Circular statistics refers to the branch of statistics where data is measured in the form of directions or angles. These angles could be represented as points on a unit circle by fixing an initial (zero) direction and an orientation. In this thesis, we present novel statistical methods for analyzing circular and linear data, focusing on three core areas: (i) analysis of circular interval data, (ii) testing for randomness (mutual independence) for linear and circular data, and (iii) classification methods for ordinal circular data. nWe begin by studying interval data on circles, which could be represented by arcs on the circle. One way to analyze such data is to transform it into graphs known as circular arc graphs (CAGs). We extend this framework by defining random circular arc graphs (RCAGs) in line with the concept of random interval graphs (RIGs) for linear data. This allows us to incorporate randomness in the process of generation of vertices and thereby model a broader range of real-world phenomena. We explore various properties of the RCAGs and prove that they are invariant with the choice of distribution of the observations. We then use this idea to build our tests for randomness. nWe use two properties of RIGs and RCAGs, namely the edge probability and the vertex degree distribution, to develop our tests for randomness for linear and circular data. We then use extensive simulation to show that our tests work in a wide range of scenarios where the existing tests in the literature fail. We validate their practical utility by applying them to diverse datasets, such as U.S. economic growth rates, IBM stock returns, wind direction measurements, and spatial distributions of extraterrestrial phenomena (e.g., craters, fireballs, and meteor falls).n Additionally, we propose a novel methodology for analyzing ordinal circular data, where categories are ordered (i.e., ranked) as C_1 C_2 C_K C_1, meaning that the first (C_1) and last (C_K) categories are adjacent. Therefore, the usual multilabel classification techniques do not work here. We define a loss function for circular data to determine the fitted and predictive probability distribution of an object belonging to a specific category. We then use the L^2 (Euclidean) and Wasserstein barycenters to predict the category of an object. We demonstrate the efficacy of the method through simulations and real-world examples of wind direction data and Brain Computer Interface data.

This thesis examines the problem of decision making by players in networks, focusing on stability and fairness in cost sharing mechanisms, and classifying the computational tractability of both optimal and individual equilibrium strategies. We study two key problems: (i) supply chain traceability, and (ii) technology adoption and coordination in networks. We also briefly discuss the problem of fairly dividing a set of indivisible items among agents. We first investigate the adoption of traceability technology by firms in interconnected supply chains represented by a directed a cyclic graph. To determine the network optimal traceability adoption strategy, we present a tractable integer linear programming formulation. We then develop a cooperative game-theoretic model of traceability technology adoption and design a cost sharing mechanism facilitated via transfer payments from downstream firms to upstream suppliers. The mechanism satisfies formal fairness criteria and ensures the network optimal outcome when efficient; otherwise, it supports equilibrium welfare below the optimum. We extend our model to a general setting where firms obtain partial benefits from traceability. We introduce an auxiliary cooperative game to adapt techniques from the base model and develop a cost sharing mechanism for the general case. The mechanism preserves fairness properties and, when efficient, supports the network-optimal outcome; otherwise, it supports equilibrium welfare. We validate the mechanism numerically using real-world supply chain structures with simulated parameters. We next study a coordination problem where firms in a directed network choose between technologies or software. We establish that computing the network optimal technology adoption strategy is computationally hard. However, in a structured variant where technologies are ordered along the real line, we prove that both the network optimal and equilibrium strategies are unique and computable in polynomial time. We further derive closed-form solutions for specific network structures. Finally, we briefly explore the allocation of indivisible items, potentially with multiple copies, among agents with heterogeneous valuations and diminishing marginal utilities. We focus on computing envy-free allocations with subsidies, ensuring each agent values their allocation, including the subsidy, at least as much as any other agent's.

Effective cybersecurity management is paramount for firms. Data breaches can wreak havoc leading to financial setbacks, reputation loss, erosion of customer trust, and legal liabilities. My thesis intends to explore the unexplored organizational perspective on cybersecurity management through three different studies. In our first study guided by stakeholder theory and organizational justice theory we explore the impact of CEO actions, specifically downsizing on firm's data breach risk. We find that downsizing positively impacts firm's data breach risk through two groups of stakeholders namely employees and hacktivists. While taking care of the justice perceptions the firm is able to mitigate data breach risk of internal origin, it is not enough to mitigate the data breach risk of external origin. In our second study guided by the regulatory focus theory we explore the impact of CEO characteristics, specifically CEO promotion focus and prevention focus on firm's data breach risk. We find that CEO promotion focus reduces firm's data breach risk and CEO prevention focus enhances firm's data breach risk. Applying the concept of regulatory fit, we find that IT investment acts as a relevant situational characteristic and attenuates the impact of both CEO promotion and CEO prevention focus on data breach risk. While segregating the type of IT investment, we also find that the type of investment does not matter in the context of firm's data breach and what matters is just the quantum of investment. In our third study guided by the impression management theory we explore the impact of data breach event on CEO communication style and emotions in subsequent firm communications, specifically quarterly earnings calls. We find that CEOs of breached firms display increased levels of clout and positive emotions, and decreased levels of authenticity and negative emotions compared to the CEOs of non-breached firms. We also find that impression management is not only a psychological tool, rather it has a tangible impact on post-data breach recovery and performance of the firms. Our three studies together explore how CEO actions and characteristics impact firm's data breach risk and how data breach events impact CEO communication.

Public sector leaders regularly face paradoxes-contradictory yet interdependent demands arising from their work environment. However, paradoxical leadership in public sector organizations remains underexplored in the extant literature, which primarily focuses on private sector contexts. This study addresses this gap through a two-stage inquiry. First, through a thematic analysis of twenty semi-structured interviews of mid-level and senior public sector leaders in India. the study identifies six major paradox categories encountered in their roles-strategic: small and radical, realism: balancing idealism and political pragmatism, situational decision-making: rule-bound and democratic, organizing suitably: exercising flexibility and control, compassionate enforcer: strict but reasonable, and negotiated identity: being progressive and conventional. These insights form the conceptual foundation for developing a scale to measure paradoxical behaviour in public sector contexts. In the second phase, a psychometrically scale of paradoxical leadership was developed and validated through established scale development procedures. Based on the qualitative findings, an initial pool of survey items was generated, refined through expert reviews, and empirically tested. Using two independent samples of Indian civil servants (n=175 and n=285), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. The final scale comprises eleven items across three dimensions termed as: decision-making paradox, change paradox, and relation paradox. Structural relationships between paradoxical leadership and related constructs were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to establish the nomological validity. The study finds that paradoxical leadership (including its dimensions) is positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with intention to quit. These findings enhance our understanding of how paradoxical leadership operates within the unique constraints and challenges of the public sector. The study contributes to theory by adapting and extending paradoxical leadership constructs to the public sector, highlighting the relevance of paradox management in public administration. Practically, it offers a validated scale that can inform leadership development, training, and assessment initiatives aimed at enhancing the capability of public sector officers to navigate complex and conflicting demands effectively.

Anthropomorphic spokescharacters (ASCs) such as the Pillsbury doughboy, Duracell bunny, and Amul girl exemplify brand anthropomorphism strategy, where human-like traits are attributed to brands. In this thesis, I examine the neurocognitive and evaluative mechanisms underlying consumer responses to ASCs of varying morphologies: human (e.g., Amul girl), animal (e.g., Duracell bunny), and object (e.g., M&M's spokes-candies), using neural (electroencephalography-EEG) and behavioral (self-report) measures across two essays. In the first essay, I investigate how consumers process and evaluate different ASC forms. Drawing on schema (in)congruity theory, I propose that human ASCs evoke low incongruity, animal ASCs moderate incongruity, and object ASCs extreme incongruity relative to human schema. Event-related potential (ERP) results show that human-like features activate human schema during perceptual processing, while memory retrieval in pre-cognitive phase reveals discrepancies between ASC structures and human characteristics. Detecting this incongruity triggers alternate schema activation, and its resolution fosters favorable attitudes. Behavioral analysis using mixed-effects ordered-logistic regression shows that animal and human ASCs are preferred over object ASCs. The effects emerge among brand-aschematic (versus schematic) consumers who interpret new information independently of brand schemas.nIn the second essay, I investigate the effects of ASCs, which function as symbolic cues co-occurring with brands without explicit endorsement, on brand evaluations. Using evaluative conditioning (EC) literature and conceptualizing ASCs as unconditioned stimuli and brands as conditioned stimuli, ASC-brand pairings can be understood as a conditioning process, wherein affect toward ASCs influence brand attitudes. Additionally, I classify consumable products by origin to examine how congruent ASC-brand pairings (animal ASCs with animal-origin, human ASCs with neutral-origin, and object ASCs with plant-origin products) influence brand evaluations and purchase intentions. Neural and behavioral findings show that congruent pairings (versus incongruent) facilitate fluent processing and favorable brand evaluations for object and human ASCs. However, animal ASCs show limited effects due to processing disfluency. Object ASCs directly enhance purchase intentions, while human ASCs exert indirect effects through conceptual fluency, perceived appropriateness, and brand attitude. ASC affect strengthens (attenuates) these effects when positive (negative). Theoretically, this thesis advances brand anthropomorphism literature by revealing how consumer evaluations shape ASC effectiveness. Methodologically, it contributes by introducing a rigorous multi-trial ERP paradigm to consumer neuroscience research. Furthermore, it offers managerial insights into designing and deploying impactful ASCs.

Monitoring and evaluation are central to many economic environments, influencing how individuals allocate effort, manage uncertainty, and perceive fairness. They can amplify or reduce performance gaps, depending on their design. By studying high-stakes settings in professional sports and education, this thesis provides evidence on how evaluation design may affect both strategic behavior and measured outcomes. The first essay studies how improved monitoring precision impacts performance in competitive settings. Using a difference-in-differences framework and match-level data, I evaluate whether the adoption of Electronic Line Calling (ELC) technology in tennis, which improved the accuracy of line calls, impacted player performance. ELC adoption increased aces by 6%, servers? point-winning probability by 1%, and reduced double faults by 4%. Serves became faster and rallies shorter, consistent with a shift toward more aggressive play. A conceptual framework with risk-averse players illustrates how improved precision reduces uncertainty and influences cognitive effort allocation and strategic choices. The second essay investigates whether more objective monitoring reduces systematic bias often attributed to evaluators' discretion. Using the staggered adoption of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) across six European football leagues, I find no effect of VAR on yellow cards, red cards, or goals for either home versus away teams or domestic versus foreign players. These null results suggest that referee bias is unlikely to be the primary source of these advantages and highlight the need to explore alternative mechanisms. The third essay investigates how math-intensive evaluation drives science gender gaps. Using data from a large standardized exam conducted from grades 3 to 10 in India, we find that girls outperform boys in science in grades 3 to 6 (when one-twelfth of questions are math-intensive), but underperform in grades 7 to 10 (when one-fifth of questions are math-intensive). Girls perform comparably to boys on non-quantitative science questions, but underperform on quantitative science questions across all grades. Conditional on previous year performance, girls face a larger penalty from increasing math intensity in subsequent science exams. These findings suggest that strengthening foundational mathematics for girls, or reconsidering the math-intensity of science assessments, could reduce gender gaps in science education.

Scholars convincingly argue that organizations must carefully manage executives' strategic attention, as it is a scarce organizational resource. However, a theoretical tension exists regarding whether attention to a narrow or broad set of issues better facilitates firm growth and survival. Focusing on a narrow set of issues may support opportunity execution but increases the likelihood of overlooking blind spots. In contrast, attention to a broader set of issues may aid opportunity identification but raises the risk of managerial cognitive overload. Thus, it remains unclear whether a narrow or broad breadth of executives' strategic attention is more beneficial for firm outcomes. The first two essays aim to resolve this tension by examining the relationship between the breadth of executives' strategic attention and firm outcomes. The first essay explores the relationship between executives' breadth of strategic attention and firm growth. Drawing on the attention-based view of the firm, I argue that opportunity identification is especially important for firm growth and hypothesize a positive relationship between executives' breadth of strategic attention and firm growth. I also examine internal factors (firm life cycle stage) and external factors (high technology industry context) that may moderate this relationship. The second essay investigates the relationship between executives' breadth of strategic attention and firm survival. Using cognitive microfoundations of dynamic capabilities, I argue that firm survival requires a balance between sensing (high breadth) and seizing (low breadth), and thus hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between executives' breadth of strategic attention and firm survival. Moreover, because opportunity execution becomes especially critical for firms facing a high risk of bankruptcy, I hypothesize that the inverted U-shaped relationship is weaker for such firms. Moving from the breadth of executives' strategic attention to their attention to specific strategies, the third essay examines how executives' strategic attention can mitigate the impact of climate risk on firm performance. I hypothesize that heightened climate risk awareness, triggered by the Paris Agreement, negatively affects emission-intensive firms, as stakeholders penalize them for elevated transition risks. More importantly, I propose that executives' attention to financial risk management, efficiency strategies, and customer-oriented strategies can help offset these negative effects. In contrast, attention to external stakeholder management strategies may backfire, exacerbating the negative consequences.

Property & Casualty (P&C) insurers play a critical role in enhancing the adaptive capacity of households and commercial entities by protecting them against unexpected financial losses due to extreme weather events. The ability of insurers to protect policyholders against extreme weather events depends on the assumption that such events will not adversely affect insurers' claim-paying capacity or solvency. In the insurance business, income from the investment portfolio serves as a hedging mechanism to protect against underwriting losses. However, exposure to extreme weather events can adversely affect the insurance business if the investment portfolio's performance correlates with underwriting risk, or if the portfolio itself exacerbates underwriting risk. n In the first essay, I examine how P&C insurers, as major institutional investors, manage correlated risk exposure on the underwriting side and in their municipal bond portfolios in light of the rising climate-related losses. Using Coordinated Risk Management Theory, I address this issue by examining changes in municipal bond holdings by P&C insurers exposed to property losses in their respective states. I find that P&C insurers tend to reduce their municipal bond holdings of states with higher property risk exposure, suggesting a preference towards assuming higher underwriting risk (core business risk) and reducing correlated risk in the municipal bond portfolio (non-core business risk). I also show that state-level factors, access to the internal capital market, and bond-level factors moderate this relationship. In the second essay, I examine how long-run underwriting exposure to property losses affects P&C insurers' investment in corporate bond sub-portfolios. By endogenizing the exposure to climate risk for P&C insurers, I argue that while imposing additional constraints on the portfolio can adversely affect expected risk-adjusted returns in the short run, P&C insurers exposed to property losses have started moving capital away and charging higher yields from firms belonging to emission-intensive industries to reduce long-run underwriting risk exposure to extreme weather events. I also show that these insurers have begun investing more in Green bonds to facilitate climate action projects and reduce GHG emissions in the long run. These findings suggest that the concern about Impact materiality is endogenous and may stem from the Financial materiality of climate risk.

Many real-world matching markets require a social planner to pursue multiple policy goals and respect agents' preferences. A central challenge in such settings is designing strategy-proof and transparent allocation mechanisms that achieve complex institutional objectives like fairness, diversity, and merit-based distribution. We study this problem in the context of the cadre allocation mechanism for officers in India's All India Services (AIS). In 2017, the Government of India revised its cadre allocation policy. The goals were to promote national integration (NI) and ensure equal distribution of merit, while still respecting candidate preferences. NI is low if officers are assigned to cadres close to their home states. The current mechanism has increased NI compared to the previous one, but it is not strategy-proof, which makes it cognitively complex for aspirants. We propose a novel strategy-proof mechanism that achieves the government's objectives. First, we develop a strategy-proof mechanism for national integration that is envy-free at the zonal level. In the process, we formalize the notion of NI. Next, we design another strategy-proof mechanism for the equal distribution of merit. Finally, we merge both to achieve the twin objectives of NI and equal distribution of merit. In the second chapter, using surveys and experiments, we study the causal impact of the previous, current, and proposed mechanisms on NI, misreporting, and best responding. We find support for the theory that misreporting increases in the current mechanism, while the highest NI is achieved in the proposed mechanism. The third chapter develops a choice rule that implements India's affirmative action policies, incorporating the intricate nature of both vertical and horizontal reservations. We study previously unexamined nuances of these policies. Our model implements the concept of the meritorious reserved candidate as defined in the policy. It also incorporates two types of horizontal reservations: one implemented as over-and-above, and the other as a minimum guarantee, offering a more comprehensive and precise implementation in a setting with non-overlapping horizontal reservations. This thesis advances matching market design by proposing a novel, strategy-proof mechanism for cadre allocation and empirically validating it. It also offers a precise choice rule for India's reservation policies.

Faltering while working is something all of us who work experience. In fact, it has often been regarded as a source of learning. But, what of the damage that might follow such a faltering? Within this thesis, I study this phenomenon of damage in the context of repair work. To examine the kinds of damages actors are faced with while working, their experiences of them, and ways in which they deal with them, I conducted a field ethnography in a mobile phone repair cluster in India. This focus has resulted in two related essays. In the first essay, the work of repair is studied through the theoretical lens of craft (Bozkurt and Cohen, 2019; Sennett, 2008). Within the craft literature, attention has been paid to the ideas of mistake and error (Marchand, 2016; Sennett, 2008) but the possible consequence of these that is, the notion of damage itself, (for exceptions see Pye (1995)), and the examination of craftspersons' experience of this damage has received scant attention. To remedy this, I ask the questions - how do craftsperson experience damage, and what are the conditions of craft organizing that render this damage salient for them? This study finds that repairers are faced with two kinds of damages in the course of their work, i.e. existing and emergent. Moreover, repairers experience emergent damage as an inherent certainty in their work and that too a consequential one. I further identify the relational and material conditions of craft organizing that render damage salient in a craft. In the second essay, I study ways in which repairers deal with this damage within their work. I find that repairers manage the damage that they face in the course of their work by approaching it as a risk. Therefore, I use the theoretical lenses of risk organizing and risk work in this essay. Within these literatures, organizing of risk has primarily been studied in formal organizational settings (Gephart et al., 2009; Hardy & Maguire, 2016) using formal risk management technologies (Fischer & McGivern, 2016; Maguire & Hardy, 2013). However, risk organizing by actors in informal settings through reliance on embodied and experiential knowledge, and through their interlinkages with other actors has been understudied. I address this by developing a processual framework depicting the interactions between different entities in and through which risk is organized in four stages by repairers. I also lay out the mechanisms used by repairers to organize risk at different stages in the repair process. Through these essays, this thesis contributes to the literatures on craft, organizing of craft, risk work, and organizing of risk.

Literature consistently links student outcomes to various teacher-level factors. As per the school improvement research, teachers' innovative practices have a significant effect on student learning as well as non-academic outcomes. However, there is little research available on the factors that influence the innovative behaviour of teachers, especially within the critical context of Indian government teachers operating in highly resource-constrained environments. Accordingly, this study explored the factors that influence teachers' innovative behaviour in government schools. A multi-method approach was used to examine these factors. This thesis is divided into two studies: In the first study, we examined the meaning-making of teachers' innovative behaviour and the factors that support such behaviour. We utilised the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model and employed qualitative content analysis to identify the factors impacting teachers' innovative behaviour. The findings reveal that, in addition to common factors, there are several unique education system-specific factors, such as teacher-student relationships and engagement, leadership characteristics of public-school principals, in-house professional learning communities, and parental involvement. All these factors influenced teachers' innovative behaviour. In the second study, based on the findings of the qualitative study, we developed a theoretical model for quantitative examination. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources theory, this study examines how transformational leadership fosters teacher innovative behaviour. Analysing cross-sectional online survey data from 1,917 senior secondary teachers using structural equation modelling with bootstrapping in Mplus 8.0, we demonstrate that transformational leadership indirectly promotes innovative behaviour through a sequential pathway: by first cultivating a supportive school climate, which subsequently enhances teacher engagement. Crucially, trust in the principal moderates this entire sequential mediation process, strengthening the indirect effect whereby leadership influences innovative behaviour via school climate and engagement. This research advances JD-R theory by uniquely elucidating the sequential psychosocial mechanism (school climate-engagement) linking leadership to innovation and identifying trust in the principal as a pivotal boundary condition governing this pathway, underscoring the criticality of relational resources in constrained settings. The findings reveal how leadership and trust dynamically amplify effectiveness despite material limitations, offering significant practical implications: developing transformational leadership capabilities and fostering high-trust environments are essential levers for activating positive climates and engaged, innovative teaching practices in resource-scarce government schools, informing targeted leadership development and policy design for similar contexts.

To fuel the broadly hegemonic vision of becoming a developed country, India is undergoing a 'transition to more fossil fuel based energy' (Oskarsson et al., 2021). Annual domestic coal production is targeted at 1.5 billion tonnes by 2030, a planned growth of fifty percent in the next five years (Ministry of Coal, 2024a). Directed towards coal rich but comparatively underdeveloped regions of central and eastern India, this intensifying extraction imperative will dramatically escalate the heavily contested transformations induced by land use change in remote rural agrarian regions. Employing the extended case method (Burawoy, 1998) to study the dynamic empirical context of the vast North Karanpura Coalfield in Jharkhand, this thesis contributes to the rich tapestry of literature on such transformations. This literature has examined broad polarizing understandings of agrarian to industrial land use change as inherently developmental versus the universalized figure of the subaltern resisting dispossession and consequently development. I contribute to this by extending analytical focus from land to space, conceptualized as an actively produced web of relations (Lefebvre, 1974/1991). Complementing the literature on planetary urbanization inspired by Lefebvre's work (Brenner & Schmid, 2015) with the growing literature on changing urban-rural dynamics in contemporary India (Balakrishnan & Gururani, 2021), I examine everyday complexities and contradictions that underlie this larger sociospatial transformation. My main finding is that this transformation is engendering uneven development at a localized scale, linked to uneven access to various emerging opportunities. I find that activation of coal blocks has unleashed a spatiotemporally protracted churn such that vanishing villages and dispersing rural social ties are intertwined with the emergence of new central sites and differentially urbanizing relations of work and social reproduction. Contributing to the literature on rural-urban dynamics in India, I highlight how rural relations of skewed land holding, gendered and caste based dynamics that are tied to differential political agency and social capital within affected communities, challenge and mediate these urbanizing transformations. Circumscribed by the stated inevitability of the extraction imperative and the transformations it will induce, I argue for a shift from the current coal block based planning to a more holistically planned regional transformation for the inclusive development of internally differentiated affected communities.

In this thesis, I explore two contrasting aspects of new ventures, their rise and fall, positioned at the opposite ends of the venture life cycle. In my first essay, I explore why some new ventures receive larger initial financial resources compared to others in a country facing institutional constraints. External funding is crucial for new ventures' growth and survival. However, investors may avoid committing funds as they are skeptical of new ventures' prospects in the absence of credible performance indicators and the lack of institutions that can certify the quality of these ventures. I argue and find that resource providers rely on founding teams` specialized educational qualifications, considered most relevant in an institutional setting, to perceive new ventures as legitimate, influencing their initial funding decisions. Moreover, I also uncover the nuanced connections between different types of human capital in influencing investors' funding behaviour. I use two studies-one observational and one experimental-to test my hypotheses. I contribute to the literature that explains new venture-investor dynamics. My findings have implications for team formation, resource acquisition, and entrepreneurial ecosystem development. My second essay looks at the opposite end of a venture's life cycle to uncover the process of entrepreneurial failure in early-stage ventures. Over half of new ventures fail within the first two years, yet important questions remain unanswered. While past research has predominantly explored antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial failure, much remains to be known about how the process of entrepreneurial failure actually takes shape. I rely on entrepreneurs' sensemaking to uncover how those who have terminated their ventures experience the failing process in their journey. To uncover this phenomenon, I utilize a qualitative interpretive design and employ an in-depth semi-structured interview of 22 entrepreneurs who terminated their ventures. I find that entrepreneurs go through three interlinked phases before terminating their ventures. I uncover individuals' reference-based sensemaking processes when moving through the stages. I explain this process by identifying a progressively transforming relationship between the entrepreneur and the venture. I see myself contributing to the literature linking sensemaking and entrepreneurial failure, having implications for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship-enabling institutions.

How do organizations adapt their strategies in response to climate policy uncertainty and climate transition risks? The first essay draws on the sociological perspective on institutional logics to interpret the banks' strategies in lending to carbon intensive (brown) firms. We address the question on why there is heterogeneity in the way banks perceive climate transition risks across different borrowers and geographies? Drawing on the institutional logics' perspective, we examine how commercial banks redefine the risks relating to the transition financing of carbon-intensive firms within the existing risk evaluation structures of the banks. We also factor how does country level climate preparedness at the borrower and lender countries impact the lending decision of the banks. The study contributes to the existing literature on institutional logics perspective by testing how banks institutionalize climate transition risk into a business logic as banks build strategies on the rules for engagement with brown firms. The second essay draws on the economic perspective of real-options theory to explain the strategy behind the decision to defer capital investments when short-term growth opportunities exist. The uncertainty associated with the climate policies post-Paris Agreement has created a dichotomy in the investment strategy for the brown firms. Drawing on the real options lens, we hypothesize and empirically show that brown firms' decisions on postponing capital investments are supplemented by the actions taken to preserve their market position and market value during policy uncertainty. We demonstrate that post the Paris Agreement, the brown firms demonstrate a strategic preference for flexibility in both operational leverage and financial structures while signaling intent to decarbonize through reduced emission intensity, even as they pursue growth strategies. We demonstrate through our essays, evidence of credible adaptation strategies to mitigate the business risks in line with the climate policy uncertainty. We also find evidence signaling the organizations are incorporating transitioning strategies as they prepare for a lower carbon economy.

Teacher victimization is defined as "multi-systemic actions perpetrated against teachers within the social contexts of schools, neighbourhoods, and social media" (Anderman et al., 2018, p. 623). The school victimization literature primarily focuses on student victimization only; teacher victimization is an under-researched area across the world (Longobardi et al., 2019). In this thesis, I followed a sequential exploratory design to examine the factors shaping teacher victimization and its consequences in the states of North India. In the first part of the thesis, I explored teachers' understanding of victimization. Essentially, I explored how teachers explain victimizing behavior, the factors associated with victimization, and how such experiences affect them professionally and personally. Five focus-group discussions, field notes, and 17 semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. Focus group conversations and interviews were coded using a thematic analysis. Inductive (exploratory coding) was used to identify the emergent themes from the data. Themes revolved around victimizing behaviors, underlying factors associated with such behaviors, impact on teachers, and mechanisms for resolution. I used the findings of the qualitative strand to derive the hypothesized model for the quantitative strand. I borrowed from the Job Demands-Resources model and Conservation of Resources Theory to hypothesize the relationship between teacher victimization, teachers? teaching self-efficacy, and burnout. A sample of 1043 respondents was used to test the hypothesized model. Using structured-equation modelling, I found teacher victimization was significantly related to burnout, through lowered self-efficacy of the teachers (?=0.020, at 99% confidence interval). This thesis shed light on teachers' experiences and provides insights into the consequences of teacher victimization. The findings of this work have implications for teachers, schools, governing bodies to work towards safer school environment for the teachers.

In this thesis, we study the impact of government agricultural policies and industrial pollution on agricultural productivity and the environment. We contribute to various strands of literature that study cash transfers, organic farming and air pollution linkages with agricultural productivity. Additionally, our contribution to the spatial economics literature lies in applying advanced policy evaluation methods that integrate the flexibility of remote-sensing data with better policy evaluation designs. The first essay leverages the flexibility of granular pixel-level satellite panel data and a well-developed quasi-experimental policy evaluation design to study a program where pre implementation data is unavailable . We estimate the effect of cash transfers on agricultural productivity in Telangana, India. Treatment and control regions are within 10 km on either side of the state border. They are identical in all respects except for the difference in exposure to policy treatment. Agricultural productivity increased in the major monsoon cropping season due to the cash transfer program. The findings also reveal that cash transfers helped minimize productivity gaps between irrigated and rainfed agricultural areas. This approach to policy evaluation is applicable anywhere satellite data are available in the world. In the second essay, we contribute to the scarce literature on the causal impacts of organic farming relative to conventional farming on agricultural productivity, air quality, and water quality. We investigate the causal effects of organic farming using pixel-level satellite data from various sources in the context of Sikkim, India-the only place in the world that is 100 per cent organic. We develop our customized and strictly defined treatment and control regions within 20 kilometres of the shared border between Sikkim and its neighbouring state, West Bengal. The findings reveal an increase in agricultural productivity during the major cropping season as a result of the adoption of organic farming. Additionally, we find significant improvement in air quality and no discernible effect on the eutrophication of surrounding water bodies. In the third essay, we study the impact of air pollution on agricultural productivity with a focus on the cement industry. Using proximity to cement plants as an instrumental variable, we find that pollution from cement plants leads to a decline in agricultural productivity by 3.59 percent. The impact varies depending on the type of emissions, with carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide having the most significant negative effect. The decline in productivity is more pronounced in irrigated regions and decreases with distance from cement plants, corresponding to lower pollution levels. Our findings suggest that investments aimed at boosting agricultural productivity may be less effective if pollution from nearby industrial activities is not addressed.

The CEO of an organization plays a significant role in formulating the strategy and directing the resources of the organization. The Upper Echelons Theory explains that a CEO's characteristics influence the outcomes of an organization. Research studies demonstrate the increase in the CEO effect on organizational performance. In particular, studies highlight the need to examine the psychological characteristics of CEOs and analyze their impact on the organizations and the CEOs. The first essay focuses on the display of a CEO's anger in earnings calls and its impact on analysts' stock recommendations. While much of the existing literature has addressed the impact of CEO emotions on employees, I examine how external evaluators, i.e., analysts, respond to a CEO's display of anger. Drawing on the social exchange theory, I find that CEO anger triggers negative reciprocity, where analysts tend to retaliate by downgrading recommendations, thereby impacting firm value. The relationship is further nuanced by the emotional displays of analysts themselves and by CEO duality. My second essay investigates the impact of a CEO's regulatory focus, i.e., promotion and prevention foci, on their risk of dismissal, particularly when an organization is in a precarious situation. By analyzing CEO dismissal events across the S&P 1500 firms, I find that both high promotion and high prevention foci are associated with an increased likelihood of CEO dismissal, albeit through distinct mechanisms. The study primarily contributes to the literature on CEO dismissal by focusing on the role of CEO's psychological characteristics in their dismissal. In my third essay, I examine the influence of a CEO's temporal focus on the likelihood of negative earnings surprises. Using a large-scale, longitudinal dataset of the S&P 1500 firms and analyzing more than 50,000 earnings call transcripts, I demonstrate that a CEO's temporal orientation systematically biases the organization's propensity to meet or miss analysts' earnings forecasts. My study shows that a CEO's temporal focus influences not only the performance of the organization but also the perception of external stakeholders.

Collaborations between nonprofits and governments have been articulated as being necessary for effective service delivery, as highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-17). In this thesis, I study two aspects of these collaborations in the Indian context. In the first part, I analyze the antecedents of collaborations from the perspective of nonprofit organizations. Drawing primarily on the resource dependence theory, institutional theory, and transaction cost approaches, extant research points to the importance of organization-level and institutional preconditions in driving the decision to collaborate for nonprofits. To study these, I adopt a concurrent mixed-methods research design. I rely on a close-ended sample survey of 571 nonprofits and in-depth interviews with 24 nonprofit leaders. I use the 'following a thread' approach to integrate the findings. I contend that resource-insufficient nonprofits are less likely to collaborate directly with governments. I show that nonprofits offset the costs of collaboration by first collaborating with other nonprofits rather than directly working with governments. Additionally, I argue that the institutional environment of a nonprofit plays a significant role in shaping its decision to collaborate with governments. In the second part, I examine the evolution of governance arrangements in a collaborative setting. While governance of collaborative arrangements between nonprofits and governments is essential for handling external uncertainties and inter-organizational coordination, limited attention has been paid to it. To unpack this, I conducted an in-depth study of a collaboration between seven nonprofits and the government in a remote geography. Methodologically, I rely on a longitudinal single case study design and adopt a process lens to delineate the different phases of collaboration. In addition to analyzing official documents, I conducted 32 in-depth interviews with office bearers from all the organizations engaged in the collaboration. I identify three distinct phases of the evolution of governance arrangements. I find that nonprofit's resource dependence shapes the partnership's initial formation and governance arrangement. However, this also allows for the emergence of tensions at interfaces, requiring a shift in goals and form. I contribute to the literature on the governance of collaboration by explaining the co-evolution of governance arrangements and collaborative tensions.

Workplace incivility is the most subtle and covert form of mistreatment in organizational settings. Research suggests that workplace incivility is associated with negative work outcomes, lower job satisfaction, and reduced overall well-being. While research on how individuals respond to workplace incivility has primarily focused on individual-level factors, organizational-level factors, such as HRM systems, may also influence how employees respond to incivility. This research examines how HRM systems, particularly a combination of HRM configurations and the strength of the HRM system, influence employees' responses to workplace incivility. Whether employees respond constructively by voicing their concerns or destructively by staying silent or leaving the organization is predicted to be influenced by how they perceive the HR signals of the organization's HRM system. This is a crucial line of inquiry, as it uncovers how an organization's HRM system can shape the prevalence of incivility. This research is presented in the form of two essays employing signaling theory. In both essays, the experimental vignette method was used to understand employee responses in three forms: fight, flight, and freeze. Based on a sample of 285 participants, essay one examined how the combination of HRM configuration and HRM system strength moderates the response to incivility. Findings reveal that employee-oriented configurations with high strength elicited a fight response, while market-oriented configurations with low strength elicited a flight response. Study two examined the significance of the intensity of workplace incivility by investigating how the type of intensity (low versus high) of incivility signals varied levels of clarity of the negative phenomenon, leading to diverse employee responses under different HR system combinations. Drawing on a sample of 610 participants, essay two further investigates how the intensity of incivility influences employee responses, alongside the impact of HR signals stemming from various combinations of HRM configuration and system strength. The second essay contributes to the theoretical advancement of the subtle negative behaviour of workplace incivility, with particular attention to variations in its intensity and clarity in signals. Implications for workplace incivility and HRM systems within organisations are discussed.

Food waste is a serious global concern, with ugly food being a major contributor. Ugly food refers to produce that deviates from standard size, colour, or shape. Consumers do not purchase ugly food because of its appearance despite its normal food attributes. This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of consumer purchase behaviour towards ugly food. In the first essay, we explore drivers, barriers, and interventions for ugly food purchase. We adopt a qualitative research approach using open-ended essays and employ the theoretical frameworks of Theory of Consumption Values and Innovation Resistance Theory. The key insights obtained from thematic analysis of the open-ended essays collected from 52 participants suggest that consumers purchase ugly food due to its functional attributes and fun nature. Their purchase of ugly food is driven by their environmental and social concerns and emotional connection with food-growing practices. The study also highlights the role of social media in fostering curiosity about ugly food. However, limited exposure to ugly food and difficulties in cleaning and preparation reduce consumer willingness to purchase it. Furthermore, social norms, misperceptions, and judgments also create consumer biases which can be addressed by educating them and introducing various interventions at the retail and government levels. In the second essay, we conduct repeated cross-sectional studies to analyse consumer-related factors, such as nostalgia and connectedness to nature, and a product-related factor, like local support, as motivators of consumer behaviour towards ugly food. We find that nostalgia, connectedness to nature, and local support positively influence consumer attitude, which mediates their relationship with purchase intention, subsequently translating into actual purchasing behaviour. These findings remain consistent over time. In the third essay, we examine how consumer health perception acts as a barrier to purchase ugly food. Drawing upon Cue Utilisation Theory, we demonstrate that ugly food develops negative health perception, which in turn reduces purchase intention. However, we suggest health messages as an intervention and employ the Accessibility and Diagnosticity Framework to illustrate that these messages can enhance health perception and increase purchase intention. Through this research, we contribute to the ugly food literature and also offer multiple implications for policy and the food retail industry.