This article focuses on the current state of management literature about the emerging nutraceutical industry, examining its strengths and weaknesses and future research opportunities within the context of global goals to end hunger, such as United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In this paper, we review one decade of nutraceutical management literature in the context of international antihunger agreements, detailing trends in the literature related to geographic and temporal diffusion, journals publishing in these topics, research methodologies applied, theoretical approaches discussed, and managerial research themes addressed (including sustainability issues). Nutraceuticals have been proposed by international public–private partnerships and food industry actors as having the potential to address malnutrition and undernourishment. The review reflects that research on nutraceutical business practices is still in its early stages. The study indicates that future research and policy-related studies should focus on resolving the operational challenges that underdeveloped and developing economies face in improving accessibility and affordability. © 2021 Decision Sciences Institute

Motivation: Farmer suicides in India have been intensely debated since the economic reforms of the early 1990s. A closer look at the statistics, however, suggests that singling out farmer suicides may miss the point, because other professions have higher rates of suicide. Purpose: This article aims to set farmer suicides in context, by comparing rates of these against suicide rates for other occupations and groups, between 1995 and 2015, and across 17 states of India. Approach and methods: The term “agrarian suicides” is preferred to “farmer suicides,” because the reported data include deaths of agricultural labourers as well as farmers. Commonly quoted statistics on suicide across population groups are not commensurate: agrarian suicides are reported per person employed, while for other professions rates are reported against all people in households with that profession. This article corrects this by reporting rates per person employed. Findings: One, the rate of suicide among the agrarian group is less than that among several other professions, including self-employed and service (private). Two, while the rates of suicide have been rising for most other groups since the mid-1990s, the rate for agrarian suicides has been falling since the early 2000s. Three, a large majority, 87%, of agrarian suicides occur in just eight states, mainly in central and southern India. Four, problems with farming are not among the most common stated reasons for agrarian suicides; rather, personal, family and other problems dominate. Policy implications: India needs to encourage responsible reporting of and discussion about agrarian suicides. It would be appropriate to design and implement state- and region-specific suicide prevention strategies. Priority policies should address a public health crisis, rather than pin the blame on agricultural policy, conditions, or technical changes in farming. © The Authors 2020. Development Policy Review © 2020 Overseas Development Institute

Industry 4.0 technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things and 3D printing are aiding the manufacturers by complementing their skilled workforce and transforming the way factories are run. This paper studies an integrated production and transportation scheduling problem in the context of the spare parts supply chain by integrating 3D printing with JIT delivery systems. This work aims to find a synchronised production and distribution schedule that minimises the weighted sum of delivery times and transportation costs. Based on the characteristics of the problem, we propose a new set-covering formulation. An enhanced branch-and-price algorithm is designed to solve the problem instances to optimality. To expedite the column generation process, two acceleration strategies are also used. The computational results are in favour of the proposed algorithm and the acceleration strategies. Further, the results indicate that integrating the production and transportation scheduling decisions leads to an average savings of about 16.27% of the total costs. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Procurement of aid material such as vaccines by a humanitarian agency (HA) is often fraught with uncertainties. For example, an epidemic outbreak can increase the demand for materials (such as vaccines) in a very short period. Most of the HAs depend on external donations (funding) to procure necessary vaccines to meet this demand. Hence, it is financially infeasible and operationally inefficient for the HA to procure large quantities of aid material in anticipation of a demand spike during an epidemic outbreak. Thus, the procurement processes for aid materials such as vaccines need to be flexible enough to meet these demand fluctuations. HAs can achieve this flexibility by employing a procurement mechanism portfolio that includes upfront buying, capacity reservation, spot market purchase, etc. However, the challenge lies in identifying the optimal combination of multiple procurement mechanisms and how they can be utilized to coordinate the humanitarian supply chain. In this study, we explore the feasibility of quantity flexibility contracts along with discount incentives combined with spot market procurement in humanitarian supply chains for aid material procurement. We also derive the conditions under which the contract can achieve systemic coordination between the supplier and HA. Furthermore, we also illustrate that under optimal conditions, the procurement of aid material using multiple procurement mechanisms by HA can also reduce the humanitarian supply chain’s total cost. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Visual brand identity plays a major role in communicating brand image in today’s cluttered marketing environment. Although studies related to brand identity elements have explored the effects of its individual elements such as logo, brand name, taglines, their holistic impact has not been fully investigated. Extending the design principles of biomorphism (which is imitating natural or nature-related attributes) from environmental psychology and architecture, we introduce a new holistic concept called biomorphic visual identity and test its influence on consumer responses, including perceived sustainability and perceived credibility, which lead to brand liking and purchase intentions. Findings from the study (a 2 × 2 mixed experimental design with visually manipulated—biomorphic vs. non-biomorphic—fictitious brand identity as stimuli and n = 420) suggest that the biomorphic visual identity of a brand influences marketing outcomes mediated by perceived sustainability and perceived credibility, both of which positively influence consumers’ brand likability and purchase intentions. The results also show that visual biomorphic elements have a higher impact than verbal ones on consumer responses. The idea of biomorphic visual identity introduced in this paper is not just novel and relevant to brand identity design, but is found to influence important marketing outcomes, as well. Furthermore, the mediating and moderating effects tested in this paper make the study conceptually robust. This research may trigger a series of studies on holistic, biomorphic design approach in brand building. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited part of Springer Nature.

Purpose: International Journal of Lean Six Sigma (IJLSS) has completed a decade. To celebrate the same, this study aims to review the articles published in IJLSS from its inception to the year 2020. The journal’s trends and professional impact over the years are investigated and potential future research directions are proposed. Design/methodology/approach: A bibliometric analysis comprising of citation, co-citation and keyword co-occurrence methods is used on all the articles published in IJLSS till the year 2020. Content analysis is further done to analyse the type of research, type of industry studied and the articles’ target audience. Findings: The journal has improved its reputation, productivity and impact over the years. Currently, studies published in IJLSS have been cited more than 5,000 times, with the most prominent themes being Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Lean in manufacturing and services. Researchers from India, the USA and the UK have contributed a significant number of publications. Most of the work published is case-based. There is a need for more empirical or survey-based research having high generalizability. Future studies should also focus on integrating LSS with emerging topics such as sustainability, Industry 4.0 and the like. Research limitations/implications: The study provides evidence of the impact of IJLSS and highlights the trend in the domain of LSS. It can be of use for the editorial board members to identify potential areas to focus on in the future. Researchers can use it to further their research by working on the research gaps identified. Originality/value: This paper is the first to trace the progress of IJLSS from its inception till the year 2020. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an in-depth understanding of the overall process of facilitating co-creation of e-government services, focusing on the government's role in fostering citizen engagement. Design/methodology/approach: This study conducted a meta-synthesis of qualitative case studies encompassing analyses on a case-specific level followed by syntheses on a cross-study level. Findings: Through meta-synthesis, the study developed an integrated framework, the process theory view of enabling co-creation of e-government services, illustrating how co-creation could be initiated and facilitated by the government. Research limitations/implications: By providing critical insights into co-creation steps, the process theory view offers a holistic theoretical understanding of enabling co-creation by identifying factors driving and motivating governments to initiate co-creation activities, interpreting the prerequisites for co-creation and the importance of impact assessment. Practical implications: This study offers important implications for public authorities, administrators and policymakers by helping them enhance their knowledge base on the co-creation process to facilitate a higher level of collaboration between citizens and government for effective and efficient public service delivery through e-government. Originality/value: While it is widely acknowledged that citizen engagement is crucial for improving and transforming the development and delivery of e-government services, it is equally recognized as a challenging and complex task. Through a meta-synthesis of qualitative case studies, this study is one of the first to develop a process theory view for offering a holistic understanding and crucial insights for addressing the concerns over the co-creation of e-government services. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The paper tries to understand the needs of the international assignees across the different stages of expatriation and how different developers in the professional and non-professional sphere render support and advice through these stages. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors have interviewed 20 expatriates of various nationalities and tried to understand the various needs of the expatriates across the three initial stages of an assignment. Findings: The paper finds that four important mentors in an expatriation assignment play multiple need-based mentoring functions at various assignment stages: host country nationals (HCNs), parent country nationals, fellow expatriates and family. Research limitations/implications: This paper contributes to the literature on the need-based support rendered to expatriates during an international assignment. The paper, however, does not incorporate the perceptions of other vital stakeholders in the network and their intentions to contribute to the developmental network. Practical implications: This paper lays down important practical implications for expatriates and the human resource management (HRM) professionals. This paper urges the practitioners to take a nuanced approach for developing expatriates than a generalized mentoring programme. Originality/value: This study highlights the changing needs of the international assignees across the stages of an international assignment and demonstrates the important intra-organizational and extra-organizational developers such as family members in the fulfilment of these needs. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Recent studies suggest that brand awareness and brand image do not directly influence future purchases and brand knowledge alone is not sufficient for building strong brands. Keller’s reflections, particularly pointing to a small group of highly engaged customers, call for a rethink on brand equity in the light of a fast-developing digital world. Research also indicate that in a sharing economy, there is a transformation of customer identity and identification with brand communities leads to positive outcomes. While the idea of brand community has existed for almost two decades, its role in strategic brand management is not explored. With the ideas rooted in a cognitive culture and social identity, the differential effect of brand culture—the collective memory of a brand community—can be conceptualized as community-based brand equity (CommBBE). By advancing Keller’s customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model, this paper rejuvenates the idea of the memory-based differential effect of a brand. Conceptualizing CommBBE may guide practitioners in managing brand equity in a digitally connected world. It may trigger a series of studies to provide more refined measures and directions for brand building. © 2021, Academy of Marketing Science.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of decision model innovation (DMI), set on the decision-making support for the customers, on customer satisfaction and the firm’s competitive productivity (FCP). Design/methodology/approach: This study operationalizes the concept of DMI by developing a decision support journey (DSJ) model for the airport industry, using the case of Zurich Airport and its ecosystem. This paper then explores how this DSJ impacts the FCP of Zurich Airport. Findings: This study finds that applying DMI shows potential to improve talent management, resource management and corporate culture, leading to a higher FCP. By centralizing the decision-making process of its customer and decision support, executives gain essential insights into the actual needs of their customers. This enables firms to adapt their products and services to the actual needs of the customer, which leads to higher performance. Research limitations/implications: This study explores the complementarity between DMI and FCP, exploring how operationalizing the concept through DSJ impacts FCP elements, including talent management, resource management and overall corporate culture. This extends extant work on improving non-aeronautical revenues in dynamic environments within airport ecosystems as a converging industry setting. Practical implications: Existing airport digital applications providing minimal support should be expanded to provide an interaction and exchange platform for airport ecosystem players and customers. This paper finds that the firm adopting DMI in the airport/airline industry can set up a win-win situation to achieve competitive productivity by providing decision-making support and valuable insights to its customers. Originality/value: This study is among the first to apply DMI toward improving FCP in the airport industry. It treats airports as an ecosystem of converging industries that can benefit by incorporating customer-focused digitally-enabled solutions to improve decision-making and customer satisfaction. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: In this paper, the authors argue that there is a flip side to the business-and-sustainability relationship, which deals with how sustainability affects management practices. The so-called first-class leading companies in sustainability have put sustainability at the centre of strategic planning and defined their business case for sustainability. This paper aims to analyse these companies on sustainability imperatives and propose a comprehensive framework for developing a business case for sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: This paper investigates the sustainability strategies and initiatives of six leading global firms (Nike, Unilever, Siemens AG, General Electric, Interface and Walmart). It provides insights into how leading firms have developed a comprehensive business case for their sustainability initiatives and are enjoying a competitive advantage. The inductive approach, using the case method and interpretive structural modelling, is used to propose a comprehensive framework for defining the business case for sustainability that might help other organisations do well by doing good and create sustainable value. Findings: The success stories of the chosen organisations reaffirm that there is a business case for sustainability initiatives and efforts, as companies derive long-term benefits and also enjoy a competitive advantage. Other firms, which are yet to pave their paths towards sustainability, have a lot to learn from these successes. Practical implications: The conceptual framework proposed in this paper will be very useful for organisations that are still on the path to establishing a business case for sustainability as there is a lot to learn from the first-class companies practising sustainability and learn from their reflection and experience. Originality/value: The study in this paper contributes to the existing knowledge base by presenting a comprehensive list of sustainability imperatives that helps an organisation define the business case for sustainability and proposes a conceptual framework in this direction. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of technology-enabled service co-creation on patients' service patronage behaviour in healthcare retailing. The first objective is to examine the mediating roles of spatial presence and co-presence in the relationship between technology enabled co-creation and service experience. The second objective is to investigate if healthcare service experience impacts patients' relationship value with hospitals and subsequent patronage intention. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a sample of 516 customers of three leading hospitals in India during the social isolation period of COVID-19. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings: The study results demonstrate that customers' favourably perceived technology-enabled co-creation generates feelings of spatial presence and co-presence in the technology-enabled platform. The feeling of presence enhances patients' health care service experiences which in turn predict their relationship value perceptions towards the healthcare service provider. Co-presence dominates as a mediator in terms of magnitude over spatial presence. The favourable value perception positively impacts patients' intention to come back to the same hospital. Research limitations/implications: The study uses cross-sectional data, which does not incorporate any temporal variations in the investigated relationships. The study does not account for differences in government vs. private undertakings of healthcare system. Practical implications: The findings envisage a digital healthcare retail system, where hospitals can enhance patients' perceptions of healthcare service experience, relational value and re-patronage intention, based on the digital mediated environment design elements, i.e. spatial presence and co-presence. As co-presence is a dominant factor, ensuring that human healthcare experts (rather than technology based e-service elements like chatbots) participate in healthcare service co-creation is of prime importance to provide enriching service experience to the patients. Originality/value: The value of the research lies in extending the theories of presence, UTAUT and S-O-R to understand digital healthcare retailing, in order to identify the mechanism of how online co-creative platform can generate hospital patronage behaviour among patients through the serial mediation of presence, augmented service experience and relationship value. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Growth models such as Gibrat’s law and Jovanovic’s theory that examine the relationship between the firms’ growth, age and size have either been tested on data from developed economies or from the manufacturing sectors in developing economies. This study checks the suitability of these models in service sectors in developing economies as service sectors have distinct characteristics and developing economies such as India are heavily dependent on this sector. The current study considers three major service sectors contributing to India’s economy vis-à-vis financial services, information technology and real estate for the period 2002–2005. We observed that during 2002–2005, India’s economy was stable without wide fluctuations in economic performance, such as gross domestic product, unemployment or inflation. These sectors not only had a significant impact on economic growth but also had comprehensive microeconomic data. Our results negate both Gibrat’s law and Jovanovic’s theory. We argue that service sectors which are knowledge-intensive will experience different growth patterns compared to manufacturing sectors. We find a definite and significant relationship between firms’ growth and their size and age. Also, we find concluding evidence that younger firms up to 10 years of age struggle a lot more than older firms in the Indian service sector. JEL: D20, D21, D22, D02 © 2021 Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

Cross-border acquisitions by emerging market firms have been increasing at an accelerated pace. The present study examines the impact of cross-border acquisition on the earnings manipulation of emerging market firms by analyzing the cross-border deals from India during the period 2000–2015. Using two proxies for earnings management, we find that cross-border acquisition reduces the incentive to manipulate earnings by way of accruals, but not via real economic transactions. Further, cross-sectional tests reveal that the incentive to reduce accrual earnings manipulation is more pronounced when the acquisition is made in countries with a strong corporate governance structure. Additional analysis indicates that acquisition results in increased earnings response coefficient for the acquirer firms relative to the control firms. Our finding is robust even after controlling for cross-listing and endogeneity associated with cross-border acquisition decision. The results have implications for the literature on the spillover of financial reporting practices across countries due to cross-border business activities, especially in the context of emerging markets, which are known for their weak investor protection and underdeveloped institutional environment. © 2021 International Review of Finance Ltd. 2021

Purpose: In important interpersonal service interactions with a frontline employee (FLE), consumers at times fail to carry out their share of responsibility in the execution of the service, resulting in a situation of “consumer created emergency”. This might defeat the consumer's goal of availing the service (termed as consumer failure). This study explains the role of employee's hope in managing consumer failure in the situation of consumer created emergencies. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses were tested in three experiments that simulated service emergency across a general printing service situation and a travel service situation. Findings: The study shows that: (1) FLE hope has a positive effect on consumer satisfaction, and is mediated by the consumer's assumed effort by the FLE; (2) the effect of FLE hope on consumer satisfaction changes with changing levels of consumer hopefulness about the service outcome; (3) despite situation of consumer created emergency, consumer failure results in low consumer satisfaction due to attribution error and (4) external attribution by the FLE could not significantly rectify consumer's attribution error and hence could not alleviate consumer dissatisfaction. Research limitations/implications: The study suggests relevance and pathways of managing emotions and attributions of consumers and FLEs for superior performance outcomes. Originality/value: The study theorizes and tests the role of hope, which is an important positive emotion during emergencies because frontline service settings have heretofore predominantly focused on managing negative traits and outcomes. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The demand for energy has been increasing over the years in India, which may be the result of its rapid economic growth trajectory. In this context, this study examines the direction of the Granger-causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth at the state and sectoral levels in India. In doing so, the panel cointegration tests with the structural break, the heterogeneous panel causality test, and the panel VAR based impulse-response model are employed. The study covers overall economic growth and growth in agricultural and industrial sectors for eighteen major Indian states for the period 1960–61 to 2014–15. The results provide evidence in support of a long-term relationship between economic growth and electricity consumption only in the agriculture sector. Further, the results provide evidence for the presence of unidirectional Granger-causality flowing in the direction of overall economic growth to electricity consumption at the aggregate state level. However, at the sectoral level, there is a unidirectional causal relationship running from electricity consumption to economic growth for the agriculture sector, and economic growth to electricity consumption for the industrial sector. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

The notion of corruption has emerged as a prominent topic against the backdrop of e-government. However, there are diverse but disorganized viewpoints about the relationship between e-government and corruption, thus creating difficulties in obtaining a structured overview of the existing literature and identifying the avenues to take this research area forward. Despite this, prior studies have made limited attempts to gather these fragmented observations to guide future research holistically. To address this concern, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of 63 articles discussing e-government and corruption and provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current knowledge in this domain. In particular, we offer a thematic classification of prior studies, uncover the key gaps in the literature, identify the potential research areas, and provide recommendations to broaden the avenues for future studies. Furthermore, we propose an integrated conceptual framework to caution policymakers about the incomplete understanding offered by the existing studies and to inspire further research in several ways. © 2021

Bricolage and effectuation have emerged as new theoretical perspectives describing entrepreneurial behavior (EB). Bricolage emphasizes the creative use of available resources, while effectuation uses available means as a starting point and encourages firms to engage in affordable loss, pre-commitment, flexibility, and experimentation as independent dimensions for entrepreneurial actions. This study examines the influence of each dimension of EB, namely bricolage, affordable loss, pre-commitment, flexibility, and experimentation on business model novelty (BMN). It further assesses the EB – firm performance relationship and examines the mediating effect of BMN on the relationship between each dimension of EB and firm performance. We surveyed 238 small and medium enterprises in India. Our results indicate that bricolage, pre-commitment, flexibility, and experimentation positively influence BMN. However, affordable loss behavior had a negative impact on BMN. Moreover, our findings indicate that BMN mediates the EB-firm performance relationship. Our study enriches the extant literature by demonstrating the impact of each dimension of EB on BMN – an aspect not covered by the extant literature. Furthermore, our study adds to the literature by highlighting BMN as an important mediator explaining EB’s impact on firm performance. © 2021 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Advergames are digital games through which advertisers promote their brands. While many studies have explored the influence of the gamification of advertising, little is known about the effects of important advergame attributes such as gaming platform (device used to play games) and game speed (overall pace of games) on consumers' immediate and delayed memory, delayed attitude, and delayed intention to purchase the advertised brands. We address these gaps by conducting two experiments with fictitious brands (Study 1) and real brands that vary in the degree of familiarity (Study 2). Results reveal that a PC-based advergame generates better delayed memory than a mobile-based advergame, while gaming platform does not affect immediate memory. Also, it interacts with game speed only in the delayed situation. Brand familiarity moderates the effects of gaming platform and game speed on brand attitude and purchase intention in such a way that unfamiliar brands are more effective than familiar ones. © 2021 Marketing EDGE.org.

Purpose: This study aims to propose a model to examine the relationships between e-government development, cybersecurity commitment, business usage and economic prosperity of the country. Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the country-level variables to explain the second-order impact of e-government development through the mediating role of cybersecurity commitment. Findings: Findings suggest that e-government development demonstrated a stronger association with cybersecurity commitment and business usage. There is preliminary evidence that the improvement of cybersecurity measures initiated by e-government development will drive business usage and improve macroeconomic conditions. Research limitations/implications: This paper has constructed a theoretical model and validated it using publicly available archival data. Further, this study hypothesizes and demonstrates empirically the direct, as well as indirect relationships between e-government development, cybersecurity commitment, business usage and economic prosperity. To summarize, the study unearths the role of a nation’s cybersecurity commitment and how it is associated with other macro parameters in a country. Originality/value: As an initial step, the present study highlights the pivotal role of e-government and its positive influence on cybersecurity commitment at the country level. Further, this study also recognizes the role of cyber commitment to boost information communication and technology usage in business, the use of e-government services for the profitability of the business and effectively influence economic prosperity. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.