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Entrepreneurship has been recognised as an important factor of development and has been playing a crucial role in capital creation and accelerating economic growth in India. Women entrepreneurs are also increasingly contributing towards the economic growth. By Women Entrepreneurs we mean, women who are engaged in an act of business and business creation that empowers women economically, builds financial stability as well as create a position for themselves in the society. Although incredible opportunities exist, few business challenges as inadequate funds, lack of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) knowledge etc. deter women entrepreneurs. This paper attempts to find the potential of ICT to support women entrepreneurs' in business ventures, and address certain problems peculiar to women, since ICT has helped expansion of many businesses and carry it to the international level too in quite a short span of time as compared to conventional business practices. This paper uses the qualitative research strategy and primary data collected from women entrepreneurs of northeast and eastern India. The result highlights, that there is limited use of ICT by these entrepreneurs in their business operation in such areas as purchasing system, website designing, internal communication etc. The present study may provide insight to existing and prospective entrepreneurs in considering use of ICT for business expansion and may help policy makers in getting relevant information to provide a sound support and information system to women. Conducive legal and institutional provisions will help future growth of women entrepreneurs and will also motivate more in creating new ventures with new hope in the future and a win-win situation for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy is a highly misunderstood & misinterpreted term in India, people often interlink this two term which are having altogether a different prospective. Some Indian companies believe that they are complying with laws & regulations fulfill their need for social responsibility. A corporate must take these activities with sincerity in order to provide a growth full nation. Although India is a favorable business destination but unless poor people have equity in the growth of economy, India can never achieve the title of super economy. Corporate social responsibility is one such important area of corporate behavior & governance that needs to be given thorough importance. At the same time csr is one such effective tool that synergizes the efforts of corporate & the social sector agencies towards sustainable growth & development of the societal objectives at large. This paper emphasizes that how CSR has become a ladder for development of any corporate organizations. This paper tries to bring out CSR initiatives taken by various organizations in India. An emphasis has been made in order to have an understanding about how corporate are utilizing the initiates at name of philanthropy and counting them to be there CSR activity and how the upcoming ceiling of mandatory 2% CSR is getting on their nerves and making them to enter and explore some hidden unexplored arenas of governance. This paper is completely a work based on articles and secondary data so collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand whether the adoption of environmental management practices and firm characteristics influence the environmental benchmarking in Indian firms. It further looks into the impact of environmental benchmarking practices on firms’ environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach – The study conducts a research survey to obtain the practitioner’s responses on the different aspects of environmental benchmarking. The survey data of 104 firms provide an empirical basis to investigate different research hypotheses using statistical techniques. Findings – The results indicate that the firms which implement environmental management practices are more likely to adopt environmental benchmarking in one or more areas of their operations. The findings signify that firms which benchmarks for environmental purposes are more likely to have better environmental performance. The study confirms that large firms have significant chances of having environmental benchmarking compared to small and medium sized firms. The firms in different sectors have different relative preference to eight different areas of environmental benchmarking. However, all these preferences are not significant at 95 per cent confidence level. Research limitations/implications – The research use only qualitative responses on environment management aspects and could be further extended by incorporating the quantitative (emission) data of different industries. Practical implications – The study provides an insight into the environmental benchmarking practices of Indian firms for better management of environmental performance of the firms. Originality/value – The study investigates the experience and attitude of Indian firms to environmental benchmarking based on an empirical research. It adds to the knowledge in the field of environmental benchmarking in developing countries with specific focus on India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the findings of a study of purchasing and supply management professionals in India conducted to identify the key ethical issues they face in carrying out their work related responsibilities as well as to determine the extent to which various factors appear to be helpful or to present challenges to their efforts to act ethically in the course of their work. The Indian findings are then compared to those for studies conducted among purchasing and supply management professionals in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Key findings for the four studies are summarized and implications for business and the professions are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the effect of dividend payment behavior on firm value. The research looks into the effect of varying dividend behavior on Tobin's Q, a proxy for firm value. For determining the dividend behavior of the corporates, total sample of 269 companies is distributed into four quartiles based on average dividend yield. The result shows that dividend payout ratio and change in dividend fail to have a significant effect on firm value in the least dividend-yield companies. However, it is interesting to see that for the high dividend paying companies, dividend payout and change in dividend affect the firm value positively suggesting evidence of clientele effect in the Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on institutional theory and entrepreneurial cognition, we test the environmental perception-scanning framework in the United States and India. The results suggest that culture and transition context help explain scanning frequency, but entrepreneurs in the two countries are similar in their perceptions of strategic uncertainty in environmental sectors. Moreover, the perceptions of increased environmental change and sector importance, as conditioned by perceived information accessibility, are associated with increased scanning. Overall, our results provide important indications about perceptions and information seeking, and lend support to indications of a universal mindset of entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]