The Potential Role of Innovative Indian SMEs in Sustainable Growth

India has experienced a robust economic growth in the recent years, but with a trajectory which offers both positive and negative lessons on the business innovation faced by many countries in Asia and elsewhere in the developing world. This study sought to test the relationship between innovation, financial performance and economic growth. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics on the factors that contribute to assuring the innovation of the processes involved in the financial performance and economic development in the rubber and plastic product sector in India. The results revealed that there is a positive relationship between innovation and economic growth, as well as between innovation and the financial performance of the company. Finally, the conclusion presents implications, limitations and directions for future research regarding the importance of innovation to the firm’s performance. A clear lesson from this study is that the future must include promoting Innovative Indian SMEs; in other words, business competitiveness depends on the creativity and innovativeness of its entrepreneurship

The Effects of the Structural Funds on the Romanian Economic Growth

The European funds are considered an attractive tool for supporting economic growth on short-term and at a macroeconomic level. The impact assessment of structural and cohesion funds on Romania's economic growth is sluggish because of the mismatches between official information at national and regional levels. The role of economic models in quantifying the impact of structural and cohesion funds at a macroeconomic level cannot be minimized. This paper aims to investigate the impact of European funds totally absorbed by Romania on the evolution of total GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the period 2007-2015. Using linear regression in R (lm function), our goal is to explain the relationship between attracted European funds in total, as an independent variable, and the Gross Domestic Product which was considered a dependent variable. For data processing, the authors used the ANOVA software. However, the results shows that the impact of the absorption rate on short-term economic growth does not confirm the theoretical expectations.&nbsp

Analytical Modelling of Share Price Value Using Computational Intelligence Methods

The liberalization, volatility and high competition of financial markets are all factors that expose companies to new risks and challenges, requiring a continuous innovation of models, techniques and tools for managing share price value and other related risks. This paper provides a model to implement a subsystem that should support the management decision on the trading segment of its own shares, based on intelligent agents with regards to identifying, collecting, structuring and updating data instruments, with analysis mechanisms of the main price and volatility indicators. Our conclusion is that the use of computational intelligence methods in modeling of share price value is both a requirement and an option in managing financial-foreign exchange risks, given that companies are subject to a wide range of risks and volatility is the defining feature in which they operate

Accessing Justice II: A Model for Providing Counsel to New York Immigrants in Removal Proceedings

The New York Immigrant Representation Study (“NYIR Study”) is a two-year project of the Study Group on Immigrant Representation to analyze and ameliorate the immigrant representation crisis—the acute shortage of qualified attorneys willing and able to represent indigent immigrants facing deportation. The crisis has reached epic proportions in New York and shows no signs of abating. In its year-one report (issued in the fall of 2011), the NYIR Study analyzed the empirical evidence regarding the nature and scope of the immigrant representation crisis. In that report, we documented how many New Yorkers—27 percent of those not detained and 60 percent of those who were detained—face deportation, and the prospect of permanent exile from families, homes and livelihoods, without any legal representation whatsoever. These unrepresented individuals are often held in detention and include many lawful permanent residents (green card holders), asylees and refugees, victims of domestic violence, and other classes of vulnerable immigrants with deep ties to New York. The study confirmed that the impact of having counsel cannot be overstated: people facing deportation in New York immigration courts with a lawyer are 500 percent as likely to win their cases as those without representation. While, at one end, nondetained immigrants with lawyers have successful outcomes 74 percent of the time, those on the other end, without counsel and who were detained, prevailed a mere 3 percent of the time. In its second year, the NYIR Study convened a panel of experts to use the data from the year-one report to develop ambitious, yet realistic, near- to medium-term ways to mitigate the worst aspects of the immigrant representation crisis here in New York. The year-two analysis and proposals are set forth in detail here, in the NYIR Study Report: Part II. A comprehensive solution to the nationwide immigrant representation crisis will require federal action. However, such federal action does not appear on the horizon. Meanwhile, the costs of needless deportations are felt most acutely in places like New York, with vibrant and vital immigrant communities. In addition to the injustice of seeing New Yorkers deported simply because they lack access to counsel, the impact of these deportations on the shattered New York families left behind is devastating. Moreover, the local community then bears the cost of these deportations in very tangible ways: when splintered families lose wage-earning members, they become dependent on a variety of City and State safety net programs to survive; the foster care system must step in when deportations cause the breakdown of families; and support networks to families and children must accommodate the myriad difficulties that result when federal policies are enforced without regard for local concerns. Put simply, the City and State of New York bear a heavy cost as a result of the immigrant representation crisis

Online Company Reputation—A Thorny Problem for Optimizing Corporate Sustainability

The new economic environment, characterized as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, has been generated through the evolution of a world in which online reputation and corporate social responsibility have become closely interconnected. In this study, we assessed whether corporate social responsibility is a goal with multiple implications for the image of the organization and its financial results, which present a model for measuring online reputation in the context of optimizing corporate sustainability. We used an econometric approach that showed that the main purpose of the model is to determine the best value of the dependent variable by providing a number of new sets of explanatory variables on the exact quantification of the company’s online reputation. The main results can support the decision-making process in building and maintaining online reputation in the short or long term, and the information provided is useful for implementing online reputation management programs. We provide a rather nuanced picture of the relationship between the credibility of corporate sustainability claims, financial security, and the chance of preserving the online reputation built. The research shows that online reputation risk management is no longer optional; online reputation must become a strategic resource for sustainable business

Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Financial Performance

In the past few decades, business performance has been approached from a multidimensional perspective, because a pro-active corporate sustainability reporting system for assessing the financial performance of an organization should at least address impacts at the organization and community levels, as well as the resulting associated social impacts. The purpose of this research was to identify the accessibility of corporate sustainability reporting instruments for Romanian managers and their role in increasing the financial performance of organizations. This study concludes that corporate social reporting indicators can be integrated into the reporting of the financial performance of a company and can transform sustainability into tangible value for all interested parties. In addition, the empirical results contribute to the understanding of corporate social responsibility practices; although being non-financial, these seem to be financially meaningful at a certain level after other financial factors are controlled for

Assessing the Benefits of the Sustainability Reporting Practices in the Top Romanian Companies

The concept of sustainability reporting has been addressed by experts worldwide and is defined as the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of the economic actions of organizations to special interest groups within society in general. The main purpose of this research was to identify and analyze the opinions of the real benefits obtained by large companies in Romania following the elaboration of sustainability reports and their contribution to the development of a sustainable economy. A quantitative marketing research was carried out on the sample randomly extracted from a target community of the largest 5750 companies across 35 counties that were active in strategic priority areas of Romania. Both explicitly and implicitly, the research resulted in essential aspects related to the correlation of the sustainability strategy with sustainability reporting, how sustainable development goals contribute to improving all of the processes included in the integrated company management system, how the internal and external benefits can contribute to increasing economic, social, and environmental performance, and building sustainable relationships with shareholders, employees, and stakeholders. In addition, the findings show that aligning a sustainability strategy with a global business strategy and including sustainability reporting requirements (non-financial) are important concerns at the level of the top companies in Romania

The Influence of Corporate Governance Systems on a Company’s Market Value

Recent world events have refocused interest on the link between the existence of corporate governance and an entity’s effectiveness. The aim of this study was to identify the influence of the corporate governance system of an entity in order to measure its effects on market value. To achieve quality corporate governance and to increase an audit committee’s degree of effectiveness, one must take into consideration four core elements: members’ qualifications, authority, the resources necessary to develop the activity, and attention during the development of the activity. Our research methodology included a combination of qualitative analyses on theoretical aspects and a quantitative approach based on multiple regression and the estimation method. The main results showed that there is a solid link between strong corporate governance systems and effective audit committees, although we cannot state that the inclusion of an audit committee represents the key to success for a business. When studying the connection between audit committees and an entity’s market value, we found that this connection can lead to alleviating the problem of allocating power (principal–agent theory). We also found that the contribution of audit committees in corporate governance is to assess both the quality of financial reports and their approval and that creating an audit committee can have beneficial effects that can eventually lead to the consolidation of a company’s corporate governance

Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles for the Decontamination of Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents and Blister Agents

International standards and environmental regulations require the development of new decontamination solutions for hazardous chemicals of military interest (chemical warfare agents) and industrial chemicals (pesticides, insecticides, etc.). It is necessary for them to be more efficient, with a higher decontamination speed and less waste generation. Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been intensively studied and have shown promising results in various industries (alimentary [1], medicine [2,3], pharmaceutical [4,5] and microbiology [6,7]). Metal oxide NPs offer promising outcomes—such as small particle size, high specific surface area, and unique physicochemical properties—which allow them to both adsorb and degrade toxic compounds due to their catalytic activity [8,9,10]. The paper presents the influence of zinc oxide nanoparticles, embedded in an internally developed amino-alcoholic decontamination solution, on the decontamination efficiency of chemical warfare nerve and blister agents. In this paper, we aimed to evaluate, using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/electron impact, the decontamination efficiency of ZnO NPs embedded in the organic decontamination solution. The decontamination efficiency was evaluated against two toxic compounds: sulfur mustard (HD) and soman (GD). Several solutions with different concentrations of ZnO NPs (0.1–2%) were tested and compared with the reference decontamination solutions. The decontamination efficiency was evaluated using GC-MS/EI analysis at 2, 10, and 30 min, and 1, 3, 5 and 24 h. The decontamination product formation was observed and quantified throughout the process. The decontamination procedures were caried out at 25 °C with magnetic stirring. The presence of ZnO NPs in the organic decontamination solution showed better decontamination efficiency, which increased along with the concentration of NPs added, at a concentration interval of 0.1–1%. The solution with 2% ZnO NPs showed a decrease in the decontamination efficiency in the cases of both HD and GD

Reactive Organic Suspensions Comprising ZnO, TiO2, and Zeolite Nanosized Adsorbents: Evaluation of Decontamination Efficiency on Soman and Sulfur Mustard

This paper comprises an extensive study on the evaluation of decontamination efficiency of three types of reactive organic suspensions (based on nanosized adsorbents) on two real chemical warfare agents: soman (GD) and sulfur mustard (HD). Three types of nanoparticles (ZnO, TiO2, and zeolite) were employed in the decontamination formulations, for enhancing the degradation of the toxic agents. The efficacy of each decontamination solution was investigated by means of GC-MS analysis, considering the initial concentration of toxic agent and the residual toxic concentration, measured at different time intervals, until the completion of the decontamination process. The conversion of the two chemical warfare agents (HD and GD) into their decontamination products was also monitored for 24 h