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Information Technology will have a greater effect on companies that operate in a competitive environment. That will contribute to greater human resource productivity and effectiveness. The use of IT software for information management and developments in the recruiting method would therefore improve the business efficiency. Innovation in the management of human resources can, however, manifest itself in a variety of ways. In a negotiation, it helps to rapidly and flexibly find options, identifies innovative ideas for goods and services and identifies new markets. Innovations such as these are combined by information technology to create a beneficial impact in HR. To meet the demand, there is a increasing pressure on HRM to endorse strategic priorities and concentrate on value-adding activities, which ultimately leads to changes in work content and demands on professionals in Human Resource (HR). In addition, the researchers expect the growing use of Human Resource Information Technology (HRIT) to enhance the efficiency of HR practitioners and to include them in the company’s internal consulting activities Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may have the following significant impacts in human resource management.

Keywords: HRM, Information Technology.

The present paper discusses about the socio-economic status of women living in two urban parts of Kokrajhar District of Assam. The study is mainly based on primary data as well as secondary data. Primary data were collected by filling responses in structured questionnaires and for that purpose a sample of 100 married women from each of the urban area was selected. The study deals with various socio-economic indicators like sex ratio, work participation rate, literacy rate, level of education, patterns of income- expenditure etc. Gender Development Index is calculated to know the relative status of men and women on the basis of literacy rate, work participation rate and earned income. The finding of the study reveals that gender disparity is more prominent in Kokrajhar town than that of Salakati town and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) indicates that women’s economic independence is significantly lower than their political participation with respect to their male counterparts.

Keywords: Sex Ratio, Work Participation Rate, Literacy Rate, Gender Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measurement, Equally Distributed Equivalent Percentage

The debate about consolidation in the Indian banking structure is not new. Starting from the age of Presidency Banks, the Indian banking sector has witnessed consolidation to enhance competitiveness. In fact, India’s largest bank, the State Bank of India, is a product of mergers of the Presidency Banks. Most bank mergers have been an offshoot of the central bank’s efforts to protect the financial system and depositors’ money, and very few of them have been driven by the need for consolidation and growth. However, consolidation is required for two reasons. One, Indian banks are not large enough to compete with their global peers. There is therefore a need for increasing the size of operations and reach. Two, public sector banks (PSBs) are too many in number, it can trigger unhealthy competition. A merger will synergise and synchronise the advantages in the consolidated entity. Bigger banks would have wider reach, stronger lending capacity and better products and technology to serve customers of New India. PSBs should use Financial Technology (FinTech) across all banking functions and employee stock ownership across all levels to make them more efficient. India needs a mix of efficiently run PSBs, small finance banks, Payment Banks and Private banks to achieve growth and development along with social justice.

Key Words: Consolidation of banks, nationalization, mergers and acquisitions, global presence.

The main aim of the present study is to find out the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and consumer Purchase Intention with the mediating effect of Perceived Quality. Non-probability purposive sampling technique was used for primary data collection. For this purpose a sample size of 445 consumers who use Sakthi Masala (cookingmasala products) are selected by using a well-designed and pre-tested inventory. The findings show that Corporate Social Responsibility has a significant positive influence on Purchase Intention among the consumers. It is also very clear from this study that Perceived Quality mediate at the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Purchase Intention, which indicates full mediation. Suitable suggestions are given in this study.

Key Words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Perceived Quality, Purchase Intention

There exist a number of studies that have been conducted on the influence of audit committee attributes on earnings management but no attention has been given to the moderating effect of gender on audit committee attributes and earnings management. The main objective of this study was to examine the moderating effect of gender on the impact of audit committee attributes on earnings management of listed Agricultural companies in Nigeria for a period of six years (2012-2017). The study used ex-post facto and correlational research designs. The population of the study was the five (5) Agricultural companies in Nigeria listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as at 31st December, 2017 and all the companies were used as sample of the study. The study used panel multiple regression technique for data analysis. It was found that gender has strong and significant influence on the impact of audit committee attributes on earnings management of listed Agricultural companies in Nigeria. It was recommended that, the audit committee of companies in Nigeria should comprise of at least 40% of women. Regulatory bodies concerned in Nigeria like Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigerian Stock Exchange and Financial Reporting Council should clearly state the composition of audit committee members and increase the number to ten where women should form 40% of the members of the committee and a woman with financial knowledge should be made the chairperson of the committee since women have shown a significant level of commitment to their responsibilities and contribute in reducing earnings manipulation.

Keywords: Gender, Audit Committee Attributes, Earnings Management and Agricultural Companies

This paper examines the influence of mothers’ workforce participation on children’s schooling in India. Data for the study is drawn from the fourth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS). Using logistic regression models, it analyses whether the engagements of mothers in market work have a significant impact on their children’s schooling compared to children whose mothers are unemployed. The paper also investigates whether mother’s workforce participation has a different impact on female children compared with male children. The result shows that mother’s participation in agriculture, household/ domestic services and manual work impacts negatively on children’s schooling. However, the father’s workforce participation has a significant positive effect on children’s schooling. Further, the results of gender-based analysis show that female children are more likely affected by the mother’s participation in agriculture and manual employment. However, mother’s white-collar employment significantly increases the likelihood of schooling of female children. The likelihood of male children attending school is approximately 12 percentage points higher compared to female children in the household. If the child is oldest in the household, the likelihood of attending school is lower with respect to other children. But the effect is 5 percentage points higher if the oldest child in the household is female.

Keywords: Children’s schooling, Mothers’ work, Fathers’ work, Gender.

This paper analyses the static and dynamic causal relationship between capital market performance and economic growth in India, along with other macroeconomic variables inflation rate and interest rate. The daily data on market capitalisation, Sensex, nifty50 and the value of shares traded are used as the measures of the stock market performance for a period of 17 years spanning from January 2000 to December 2016 consisting of 6210 observations. In the empirical analysis, the ADF, correlogram, cointegration and causality tests are performed. The VECM is employed to analyse the causality between the variables modelling each of the variables individually as a function of the lagged values of all the variables. The estimated VECM results show that the dynamic processes converge as the estimated value of the error correction termsarenegative, but statistically insignificant. The study indicates that there exists no strong long-run causal relationship between capital market performance and economic growth in India.

Keywords: Capital market performance, economic growth, dynamic causality, VAR estimation

Small and medium scale entrepreneurs are vital for the economic development of any country. High failure rate and low survival rate of SMEs obstruct to this expectation specially among developing and least developed countries. Past studies have identified the growth affecting factors for SMEs as internal and external factors without demarcation between high-growth and low growth SMEs. Studying the distinctiveness of those factors between low-growth and high-growth SMEs would be useful to treat separately and provide customized solutions for these two categories of SMEs. This paper was designed to reveal the demarcations of the growth affecting factors between the low-growth and high growth SMEs by selecting a sample of SMEs in Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Two hypotheses were formulated and Independent Sample T-Test and Mean Importance Index method were applied to test the hypotheses. Comparison between the high-growth and low-growth SMEs revealed that there is a significant difference in the impact of internal factors on the business growth between the two groups of SMEs while external factors were considered as equally affect on the business growth by both groups. This implies that growth affecting factors internal to the firm differently effect on the business growth of high-growth and low-growth SMEs while factors external to the firm affect equally to the both types of SMEs. As per mean important indexes, for high-growth SMEs, owner manager capabilities including growth orientation, risk taking ability, innovation and networking ability affect highly on their business growth meanwhile factors beyond the firm’s control including labour rules and regulations, poor market support systems and ineffectiveness of the BDS services affect highly on the low growth of their firms. High cost of financing affects highly for the growth in both categories.

Key Words: Business growth, Demarcation, External factors, High-growth and low-growth SMEs, Internal factors