Purpose: Crude oil, gold and interest rates are some of the key indicators of the health of domestic as well as global economy. The purpose of the study is to find the shock volatility and price volatility effects of gold and crude oil market on interest rates in India.Design/methodology/approach: This study finds the mutual and directional association of the volatility of gold, crude oil and interest rates in India. The bi-variate GARCH models (Diagonal VEC GARCH and BEKK GARCH) are applied on the sample data of gold price, crude oil price and yield (interest rate) gathered from November 30, 2015 to November 16, 2020 (weekly basis) to investigate the volatility association including the volatility spillover effect in the three markets.Findings: The main findings of the study focus on having a long-term conditional correlation between gold and interest rates, but there is no evidence of volatility spillover from gold and crude oil on the interest rates. The findings of the study are of great importance especially to the policymakers, as they state that the fluctuations in prices of gold and crude oil do not adversely impact the interest rates in India. Therefore, the fluctuations in prices of gold and crude may generally impact the economy, but it has nothing to do with interest rate in particular. This implies that domestic and foreign investments in the country will not be affected by gold and crude oil that are largely driven by interest rates in the country.Practical implications: Gold and crude oil are two very important commodities that have their importance not only for domestic affairs but also for international business. They veritably influence the economy including forex exchange for any nation. In addition to this, the researchers believe the findings will provide insights to policymakers, stakeholders and investors.Originality/value: Gold and crude oil undoubtedly influence the exchange rates but their impact on the interest rates in an economy is not definite and remains ambiguous owing to the mixed findings of the studies. The lack of studies related to the impact of gold and crude oil on the interest rates, despite them being essentials for the health of any economy is the main motivation of this study. This study is novel as it investigates the volatility impact of crude oil and gold on interest rates and contributes to the existing literature with its findings.

The present study primarily examines the impact of financial distress (FD) on the dividend policy of 33 banks working in the Indian economy from 2010 to 2019. In addition, we further explore the association between financial distress and dividend policy under the influence of shareholder activism (SHA). Using the static panel data regression technique, it is revealed that financial distress is non-linearly associated with the dividend policy of banks in an inverted U-shape. In the initial phase of a distressing situation, banks tend to have a liberal dividend policy. However, after reaching the pressure point, the banks start to squeeze dividend distribution to the stakeholders. Furthermore, the significant impact of shareholder activism has been found in the association between financial distress and the dividend payout policy of banks. From the policy perspective, the study will provide the policymakers with a clear all-round perspective of distressing situations, as the current research involves exploring the impact of distress on the dividend policy that will help the experts in basically understanding the adverse effect of financial distress and the repercussions, respectively, on the earning of the shareholders.

The purpose of this study is to determine if the impact of transparency and disclosure (TD) levels on shareholders’ current income (dividends) is moderated by technical efficiency (te) and profitability. The study employs econometrics on panel data from 78 BSE-listed enterprises across the 2016–2020 sample period. This conclusion suggests that when TD grows, dividends tend to drop initially, but above a certain threshold level, growing TD levels lead to increased payouts. Furthermore, dividends are adversely associated with the moderating variable “te” in terms of both constant and variable return to scale. On the other hand, moderation by profitability was shown to have a substantially favourable effect on dividends. According to this study, a company’s dividend policy is influenced by its TD levels, which are controlled by its efficiency and profitability. Developing a TD index provides more information on the efficacy of the corporate governance (CG) system. The study’s distinctiveness lies in examining the relationships between transparency, disclosures, and these aspects as they relate to profitability, efficiency, and dividend distribution choices to ascertain whether the companies’ operating effectiveness and financial success matter in this circumstance. The study’s practical and policy implications relate to societal repercussions, which include encouraging more openness and responsibility in business practices, thereby increasing confidence and accountability in decisions about dividend distribution, regardless of efficiency and profitability. The study’s originality is in examining how profitability, efficiency, and dividend distribution decisions relate to transparency and disclosures to determine if companies’ operating efficiency and financial success matter in this situation.

The growing complexities of organizational sustainability have intensified the demand for leadership models that emphasize values[1]driven decision-making, meaningful purpose, and human-cantered management. Drawing on the profound insights of ancient Indian wisdom, this study explores the influence of spiritual leadership, workplace spirituality, ethical governance, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on organizational transformation. Adopting a quantitative research methodology, the study employed a structured questionnaire to collect primary data from 407 professionals across Tier-1 cities in India. The instrument incorporated validated scales to measure spiritual leadership, workplace spirituality, inner wisdom, innate human qualities, CSR, and organizational transformation. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the predictive relationships between these constructs in the context of responsible and sustainable business practices. The findings highlight the potential of integrating ancient Indian philosophical perspectives with modern management approaches to strengthen leadership, enhance employee engagement, and promote long-term organizational development. The study offers valuable insights for both practitioners and scholars on fostering trust, commitment, and resilience by aligning leadership practices with enduring ethical and cultural principles.

Due to environmental concerns, electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining traction over fossil fuel-based vehicles. For electronic devices, including vehicles, copper is the key material used for building. This situation draws attention to the impact of copper prices, crude oil prices, and exchange rates on the economic viability of using EVs over fossil fuels. We use the volatility spillover effect (VSE) to determine the financial viability of these two types of vehicles in the context of environmental issues. Daily data on copper prices, crude oil, exchange rate, and the BSE100 ESG (“Bombay Stock Exchange 100 Environmental, Social and Governance”) index are taken from 1 November 2017 to 20 September 2022. Two popular multivariate GARCH (“Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity”) family models, i.e., the BEKK (“Baba–Engle–Kraft–Kroner”)-GARCH (BG) and DCC (“Dynamic Conditional Correlation”)-GARCH (DG) models, are utilized to find volatility connections between these variables. These are appropriate GARCH models to observe the volatility dependence of one market on another market. It is found that there exist volatility effects of copper and exchange rate on the S&P BSE100 ESG Equity Index Price, which we will refer to here as ESG. However, crude oil is found to be insignificant for ESG. The novelty of this study is in the use of volatility spillover to determine economic viability. The volatility effects of copper prices are positive for ESG in the short run and negative for long-term volatility. The exchange rate has a positive volatility effect on ESG in the long run. Surprisingly, we find that EVs are technologically better than fossil fuel-based vehicles as a possible sustainable energy source. We observe studies that have raised similar concerns about EVs’ lack of business sense compared to fossil fuels. However, using VSE to explore financial viability offers a fresh perspective. Based on the findings of the current study, it is recommended that policymakers and researchers revisit their support for EVs as an alternate and sustainable source of energy.

The research aims to examine the unexpected changes in stock prices due to external shocks given to the macroeconomic variables to forecast future stock market returns. The study applies two econometric models such as «Variance Decomposition» (VDC) and «Impulse Response Function» (IRF) for examining the exogenous shocks in macroeconomic variables respond to changes in stock prices. Monthly time series data of five significant macroeconomic variables Real Exchange Rate, Interest Rate, Consumer Price Index (CPI), Crude Oil Prices, and Trade Openness, taken as independent variables and BSE SENSEX as a dependent variable. The research period is from Jan 2009 to Dec 2019. The study has taken the responsibility to reveal a few strong evidences for changes in stock prices due to exogenous shocks in Exchange Rate, Trade Openness, Inflation, and Interest rate along with crude oil prices. According to the results, changes in the stock market are due to external factors like changes in dividend policy or capital loss, and some changes in the stock market are due to its own innovative shocks. This study suggests to reduce unexpected changes in stock prices frequently, companies should control capital loss and focus on stable return/dividend policies. There are divergent views in the literature review in the context of measures of these variables, however no research has been done on exogenous shocks in macroeconomic variables to BSE SENSEX for the Indian stock market with this particular data set and duration.