Industrial Internet of Things emerged as one of the major technologies enabling Industry 4.0 for industries. Multiple start-ups started working in the Industrial Internet of Things field to support this new industrial revolution. Distronix, one such Industrial Internet of Things start-up of India, started operations in 2014, when companies were not even aware of Industrial Internet of Things. Distronix started executing fixed-fee projects for implementation of Industrial Internet of Things. They also started manufacturing sensors to support large customers end-to-end in their Industry 4.0 journey. With the advent of public cloud, companies started demanding pay-per-use model for the solution Distronix provided. This posed a major challenge to Distronix as they had developed technology skills focusing fixed-fee customized project delivery for their clients. The situation demanded that they change their business model from individual project delivery to creation of product sand-box with pre-registered sensors and pre-defined visualization layer to support use cases for Industrial Internet of Things implementation in multiple industry sectors. It forced Rohit Sarkar, the 26 years old entrepreneur and owner of Distronix, to upgrade capabilities of his employees and transform the business model to support pay-per-use economy popularized by public cloud providers. The case discusses the challenges Rohit faced to revamp their business model in such an emerging technology field, like, to develop new skills of the technical people to support such novel initiative, reorienting sales people towards pay as use model, developing new concept of plug and play modular product, devising innovative pricing, better alliance strategy and finding out a super early adopter. © Association for Information Technology Trust 2021.

The consciousness of safety risk factors and the emergence of WHO guidelines for the preparedness of health care workers have pushed the health care systems to take proactive decisions to maintain a safe and productive working environment during the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to provide this working environment, detailed identification, and analysis of safety risk factors are required. In this context, we proposed a hybrid fuzzy-based decision-making framework to rank the Indian hospitals based on the prevalence of safety risk factors among the health care workers. First, fifteen relevant safety risk factors are identified with the help of the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). Second, the weights of categories and their respective factors are computed and are ranked based on their criticality by the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). Finally, Indian Hospitals are ranked based on these factors using the Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS). © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between two leadership styles (vertical and distributed), conceptualized through types of decisions made (strategic and operational/tactical), and the state of psychological contract (fulfillment/breach) at three different levels of the organizational hierarchy in project-based organizations. The explorative analysis of eight organizations from India and Australia demonstrates the prevalence of distributed leadership: operational and technical decisions are usually entrusted to the project team and project managers, while strategic decisions are made by senior management. The study suggests that three factors facilitate a specific leadership style (vertical or distributed): organizational culture, knowledge sharing and project management practices, which in turn impact the state of psychological contract (fulfillment/breach). A flexible, collaborative organizational culture supports knowledge sharing and the adoption of agile methods, enabling distributed leadership and leading to psychological contract fulfillment. © 2020

Purpose: In the context of sharing economy, the superhost program of Airbnb emerges as a phenomenal success story that has transformed the tourism industry and garnered humongous popularity. Proper performance evaluation and classification of the superhosts are crucial to incentivize superhosts to maintain higher service quality. The main objective of this paper is to design an integrated multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) method-based performance evaluation and classification framework for the superhosts of Airbnb and to study the variation in various contextual factors such as price, number of listings and cancelation policy across the superhosts. Design/methodology/approach: This work considers three weighting techniques, mean, entropy and CRITIC-based methods to determine the weights of factors. For each of the weighting techniques, an integrated TOPSIS-MOORA-based performance evaluation method and classification framework have been developed. The proposed methodology has been applied for the performance evaluation of the superhosts (7,308) of New York City using real data from Airbnb. Findings: From the perspective of performance evaluation, the importance of devising an integrated methodology instead of adopting a single approach has been highlighted using a nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. As per the context-specific findings, it has been observed that the price and the number of listings are the highest for the superhosts in the topmost category. Practical implications: The proposed methodology facilitates the design of a leaderboard to motivate service providers to perform better. Also, it can be applicable in other accommodation-sharing economy platforms and ride-sharing platforms. Originality/value: This is the first work that proposes a performance evaluation and classification framework for the service providers of the sharing economy in the context of tourism industry. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The purpose of this study is to assess the management of bamboo across the gradient of government and community-managed forests in Maharashtra, a leading Central-Indian state in decentralized forest governance. Over the last few decades, new right-based legislations have paved the way for decentralizing forest governance in India. We first pioneered the multi-stakeholder co-production of criteria and indicators to assess the sustainability of bamboo management. Following this, the sustainability assessment was carried out using mixed methods combining vegetation surveys, focus group discussions and secondary records. We could not detect a significant role of governance in determining bamboo health across governance systems. Instead, sites with favourable locality and biotic factors supported a healthy bamboo crop. We found that while government institutions maximized financial efficiency, community institutions performed better on delivering livelihood benefits and participatory decision making. We could not find evidence of large scale over-harvesting in the community-managed forests. On the contrary, less than 5% of the bamboo potential in these villages was harvested. Traditional bamboo management across the governance gradient focused largely on production aspects. Graduating to sustainable bamboo management will require better protection, resource augmentation, sustainable harvest, enhancing livelihood benefits and creating new bulk markets. © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This study aims to explore the true nature of the impact of working capital management (WCM) efficiency, measured by cash conversion cycle (CCC), on the stock market performance (proxied by stock’s Alpha) of Indian non-financial firms. The article presents four possible models from literature and argues why the relationship should be non-linear. Generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation is used on firm-level data of 718 Indian firms from 11 industries listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) from 2011 to 2017. A negative relationship is confirmed. However, contrary to prior findings, neither a quadratic relationship nor the deviations from industry median CCC can explain the relationship for Indian firms. Therefore, firms are divided into CCC decile-based equally weighted portfolios and estimation of a threshold level of CCC is carried out iteratively. Threshold thus obtained is validated at the firm level, using dynamic panel through GMM estimation. The novelty of this study is that it is the first one to propose the possibility of a universal threshold level of working capital (WC) efficiency and its impact on the market performance of firms in India. The article argues that in India, due to uncertainties in supply chains, firms, as well as the investors, prefer a threshold level of investment in WC. If CCC is above the threshold level, firms’ excess stock returns fall significantly, while there is no impact below the threshold level. The study is relevant for managers so that they can maintain WC below a threshold level, as well as for investors who can use the threshold WC criteria for valuation and selection of stocks. © 2021 International Management Institute, New Delhi.

Bitcoin is the primary cryptocurrency in the world that can be stored and traded through the internet. Digital contracts and cryptocurrencies created on blockchains have now been used in exchanging instruments on the networks and are available online readily. This paper’s main objective is to investigate the causal relationship between bitcoin prices and rupee-US dollar exchange during COVID-19. The study used the Granger causality model to study the price behaviour of bitcoin and the rupee-dollar exchange rate. The study found an unidirectional Granger causality existed, where the rupee-US dollar exchange rate affected the bitcoin price in the Indian market during COVID-19. The bitcoins are widely considered as an investment asset in Indian markets, and the rupee-dollar exchange rate has a significant impact on the bitcoin prices. Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

The present study investigates the changes in G20 stock market dynamics and their interlinkages in the aftermath of COVID-19. It utilizes the Detrended Cross-Correlation Analysis (DCCA) along with the network and complexity theories for detecting the contagion effect of the pandemic on the stock markets. We find that both advanced and emerging stock markets, departing from their pre-crisis structures, form a tightly coupled close community after the disease outbreak–except for China that distanced itself from the rest of the cohort. This indicates that COVID-19 has caused contagion in the global equity market, which has increased the risk to international portfolio diversification benefits. The adoption of the Network theory for contagion detection technique augments the detailed understanding of the structural changes and their interlinkages among the stock markets in a more comprehensive way. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose: The experience of individuals has a huge potential for management education and development. Specific approaches are required to transform experience into learning. The purpose of this paper is to create a framework of dialogic approach, as a method of experience-based learning, which can be used for transforming the experience into learning. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses analytical abstraction and conceptual integration to develop the framework of dialogic approach. Evidence from prior research studies is used as the theoretical background to support the framework. Findings: Dialogue is important for unravelling the experience and creating learning. Dialogic approach as a tool for experience-based learning is developed by combining reflective, appreciative and generative dialogues in a theoretically consistent sequence. Practical implications: The proposed framework is operationalised as a three-phase process for delivering the dialogic approach and can be used by educators. Originality/value: The framework of dialogic approach is unique as it combines different types of dialogues. The framework is independent of context and can be applied globally for management education and development, which is a novel contribution. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Earlier researchers have observed that an individual consumer's mood plays a significant role in increasing the impulsiveness, which leads to impulsive buying. The literature on shoppers' motivational traits has profoundly acknowledged the impact of these traits and mood regulation constructs on individual shopping values. The present study is a pioneer attempt proposing a comprehensive model, which incorporates three main antecedents (motivation, mood and value) of buying behaviour that influence the consumer purchasing decision. The paper empirically explores the liaison between the regulatory focus (promotion-focused and prevention-focused motivations), mood regulation (mood monitoring, mood clarity and mood repair), shopping values (hedonic and utilitarian), and impulsive buying behaviour. The outcomes suggest that two regulatory focus motives influence mood clarity. Mood repairing and mood monitoring impact hedonic shopping values, which has a substantial impact on consumers' impulsive buying tendency. The paper closes with theoretical and practical inferences, limitations, and discussion on the potential scope for future research. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Purpose: This study aims to delve into the influence of corporate social responsibility on the corporate brand performance of Indian business-to-business (B2B) companies. Design/methodology/approach: The corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices have been measured through CSR disclosure index (CDI), generated by surveying annual reports/CSR reports/websites of 131 Indian B2B firms. The same was mapped to corporate brand performance of these firms, measured as customer-based corporate brand equity, which was measured through a questionnaire-survey of purchasing managers and users working in firms that are customers to the above-mentioned firms. Findings: The result reveals the positive influence of CSR practices in shoring up corporate brand performance. Research limitations/implications: CDI has been developed based on CSR reporting across the stakeholder groups. However, the impact has been mapped onto one stakeholder category, the customer. The sample period was only one year, and the data is cross-sectional. Future studies may investigate the long-term effect of CSR using longitudinal data on larger data sets. Practical implications: This study will encourage Indian B2B firms to practice CSR not only for conforming to the regulatory requirements but also as a strategic tool in strengthening the competitive advantage. Originality/value: It is the first study of its kind to evaluate the imprint of corporate social responsibility, measured based on CSR reporting by firms, on corporate brand performance. It looks into the return earned by firms from the resources invested in CSR activities. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Employee loyalty is a significant attribute to gain competitive advantage in any organization. Research suggests that retaining and nurturing a loyal workforce has many benefits and protects the organization from several disadvantages. Therefore, understanding and measuring employee loyalty is very important for organizational effectiveness. The available literature on employee loyalty is scattered, and there is a shortage of available tools to measure the affective, cognitive and behavioural aspects of the construct. In this study, we developed a scale to measure employee loyalty in terms of the cognitive, affective and behavioural components. We used the mixed methodology and grounded theory approach for this purpose. Test items to measure employee loyalty were developed and data were collected to validate them. Furthermore, the data were subjected to rigorous statistical analysis. Results suggested robust psychometric properties in terms of validity and reliability. Such a scale is beneficial to HR practitioners and professionals, policymakers and other like-minded vocations desirous of measuring employee loyalty. © 2021 International Management Institute, New Delhi.

Purpose: In the context of India, this article proposes an integrated multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) regression-based methodology to evaluate input-level performance of the schools and investigate the impact of this performance along with contextual factors, i.e. medium of instruction and location of the school, on the school's output level performance, i.e. student pass rate. Design/methodology/approach: First, Shannon entropy-based approach is applied for the weight assignment to different parameters. Then, integrated VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS)-based methodology is devised to measure the input-level performance of a school. Finally, multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis is incorporated to study the effect of input-level performance and above-mentioned contextual factors on the school's output-level performance. Findings: Proposed methodology is applied to assess the input-level performance of 82,930 primary and secondary schools of West Bengal, India. All the factors have a significant impact on boys' pass rate, whereas only input-level performance and location of the school have a significant influence on the girls' pass rate. Practical implications: The entropy-based approach highlights the importance of scientific weight assignment. Integrated MCDM demonstrates the significance of aggregation due to the variation in scores related to input-level performance across the methods. Regression analysis facilitates the exploration of determinants influencing the output-level performance of the schools. Originality/value: This work depicts a holistic picture of the performance measurement system of the schools. It encompasses scientific weight assignment to the evaluation criteria, integrated input-level performance assessment of the schools and investigation into the effect of this performance, as well as other contextual factors on the output level performance. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The 4G revolution has enhanced smartphone penetration by 21.3%. Subsequently, the rapid expansion of different categories of mobile applications has changed the way consumers think, exchange information, shop, play games, and connect socially. This study, based on information mobile applications (apps), aims to predict and identify the specific antecedents that influence consumers to use an information app on a continuous basis, with the mediating effects of perceived usefulness and ease of use. Using structural equation modelling, causal analysis found relationships between perceived usefulness and interactivity and between perceived ease of use and information quality, system quality, and interactivity. Moreover, both mediating variables lead to continuous intention to use the app. The paper concludes with practical implications for m-commerce users. © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Purpose: Brands have started investing heavily in their social media pages. Especially for banks having credence nature, the importance of engaging customers with the brand-related content on their social media pages has become a challenge. The present study explores the role of various characteristics of a brand's social media marketing efforts (SMME) and individual customer's general online social interaction propensity (GOSIP) on the customers' engagement/online brand-related activities (COBRAs). The subsequent effect of COBRAs on key banking outcomes such as satisfaction, trust and loyalty has also been evaluated. The moderating role of the customer–brand relationship length has also been evaluated. Design/methodology/approach: A two-stage mixed-method approach was used for the data collection. Two focus group discussions were conducted for the preliminary stage, which resulted in identifying five Indian banking brands as stimuli for further study. For the main study, an online survey link was shared with the members of the stimuli banking brands' social media pages. A total of 552 useable responses were collected. After performing the exploratory factor analysis and common method bias tests, the collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis. Findings: The results of the present study have added all five characteristics (namely, entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization and electronic word of mouth) of SMME and GOSIP as the key antecedents of the customers' engagement with brand content on social media pages or COBRAs. COBRAs have been found influencing the customers' satisfaction, but evidence of influence on the trust and loyalty has not been found. The length of the relationship between customers and the banking brand has been observed as an important moderator for the satisfaction–trust–loyalty relationship. Originality/value: The present study has three unique contributions to the literature. Firstly, the study evaluates the role of customer-brand engagement on the banking brand's favorable outcomes such as satisfaction, trust and loyalty. Secondly, the exploration of the role of various social media marketing activities that can enhance customer–brand engagement. And finally, the study tests the moderating role of the customer–brand length of the relationship on the complete set of marketing activities–engagement–loyalty relationships. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: Purpose of this study is to investigate the role of learner readiness in enhancing transfer of training by empirically testing a moderated mediation mechanism in which learner readiness influences transfer through motivation to transfer, and this indirect impact is moderated by supervisor support. Design/methodology/approach: The perception of trainees about the constructs considered has been captured through a survey of 250 employees of a unit of a manufacturing organization in India. For hypotheses testing, PROCESS macro developed by Hayes (2013) has been used. Findings: Results have confirmed the significant role played by learner readiness in predicting transfer. This apart, supervisor support has been proved to moderate the indirect impact of learner readiness on transfer. Practical implications: Trainees need to have pre-requisite knowledge to learn the content of a training programme, which would enable them to grasp such content and transfer the same subsequently to work. It is also essential that trainees are willing to attend any training voluntarily. Specific interventions may be designed for supervisors to bolster their catalytic role in training transfer. Originality/value: An interactionist approach has been adopted by focussing on learner readiness as a less-studied trainee characteristic and supervisor support as a situational factor of transfer. This is construed as a significant contribution of this study to training literature. The potential overlap between learner readiness and motivation to transfer as trainee characteristics is seen to be neutralized by the presence of supervisor support as a moderator. Findings help in understanding how a trainee’s readiness and motivation, together with supervisor’s positive attitude, can enhance transfer. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This paper aims to explore the important qualitative aspects of online user-generated-content that reflects customers’ brand-attitudes. Additionally, the qualitative aspects can help service-providers understand customers’ brand-attitudes by focusing on the important aspects rather than reading the entire review, which will save both their time and effort. We have utilised a total of 10,000 reviews from TripAdvisor (an online-travel-agency provider). This study has analysed the data using statistical-technique (logistic regression), predictive-model (artificial-neural-networks) and structural-modelling technique to understand the most important aspects (i.e. sentiment, emotion or parts-of-speech) that can help to predict customers’ brand-attitudes. Results show that sentiment is the most important aspect in predicting brand-attitudes. While total sentiment content and content polarity have significant positive association, negative high-arousal emotions and low-arousal emotions have significant negative association with customers’ brand attitudes. However, parts-of-speech aspects have no significant impact on brand attitude. The paper concludes with implications, limitations and future research directions. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

Understanding service branding from the customer perspective is helpful for various organizations to attain a competitive edge and build a strong customer base. This research work aims to evaluate the various dimensions and constructs that affect brand equity and user's willingness to undertake courses from various e-Learning providers. Data for the quantitative study was obtained using a questionnaire based survey. Analysis of the 378 responses reveals that consumer experience is a strong predictor of both brand meaning and customer satisfaction. Although brand meaning positively impacts brand equity, brand awareness demonstrates a negative effect on brand equity. However, brand equity and customer satisfaction have a significant and positive impact on intention to undertake courses from online learning platforms. The study concludes with discussion on different implications, shortcomings, and directions for future research. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

The aim of this study is to utilise the user-generated content from social media platforms and merchandise websites to explore various values affecting behavioural intention in context of e-Learning services from the consumption-value-theory perspective. This study has utilised a novel mixed-method approach based on natural language processing (NLP) techniques for the both the qualitative and quantitative analysis. This study has used user-generated content of Coursera (an e-Learning service) consisting of online reviews from Coursera-100 k-dataset and tweets about Coursera. Some of the important themes generated from the thematic-based analysis of tweets are ‘value addition’, ‘course content’, ‘topic cover’, ‘reliability of course’, ‘course quality’, ‘enjoyed course’, ‘recommend the course’, ‘value for money’, ‘facilitator skills’, etc. Results of the empirical study reveal that offers and deals, emotional connect, facilitator quality, course reliability, platform innovativeness, and compatibility are important predictors of behavioural intention. This study concludes with the various limitations and future directions. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the multi-level ambidexterity challenges through the metaroutine lens. Further, while confronting the ambidexterity challenges, it is found that what is paradox at one level can be understood as tradeoffs at another level. This study uses an in-depth multi-level case study of Tata Motors, an Indian automotive giant highlighting the ambidexterity dynamics across strategic, business unit and functional levels to demonstrate that paradoxes at the strategic level are converted to manageable tradeoffs at the business unit/ operational level. Also, metaroutine-enabled ambidexterity explains a possible way through which multi-level ambidexterity can be promoted and managed within organizations. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a case-based methodology (Eisenhardt, 1989) similar to the approach of Adler et al. (1999). The field research consisted of in-depth interviews, which focus on gathering information from the key involved members in the field, thus enabling us to understand how multi-level ambidexterity is promoted within Tata Motors. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data for this study. Findings: The metaroutine lens offers an alternative route to explain the multi-level ambidexterity dynamics at Tata Motors. The ambidexterity questions at different levels in Tata Motors seem to be a mixture of paradoxes and tradeoffs. However, a key trend emerges. At the strategic and business unit level, the firm wanted to exploit their existing products and explore new customer segments. At the product level, the strategic and NPI core team wanted to best combine the customer centric explorations with exploitations resulting in cost savings. The ambidexterity questions at these two levels seem to be paradoxes. However, as the authors analyze the functional domains, it appears that each individual domain was working under increased constraints. Hence, the ambidexterity questions at the domain level seem to be a tradeoff based on the constraints faced by individual functional domains. Originality/value: This study presents an in-depth multi-level case study of an Indian automotive giant, Tata Motors. The authors present the role of metaroutines in shaping the ambidexterity issues during the development of passenger vehicles. This study builds on the seminal work of Adler et al., 1999, and extends the discussion to the framing of the ambidexterity question as a paradox and/or a tradeoff. The core argument of this paper is that balancing opposite polarities in business models is basically a paradoxical issue in the exploitation/ exploration relationship. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.