Journal Press India®
This issue of FOCUS continues in its endeavour to stimulate discussion on pertinent issues in international business including economic growth, unemployment, global reporting initiatives, corporate governance and innovation. The paper by Prof. Narain Sinha and Mr. Katlego Tseladikae examines the relationship between economic growth and unemployment rate (Okun’s law) for Botswana and finds that Okun`s law does not hold for Botswana. The authors recommend that the government should intensify its diversification efforts in labour intensive sectors of the economy such as the agricultural and tourism sector. Another paper by Mr. P. Dhanasekaran and Prof. M. Sumathy analyses the impact of selected macroeconomic factors on the economies of BRICS nations during the pre and post BRICS era. They find a significant impact of BRICS formation on imports, exports, GDP and gross capital formation of BRICS economies. The study concludes that FDI will facilitate these economies to enhance large scale production, employment and sustainability.
With our focus on interdisciplinarity, this issue also explores other areas integrated with international business such as stock markets, accounting and corporate governance. The paper by Ms. Risha Khandelwal and Prof. Kanhaiya Singh analyses the linkages between stock markets of India, Indonesia, Philippines and Taiwan. The results of Johansen test of co integration confirm the presence of long run linkages among these stock markets. Further, the results of VECM confirm the existence of long causality from Indonesian, Taiwan, and Philippines market to Indian markets. The authors conclude that the selected markets allow short term diversification benefits to investors but the same is not true in long run due to some transitory movements. Dr. Minakshi, in her paper on ‘Price Discovery Mechanism in Spot and Futures Market of Agricultural Commodities’, examines the role of influence of one market on the other and the role of each market segment in price discovery in the Indian context. The cointegration results do not confirm the existence of long-run relationship between spot and futures prices, thereby implying that futures prices do not reflect market expectations of subsequent spot prices of selected agri-commodities in India and hence do not help in price discovery process. A pertinent issue of global reporting initiatives has been examined by Abhishek N*and Divyashree M S, in their paper on Environmental Accounting Practices in Indian Electric Companies. Analysing the level of environmental disclosure made by the Indian electric utility companies through content analysis, t-test and disclosure index, the study concludes that there is a significant difference in environmental disclosure and the GRI guidelines.
This issue of FOCUS has two review papers: one by Ms. Raghuveer Kaur that studies the evolution of the concept of corporate governance, and the second by Ms. Harmanpreet Kaur on the role of innovation. The paper on corporate governance sheds light on important committees and reforms which have been the genesis of corporate governance across globe and undertakes an extensive literature review on different aspects of corporate governance. The second paper on role of innovation discusses seminal work on innovation, its types, determinants, and their impact on performance of the firms at the micro-level as examined by various researchers for developed as well as developing nations.
The team of FOCUS is thankful to its readers and authors for their continued support, feedback and patronage, which inspires us towards continuous improvement of the offerings of the journal. We hope our readers find this issue of FOCUS insightful, diverse and interesting.
Wishing all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2019!
Dr. Niti Bhasin
Editor