Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants that determine the investment behaviour of rural farmers. This study further examines the moderation effect of socio traits in the association between investment behaviour and its determined factors.Design/methodology/approach: This study used a cross-sectional research design to gather information. The information for this research survey was gathered using a structured questionnaire from 400 individual investors in the rural area of Punjab, who participated in the study. It has been decided to use the Cronbach’s alpha test to determine the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. To evaluate the hypothesis, structural equation modelling has been used in the research process.Findings: The results of this study reveal that attitude, financial risk inclination, financial planning and investment intention determine the investment behaviour of the rural people of Punjab. The results for the interaction effect of socio traits with investment intention, financial risk propensity and investment attitude were found statistically significant amongst rural people. The results of the moderation effect stated that interaction between the attitude and investment intention and financial risk propensity and investment intention is significantly influenced by age of respondents. The results further reveal that marital status of rural people affect the interaction between attitude and investment intention and financial risk propensity and investment intention. Nothing about education seems to be a moderating influence on any of the relationships studied.Originality/value: The authors contribute to the literature in two aspects. Firstly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study of its kind that focuses on the investment behaviour of farmers. Secondly, by looking at the farmer’s investing behaviour, the moderation effect of demographic variables is also studied which set this study apart from another existing scholarly research. This study contributes to the growing literature on investment behaviour of farmers in developing and developed markets.

The present study examines the relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure to the firms in the mandatory regime in India. The paper has its theoretical basis from the instrumental aspect of the Stakeholder theory, which assumes a positive influence of CSR over financial performance. Therefore, the study hypothesizes that the firms which fulfill the CSR expenditure requirement will exhibit higher stock returns and lower systematic risk. Since India mandated CSR in the year 2014, the data of four years (2016-2019) for the sample of 426 National Stock Exchange (NSE) listed Indian firms are taken to employ the OLS regression method. The CSR expenditure in the mandatory regime was not found to be relevant to the firms because of an insignificant positive impact of mandatory CSR expenditure on stock returns. Thus, the instrumental aspect is not supported by the findings. However, the findings indicate a decrease in the systematic risk of the firms. Only a few studies in India investigated this phenomenon in the mandatory regime. Further, the contributions of the study to the CSR literature are fairly useful from the perspective of firms, investors, policy-makers, regulators, scholars, and countries that are planning for legislating CSR.

Purpose: The main purpose of the present study is to stretch the theoretical framework of existing stock of literature with reference to Risk Disclosures in IPO Prospectus and IPO performance. The systematic literature review study endows easy and quick access to researchers as well as categorization of the available literature.Design/methodology/approach: Fifty research papers, which has been published or presented from 2000 to 2019 and are related to IPO risk disclosures and IPO performance, have been finalized. Further, these research papers were categorized based upon the five different variables to identify the probable research gap in the selected topic.Findings: This review provides a coherent summary of past studies related to topic and develop a comprehensive evidence on relationship between disclosure of risk factors and IPO underpricing in short run. It shows the existing research gap that needs to be fulfilled to expand the research horizon of future research studies.Research limitations/implications: The sole limitation of the study is that being a systematic literature review study, it does not carry any empirical results.Practical implications: The investors will be able to identify the key risk factors, disclosed in IPO prospectus, that may have probable dent on the short-term return from IPO. The findings will further help the investors and financial analyst to identify the degree of impact of risk disclosures that are listed in IPO prospectus.Originality/value: The paper is a first of its kind to stretch the existing literature and develop theoretical framework in the context of risk factor discloses in IPO prospectus and IPO performance with reference to India. The present study is an attempt to integrate the existing gap between empirical research and existing literature and suggest the techniques to the future practitioners to widen the horizon of their research.

Purpose: Increasing focus on socially responsible investments (SRIs) and green projects in recent times, coupled with the arrival of COVID pandemic, are the main drivers of this study. The authors conduct a post-factum analysis of investor choice between sin and green investments before and through the COVID outbreak.Design/methodology/approach: A passive investor is introduced who seeks maximum risk-adjusted return and/or investment variance. When presented an opportunity to add sin and/or green investments to her initial one-asset market-only investment position, she views and handles this issue as a portfolio problem (MPT). She estimates value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional-value-at-risk (CVaR) for portfolios to account for downside risk.Findings: Green investments offer better overall risk-return optimization in spite of major inter-period differences in return-risk dynamics and substantial downside risk. Portfolios optimized for minimum variance perform just as well as the ones optimized for minimum downside risk. Return and risk have settled at higher levels since the onset of COVID, resulting in shifting the efficient frontier towards north-east in the return-risk space.Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature in two ways: One, it examines investor choice between sin and green investments during a global health emergency and views this choice against the one made during normal times. Two, instead of using the principles of modern portfolio theory (MPT) explicitly for diversification, the study uses them to identify investor preference for one over the other investment type. This has not been widely done thus far.

The current research aims to identify the factors that influence the investment behavior of the agrarian investor class, an untapped potential segment for the investment market, in India. The study observes the antecedents of investment behavior and intention. Thus, the present study analyses the responses of 400 agrarian rural respondents. Data from a well-structured questionnaire administered to the study’s target participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results observed the utmost influence of financial self-efficacy in establishing the agrarian rural investors’ attitude and has least influence in determining personality traits and financial knowledge, which ultimately determine the investment intention of investors. Further, social influence has the least effect on how agrarian rural people think and act. The findings demonstrate that investment intention is the leading factor in cementing the investment behavior of agrarian rural investors. This article claims its distinctiveness by adding important insights to the literature of the investment behavior and intention for the Indian agrarian investor class.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to address a gap in the existing literature by thoroughly examining how organizational political behavior influences employee job satisfaction. The study aims to provide new insights and contribute valuable understanding to the university setting. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires from educators at public and private universities in India. The hypothesized model was tested using variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on a sample of 405 university employees. The study further explores key constructs based on the reactions of teaching faculty to political behavior within organizations. Findings: The study reveals that constructs such as reasons, friendliness, bargaining, assertiveness, coalitions and upward appeal are positively correlated with job satisfaction. Additionally, the results highlight a strong predictive relevance between job satisfaction and organizational political behavior. The findings also confirm that employees’ job satisfaction is significantly influenced by their experiences with political behavior within their organizations. Practical implications: This study offers insightful findings that can be utilized by higher education institutions in crafting their policies and improving job satisfaction among their teaching staff. The study’s findings indicate that a high level of employee engagement can mitigate the adverse effects of organizational politics on job satisfaction. Originality/value: There is a notable gap in research regarding the impact of organizational politics on employee job satisfaction within the workplace. This study addresses this gap by providing valuable insights into how organizational politics affect job satisfaction, specifically among university employees.