Purpose The study aims to examine whether management education can successfully cultivate the competency of empathy that is needed in future corporate leaders to promote sustainability initiatives catering to diverse stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The research highlights the impact of management education on cognitive and affective empathy by analysing the interpersonal reflectivity scores of entering students enrolled in a two-year, full-time MBA programme and the scores of the same students at graduation. Findings The findings show that management education has a positive impact on cognitive empathy, while it reduces affective empathy and general empathy. Further, findings show that the management curriculum brings cognitive and affective empathy to an equilibrium level that is needed for a competitive business environment. Research limitations/implications The research focussed only on the change in empathy of the participants (students) during management education and not during actual corporate work. Practical implications The research infers that current management education creates future executives with higher cognitive empathy. It argues that they would care more about the sustainability of the business in terms of profit or access to capital rather than care and concern for all the stakeholders, society and the environment. A new paradigm in management education also needs to be focussed around inculcating how to empathise affectively. Originality/value The study presents an empirical analysis suggesting that management education is opening the mind but not the heart. It raises a significant concern that higher management curriculum is not developing future executives who can lead the sustainability initiatives.

A facile synthetic approach to 6H-pyrrolo[3,2,1-de]acridines has been developed by using cascade N-nucleophilic addition−cyclic Michael addition process of arynes and indoles substituted with Michael acceptors under metal-free conditions. Additionally, photophysical studies of a few of the newly synthesized pyrroloacridine compounds indicated good fluorescence emission properties.

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PurposeThis paper introduces the concept of policy efficiency of banks as their efficiency in implementing the government's policies. It further compares the Indian public sector banks (PSBs) and private sector banks (PVBs) on two efficiency paradigms, operational efficiency and policy efficiency.Design/methodology/approachA three-stage analysis is carried out on data collected for 19 PSBs and 16 PVBs for ten years. Non-radial DEA with slack-based measure (SBM) is used to obtain efficiency scores of the banks for the two efficiency paradigms. The efficiency scores and the changes in efficiency and Malmquist index are further analysed by Tobit regression and seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models.FindingsPVBs are found to be more operationally efficient than PSBs. On the contrary, PSBs are found to be more policy efficient. Among the PSBs, the older and larger banks performed better in both the paradigms. Though Indian banks have become more operational and policy efficient over the years, the rate of improvement is slowing down.Practical implicationsResults imply that evaluating banks, especially PSBs, only on their operational efficiency is myopic. Their efficacies must also be measured by the roles they play on social and policy front. The loss of efficiency of Indian PSBs in a competitive environment should provoke thoughts of reforms. The study suggests that the proposed merger of PSBs to form large banks might be fruitful.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the literature by introducing the measure of policy efficiency. It shows that the Indian PSBs are indispensable as vehicles of government policy implementation.

PurposeThe study explores extant knowledge on the nature of the relationship between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms, particularly board characteristics and audit quality, respectively, while also investigating how the relationship varies across geographies.Design/methodology/approachThe extant knowledge is synthesized using a meta-analysis, which is conducted using a sample of 56 empirical studies from publications of varying grades. The studies span over 25 years (1996–2021) and cover 147 empirical samples (343,787 firm-year observations) across more than 20 countries. The dependent variable is audit fees, and the independent variable captures 12 different measures of board characteristics.FindingsOverall, the results reveal a positive association between board characteristics and audit fees, indicating complementarity between governance mechanisms. Effect size analysis shows board characteristics, like size and independence, are positively associated with audit fees. However, heterogeneity is noted for some characteristics, and further analysis by geography (developed vs emerging countries) explains the heterogeneity.Practical implicationsThis study helps multiple stakeholders like firms, shareholders, boards, regulators and policymakers in designing and strengthening governance frameworks.Social implicationsBoth governance and auditing literature benefit from identifying specific board characteristics that drive audit quality consistently across different institutional settings and samples. Heterogeneity analysis helps improve the understanding of contradictions documented in prior literature.Originality/valueThis meta-analysis is the first to explore the interplay between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms, with a focus on board characteristics and audit quality. The study provides valuable insights on how different governance mechanisms influence each other while highlighting, for the first time, how the interaction between governance mechanisms varies by a country's level of development.