality/valueIt has contributed to the existing body of knowledge by assaying the effect of the IFRS convergence on FP in developing economies like India using the DiD methodology. The study is an original piece of research and is free from plagiarism.

Sectoral analysis of capital structure adjustment: evidence from emerging market

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the non-homogeneity in the speed of adjustment (SoA) of the capital structure of manufacturing companies. It also attempts to study the key determinants that accelerate the speed of adjustment towards the target leverage level.Design/methodology/approachUsing the dynamic panel fraction (DPF) estimator on the partial adjustment model, the study captures the heterogeneous SoA of 2,866 firms across eight prominent sectors of the Indian manufacturing industry from 2009 to 2020. To ensure robustness, the empirical inferences of DPF are cross-verified with the estimates of panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE).FindingsThe authors find a combination of the capital structure's slow, moderate and rapid adjustment speed along with the relevance of trade-off theory. Interestingly, the lowest and fastest SoA is recorded by the dwindling textile sector and expanding food and agro sector, respectively. Profitability, firm size, asset tangibility and non-debt tax shields are the key firm-specific parameters that impact the SoA towards the target.Originality/valueAvailing the rarely employed estimator ‘DPF’ and the objective of documenting diverse and non-uniform adjustment speeds across the Indian manufacturing sectors marks a novel addition to capital structure literature.

Conceptual Analysis of Total Quality Management in the Manufacturing Industry in India: An Analytical Study

In this abstract, Total Quality Management (TQM) in India's manufacturing sector is conceptually analyzed. TQM is a well-known methodology that emphasizes ongoing development, client happiness, and organizational excellence. TQM is essential for boosting competitiveness and tackling the issues brought on by international markets in the context of Indian manufacturing. The main TQM components—leadership commitment, workforce engagement, process improvement, and customer centricity—are examined in this examination. It investigates how these components fit into the Indian manufacturing sector while taking into account regional cultural, economic, and regulatory concerns. The abstract also analyses how TQM implementation has affected several facets of the manufacturing sector, including customer loyalty, operational effectiveness, product quality, and supply chain management. It also emphasizes the difficulties that Indian manufacturers may have adopting TQM practices successfully. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the function of TQM in promoting sustainable growth, quality improvement, and competitive advantage for Indian manufacturers by evaluating the conceptual framework of TQM and its application in the Indian manufacturing industry.

Critical Success Factors of Project Management in Indian Manufacturing Companies: A Quantitative Investigation

This quantitative investigation aims to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) of managements of projects in Indian manufacturing companies. CSF includes project planning, project control, project team management, and stakeholder management are significant within Indian manufacturing companies. There is also an availability of a measurable impact of different project management practices on project success. The conclusions of this research can help project managers in Indian manufacturing companies to understand the critical factors that affect project success and to implement appropriate project management practices to achieve success. This research can also add to the existing amount of research on project management by providing more insight into the workings of CSFs in the context of Indian manufacturing companies. The findings of this study also serve as a reference for project managers in other industries and countries to identify and prioritize CSFs in their specific contexts. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the CSF of PM in Indian manufacturing companies, which can help organizations to enhance their project management practices and ultimately achieve project success.

The impact of IoT on manufacturing firm performance: the moderating role of firm-level IoT commitment and expertise

The Internet of Things has received enormous attention. Despite the lucrative potential, this study tries to look beyond the hype to understand how IoT impacts firm performance. Based on the information processing theory, we intend to explore how IoT influences the financial performance of firms. Firms, which realise the urgent need to adopt IoT might encounter a diverse set of challenges, like whether adoption will be profitable, the level of commitment they should devote, and whether to adopt as a first or second-mover. We want to comprehend such adoption challenges on the Indian manufacturing firm's financial performance. This study uses panel data from BSE 500 listed manufacturing firms and conducts multivariate analysis to understand the relationship between the IoT implementation proxies: IoT adoption, first-mover advantage, and firm performance in the light of IoT commitment and experts. The result indicates that IoT implementation has an insignificant effect on manufacturing firm performance. Meanwhile, the consideration of IoT commitment and experts jointly can enable a manufacturing firm to reap significantly positive financial outcomes. In other words, the IoT commitment and expertise positively moderate the relationship. The finding is useful to the decision-makers to address the firm-level adjustment before the mere introduction of IoT.

Production acceptance trial of indigenous manufactured helmet: Field experience and lessons drawn

Effective trial of indigenously developed flying clothing like a helmet on aircrew is important before final acceptance. The prototype indigenously designed helmet by an Indian manufacturer was subjected to a final Production Acceptance Trial (PAT) at a flying base for operational capability. Ground and in-flight evaluation of helmet was conducted involving aircrew. Most of the parameters for trials were satisfactory. Certain observations were brought out by the aircrew and trial team, which were later rectified by the manufacturer. The rectified helmet was subjected to repeat PAT and finally accepted for bulk production. This paper highlights the importance of such trials, lessons drawn, and recommendations for future trials.

Trends in Employment, Productivity, Real Wages and Labour Standards in Indian Manufacturing in Recent Years

Trends in Employment, Productivity, Real Wages and Labour Standards in Indian Manufacturing in Recent Years

Indian buyers in global markets: Quality, prices and productivity

AbstractThis paper adds to the new literature on firms' direct sourcing of imported intermediate inputs. We address key gaps in the literature by examining the influence of source country characteristics on import prices, the import behaviour of Indian firms and empirical strategies to address source country selection bias, while using disaggregated import data at the firm, product and source country level. We offer a theoretical contribution which suggests that source characteristics affect firms' willingness to pay for imported inputs, particularly high‐quality differentiated inputs. Our unique and detailed data set of Indian manufacturers' imported inputs allows us to control for all firm and product characteristics to eliminate missing‐variable bias with fixed effects, and to correct for possible selection bias in firms' source country choices. Results indicate that source country characteristics matter. Import prices rise for products sourced from high‐income per capita countries, rise with distance and fall with GDP and remoteness (the latter a new finding suggested by our theory). High productivity firms that also export appear particularly willing to pay high prices for high‐quality inputs from specific source countries. Our results suggest that, apart from other consequences, restrictions on imported inputs harm firms' ability to upgrade product quality.

Analyzing the sustainable international competitiveness factors of SMEs by Fuzzy Delphi and Neutrosophic DEMATEL

AbstractToday's small and medium enterprise (SMEs) are under pressure to pursue complex growth strategies in order to increase their competitiveness and keep up with the rapidly changing international environment and sustainability. SMEs lack a holistic perspective on sustainability and internationalization; they are frequently hindered from contemplating environmentally favorable investments beyond what is legally needed. The purpose of this paper is to present a joint Fuzzy Delphi and Neutrosophic DEMATEL for identifying and finding cause‐effect relationship among international sustainable competitiveness factors for SMEs. This study addresses the issue by exploring international sustainable competitiveness factors and applying the novel method that integrate Fuzzy Delphi and Neutrosophic DEMATEL for understanding the cause‐effect relationship among them. Moreover, prioritizing the factors for attaining international sustainable competitiveness for Indian manufacturing SMEs. The findings show that “Managerial Orientation” and “Economic Performance” are the important for SMEs in gaining International sustainable competitiveness. Prioritizing factors and their cause‐and‐effect relationships allowed decision‐makers to concentrate on overcoming them in order to increase international sustainable Competitiveness. These findings offer some preliminary information as well as advice for managers and policymakers looking to integrate sustainable efforts. The study's objective is to aid executives in understanding the elements of their respective businesses' international sustainable competitiveness. The outcome demonstrates the strongest correlation between managerial orientation and economic performance. The originality of this study lies in its empirical research on Indian SMEs, which uses the Fuzzy Delphi and Neutrosophic DEMATEL method framework as a base for establishing cause‐and‐effect relationships among various international sustainable competitiveness factors.

ICT Investment, Adoption of ISO 14000 Certification, and Export Performance in Indian Manufacturing Plants

ICT Investment, Adoption of ISO 14000 Certification, and Export Performance in Indian Manufacturing Plants

Performance measurement framework of green supply chain implementation in the context of Indian manufacturing organizations

Purpose This research aims to explore the various green supply chain management (GSCM) performance measures and develop the efficient performance measurement framework for evaluation of influence of GSCM adoption on organizational performance.Design/methodology/approach This research proposes a hybrid framework of Pythagorean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and Pythagorean fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment technique. The usefulness of proposed framework is validated using empirical case example of Indian manufacturing organization.Findings The finding reveals that the overall performance of case organization is 67.03% based on define set of performance measures. Further, the proposed framework has been validated with other three Indian automobile manufacturing organizations. The results obtained were confirmed with selected empirical case company. The proposed hybrid framework provides the effective path to measure and benchmark the impact of each performance measures on system performance.Research limitations/implications This research is limited to automobile sector of India; hence the results obtained in this study may not be comprehensibly used to other sectors due to different product and process fields.Originality/valueThis research aids the industrial practitioners to effectively implement the green supply chain management (GSCM) and helps them to boost the overall performance of business organizations in three dimensions of sustainability.

Digitalization and global value chain participation: firm-level evidence from Indian manufacturing

We analyze the role of digital infrastructure in shaping the global value chain (GVC) participation of Indian manufacturing firms. To examine the digitalization and GVC nexus, a rich, firm-level, unbalanced panel of 4875 manufacturing firms from the past two decades is used to detail the rising significance of digital infrastructure in the Indian context and then to examine empirically the relationship between digitalization and GVCs. Employing a logit model, we observe a positive and significant association of digitalization on firms’ GVC participation. Further, subsample results highlight that digitalization promotes the integration of small firms and firms from low-technology industries into the GVC. Moreover, the findings of our analysis are robust to alternate measures of GVCs.

Assessing the impact of stakeholder pressure and green data analytics on firm's environmental performance – understanding the role of green knowledge management and green technological innovativeness

This research investigates the direct and indirect effects of stakeholder pressure, green data analytics, green knowledge management, green technological innovativeness, and the environmental performance of Indian manufacturers. Data were acquired from 569 manufacturers in India using a survey questionnaire. The study's hypotheses were examined through partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM). The findings of the investigation substantially support the notion that stakeholder pressure greatly influences a firm to develop organizational capabilities of green data analytics, green knowledge management, and green technological innovativeness. Interestingly, stakeholder pressure was found to have a significant indirect impact on a firm's environmental performance. Furthermore, the findings show that green data analytics is critical to the firm's capacity to manage green knowledge and innovate greenly. The study has important implications for both theory and practice in the area of strategic knowledge management centered on environmental issues.

Small firms in Indian manufacturing: Some stylized facts

ABSTRACT This article presents some stylized facts about firms in Indian manufacturing. We utilized a unique dataset on manufacturing firms that combines both the informal and formal sectors to create a continuum of firms. Findings of the study point to the presence of significant informality in Indian manufacturing. We observe a bimodal structure in size distribution with a large share of employment in small and large-sized firms, with medium-sized firms occupying relatively a small share in employment. This indicates weak upward graduation and entrepreneurial development of small firms. We also witnessed a large and growing gap in productivity and earnings between small and large firms. Our findings show that firm size is positively and significantly correlated with productivity and wages, implying that the larger the size, the higher the labor productivity and earnings. These findings suggest that small-firm transition will significantly improve the level of productivity and earnings in Indian manufacturing.

Comparing Sustainable Procurement in Green Supply Chain Practices Across Indian Manufacturing and Service Sectors

After COVID, Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, and distributors are seeking to streamline their local, and global supply chains, the issue has gained attention in how they identify, analyze and manage their procurement and supply chain processes with stakeholders. The use of supply chain adoption with green technology has been found to be preferred in international trade, which is forcing the Indian manufacturing, and services sector to realign their CSR (Corporate social responsibility) goals. Interviews have been conducted with a mix of manufacturing and service firms in India to map their sustainable procurement in green supply chain practices. The use of MAXQDA software for conducting thematic analysis to support the inductive theory and trend-building practices to know “what, why, and how” from interview responses. Each sector, manufacturing, and service showed distinct trends that divorce their approach to green SCM, and supply chain strategy for sustainable procurement though they have spread awareness about sustainable procurement with stakeholders, emphasizing economic benefits. Additionally, they pursued jointly to address environmental issues and extend societal benefits as a CSR effort. Variances in approaches in manufacturing are market-linked, time-based, and demand-driven while services firms showed green technology pledges as CSR initiatives along with an environmental emphasis in downstream SCM activities.

Trade liberalisation and export competitiveness of Indian manufacturing industries: some explanations

India embraced open trade policy from 1990s onwards, following the Economic Reforms of 1991, by reducing import tariffs and opening up Indian markets to competition. The expectation from this reform was that the Indian industry would be more competitive. By mid 2000s, India was not only an open economy, however, it was on its way to effect across-the-board reductions/elimination of tariffs and other non-tariff barriers by formalising FTAs and CEPAs several prominent trade partners. Although, trade to GDP ratio has increased from 13% in 1990 to 27% in 2019-20, import dependence of India, especially on China has increased manifold. The paper has delved into the trade policy evolution that led India to open up and increase its presence in the global trade market. However, an industry level Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) analysis reveals that the loss in export competitiveness in six industries at NIC 4-digit level, since 2000-01 to 2017-18, retarded the growth potential in exports that India could have claimed with a phased opening up of trade. These industries were mainly in the textiles and apparel sector and gems and jewellery sector. The industry level factors such as lower productivity growth, higher unit labour costs and presence of low levels of technology are prominent factors that explain the export performance of India that we observe.