<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

In recent years, integrating sustainability into the freight transportation (FT) system is progressively gaining global attention. The adoption of sustainability best practices acts as a critical link between the integration process and the sustainable performance of freight transporters. The principal objective of this study is, therefore, to propose a list of best sustainability practices relevant to the FT system. This study considers India a suitable context for the research as environmental emissions due to FT in India are substantially increasing with the upsurge in freight demand. It is, therefore, imperative to embed sustainability values within the freight operations to minimize the environmental and societal implications of freight movements. This study identifies twenty-four sustainability best practices through an extensive literature review, which are clustered into four main categories, namely (a) organizational, (b) process-oriented, (c) technological, and (d) collaborative sustainability practices. These practices are further quantified and prioritized using an integrated approach that innovatively combines intuitionistic fuzzy numbers with the graph theoretic and matrix approach. The quantification and prioritization processes were carried out using expert opinions collected through focus group sessions. Unlike conventional perception, the results of the study show that top management commitment, multi-modal freight transportation, and adoption of green technologies have a higher share of impact on the overall performance of the freight organization. The proposed study is one of the few works, which may act as a guideline for managers and decision-makers seeking to integrate sustainability into freight operations. From the perspective of methodological contribution, this is the first study in the freight transportation literature that has integrated intuitionistic fuzzy numbers with graph-theoretic and matrix approach. One of the uniqueness of the proposed integrated model is that it evaluates both the negative and positive influences of sustainability practices on the freight transporter's economic, environmental, social, operational, and technological performance. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

World University root node

Decision Sciences, Operations Management, and Information Systems

(SME) School of Management and Entrepreneurship

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice

Improving freight transportation performance through sustainability best practices

The novel coronavirus disease has spread uncontrollably all over the world within a short span of time and has affected the development of the world in many ways. All the nations have directed their technical, financial and political resources towards controlling COVID-19 pandemic across the world. It is predicted that the impact of this crisis will remain for longer period of time, affecting the livelihood of people and all those activities that were contributing to the development of the nations across the globe. In fact, the most promising and significant seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted in the year 2015 by the United Nations (UN) Member States addressing various global issues, now seem difficult to be achieved by 2030 due to coronavirus pandemic. However, even though the COVID-19 pandemic might have turmoil effect on the existing growth of the world, still few positive developments may be observed in the long run due to this pandemic. Therefore, this study focuses on identifying and quantifying the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in achieving the UN SDGs. This study brings out both negative as well as positive influences of the pandemic on the environment and energy related SDGs. The study uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to calculate the weights of the identified positive and negative influences for each environment and energy related goals. Further, 4–1 ratings are used to identify the severity of the influences on the SDGs. Finally, a score is calculated using weights and ratings that indicates the overall impact of the pandemic on environment and energy related SDGs. The result obtained in the study shows that the pandemic offers an opportunity to develop action plans that can build more environmentally sustainable future. © 2021

Materials Today: Proceedings

Mapping the impact of COVID-19 crisis on the progress of sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - a focus on global environment and energy efficiencies

Over the years, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has become one of the important and powerful tools for every professional sector due to its continuous evolution. The constant evolution of innovative broadband communication services as well as the conjunction of telecommunication and computers have opened up several ways for advancing different businesses and their processes. In addition to this, many researchers have emphasized the benefits of ICT in the area of Human Resource Management (HRM). Especially, these advanced technologies transformed the recruitment process that used to be done, making the overall process highly efficient. However, there is limited research that analyzes the degree of impact of ICT on the HRM functions particularly recruitment. Hence, to fill this literature gap, this research paper has attempted to study how ICT impacts the dynamics and performance of the recruitment process in the petroleum & gas industry of India by using Multiple Regression Analysis. The data was collected through questionnaires from 501 respondents working in different domains in petroleum & gas companies operating in India. The results obtained in the study indicate that the ICT makes a significant and positive impact on the recruitment process which ultimately contributes in improving the performance of the whole organization. Earlier, HR staff had to do the recruitment related activities manually and had to keep huge records in hard copies and make data entry manually which was very tedious as well as time consuming but now due to adoption of ICT in almost every organization worldwide, have reduced their overall costs, efforts and time. This paper demonstrates the effective use of ICT in the recruitment process of large-scale organizations for improving their overall performance. This study tries to help and motivate the organizations to continue adopting advanced ICT for improving the performance of the recruitment process in the organization and get the desired benefits. © 2022 IEEE.

8th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems, ICACCS 2022

Impact of Information &amp; Communication Technologies (ICT) on Recruitment Process of Petroleum &amp; Gas Sector in India

Learning outcomes: The purpose of this case is to expose readers to the dilemma of expanding domestically or internationally and simultaneously taking key decisions while expanding the business to the international markets. It could be a foundational case for understanding international expansion and growth strategies. After the case analysis, students would be able to: • understand the potential of the domestic market and the factors affecting the international expansion; • evaluate the various methods to enter an international market; • identify the challenges of expanding a business into emerging markets such as India; • analyze the various growth and expansion strategies in an emerging market such as India; and • assess the online promotion strategies in an emerging market. Case overview/synopsis: NIVA, The Satin Collection, is a manufacturer and distributor of a luxury collection of silk and satin products. Founded in 2020, NIVA is based in Dubai with more than 1,000 customers. The products include silk bedding, silk sleepwear, fashion accessories and reusable satin masks, and they are made-to-order, custom-made and tailored locally in Dubai. Currently, all the operations are run and managed by the company’s founder, Purva. The only operation which is outsourced is the stitching process. The company is completely operating online and is currently promoting products only through social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Purva is planning to expand her business. The two options are extending her existing operations in the UAE and expanding to other emerging markets, starting with India. Purva needs to decide on a suitable internationalization strategy to decide whether it is the right decision to enter the Indian market, including an entry and promotion strategy in her target market. In addition, she needs to decide whether to continue with NIVA’s current business model in India. There might also be additional possible challenges for NIVA in entering the Indian market. Complexity academic level: Postgraduate MBA students, other graduate-level management programs and undergraduate-level students. Supplementary materials: Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code: CSS 5: International Business. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies

NIVA: business expansion dilemma

Sustainable freight transportation is aimed at reducing environmental emissions and social inequity along with economic inefficiency to drive the business. Lack of a continuous sustainability assessment and monitoring tool increases the reluctance of freight transporters to adopt world-class sustainability practices. This paper attempts to develop the performance index for a sustainable freight transportation system by innovatively integrating the Consensus Model (CM) with the Fuzzy Evidential Reasoning Algorithm (FERA). A CM has been used to determine the degree of importance of each Key Performance Indicators identified across three dimensions of sustainability. FERA has been used to aggregate subjective judgments with crisp quantitative values. This approach has a unique capability to handle various uncertainties related to impreciseness in decision-making. This study has demonstrated the use of an integrated approach for developing a performance index of the freight transportation system. Sensitivity Analysis of the model provides logical inferences and an understanding of the robustness of the model outputs. It can be interpreted from the results of the study that the firms with higher profitability in the market are focusing more on making their operations sustainable. A proportionate approach of firms towards the economic, environment, and societal well-being, may assist in achieving higher sustainability. © 2021, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Annals of Operations Research

Performance measurement of sustainable freight transportation: a consensus model and FERA approach

With the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic all over the world, the education sector has experienced a tremendous transformation from its tradition way of providing lectures to the online mode of lectures. The online meeting platforms play a significant role in enhancing the online learning experience of the students. There are many online meeting platforms available, which offer several similar features yet provide different experiences to the users. It is important to evaluate the most preferable online meeting platform for the education sector to improve the overall education quality especially in the online learning era. This study, therefore, evaluates the preference of higher education students' preferences for online meeting platforms. For this study, three most commonly used online platforms i.e., Google Meet, MS Teams, and Zoom are considered. The evaluation process is done using cross-tabulation analysis and Chi-Square analysis. The results obtained in this study suggests that Google Meet is the most preferred online meeting platform by the students. This study provides an insight about the platform that can be used by the educators to improve the overall learning experiences of the students. © 2021 IEEE.

2021 International Conference on Computational Performance Evaluation, ComPE 2021

A New Paradigm of Learning: Evaluation of Higher Education Students' Preferences for Online Meeting Platform

Purpose: A sustainable freight transportation system involves freight processes that are economically efficient, socially inclusive and environment friendly. For enhancing sustainability in the freight operations, mode selection is a crucial strategic decision. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is selecting the best mode, or a combination of modes based on various criteria to carry shipments from origin to destination. Design/methodology/approach: This study has used an integrated grey relational analysis based intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making process (GRA–IFP) and fuzzy multi-objective linear programming model. Three scenarios have been developed for analyzing sensitivity of decision variables with the variations in parameters under relevant conditions. A real case of Indian third-party logistics service provider has been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model. Findings: The most relevant criterion emerged out in this study for multi-mode selection problem is costs. It can be concluded from the study that multi-modal freight transportation has the potential to improve the sustainability of freight transportation by reducing the costs, damages, emissions, traffic congestion and by increasing the speed of delivering the shipment. The sensitivity analysis further shows that road is the economical mode, whereas sea and rail together are the greenest as well as socially responsible modes of transportation. Originality/value: This study provides an integrated tool, which can be used by freight transporters to decide upon the sustainable modes of transportation for their various shipments. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Fulltext

Industrial Management and Data Systems

A model for the selection of transportation modes in the context of sustainable freight transportation

Sustainable freight transportation (SFT) and cold-chain for perishable food products are the two most prominent areas where research is tremendously growing with increasing number of publications in various reputed journals. The area of SFT for perishable products is still in the nascent stage and not much explored. There are a number of published articles in the cold chain, but only a few have addressed the issue of sustainability. Perishable products require careful handling throughout their supply chain, which often requires reefer vehicles and cold storage facilities. They need to move fast in the supply chain as their longer stay would cause more energy consumption and higher perishability losses leading to increased cost and carbon footprints. The paper analyzes existing literature on this vital problem area and attempts to derive valuable insights using a structured approach termed as literature review analytics, which involves bibliometric and network analytics. This review analyzes the articles published during 1985–2017 using a set of keywords. Some of the key findings of this study unveil (1) research on SFT of perishable items is growing rapidly; (2) among all, Italy followed by the United States is the most contributing country in this research area. Further, network analytics is used to analyze the co-occurrence network for authors and keywords. © 2018, Operational Research Society of India.

OPSEARCH

Literature review analytics (LRA) on sustainable cold-chain for perishable food products: research trends and future directions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze various critical success factors (CSFs) that can facilitate smartphone manufacturing in India. This paper further aims to understand the mutual interactions among these CSFs through identification of the hierarchical relationships among them. Design/methodology/approach – A framework for a smartphone manufacturing system has been developed, wherein the hierarchical inter-relationships between identified CSFs have been presented and interpreted using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM). Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis has been further employed to identify the driving power as well as dependence power of these CSFs. Findings – In the present research, 15 CSFs have been identified through literature review and expert opinions. The hierarchical framework developed using TISM has revealed the inter-dependencies among these CSFs. This research further categorizes CSFs into three clusters. The first cluster comprises of CSFs having high dependence power, the second cluster identifies CSFs having high driving power and the third cluster identifies CSFs which act as linkages between the driver CSFs and dependent CSFs. Research limitations/implications – This study has implications for both practitioners and academia. It provides a comprehensive list of CSFs that are relevant to develop a smartphone ecosystem in India. In addition, this study will help decision makers to strategically focus on the main drivers of the ecosystem that requires the immediate attention of decision makers. The methodology employed in this study provides a mechanism to conduct an exploratory study by identifying the factors and analyzing their interactions through the development of a hierarchical framework. Originality/value – The proposed framework developed through qualitative modeling is an effort to understand relevant factors that can promote the smartphone manufacturing ecosystem. This study makes a significant contribution in the literature of smartphone manufacturing, which captures the perspective of different stakeholders. © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.