Sellers can offer various payment schemes for buyers to boost demand, with the advance, cash, and credit payment policies being popular approaches. To provide further insight into the dynamics of these policies, we consider them in addition to a Disaster Grace Period payment option, which has become increasingly prevalent. The seller's motivation for offering Advance, Cash, Credit or Disaster Grace Period (ACCD) payment options include the desire for a stronger relationship to the buyer, a smoother cash flow throughout the supply chain, and a potential increase in demand. In addition, the disaster grace period payment scheme can help in better navigating worldwide emergencies, such as pandemics, but also natural emergencies like severe storms, floods, tornadoes, and landslides, which have been happening with an increasing frequency over the last decades. However, the increase in the payment period increases the default/disaster risk, rendering a trade-off between risk and demand, making these crucial parameters in influencing the seller's profit. Within this context, we aim to find the optimum replenishment cycle and payments period for a seller to increase their total profit. To do so, we perform numerical analysis to examine the impact of the demand coefficient, interest rate, default risk, disaster risk, and the disaster demand coefficient on profit. The results offer managerial insights on which payment option to choose in a particular setting to maximize profit. We for example find that sellers should offer a disaster grace period when the disaster demand increases and the risk of a disaster decreases. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Purpose: In this research, collaboration attributes related to the firm's intrinsic and extrinsic facets at pertinent levels (i.e. enterprise, strategic, operational, and tactical levels) for construction equipment OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) operating in India have been quantified and modeled. Design/methodology/approach: For modeling the intra-firm collaboration at respective organizational levels, relevant attributes have been populated employing literature review followed by subsequent validation from pertinent focus groups. The focus groups comprising professionals working in the construction and mining equipment industry in India aided us in estimating the extent of interdependencies and influences within/amongst collaboration attributes. The collaboration attributes and respective interdependencies/influences are modeled employing the concept of graph theory wherein the individual attributes are represented using vertices and influences/interdependencies are represented using edges. The collaboration indices resulting from the variable permanent matrix have been derived as well. Findings: Scenario and subsequent sensitivity analysis are performed. This research discusses the significance and aspects related to various collaborative attributes and the interrelations amongst them. Further, the research also evolves quantitative measures of collaboration indices at enterprise, strategic, tactical and operational levels by employing a graph-theoretic approach (GTA). The authors have also extricated and discussed a number of meaningful implications from both the perspectives of interorganizational relationships (IORs) and the normative theory of organizations using a cross-case analysis of five firms having operations in India. Originality/value: The research would aid organizations (particularly those belonging to the construction equipment sector) measure the efficacy of collaboration in respective value-chains at strategic, tactical and operational levels. From the theoretical perspective, the integration of the IORs and normative theory of organizations enables looking at the intra-firm collaboration problem from a multi-dimensional standpoint involving activities, performance measures, action initiation, communication, shades of top management, level of activity, etc. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: This paper reviews 18 workplace spirituality scales developed over a period of 23 years from year 2000 to early 2023. The objective is to provide inputs which can guide future researchers in choosing an existing appropriate workplace spirituality scale and in adopting sound scale development procedures for the development of new workplace spirituality scales. Design/methodology/approach: This paper outlines the need for and importance of carrying out a review of workplace spirituality scales. Thereafter, it carries out a review of each of the 18 workplace spirituality scales. It describes 10 overall limitations of the collective set of workplace spirituality scales. Finally, five future research directions are outlined. Findings: The review indicates that most of the workplace spirituality scales have limitations associated with them. The collective set of workplace spirituality scales also has several overall limitations. Research limitations/implications: The review suggests that workplace spirituality researchers need to exercise caution in choosing an appropriate existing workplace spirituality scale for their research. The review also provides directions for the future research for developing more adequate workplace spirituality scales. Practical implications: The inputs from this review will contribute to improve the practice of workplace spirituality research. Social implications: As workplace spirituality can make organizations more beneficial for employees and the society, this review's contribution to improving workplace spirituality research has an indirect social significance. Originality/value: This is, to the author's knowledge, the first comprehensive review of 18 workplace spirituality scales developed over a period of 23 years from year 2000 to 2023. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The prediction of Airbnb listing prices predominantly uses a set of amenity-driven features. Choosing an appropriate set of features from thousands of available amenity-driven features makes the prediction task difficult. This paper aims to propose a scalable, robust framework to predict listing prices of Airbnb units without using amenity-driven features. Design/methodology/approach: The authors propose an artificial intelligence (AI)-based framework to predict Airbnb listing prices. The authors consider 75 thousand Airbnb listings from the five US cities with more than 1.9 million observations. The proposed framework integrates (i) feature screening, (ii) stacking that combines gradient boosting, bagging, random forest, (iii) particle swarm optimization and (iv) explainable AI to accomplish the research objective. Findings: The key findings have three aspects – prediction accuracy, homogeneity and identification of best and least predictable cities. The proposed framework yields predictions of supreme precision. The predictability of listing prices varies significantly across cities. The listing prices are the best predictable for Boston and the least predictable for Chicago. Practical implications: The framework and findings of the research can be leveraged by the hosts to determine rental prices and augment the service offerings by emphasizing key features, respectively. Originality/value: Although individual components are known, the way they have been integrated into the proposed framework to derive a high-quality forecast of Airbnb listing prices is unique. It is scalable. The Airbnb listing price modeling literature rarely witnesses such a framework. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The aim of this study was to evaluate how indicators of patent quality affect the value of a patent, which can be measured by how often it is renewed (or “survives”). Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are becoming more important in a wide range of industries. In the same way, a country's intellectual strength can be judged by how many patents it has and how much research and development it does. The Cox-PH model and the accelerated failure time (AFT) model are used in this study to determine the patent's worth across the five major technology groups and ownership status. The final sample for survival analysis is made up of 40132 patents that were obtained from the Indian Patent Office between 1995 and 2005. (IPO). We find that broad academic patents don't last longer, but that the patent's ability to be used internationally makes it last longer. In contrast, institutional patents are geographically restricted. The collaboration appears to have a greater impact on patent value. © KOSIME, ASIALICS, STEPI 2023.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of customer brand value dimensions on relationship marketing dimensions through consumer hope in the context of digital payment applications (apps) services. The study considers the role of consumer engagement using a moderated mediation, and applies customer perceived value, affect theory of social exchange and relationship marketing theories. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on data collected from 301 digital payment app users. Structural equation modeling results were analyzed using Smart PLS. The authors performed moderated mediation, with different levels of customer engagement as a moderating variable, using Model 8 of PROCESS. The authors considered customer perceived value dimensions, digital quality value, perceived value, hedonic value and social value as antecedents to consumer hope and explored the role of trust, commitment and continued usage as a consequence of consumer hope. Findings: Three levels of perceived consumer value, digital quality, price value and social value, positively influenced consumer hope, which has positively influenced trust, commitment and continuance usage. Using moderated mediation analysis, consumer hope influenced continuance usage through trust at different levels of engagement, but consumer hope did not influence continuance usage through commitment at different levels of engagement. Originality/value: The study highlights the role of consumer hope in linking customer value dimensions with relationship marketing dimensions. The study can guide managers to ensure continued usage of digital payment apps, which is a strategic objective. The results are relevant for the digital setting. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

While climate change is distressing human lives all over the planet, international associations are struggling unremittingly to rein in the release of greenhouse gases for realizing the universal carbon neutrality target as insinuated by the Paris accord of 2015. As power generation corporations are one of the major contributors of the global greenhouse gas emanation, it turns out to be unquestionably crucial for them to harness the eco-friendlier substitutes proficiently for attaining superior financial sustainability. This chapter deliberates the appliance of different metaheuristic approaches for expanding the financial profitability of wind farms with authentic wind flow patterns of three potential wind power generation sites in India and appraises their comparative competencies in assisting the renewable energy sector with expedient commercial potentials. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Despite the potential of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) to make micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sustainable, the managers of service MSMEs find it tough to implement it in their firms. Drawing on the TAM and TAM2, this paper identifies I4.0 technologies (I4T) that help improve the sustainability in service MSMEs in the emerging economy of India. Data from different service MSMEs were collected to assess the importance of I4T. Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, and Internet of Things emerge as the most important I4T for sustainability. Several managerial implications along with theoretical contributions, limitations, and future research have been discussed. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

Purpose: This study aims to create a more humane and responsible workplace, individuals’ gratitude and meaningfulness seem of utmost importance. This study is an effort to understand the role of gratitude intent of potential managers. Design/methodology/approach: This study examines the psychological characteristic of business students in India. The researchers surveyed 333 Indian students as future managers. The collected data has been analysed with the Smart PLS 3 version to assess the formative-reflective scale by comparing model fit, measurement model and structural modelling. Findings: The results establish that gratitude significantly affects the life satisfaction of future managers. Findings also show that materialism is negatively related to life satisfaction and meaningfulness. The importance–performance map analysis finding suggests that meaningfulness in life is a potential indicator of life satisfaction for the population studied. Originality/value: Due to the limited research available on the psychological underpinnings in the Indian context, there is a massive value in examining how materialism and gratitude concurrently and distinctively predict meaning in life and the life satisfaction of future managers. This paper gives a formative explanation of the model consisted gratitude, materialism and meaningfulness in life on the life satisfaction of future managers. This study establishes the importance of meaningfulness of life in attaining life satisfaction for young managers. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how changes in creditors' rights affect the dividend policy behavior of corporate firms. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use the implementation of the bankruptcy and insolvency code (IBC) in India in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment setup. Differential application of this law allows them to use the Difference in Differences approach to extract the marginal impact of change in creditors' rights on the dividend policy. Findings: The authors show that firms responded to strengthening creditors' rights by decreasing their dividend payout. Further, the authors observe that this negative response is conditioned on firm leverage and the nature of the creditor, i.e. public or private. The firms with a greater leverage ratio and a greater proportion of private debt in the total debt in the pre-event period have shown greater response to the change in the law. Lastly, the authors show that stock markets positively respond to the observed decrease in dividends only when a corresponding decrease in the leverage accompanies such a decrease. Originality/value: The authors contribute to the finance and law literature from several aspects. First, the authors extend this stream by bringing to light the dividend policy response of firms when they are subjected to a change in creditors' rights. Second, the authors also show how firm-level factors like financial policy and the nature of the creditor condition their response to IBC. Lastly, the authors also examine the market reaction to the dividend policy response of firms to the change in bankruptcy law. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Blockchain technology (BCT) as a disruptive innovation has chains (SCs) to effectively deal with severe disruptions, such as those accompanied by COVID-19. To this end, this study explores BCT's role in minimizing the negative impact of such SC disruptions and improving SC resilience. Our study employs semistructured interviews interwoven with thematic analysis to identify the capabilities deployable by BCT at each stage of disruption. Our study reveals key issues associated with contemporary SC networks and the capabilities that can be enhanced by blockchain-enabled SCs to mitigate such issues. Our study further proposes a conceptual framework highlighting the relationships among various phases of disruption, blockchain capabilities, and SC resilience capabilities through the theoretical lens of the dynamic capabilities view. The proposed framework underscores that for a firm operating in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment, BCT can enhance the ability to sense, ability to seize, and ability to maintain. IEEE

Purpose: The use of over-the-top (OTT) platforms grew substantially after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With the pandemic receding, there is a concern that users may not continue with their subscriptions. To counter this, OTT service providers must strategize proactively to retain and acquire new users once the pandemic abates. Positing that understanding the consumption values that users ascribe to OTT platform usage can provide useful customer retention insights, the purpose of this paper is to use the theory of consumption value (TCV) to study the values that users derived from their use of OTT following the onset of the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The mixed-method approach is used to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Analysis of qualitative responses collected through interviews of 12 current OTT platform users helped identify two categories of OTT platform-specific values: attribute-level and benefit-based. Next, the study examined the association of values thus identified with one another, as well as with continued intentions to use OTT platforms, by analyzing data collected from 371 existing users. Findings: The findings indicated that functional value quality and social value, representing the attribute-level values, were positively associated with two benefit-based values – functional value price and emotional value (EMV). Next, EMV was not only associated with intentions but also partially mediated the association of attribute-level values with intentions. Premium subscription purchased and increased viewing time were confirmed to have moderating effects on the association between attribute-level and benefit-based values. Originality/value: The study is amongst the foremost research initiatives to examine consumption values derived from OTT platform usage after the onset of the pandemic. Its novelty also comes from its identifying OTT platform-specific consumption values for the first time and adding a new dimension to the TCV by examining the interplay of these values in the OTT platform context. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This study evaluates the nonlinear relationship between gender inequality and tourism receipts using a standard quantile regression approach and advances the results with an asymmetric application. Gender inequality is a pervasive and complex phenomenon rooted in the socio-economic culture of many countries. The reasons for inequality have country-specific situations, and to gain a broader understanding, countries were grouped by their income levels to explore the relationships for different groups. The study concludes that not all countries stimulate overall gender inequality through tourism. The study results show that in all but the 10th quantile, tourism had a negative and significant relationship with gender inequality providing support for the notion that tourism helps narrow the gender gap. The exceptions were found only at the 10th quantile indicates that low-income countries with low levels of tourism development could not derive the benefits of tourism’s potential in reducing gender inequality. © The Author(s) 2022.

This study identifies the critical challenges for blockchain adoption in government, and more specifically in the delivery of public services in the state governments of India. A literature review and focus-group with stakeholders was conducted to identify critical cfhallenges. Each challenge was ranked based on the opinions of stakeholders using conjoint analysis. Regarding government adoption of Blockchain, this study points to ecological shifts as a more significant challenge than technology. This study provides theoretical implications for researchers and valuable insights for practitioners. © 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Purpose: Mobile payment system (MPSs) apps are accepted as a faster, reliable and feasible substitute to conventional payment systems. However, the reception of MPS has been slower than expected despite their potential and initial reach. Limited studies have investigated factors that determine consumers' brand love (BRL) towards MPSs. This study investigates the role of MPS app characteristics on consumer emotions, continued use intentions (CUI) and BRL towards MPS apps. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical underpinnings of stimulus organism behaviour consequence (SOBC) and pleasure arousal dominance (PAD) theory are utilized to conceptualize the research model. The model explains the drivers of MPS BRL. Innovativeness, perceived organization and entertainment are the stimuli. Emotion, conceptualized as the second-order construct derived from pleasure, arousal and dominance, is the organism. CUI is the behaviour exhibited, and BRL towards MPS is the consequence. A survey method is used to collect data from 317 MPS consumers, and the hypotheses are tested using a structural equation modelling approach. Findings: Results indicate that innovativeness, perceived organization and entertainment influence consumers' emotions, which affects their CUI. Emotions and CUI shape BRL. Results also show a significant mediating role of emotion and CUI. Originality/value: Limited studies have explored BRL for utility-driven apps like MPSs. The SOBC frameworks and PAD theory provide stronger explanatory powers to the complex interplay of variables that influence consumer perceptions and decisions regarding MPSs. The study provides several practical and theoretical insights into the role of emotions in the adoption of MPS apps, a hitherto understudied relationship in literature. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Hotel industry is the one which has confronted the unprecedented effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to significant social and economic risks. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the tourism across the globe and impacted hospitality in hotel industry severely. This study aims to assess customer satisfaction by carrying sentiment analysis and topic modelling over customer reviews on the hospitality provided by hotels in different continents during January to September 2020, i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic. We formulate an improved new scale of metrics to categorize customer satisfaction assessed by sentiment analysis in an elaborate way. Topic modelling was deployed to understand various topics most often discussed by customers. We find that North America and Europe could perform up to customer expectation. In Asia, Sri Lanka did well, Indonesia could maintain its customer satisfaction, while India consistently improved the satisfaction level. We identified 12 most discussed topics, and main reasons of dissatisfaction appear in staff, service, room, cleanliness, slow booking, and pandemic response by hotel. Findings of this study will help senior managers of hotels of developed as well as developing countries in providing new and effective services that can satisfy customers and restore their confidence. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose: This study examines the impact of the brand's corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumers' brand experience and, in turn, consumers' intention of word-of-mouth (WoM). The study also investigates customer satisfaction with service recovery (CSATR) as a boundary condition for the proposed relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a survey-based research design to test the conceptual model. A structured questionnaire was distributed to the participants through a survey link. A total of 276 valid responses were used and analysed using Smart PLS3, a structural equation modelling technique. Findings: Results of this study demonstrate that perceived CSR have a positive impact on brand experience which eventually affects the WoM intention. Also CSATR moderates the relationship between brand experience and WoM such that satisfaction (dissatisfaction) with service recovery enhances (reduces) the effect of brand experience on WoM. Practical implications: Managers can use CSR as a communication tool to enhance consumers' brand experience and focus on service recovery as a successful service recovery can enhance WoM over and above CSR. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate brand experience as a mediator of CSR and WoM from the lens of signalling theory. The study also tries to address the scepticism of the consumers related to WoM for a brand's CSR by incorporating the service aspect into the CSR. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The human brain is known to process information using fast and intuitive processing (System I) and deliberative or reflective processing (System II). Both these systems work simultaneously and complementarily to aid decision-making and preference construction. The attraction effect is a choice anomaly that occurs when consumer preference between two alternatives polarizes toward one of the alternatives upon the inclusion of a third (asymmetrically dominated) option. Past studies have shown that suppression of System II magnifies the attraction effect and, thereby, concluded that the attraction effect is a result of System I. In our experimental studies, contrary to these past studies, we find a robust attraction effect when the reflective processing (System II) is induced using a priming procedure. We rule out several possible alternative explanations of our findings and discuss potential research implications. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Purpose: The authors investigate the effect of audit quality and analysts' coverage on firms' compliance concerning goodwill impairment testing and disclosure requirements with the Indian Accounting Standard (Ind AS) over the period of 2017–2020. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conduct univariate analysis and employ pooled ordinary least square (POLS) and Fama–MacBeth (FMB) regression techniques for empirical testing. Findings: The authors report a substantially higher disclosure score (DS) for firms with superior audit quality and for firms with incidence of analysts' coverage. Moreover, the authors show a positive impact of audit quality on the firm's degree of disclosure. This signifies better compliance by the clients of Big-4 audit firms in the enforcement of standard's mandates. Besides, the results on analysts' coverage indicate that the increasing number of analysts discipline managers in terms of appropriate compliance with disclosure requirements, hence favours the monitoring effect hypothesis for Indian firms. The results are robust to the alternate measures of key regressors, set of firm controls and alternate estimation technique. Originality/value: The study adds to the knowledge concerning the economic consequences of mandatory disclosures and is possibly the first to investigate compliance related to goodwill impairment disclosure regime under the new Ind AS. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

We analyze the role of digital infrastructure in shaping the global value chain (GVC) participation of Indian manufacturing firms. To examine the digitalization and GVC nexus, a rich, firm-level, unbalanced panel of 4875 manufacturing firms from the past two decades is used to detail the rising significance of digital infrastructure in the Indian context and then to examine empirically the relationship between digitalization and GVCs. Employing a logit model, we observe a positive and significant association of digitalization on firms’ GVC participation. Further, subsample results highlight that digitalization promotes the integration of small firms and firms from low-technology industries into the GVC. Moreover, the findings of our analysis are robust to alternate measures of GVCs. © 2023, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale.