(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

<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

Purpose: Firms are increasingly making customers key stakeholders in their greening processes, requiring them to voluntarily use their resources to benefit the firm. In this context, this paper develops a new construct – tangible customer citizenship behaviour (CCB), i.e. voluntary participation of customer in operational processes of the company beyond normal requirements of exchange. This requires more involvement than the already documented intangible CCB. The purpose of the paper is to then explore whether service quality (SQ) (online and offline) influences such voluntary customer reciprocity in greening. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a virtual survey among 400 customers of e-commerce firms that have adopted greening practices requiring customer engagement and regressions were used to test the hypotheses. Findings: The authors find that both online and offline SQ positively impact intangible CCB but have no impact on customer greening reciprocity (tangible CCB). Additionally, the authors find that offline SQ positively impacts customer greening awareness. However, in spite of the presence of greening awareness and display of intangible CCB, SQ does not have any impact on greening reciprocity. Originality/value: This study introduces to literature a more tangible form of voluntary behaviour on the part of the customer, i.e. tangible CCB or reciprocity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also one of the first to study the customer as an important stakeholder and participant in a business-to-consumer firm’s operating processes, particularly in greening which has no direct impact on the firm’s core offering. The focus on greening in the Indian context is also novel given the greening costs and requirements and the price competition are very different in emerging market contexts where e-commerce firms are experiencing the maximum growth. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

World University root node

Finance, Accounting and Control

(SME) School of Management and Entrepreneurship

Economics

International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences

Customer reciprocity in greening: the role of service quality

Most of the design activities, today, are focused toward solving issues related to a smaller section of society with average or high-income levels, and the needs of a bigger section of society, belonging to the bottom of the pyramid, are ignored by and large. This is one area of research that requires urgent attention and appropriate design intervention. This paper is an effort to cater to the unaddressed needs of one such section of society that is involved in gardening-related activities. The paper reports a case study on how the issues related to storing and managing the gardening tools and equipment have been addressed. It presents the design development and evaluation from a sustainability point of view. The study involved two gardeners working at a University campus who participated during different stages of designing the new product that addressed their needs and aspirations. The paper also discusses the economic and environmental sustainability aspects of the solution in the light of materials and manufacturing processes used. In the first part, the paper explains the brief background of the user's needs. The second part of the paper analyzes the different aspects of the problem and elaborates on the design process. The paper finally concludes with a discussion on the assessment of the new storage system. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Design

Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering

Design of Storage System for Local Gardeners: A Case Study

I examine the effect of decision-making processes on the dynamics of bargaining over a fixed pie by comparing the share received when individuals are subject to reference-dependent preferences, loss-aversion, and probability-weighting, to the share they would receive on choosing by maximising expected utility instead. I show that: (i) reference-dependent preferences are unambiguously advantageous, (ii) loss-aversion does not have any effect, and (iii) probability-weighting is unambiguously disadvantageous. Finally, when these three features come together so that the decision-making process is described by cumulative prospect theory, then a higher share is obtained if and only if the advantage conferred by reference-dependent preferences is stronger than the disadvantage imposed by probability-weighting, and I present a precise necessary and sufficient condition that expresses this trade-off. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control

Expected utility versus cumulative prospect theory in an evolutionary model of bargaining

Mining for minerals, while a good source of income to the local economies, results in significant environmental damages. The Aravalli Mountain Range in India protects Delhi and adjoining areas from desertification risks posed by the Thar desert through acting as a physical barrier. However, it has become degraded over time due to persistent illegal mining and encroachment by real estate developers. Restoring the Aravallis will not only reduce the threat of desertification but also help generate valuable ecosystem services, such as water supply, to the nearby cities. Yet restoration efforts undertaken thus far have remained largely unsuccessful due to a lack of sufficient financial incentives. This study asks whether financial incentives for afforestation, such as desertification prevention permits and water-based payments for ecosystem services, can promote restoration of mineral rich commons in the Aravallis. It further seeks to explore the role of risk of restoration failure in discouraging conservation effort amongst communities. We design an incentive structure through which local communities benefit from water and land based payments resulting from restoration. We develop a dynamic optimization model of afforestation decisions in presence of land use change related risk from mining and real estate mafia to derive implications for the long run sustainability of the commons. Results indicate that desertification prevention permits and water payments can be useful towards incentivizing communities to take up protection of the degraded lands. However, when presented with the threat of failure of the restoration project due to illegal mineral extraction, community's optimal afforestation level declines considerably. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Resources Policy

Optimal restoration of common property resources under uncertainty

Government hospitals are the main pillars of the public healthcare services in the country. But due to the ever-growing number of patients and the inadequate infrastructure facilities, they are overburdened and unable to provide proper and prompt medical help to the patients. Medical treatment may include consultation, admission, diagnosis, surgery, drug administration, nursing, blood bank service, ambulance service, etc. The patients/attendants have to follow hospital protocols and processes to avail the required treatment. But they are not acquainted with hospital processes, rules, norms, timings, and other relevant information. They also vary from hospital to hospital. Hence, the visitors need to contact touchpoints like reception counters to help them for the help. But they are always overcrowded with people queued up in lines. In addition, the reception, registration/ entry counters, different departments, diagnosis centers, and other utilities are too scattered within the hospital premises (different buildings, floors, rooms, etc.) to be figured out by anyone. It is a puzzling and helpless situation that inevitably delays the treatment process. The delays could be reduced by providing patients/attendants, relevant, quick, and reliable information. But hospitals can't allocate a part of their limited workforce for this purpose. In the given context, a mobile-based app can play an important role. This paper proposes a new app-based system that streamlines treatment at government hospitals. It reports the general problems faced by patients at government hospitals. It explores the feasibility of a mobile app system, that would provide patients with reliable information, in real-time. The paper finally concludes by discussing the limitations and future scope of the proposed system. The designed app also finds special relevance in the present pandemic situation where every second is critical for the patients. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Designing Mobile App Interfaces for Facilitating Medical Treatment at the Government Hospitals

This paper studies the effects of asymmetric punishment of bribery on both bribery and compliance with regulations. The bribe amount is decided via Nash bargaining and regulatory compliance and whistle-blowing are strategic decisions. Moreover, investigations of bribery and noncompliance occur in a manner that may be interdependent. We show that, under symmetric punishment, inducing whistle-blowing has no effect on the frequency of bribery. When the bribery and noncompliance investigations are independent, a switch from symmetric to asymmetric punishment either makes no difference or induces more nonharassment bribery. Only when bribery detection increases the chance of noncompliance detection and asymmetric punishment leads to whistle-blowing for both types of entrepreneurs, can the shift succeed in reducing noncompliance. The result is robust to the case where legalization of bribe-giving is not feasible for nonharassment bribes. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Journal of Economics and Management Strategy

Can asymmetric punishment deter endogenous bribery

Using a massive malaria eradication program in India during the 1950s as a natural experiment, we examine the effects of disease environment on child health outcomes and fertility. We harmonise a rich dataset on malaria endemicity with fertility histories of women to exploit the cohort level variation in exposure to the program. We find that the program leads to a significant decline in infant and neonatal mortality and leads to a significant increase in the probability of birth during adolescent years in high malaria endemic regions. We confirm that a fall in the mother’s age at first birth in the post-eradication period drives the fertility response. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Fulltext

Journal of Development Studies

Disease Eradication, Infant Mortality, and Fertility Response: Evidence from Malaria Eradication in India

The Communist Party of China (CPC) completed 100 years of its existence in July 2021, with the last 70 plus years spent as the ruling party in China. The centenary occasioned a fresh consideration by the CPC of the challenges to its identity, legitimacy and power. Using select speeches and commentaries produced by the CPC in the context of the centenary, this article analyses how the Party deploys discourses on its history to articulate its concerns and promote its interests today. It also looks at how these interpretations of the Party’s history and role in China translate into a growing sense of exceptionalism in the Party-state. The article argues that despite frequent calls to ‘seek truth from facts’, an overriding desire to retain power is once again pushing the CPC down the path towards dogmatism. © 2022 SAGE Publications.

International Relations and Governance Studies

China Report

Towards Exceptionalism: The Communist Party of China and its Uses of History

Region is a dynamic concept dependent on particularities of space manifested through varying imageries, and South Asia is no exception. As a regional category, it was borne out of the USA’s need to demarcate the post-War world according to its geopolitical interests, and since then, the elites of all South Asian states have unexceptionally found it difficult to shed off the realist lens vis-à-vis each other. Even though it’s an incredibly diverse region, there is a remarkable consistency in the way the dictates of sovereign territoriality have guided the nation-building projects of all states, and as a result, alternate ways of imagining the region have been severely compromised. South Asia, therefore, remains one of the least integrated regions in the world despite carrying tremendous collaborative potential in various fields. In this context, this chapter explores the possibility of conceptualizing the region through the lens of Critical Theory, which focuses on the emancipatory project of human beings through an anthropological reading of identity and communities. It argues that for such an understanding to gain in prominence, the political culture of the region needs to undergo a fundamental transformation from the territorial, authoritative, and state-centric notion of power and control to a more empathetic, unfettering, and citizen-centric notion. However, it is easier said than done. The material realities of the region centered around the India-Pakistan rivalry, China’s inroads into the region, weakening of civil society institutions, and rise of majoritarianism and religious fundamentalism amidst growing economic distress have ensured that such a transformation is still some distance away. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Šumit Ganguly and Frank O’Donnell.

Routledge Handbook of the International Relations of South Asia

CRITICAL THEORY APPROACHES TO THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF SOUTH ASIA

We study a game theoretic model of a parliamentary democracy under proportional representation where ideologically motivated citizen groups form parties, voting occurs and governments are formed. We study the coalition governments that emerge as functions of the parties’ seat shares, the size of the rents from holding office and their ideologies. We show that governments may be minimal winning, minority or surplus. Moreover, coalitions may be ‘disconnected’. We then look at how the coalition formation game affects the incentives for party formation. In particular, we show that when the rents from office are low, the median citizen stands unopposed, and when rents are high, there is more political entry. For intermediate rents, we show that strategic dropouts can happen to influence the final policy. We show that the incentives for strategic dropout can be higher under proportional representation than plurality voting, contrary to Duverger’s law. Our model explains the diverse electoral outcomes seen under proportional representation and integrates models of political entry with models of coalitional bargaining. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.