Krishna Prasad

Purpose: This paper explores the relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts. The study focuses on gender-diverse boards as effective monitors, which are expected to influence corporate disclosures, reducing information asymmetry positively and improving forecast accuracy. The unique context of India’s gender quota policy on corporate boards and its relatively weak corporate governance structure offers an ideal setting to investigate this relationship.Design/methodology/approach: The study utilises the generalised method of moments dynamic panel regression to address this research objective, analysing data from 217 Indian firms listed on the National Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2019.Findings: The findings reveal that greater gender diversity on corporate boards positively impacts forecast accuracy. Specifically, having more women directors on the board enhances forecast accuracy, with a critical mass of women directors (more than one woman) further amplifying this effect. The study also shows that independent women directors significantly improve forecast accuracy, whereas grey women directors (those with family connections or non-independent roles) negatively affect it.Originality/value: This study contributes significantly in two key aspects. Firstly, it sheds light on the value of women directors on boards in a country where women’s representation is mandated. Secondly, the research highlights the crucial role of independent women directors in ensuring robust financial oversight, particularly in an emerging economy.

This paper examines the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending to cater to the local area's needs (the area of business operations) in reducing the firm's risk in the mandatory CSR setting. Using a sample of 1677 Indian firms spanning the financial year 2009–2022, we present several interesting results. First, we demonstrate that the risk of the firms eligible under mandatory CSR law is higher than those not qualifying. Second, we find that the risk of firms that focus their CSR on the local area's needs is lower. In an additional analysis, we demonstrate that firms with higher spending on the local area experience lower contingent liability, legal expenses, and audit fees. We illustrate that focusing on the local area's needs in CSR efforts retains signaling value under a mandatory CSR regime.

Effectiveness of Geometric Brownian Motion Method in Predicting Stock Prices: Evidence from India

Purpose: This study explores the mediating influences of team reflexivity and workplace spirituality in the shared transformational leadership-team performance relationship.Design/methodology/approach: Adopting the cross-sectional research design, this study collected data from 130 ongoing teams working in India's information technology (IT) sector. The study collected data on shared transformational leadership by adopting the referent-shift consensus method while collecting data on team performance from managers. Thus, the study explored the relationships among the constructs of this research by using multi-source data.Findings: This study has shown that shared transformational leadership induces workplace spirituality and team reflexivity among team members. This research's results show that workplace spirituality mediates the shared transformational leadership-team performance and shared transformational leadership-team reflexivity relationships. This research has also demonstrated that team reflexivity mediates the shared transformational leadership-team performance relationship.Practical implications: Necessity to facilitate relational job design changes, knowledge sharing, intellectual stimulation is the primary managerial implication of this study. This study also articulates the need to pay attention to create organizational conditions for the emergence of workplace spirituality.Originality/value: This is the first study that has positioned shared transformational leadership and workplace spirituality as the antecedents of team reflexivity. This research has shown the value and limitation of team reflexivity in ongoing teams.