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The term ‘Industry 4.0’ or the fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the addition of smart technology to traditional manufacturing and industrial practices. This practice was first introduced by the German government in the year 2011 to empower its economy. The trend steadily gained roots and spread to other countries across the globe. This study explores the preparedness of select Indian industries to implement Industry 4.0, or in other words, build smart factories using innovative technologies. It also throws light on the benefits, challenges, drivers and barriers to Industry 4.0 in the Indian context. Based on data from corporate executives, it also highlights issues and challenges related to investment cost, skills gap and data security in implementing Industry 4.0. The study also provides a framework for a mapping application to map the qualities, benefits and challenges faced by selected Indian industries at two levels: concept implementation and the full implementation.

The coronavirus spread across the globe has affected the human life and economies critically. On one side, this situation has brought the attention of policymakers to save the mankind, on the other side; this pandemic situation threatened the business across the sphere. The firms are worst hit by the virus outbreak and are struggling to survive in this tough phase. The objective of this study is to measure the challenges faced by manufacturing and service industry, and how it influenced the financial parameters such as market share, profit margin, and logistics cost, and operating cost of the organization. It is also to be observed that in such a crisis, an appropriate strategic plan is required to sustain the businesses. Sales, revenue, production, profit margin, raw material availability, in-house employees decreased in manufacturing industries during COVID-19 but no significant change is observed in the service industry. Raw material cost, manufacturing cost, logistics cost, and operating cost increased significantly in both manufacturing and services industries. Market share, advertising cost, and customer connect decreased in manufacturing industries and increased in services industries. The main strategies in crisis are investigated empirically; retrenchment, persevering, innovation, and exit (Wenzel M, Stanske S, Lieberman MB, 2020, Strategic Management Journal, 41, V7–V18), it shows how organizations have taken steps proactively to fight in the crisis of COVID-19.

Sustainability and sustainable development have become a crucial keyword in today’s environment. It is now being felt that incorporation of sustainable practices should not be followed only by different sectors (public or private) but these concepts should also be taught at business schools to embed the concepts of sustainable practices right from the very beginning. There are 37 learning approaches identified on the basis of Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), which forms the core of the work presented in this study. To implement the proposed analysis, responses were collected from the students of a top public management institute of India on the basis of importance and performance parameters of the learning approaches for sustainability. The responses were than analysed through importance-performance analysis (IPA). It was observed that most effective learning approaches for learning the concepts of sustainability issues include case studies, lectures by experts, internships on sustainability etc. Students also perceived the significance of sustainability in business management and also showed preference to work with those companies, which actually holds sustainability as a core value.

Over a period of time, sustainable development (SD) gaining momentum as international declarations is binding the whole globe through a single cord. Stockholm Conference in 1972 (UNEP, 1972, Declaration of the United Nations conference on the human environment.) witnessed the recognition of education for environmental protection and conservation. Since then more and more higher education institutions have been engaged in embedding sustainability throughout the academic cycle. This cycle starting from input (institutional frameworks, such as vision, mission and policies), processes such as (curriculum, research, outreach and collaboration, on campus experience, campus operations, assessment and reporting), output (impact on social, environmental and economic perspective). The closing of the loop ends with feedback mechanism to rectify the system at process level or input level. This review article observes the complete SD cycle for management education.

It has been found that in spite of showing concern for the environment and advocating environmentally safe activities, the Indian consumer is still not ready to accept the hard truth that it the responsibility of one and all to minimize their contribution to the overall environmental pollution. This article aims at studying socio-psychological factors which contribute in the formation of environmental attitude of consumers. It further aims at establishing the connection between environmental attitude of the consumer and his/her willingness to buy environmentally friendly products (WTB-EFPs). A conceptual model has been proposed and tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). It has been found that the dimensions, such as environmental knowledge (EK), perceived seriousness of environmental (PSE) problem, interpersonal influence (IPI), collectivism and long-term orientation (LTO), have positive relationship with consumer environmental attitude (CEA). It has also been observed that consumer with favourable environmental attitude expresses their WTB-EFPs. This is an original study conducted for the first time in India using five antecedents of CEA with the application of SEM. No demographic factors have been studied in this article in order to put more focus on their socio-psychological dimensions.

Management education is increasingly facing societal demands for becoming responsible business. Many management institutions have therefore become involved in embedding sustainable development as part of responsible management education into their academic system. This was also due to use of ‘responsible management’ as one of the important criteria in the international accreditation process and thus leading to greater acceptability amongst its target audience. The United Nations (UN)-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative is an important catalyst for the transformation of management education in this direction. The research was based on analysis of around 60 peer-reviewed articles in the field of responsible management education to understand important categories where the institution can commit for implementation of sustainable development. The next part of research focuses on studying the declarations, charters or initiatives for higher education for sustainable development. Further, the research for this article was built upon discussions on implementation of PRME in designing the student learning outcomes (SLOs) for management education. The article intends to study the case of one institute from North India that has made an attempt to adopt the six (plus one) principles of PRME into the curriculum design for its Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM). The article serves as an instrument to help higher education institutions (HEIs) that are planning to adopt PRME as it explains the processes, challenges and benefits of implementing PRME throughout the system.

Indian banking system has come a long way since independence, going through the nationalization phase, the liberalization phase and is preparing itself for very crucial globalization phase. During the different phases public sector bank, private banks and foreign banks plays an important role. This study analyze the effect liberalization on the overall Indian banking system by going through impact of reforms on Indian banking system, performance of public sector banks vis-a-vis private sector and foreign banks. This study also shows the relationship between profitability and internal parameters of the bank.

In this work, an efficient reduced graphene-oxide/zinc-oxide (rGO/ZnO) nano-photocatalyst was synthesized via an eco-friendly hydrothermal method to degrade organic dye under visible light exposure and analyzed with Scanning Kelvin Probe (SKP). Prepared samples were characterized via X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV-Visible absorption spectrophotometer. Structural, morphological, and topological studies revealed the crystal growth of ZnO nanoparticles on rGO as evidenced from XRD, FESEM, and TEM images. UV-Vis studies show the decrease in bandgap energy of rGO/ZnO after the heterostructure formation. UV results confirm the enhanced photodegradation of RhB aqueous solution under visible light. The work function (ɸ) of rGO, ZnO, rGO/ZnO is determined in dark and light conditions by using Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy and discussing their contribution to the photocatalytic process. The novelty of this work is the SKP technique which was used to analyze the degradation mechanism of RhB in the presence of rGO/ZnO catalyst. It is a new way to find out the carrier transport mechanism at the surface of materials with the recorded work function mapping. Photocatalytic activity of rGO/ZnO has shown the maximum degradation of 97% for RhB (pH 7). Our results indicate that more electrons have moved at the catalyst surface and reacted with organic impurities due to larger surface area, which is responsible for suppressing the recombination of photo-induced carriers.