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One of the noteworthy developments in the world economy is the cryptocurrency in general and the bitcoin in particular. Although several types of cryptocurrency are in operation in the current digital economy, the most prevalent is the bitcoin, which was launched formally in 2009 by an individual or group known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The value of bitcoin has increased to such an extend that it reached 19.7 billion US dollars by January 2, 2018 (Statista, 2018). As the bitcoin price touches a new high day by day, various terrorist organizations are using this cryptocurrency to anonymously finance their grotesque terrorist activities around the world by bypassing the surveillance mechanism of the banking system of the respective countries. Against this backdrop, this chapter aims to understand the mechanism of cryptocurrencies in general and the bitcoin in particular. Finally, it also endeavors to identify the trend of the bitcoin economy and its impact on nefarious activities in general and terrorism financing in particular. It has been revealed from the study that cryptocurrency economy has become so popular across the world that it has created an alternative virtual economy devoid of regulations from a specific country or a group of countries. By using vector error correction model (VECM), it had been observed that there exists a statistically significant long-run association between terrorist incidences and bitcoin transaction/circulation in the panel of 12 countries for 2010–2016. However, there is a huge concern over its way of operation and its unholy nexus with terrorism financing.

Gender equality as well as diversity in workplace in general and management in particular is said to provide a number of benefits, including new ideas and improved communication, insights into female market segmentation, and a greater work-life balance. While importance of women in corporate boards has been long acknowledged, but unfortunately till date females have made only modest gains in terms of directorships on corporate boards. Following the trend of this globalized business domain a paradigm shift in regulatory framework is witnessed in India by Section 149(1) of Companies Act, 2013 through mandatory inclusion of at least one female director in board. Against this backdrop, present study has envisaged the state of affairs relating to the gender diversity and corporate governance practices of selected major listed companies in India. However, it is really premature to reveal any statistically significant difference in their corporate governance disclosure practices based on the gender diversity. However, the positive vibes generated by the gender equality in the boardroom cannot be under-shadowed as across the world various empirical studies revealed that adherence to gender equality in substance over form on longer time horizon will definitely provide right momentum toward competitive advantage on sustainable basis for the business.

The contribution of the Indian Automobile industry in the economic growth of the country is significantly high. Besides catering to a large domestic market, the automobile industry in India has also captured market shares in many foreign countries successfully in the last few decades. Not only is it an important export-oriented industry of the nation but also the fourth largest exporter of automobiles in Asia. However, in the recent years (2018–2019), it has faced an unprecedented slump. This chapter captures this fact by calculating the growth of car selling for the four quarters of the period 2018–2019 across the Indian states. It primarily tries to find out whether the variation in income and tax levied on petrol and diesel has an impact on the variation in the car selling across the states for the abovementioned time period. It has been proven from our study that higher income of a state has a positive impact, whereas higher tax on petrol and diesel which varies across the states has a negative impact on car selling. Apart from this, this study then distinctively tries to find out whether there exists any neighborhood impact on growth rate of car selling and different tax rate on petrol and diesel on the basis of Moran's Index. It is witnessed that there exists a high level of spatial autocorrelation among the different states in case of growth of a car selling and tax imposition on diesel as well as on petrol. This fact necessitates some degree of regional orientation in formulating an effective policy to revive the automobile industry on the part of the Government.

This study aims to analyze the state of knowledge on the relationship between leadership and the firm’s supply chain. The study identifies and examines the existing literature, unveils research gaps and suggests future research directions.

Adopting a systematic review process, a total of 110 articles published in top-ranked academic journals (A* and A category as per ABDC-2019 list) were analyzed. Descriptive, cluster, thematic and regression analyses of citations were performed to garner insights.

The review outcome shows an upward trend of articles studying the influence of leadership in the supply chain. With the highest number of articles, developed countries and manufacturing companies have been the research contexts of the research studies. Clustering reveals eight significant areas where the leader’s involvement in the supply chain is discussed, with several sub-themes emerging within each cluster. Finally, the regression analysis of citations shows that only the journal’s quality matters the most in receiving the highest citation for the articles.

As this study considered only A* and A-ranked journals of the ABDC-2019 list, there is a risk of excluding some relevant articles.

While the current literature deliberates on recent trends in the supply chain, such as the application of Industry 4.0 practices, this review revolves around the classical theme of leadership and demonstrates its importance in the supply chain. The study is among the first to conduct a bibliometric analysis of articles deliberating on leadership and supply chain issues by grouping the articles into clusters and themes. In the end, the clusters and themes were conceptualized into the “House of Supply Chain Leadership,” of which leadership forms the foundation.

This paper presents the performance analysis of the automatic ticket vending machine (ATVM) through the functioning of its different hardware and software failures.

Frequent failures in the working of ATVM have been observed; therefore, the authors of the paper intend to analyze the performance measures of the same. Authors have developed a mathematical model based on different hardware and software failures/repairs, which may occur during the operation, with the help of the Markov process. The developed model has been solved for two kinds of failure/repair rates namely variable failures (very much similar to real-time failure) and constant failures. Lagrange's method and Laplace transformation are used for the solution of the developed model.

Reliability and mean time to failure of the ATVM are determined. Sensitivity analysis for ATVM is also carried out in the paper. Critical components of the ATVM, which affect the performance of the same, in terms of reliability and MTTF are also identified.

A mathematical model based on different hardware and software failures/repairs of ATVM has been developed to analyze its performance, which has not been done in the past.