Journal Press India®
I am delighted to inform you that MANTHAN has completed seven successful years with seven volumes and 15 issues of quality publications. Now we are presenting our readers and scholars Volume 8, No. 2 issue of MANTHAN, wherein we have focused on diverse upcoming issues in the areas corporate social responsibility (CSR), consumer behaviour, financial inclusion along with two research papers from international scholars on banking sector in Nepal and Bangladesh.
This issue consists of six research papers and three case studies. The first paper on ‘Impact of corporate governance on financial performance of commercial banks in Nepal’ by Dr. Keshav Gadtaula, Prof. Hiranya Gautam and Mr. Abhilash Agrawal investigates the impact of the level of corporate governance disclosure on bank performance by constructing a corporate governance disclosure index (CGDI) for 8 commercial banks of Nepal. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation of CGDI with ROE; however, there is a negative correlation with ROA and Tobin's Q. Likewise, the beta coefficient for CGDI is positive for ROE and ROA whereas it is negative for Tobin's Q. An interesting paper on “Factors affecting purchasing probability of jewellery items: A women’s perspective” by Mrs. Shubhi Agarwal and Prof. Anand Agrawal attempts to study women’s buying intention of jewellery items and seeks to identify factors having an impact on the purchasing probability of those items. It was found that demographic factors have a significant impact on the buying attitude of women. The retailers in the jewellery industry may identify and evaluate the factors affecting the psyche and personality of a e-shoppers.
Mr. Md. Hafez and Prof. Md. Amanullah, in their paper on ‘Application of UTAUT Model to assess mobile banking adoption behavior: A study on Bangladesh’ examine the factors influencing mobile banking adoption behavior in Bangladesh. The findings reveal that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence are the most substantial predictors in determining individual intention to adopt mobile banking in Bangladesh. The study also shows that performance expectancy is the leading predictor among the three substantial predictors. Another paper related to banking is by Dr. Vasanthagopal R. and Mr. Anandu Raj on ‘Financial inclusion and information availability on banking products and services’ who examine the opinion of customers of public, private, and regional rural banks concerning information availability on banking products and services using Principal Component Analysis. Their study finds that the financial literacy rate and information availability on banking products and services to banking customers, particularly people at the bottom level, are poor.
In view of the increasing importance of CSR activities of organisations, an interesting paper by Dr. Parminder Kaur Bajaj and Mr. Moksh Grover focuses on the ‘Impact of sin industries’ CSR activities on firm performance’ and find that CSR has a measurably irrelevant and positive relationship with all performance indicators. The paper on “A study of trainee reaction for e-training programs in software industry” by Ms. Kushi Sharma and Dr. Neeti Rana examines the trainee reactions for online training in IT sector by using Morgan and Casper’s trainee reaction questionnaire (TRQ). It is observed that the trainees were satisfied with the e-learning programs.
Dr. Saswati Chaudhuri and Mr. Parmesh Agarwal present a case study on ‘Perceptions of consumers about celebrity endorsements: A study with reference to Kolkata’ wherein they explore the role of celebrity endorsements in affecting the purchasing decision and behaviour of consumers in today’s world. The authors find that celebrities are not entirely a trustworthy source when it comes to purchasing. Another case study by Mr. Chandra Kant Parmar and Dr. Partha Pratim Ghosh on ‘Determinants of investment in Special Economic Zones (SEZs): A study with special reference to the state of Karnataka’ explains the relationship among macroeconomic variables (per capita net state domestic product, availability of industrial land, availability of skilled labour, gap in demand-supply of electricity and capital formation by government) that are likely to impact SEZ investment. The results show that selected independent variables are significant determinants for investment decision in SEZs. The case study on ‘Performance evaluation of Karnataka SRTC with special reference to physical and financial parameters’ by Dr. Mahesha V. Vasappa investigates the performance of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) by taking into consideration both physical and financial parameters. The physical parameters show improving results during the study period while financial parameters suggest that there was negative return on investment.
We hope that our readers find this issue of MANTHAN interesting and insightful. We invite scholars from the discipline of Commerce and Management to keep contributing interesting papers that discuss pertinent issues in this field.
Dr. Himanshu Sekhar Rout
Prof. M. C. Pandey
Editors