Journal Press India^®

Editorial

This issue of FOCUS continues in its endeavour to add to the diversity of areas that fall in the realm of international business. The papers in this issue address themes related to environmental management system, mineral economy, strategic planning for MSMEs, illicit international financial flows, business-to-business relationship management and various aspects of BRICS economies.

The paper by Dr. Neelam Singh on ‘International Orientation and the Environmental Management System’ examines the role of type-of-exports, outward FDI (OFDI) and industry-specific quality management system (QMS) for the Indian automotive firms. The results indicates that the industry-specific QMS and OFDI, increase the likelihood of ISO 14001 certification. The government should promote ‘high-level’ exports and OFDI, and recognize the synergy between international management system certifications. Mr. Pradeep Kumar Sahoo and Dr. Himanshu Sekhar Rout, in their paper, compare the mineral economies of world with a special focus on India. This area merits attention as extraction and trading of mineral ores enhances GDP, generates employment, alleviates poverty and boosts infrastructure of a country, and this becomes particularly relevant in the context of mineral-rich underdeveloped and developing countries.

Dr. Anjala Kalsie, Ms. Jaya Pandey and Dr. Ashima Arora analyse the impact of Euro zone crisis on 4 BRIC nations during 2008-2009, through composite indices approach. The results of PCSE and FGLS models indicate that financial factors, fiscal forex, productivity and social indicators are responsible for the euro zone crises, which then implies that these economies should work on strengthening of their economic fundamentals. The paper by Mr. Peter Gwesso Matare and Prof. T. N. Sreedhara, develops a strategic planning model for guiding Tanzania’s SME firms in their future strategic planning. As the SME sector is the backbone of many economies, it becomes important to identify and determine the barriers that obstruct application of strategic planning in SMEs. Taking the case of Tanzania, they observe that most SMEs are implementing a myopic and informal approach to strategic planning and are facing many barriers to its implementation.

Examining the business to business relationship management in flexible packaging industry of Bangladesh using interview method, Mr. Bacchu Kumar Das and Dr. Sandhir Sharma observe that relationship marketing is of great significance in B2B industry. They also find that customer loyalty and retention are interdependent on each other. Dr. Navneet Gera and Dr. Shriram Purankar undertake a comparative analysis of ‘ease of doing business’ in BRICS countries. Their analysis reveals that ease of doing business as well as starting a company in Russia is best among BRICS nations, while South Africa and Brazil are lagging behind in a business-friendly environment. In terms of doing business, China and India are put in the 2nd and 3rd position respectively. The authors recommend that India, Brazil and South Africa need to decrease the amount of processes and the amount of days to set up a company, to provide a conducive environment for business.

Ms. Vasudha Gupta in her paper on ‘Illicit Financial Flows between Indo-Gulf Countries’ finds that net illicit financial flows through trade misinvoicing between India and Gulf countries are to the tune of US$ 478.78 billion. The analysis reveals that more intense relationship countries are the major source of illicit financial inflows of capital in India. This implies that the trade agreement between India and Gulf countries have not helped in mitigating trade misinvoicing and therefore, India needs to establish more effective management of its international trade flows. The paper on ‘Exploring inter relation and casual movement of selected currencies against INR’ by Dr. Hiteksha Upadhyay examines co-movement and causal effect of selected currencies using monthly closing of selected currencies from 2013 to 2018. To conduct this study, four currencies have been chosen: Euro-INR, GBP-INR, YEN-INR and USD-INR on the basis of volatility. The results of the study indicate that there is no major causal effect observed implying that movement and fluctuation are random.

The team of FOCUS thanks all the authors and reviewers for their valuable contribution in continuous improvement of the journal quality and for their insights on pertinent issues in international business.

Wishing all our readers a Happy 2020!

Dr. Niti Bhasin

Editor