Editorial: The inaugural issue

Citation

Sahay, V.S., Hammoudeh, S. and Tiwari, A.K. (2023), "Editorial: The inaugural issue", IIMBG Journal of Sustainable Business and Innovation, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSBI-06-2023-038

We are pleased to write the editorial for the IIMBG Journal of Sustainable Business and Innovation's (IJSBI) inaugural issue. In 2020, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bodh Gaya (IIMBG) adopted Mindfulness and Social Responsibility as its core values, which sought to be promoted through academic excellence in learning practices and research. IIMBG’s journal IJSBI is an endeavour in this vein to promote research and practice of these core values that can help businesses and society function sustainably and innovatively simultaneously.

By this point, the IIMBG has consolidated its position in the NIRF rankings and is expanding quickly in terms of student enrolment in its five programs, faculty size, research output and several academic activities like international conferences that are gaining popularity among academics. The Editorial Advisory Board, Associate Editors and Editorial Review Board all include diverse individuals. The new journal's launch was enthusiastically endorsed by the Board of Governors of the IIMBG.

The journal has benefited greatly from the cooperation with Emerald Publishing Limited, which was successful this year. As a result, we quickly went from discussing the journal's concept with the publishers to publishing its first issue. The Almighty God, the editorial board, the peer reviewers and the teachers and staff members of the institute, who are unwavering in their support for the journal, are to be credited for this quick pace.

The IJSBI covers economics, finance, marketing, human resources, organizational behaviour, information technology, operations, data analytics and entrepreneurship. It is established to provide pertinent policy, research and societal implications on business innovations. The journal also accepts papers on business and humanity's sustainability, happiness and mindfulness. IJSBI will specifically publish articles in all management domains that have consequences for business innovations and business management practices by developing new theories, models or econometric techniques. The first call for papers in this area was published in April 2021 and noted that IJSBI is a bi-annual international journal with double-blind peer review.

IIMGB launched IJSBI as an open-access journal, so anyone can read the research published in this journal for free. This is because other researchers can build upon the published work, broadening the field. The IIMBG holds that all researchers are morally obligated to share new knowledge with other academicians or researchers. The dissemination can only take place to the greatest extent if it is widely accessible, which is only conceivable if it is freely available. There will be no publication fees for writers because the IIMBG wholly funds the journal's publication.

By making their articles freely accessible to everyone, writers who publish in the journal will be rewarded, and their research will be more widely disseminated.

Our efforts have paid off as there have been a tremendous number of contributions from researchers worldwide. Following a thorough double-blind peer review procedure for the journal's inaugural issue, we chose the four contributions. These submissions span various topics under the journal's objectives and purview. The papers considered for the first issue were from diverse nations and cultural backgrounds, such as Uganda, China and Ghana.

Key highlights of the contributions are summarized below:

The first study by Dsouza, Shetty, Dinesh, and Damodar (2023) examines the evidence of the effectiveness of mindfulness practice on employees in this high-pressure service industry. The article reviews mindfulness-based interventions that indicate a culture of mindfulness-based well-being and effectiveness in the workplace. Especially in the context of hospitals, the findings emphasize the role of mindfulness in effectively dealing with various psychological conditions such as stress, depression, anxiety, burnout and industry-specific emotional labour, reducing absenteeism and turnover intentions.

The second study by Alinda et al. (2023) investigated the association between the dimensions of intellectual capital and sustainability practices within the context of manufacturing medium and large firms in Uganda. This cross-sectional study revealed the critical role of various categories of intellectual capital in sustainability practices. Therefore, the study, in the context of Uganda, warrants the use of intellectual capital among manufacturing firms to create sustainable solutions through ecological and socially responsible products and services.

The third study by Sun and Zhang (2023) aimed to study a multi-agent-based scheduling architecture for the RFID-enabled semiconductor back-end shopfloor, which integrates manufacturing resources and human factors. The article re-emphasizes that real-time scheduling becomes increasingly important for the semiconductor back-end manufacturing process in Industry 4.0. Thus, the article proposed a referenced multi-agent-based real-time scheduling architecture for the semiconductor back-end manufacturing process, in which capability, capacity planning and machine configuration algorithms are developed.

The fourth study by Mensah, Shukla, and Iqbal (2023) examined the relationship between green human resource management practices and employee innovative work behaviour in the hospital. Through its quantitative approach, the paper revealed that green training, green hiring and green compensation were significant predictors of innovative work behaviour among employees. Moreover, the study makes it a point to recommend that organizations should view their training investments as financial investments and focus on hiring individuals with strong environmental sensibilities.

The range of submissions cutting across domains indicates that we may have had at least some success in ensuring that IJSBI covers research across all areas of management studies. We hope to continue receiving your submissions in future issues and enable this new journal to reach greater heights.

As a final point, this editorial would be incomplete if we did not acknowledge the support of the Editorial Advisory Board, the Publishers, the Ministry of Education, the Government of India and all the stakeholders and well-wishers who have ensured that this journal sees the light of the day.