Purpose: Innovative restaurant service designs impart food wellbeing to diners. This research comprehends customer aspirations and concerns in a restaurant-dining experience to develop a service design that enhances the dining experience using the design thinking approach and evaluates its efficiency using the Taguchi method of robust design. Design/methodology/approach: The sequential incidence technique defines diners' needs, which, followed by brainstorming sessions, helped create multiple service designs with important attributes. Prototype narration, as a scenario, acted as the stimulus for evaluators to respond to the WHO-5 wellbeing index scale. Scenario-based Taguchi experiment with nine foodservice attributes in two levels and the wellbeing score as the response variable helped identify levels of critical factors that develop better FWB. Findings: The study identified the best combination of factors and their preferred levels to maximize FWB in a restaurant. Food serving hygiene, followed by information about cuisine specification, and food movement in the restaurant, were important to FWB. The experiment revealed that hygiene perceptions are critical to FWB, and service designs have a significant role in it. Consumers prefer detailed information about the ingredients and recipe of the food they eat; being confident that there will be no unacceptable ingredients added to the food inspires their FWB. Research limitations/implications: Theoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on design thinking and transformative service research, especially in the food industry. Practical implications: This paper details a simple method to identify and evaluate important factors that optimize FWB in a restaurant. The proposed methodology will help service designers and technology experts devise settings that consider customer priorities and contribute to their experience. Originality/value: This study helps to understand the application of design thinking and the Taguchi approach for creating robust service designs that optimize FWB. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This study investigates whether gold, USD, and Bitcoin are hedge and safe haven assets against stock and if they are useful in diversifying downside risk for international stock markets. We propose a combined GO-GARCH-EVT-copula approach to examine the hedge and safe haven properties of gold, USD, and Bitcoin. We then examine the attractiveness of these assets in reducing stock portfolio risk by using downside risk measures estimated by the proposed approach and other competing models. We also evaluate the relative performance of the proposed model in reducing downside risk with the competing models. The findings of the study indicate that the USD is the most valuable hedge and safe haven asset closely followed by gold, while Bitcoin is the least valuable. It is also observed that the proposed combined approach performs best in reducing the portfolio downside risk. The findings of this study are of significance for portfolio managers and individual investors who wish to protect the portfolio value during market turmoil. © 2022 University of New Orleans.

Purpose: Business-to-business (B2B) relations will become more prevalent in many areas such as delivery services, based on current trends supporting e-commerce proliferation. In addition, hyperlocal e-commerce, which focuses on customers in a small geographic region, relies heavily on another business to handle the supply chain. Emerging trends in business to business to customer (B2B2C) experiences provide retailers with opportunities to develop strategies for better customer service. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a scale for measuring business customer experience in the B2B2C aggregator business model. Design/methodology/approach: Using the psychometric scale development procedure, the researchers devised a 29-item, six-dimensional scale measuring business customer experience with the help of two cross-sectional studies. Restaurant managers who rely on delivery partners to serve their customers were surveyed twice. The authors validated a scale for assessing business customer experience using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings: Based on fit criteria, a higher-order formative structure was best suited to the scale. The dimensions identified were shared vision, interaction experience, end-customer focus, relationship experience, service experience and outcome focus. According to the study, business customer experience is more objective and utilitarian than existing paradigms on customer experience. Research limitations/implications: Theoretically, this research helps to understand the underpinnings behind the formation of business customer experience and attempt to bring transformative service research focus in the B2B2C trilogy as better experiences predict the well-being of members of the business centre in the B2B. Practical implications: Practically, this research helps businesses to revisit their strategies for a better relationship with business partners for jointly offering an improved experience to the end customers. Originality/value: This study explains a pioneer attempt to develop a scale for business customer experience in the context of B2B2C aggregator business models. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Constructive Engagement (CE) aims at developing sustainable and equitable marketing systems that ensure collective well-being. This paper reflects on an initiative that constructively engages with impoverished market actors, i.e., rag-picking women in India. It is endeavored by operationalizing Integrative Justice Model (IJM) principles while trying to tackle the issue of solid waste management. Our findings suggest that CE across the spectrum in the value chain is required to alleviate the conditions of disadvantaged market actors and improve their well-being. Our qualitative inquiry in rag-picking women’s lives and an initiative of social enterprise contribute to the ongoing conversation in macromarketing literature- (1) by empirically evidencing how the CE operationalizes the IJM and help redress the issues of social traps and internalities; (2) by uniquely connecting the macro issues of waste management with the issues of honesty, fairness, dignity and deserved justice in the neglected market transactions; (3) that IJM principles guide the constructive engagement process. © The Author(s) 2021.

Researchers have increasingly focused on customer engagement in business-to-business markets, which is critical to firms' long-term performance. In contrast, limited research addresses customer disengagement in business-to-business markets. It is essential to understand this area as customer disengagement harms sellers' revenue, growth, and reputation. We extend previous research in three areas. First, we examine customer disengagement from a broader perspective than relationship termination. Second, we develop a framework for understanding customer disengagement. Finally, we identify the moderators of the relationship between customer dissatisfaction (with the relationship) and customer engagement/disengagement and categorize them as product/service, relationship, and external factors. The findings offer important managerial and theoretical contributions and suggest directions for future research. © 2021

The purpose of this study is to empirically test and validate a multi-dimensional structure of ‘In-loco Destination Image’ and ‘perceived meaningfulness’ using an integrated model of visitor loyalty. The model was tested using data collected from responses of foreign tourists visiting India (n = 246). The results identified six dimensions of ‘In-loco Destination Image’: Amenities, Attractions, Leisure, Culture, Support Systems, and Hospitality. In addition, the investigation observes that of the identified dimensions of perceived meaningfulness, the ‘spiritual’ and ‘societal’ dimensions contribute more to perceived meaningfulness than the ‘physical well-being’ aspect. Further, the exploration estimated the theoretical framework developed using structural equation modelling and established the mediating role of perceived meaningfulness in developing visitor loyalty from ‘In-loco Destination Image.’ The study’s observations helped identify three positioning approaches, namely objective, subjective, and combined, offering suggestions to destination marketers to effectively reposition Indian destinations. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In a quest to investigate whether perceptions of authenticity can engage consumers with brands, the present study examines the influence of perceived brand authenticity (PBA) on consumer brand engagement (CBE). Furthermore, the study explores the influence of CBE on consumers’ brand usage intention (BUI) and willingness to pay a price premium (WPP). Data were collected online from 380 brand users and examined using the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The results reveal that PBA's continuity, credibility, and integrity dimensions positively influence CBE, further influencing BUI and WPP. Moreover, multi-group moderation analysis reveals that statistically significant differences exist in the path estimates for ‘high self-congruence’ and ‘low self-congruence’ consumer groups, thus confirming the moderating role of self-congruence. Finally, the study concludes with an overview of the implications followed by the crucial limitations and directions for future research. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

Our selection and endogeneity corrected findings suggest that firms' political connections negatively influence their market value. We find that firms with a larger size, more operationally efficient in utilizing their assets, and those operating in more concentrated industries benefit more from the political connections than the otherwise corresponding firms. We also report that political connections do not influence firms' leverage choices. However, we find that politically connected firms with higher leverage have significantly lower market value. Further, we note that political connections help the firms operating in unregulated but more concentrated industries, probably to obtain 'private benefits', leading to their higher market value. Overall, our results indicate that the effect of political connections is not homogeneous across the sample firms. They also raise questions on the motivation of sample firms' political connections, suggesting that these firms probably obtain political connections for reasons other than enhancing their market value. Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of V.K. Aggarwal.

This paper examines how the Government of India (GOI) used macrosocial marketing (MSM) to address the issues of clean cooking fuel accessibility and affordability and structural inequalities in subsidy redistribution. It highlights a novel MSM application to address chrematistics in marketing systems. Two initiatives established by the GOI are examined. “Give It Up” encourages wealthier households to surrender liquid petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies, leaving these to poorer families, and Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) installs LPG connections for poor, rural women. The research explores how the GOI has addressed economic inefficiencies and structural inequalities, focusing on institutional norms and affordability, accessibility, awareness, and acceptability (the “4As”). The research expands the theoretical boundaries of MSM in relation to poverty and identifies its capacity to affect individual and systemic change through formal and informal institutional changes. Although new institutional norms were adopted, PMUY could not address the ongoing affordability of LPG, despite the changes to LPG subsidies. © The Author(s) 2022.

An urgent need for reasonable practices has been introduced and familiarized in institutions in every sector to control the impending disaster due to climate change. Significant steps have been initiated to control the escalating emissions, climate change, and global warming. Recently, an international contract was signed in Paris targeting net zero emissions by 2050. This study was conducted to positively support the cause and assist in its progress. This study identifies some of the critical factors hindering the progress of net-zero emission (NZE)-supporting technologies and methods within firms in various sectors. For a broader understanding of these factors, they were sorted according to suitable criteria. A novel methodological approach of PF-Delphi-AHP-CoCoSo and sensitivity analysis was utilized to draw results regarding the priority of consideration for the critical factors relating to the importance of their criteria. A questionnaire was prepared, and a panel of experts was consulted for their opinions, according to which the analysis was conducted. The results show that managerial issues and a lack of professional expertise have the highest importance, meaning that these are the key fields where attention is needed to implement the NZE agenda. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to inspect the influence of organizational climate on the social desirability of political behaviour of employees. It also examines perception of politics and perceived behavioural choice as the underlying mechanisms that mediate the relationship between organizational climate and social desirability of political tactics. Finally, the paper studies the influence of desirability of politics on frequency of use of political tactics. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses data (n = 234) collected from a large public sector organization in India. The inter-relationships are tested empirically using structural equation modelling. Findings: The findings suggest that organizational climate significantly influences the social desirability of political tactics such that positive climate leads to lower social desirability of political tactics. Also, perception of politics and perceived behavioural choice mediate the relationship between organizational climate and desirability of political tactics. Finally, the social desirability of political tactics positively and significantly influences frequency of political tactics used. Research limitations/implications: Because of the nature of the study, generalization must be made with caution since it has been conducted in an Indian public sector organization, and errors due to measurement method could be present. The study provides a better understanding of the relationship between organizational climate and political behaviour and clarifies the mediating role of perception of politics and behavioural choices. It also elucidates the need for organizations to accept the active role of employees in determining the nature of workplace politics. Originality/value: The study establishes political perceptions and perceived behavioural choice as important mediators between climate and political behaviour, fostering in-depth research into the environmental aspects of public sector organizations. It also establishes employees as autonomous members of the organization who make political choices by taking into account their organizational contexts, a concept much newer to highly formalized and codified public sector organizations. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how perceptions of politics (POP) impact individuals’ willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and how this relationship is impacted by individuals’ conscientiousness and political skills. Design/methodology/approach: Primary data collected from 211 employee working in the consultancy sector in India were analyzed using hierarchical moderated regression technique. Findings: The authors found a significant three-way interaction between POP, conscientiousness and political skill in predicting OCB. Presence of high conscientiousness and high political skill alleviates the negative effect of politics on OCB. Research limitations/implications: The data were collected from consultancy sector organizations, and thus, generalizability of the results is somewhat limited. Further, self-report surveys are used for data collection. Future studies should use multiple methods to collect data to avoid common method bias. Practical implications: The results suggest that to alleviate the negative effect of POP on OCB, practitioners should recruit employees with high levels of conscientiousness and impart training to develop political skill. Originality/value: This study attempts to take a holistic person-centric approach to study the moderating effect of personality variable and political skill when examining the linkage between perceived politics and citizenship behavior. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The purpose of this research is to examine various incidents relating to both delightful and terrible hospitality experiences in the hotel industry, using a qualitative research design. Critical incident analysis is conducted on data collected from 167 respondents in major tourist destinations of India. An open-ended questionnaire is developed for conducting in-depth interviews. Results reveal 16 interpersonal and 8 non-interpersonal factors responsible for customer delight and terrible experiences, affecting a consumer’s revisit intention and favourable recommendations. Some of the interpersonal factors include attractive voice, quick response and well dressed. The non-interpersonal factors are related to cleanliness, interiors, food and other physical evidence. A few critical limitations and future research directions are suggested. Some decisive implications for industry practitioners are also discussed. This study promotes interpersonal interactions between employees and customers by facilitating the effective use of technology. Society will also benefit from the effective implementation of such technology in the service industry. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no research has explored delightful and terrible customer experiences within the Indian hospitality industry. © 2022 International Management Institute, New Delhi.

Purpose: We study the role of school climate, and teacher task, and citizenship performance in mediating the effects of principal instructional leadership behavior on student achievement. Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling was applied to data obtained from 302 Indian secondary schools to test a mediated-effects model. Findings: School climate was examined under two broad dimensions, the social and affective and the physical environment. Results of mediation analysis showed that the benefits of principal instructional leadership for student achievement are operationalized as an indirect effect. This indirect effect is realized primarily through the physical environment, and the in-role task performance of teachers. No significant contribution to the indirect effect through the social and affective environment was found. The latter, nonetheless, fully mediated the relationship between the instructional leadership and extra-role or citizenship behavior of teachers. These findings underscore the different and distinct mediating roles played by the social and affective, and physical dimensions of the school climate in our model. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, the reported associations between principal instructional leadership, school climate and student achievement that take into account both the in-role and extra-role job performance of teachers within the purview of a single framework are new. Also, this is the first study exploring these relations in an Indian context. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: This study aims to examine factors influencing purchase intentions of households toward solar rooftops, using diffusion of innovation theory. Design/methodology/approach: Six dimensions from the diffusion of innovation theory have been contemplated to assess households’ purchase intentions toward solar rooftops. Primary data was collected from 863 respondents by using a purposive sampling technique from different parts of India. The study used structural equation modeling analysis to examine the data. Findings: Results confirmed that the dimensions, namely, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, innovations and observability, positively influence households’ purchase intentions of solar rooftops, except for the trialability dimension. Research limitations/implications: Data for the study is based on a purposive sampling technique that restricts the representation of the whole population. There may be variance in public perception from place to place due to demographic and psychographic differences. Practical implications: The present study would facilitate devising a roadmap to improve the quality of the environment. Policy planners, researchers and professionals would find the implications of this study helpful in developing critical strategies. Originality/value: The research practically explores households’ intention to purchase solar rooftops by filling the gap in previous literature. Findings of the study can equip firms with several advantages. Through the present study, one gets to know that developed and developing economies have similar energy usage issues. Further, it empirically examines the applicability of diffusion of innovation theory in the solar rooftops context. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: Social television (Social TV) viewing of live sports events is an emerging trend. The realm of transformative service research (TSR) envisions that every service consumption experience must lead to consumer well-being. Currently, a full appreciation of the well-being factors obtained through Social TV viewing is lacking. This study aims to gain a holistic understanding of the concept of digital sports well-being obtained through live Social TV viewing of sports events. Design/methodology/approach: Focus group interviews were used to collect data from the 40 regular sports viewers, and the qualitative data obtained is analyzed thematically using NVivo 12. A post hoc verification of the identified themes is done to narrow down the most critical themes. Findings: The exploration helped understand the concept of digital sports well-being (DSW) obtained through live Social TV sports spectating and identified five critical themes that constitute its formation. The themes that emerged were virtual connectedness, vividness, uncertainty reduction, online disinhibition and perceived autonomy. This study defines the concept and develops a conceptual model for DSW. Research limitations/implications: This study adds to the body of knowledge in TSR, transformative sport service research, digital customer engagement, value co-creation in digital platforms, self-determination theory and flow theory. The qualitative study is exploratory, with participants’ views based on a single match in one particular sport, and as such, its findings are restrained by the small sample size and the specific sport. To extend this study’s implications, empirical research involving a larger and more diversified sample involving multiple sports Social TV viewing experiences would help better understand the DSW concept. Practical implications: The research provides insights to Social TV live streamers of sporting events and digital media marketers about the DSW construct and identifies the valued DSW dimensions that could provide a competitive advantage. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the exploration is the first attempt to describe the concept of DSW and identify associated themes. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

In this digital era, data is new oil and artificial intelligence (AI) is new electricity, which is needed in different elements of operations management (OM) such as manufacturing, product development, services and supply chain. This study explores the feasibility of AI utilization within an organization on six factors such as job-fit, complexity, long-term consequences, affect towards use, social factors and facilitating conditions for different elements of OM by mining the collective intelligence of experts on Twitter and through academic literature. The study provides guidelines for managers for AI applications in different components of OM and concludes by presenting the limitations of the study along with future research directions. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play an essential role in economic growth. COVID-19 severely affected this sector, given its dependence on logistics. Logistics 4.0 is a progressive and vital technology for the MSME sector in developed economies. However, certain inhibitors cause MSMEs to face criticality and difficulty when adopting Logistics 4.0. Therefore, the authors first identified fourteen inhibitors through a detailed structured literature review and then used the Delphi method to finalise the inhibitors for further analysis. Furthermore, the modified total interpretive structural modelling (M-TISM) technique was applied to identify the levels and interrelationships among the inhibitors. Subsequently, the inhibitors were categorised into four main clusters by their dependence and driving power using matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) analysis. This study reveals that MSMEs must prioritise five critical inhibitors during the Logistics 4.0 adoption process. The authors also develop five propositions. Timely action on the recommendations can help MSMEs owners, managers, and employees quickly adopt Logistics 4.0. Finally, the authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions for a better understanding of adopting Logistics 4.0. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose: This paper aims to create a better understanding of the challenges posed by work from home (WFH) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate the public sentiment toward this transition, and to develop a conceptual model incorporating the relationships among the factors that influence the effectiveness of WFH. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses netnography method to collect data from the Twitter platform and uses Python programming language, Natural Language Processing techniques and IBM SPSS 26 to conduct sentiment analysis and directed content analysis on the data. The findings are combined with an extensive review of the remote work literature to develop a conceptual model. Findings: Results show the majority of tweets about WFH during the pandemic are positive and objective with technology and cyber security as the most repeated topics in the tweets. New challenges to WFH during pandemic include future uncertainty, health concerns, home workspaces, self-isolation, lack of recreational activities and support mechanisms. In addition, exhaustion and technostress mediate the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of WFH during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the fear of pandemic and coping strategies moderates these relationships. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first efforts to comprehensively investigate the challenges of WFH during a crisis and to extend the remote work literature by developing a conceptual model incorporating the moderating effects of fear of pandemic and coping strategies. Moreover, it is the first paper to investigate the tweeting behavior of different user types on Twitter who shared posts about WFH during the ongoing pandemic. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Humanitarian logistics is an integral part of disaster relief operations, which involves the phases of preparedness, disaster operations, and post-disaster operations. Integrating the planning and execution between phases minimizes the gaps in providing relief to the affected population. This paper presents a two-stage multi-objective mathematical model for integrated decision-making during the preparation and response phases. The proposed model is developed to jointly optimize the location of emergency shelters (and/or depots) and coordinate the movement of relief vehicles between the disaster site and emergency shelters. Focusing on the optimal distribution of relief supplies to the emergency shelters, the proposed model aims to minimize the operational, distributive injustice, and dissatisfaction costs. To address the computational complexity of the introduced model, two multi-objective meta-heuristics, namely multi-objective vibration damping optimization and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), are used. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis is conducted to study the impacts of variations in key parameters on model output under different scenarios. Our results suggests that the employed solution algorithms outperform the traditional optimization methods in achieving the Pareto-Front solutions. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.