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Increasing demand for goods and services strains environmental sustainability, driving interest in green products. Trust in these products is vital for adoption. Scholars have examined factors affecting green trust, but a comprehensive framework involving cognitive and affective factors as antecedents and behavioral outcomes as consequences is lacking. This study aims to address this gap and introduces cultural and socio-demographic variables as moderators.

The study consolidates the outcomes of 79 empirical publications on green trust and conducts a meta-analysis.

All the cognitive and affective factors and behavioral outcomes are significantly associated with green trust. The moderator analysis provides many valuable insights as it highlights the context dependency of various relationships of green trust.

Using an extensive literature review, this study introduces an integrated framework that clarifies the antecedents and consequences of green trust. This work enriches the existing body of knowledge by investigating the influence of cultural and socio-demographic factors as moderators on these relationships, offering significant insights into the realm of green trust.

This research yields valuable guidance for providers of green products/services, shedding light on the factors that foster trust in their offerings and emphasizing the importance of customized strategies that take into account cultural and socio-demographic variables.

This is an original study that contributes to the green trust literature.

This study aims to examine the factors (Stimuli) enhancing perceived utilitarian, social and conditional values (Organisms) of social commerce (s-commerce) platforms and their impact on small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs’) behavioral intention (Response) to adopt s-commerce.

Survey data were gathered from 304 Indian SMEs using s-commerce platforms. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS 3 software.

The results indicated that perceived values significantly impact SMEs’ behavioral intention to adopt s-commerce. Among conditional, utilitarian and social values, the conditional value of s-commerce sites was found to be the strongest motivator for SMEs to adopt s-commerce.

This research contributes to the growing literature on s-commerce, explaining how perceived value influences the decision of SMEs to adopt s-commerce platforms.

Among the significant influencers, perceived usefulness and perceived reputation were found to be the most effective triggers that stimulate perceived values of s-commerce sites. The findings draw due attention from policymakers toward environmental cues such as the legal and regulatory environment, which are instrumental in creating the most important perceived value for SMEs, i.e. conditional value.

By employing the inputs from the theory of consumption values and the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, this original study looked beyond the technology factors and examined the role of perceived values of s-commerce platforms in shaping SMEs’ behavioral intention to adopt.

COVID entered the world in 2019 as a pandemic and the intensity of this health crisis is only increasing in several regions. Therefore, it is critical to study and detect the public's frame of mind, government and economists' perception regarding the COVID crisis, as well as the primary worries that the public has expressed, and how this evolves over time. Responsive measures towards COVID-19 from the Indian economy have been explored as a key objective. Moreover, efforts have been made to explore recovery in India through economists and policymakers. Data have been explored through online interviews of key economists which were published in leading newspapers and covered through media channels such as NDTV, CNBC, etc. Moreover, various newspapers and reports were explored to understand government initiatives to address COVID-19 in India. The study's findings show how essential economic recovery from the second wave is in India, and how it may be achieved by strong fiscal and monetary policies, as well as specific attention to impoverished households, small and micro-businesses and increased employment. The short-term focus of the developing economic strategy must be on giving crisis relief to the most unprotected segments of society since long-term system stimulation is impossible.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understanding strategic decision-making in EdTech: students will analyse the dynamics of strategic decision-making in the EdTech sector, exploring the rationale behind Unacademy’s shift from online to offline learning; assessing business model transformation: learners will evaluate the challenges and opportunities associated with Unacademy’s transformation from an online-centric model to venturing into physical coaching centres, and this includes considerations of market trends, competition and financial implications; managing competitive dynamics: students will examine the competitive landscape in the Indian EdTech sector, comparing Unacademy’s offline move with industry players, and this objective aims to enhance students’ ability to assess competitive strategies and positioning; strategic response to funding challenges: participants will explore how Unacademy strategically responds to the funding winter, addressing questions of financial stability, organic growth and sustainability in a dynamic market; leadership in uncertain environments: the case aims to develop insights into effective leadership during periods of uncertainty, and students will assess Gaurav Munjal’s leadership decisions and the management team’s role in steering Unacademy through challenges.

These objectives align closely with the case’s focus on strategic management, innovation and business transformation within the context of EdTech, providing students with practical insights and decision-making skills applicable to real-world scenarios.

The case study revolves around Unacademy, a prominent EdTech player in India, undergoing a strategic shift since May 2022. Facing a decline in demand for online education, the company ventured into the offline learning space by establishing physical coaching centres, directly competing with established offline and hybrid players. The case spans the period from the strategic pivot in 2022 to the challenges faced during the funding winter. The protagonist is Gaurav Munjal, the CEO of Unacademy, leading the management team amidst uncertainties.

The case is designed to teach strategic management in the EdTech sector, focusing on the challenges associated with entering the offline education space, particularly without prior experience and amid stiff competition. It explores questions of achieving organic growth, ensuring profitability and making strategic decisions during a funding winter. The industry context is EdTech in India, and the sub-fields of academia include strategic decision-making, business model transformation and competition dynamics within the education sector.

Level and field of study: The case is designed for MBA students with a focus on strategic management, innovation and the EdTech sector. It can also be suitable for executives participating in short courses on business strategy and organizational transformation.

This case is structured for Undergraduate, Postgraduate, MBA and Management Development Programs, aiming to enhance learning in the strategy field through real-world insights and challenges encountered in a dynamic business environment.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

Introduction: The government has taken many initiatives for the overall growth of India after liberalisation and remarkably performed to make India an emerging economy. Due to changes in macroeconomic conditions, investment in companys’ shares includes the possibility of bearing high risk, which cannot be eliminated but, to some extent, minimised. The persistence of risks motivates investors to invest in different available options of investment. Gearing measures, a company’s financial leverage, represent the risk afforded within the company’s capital structure.

Purpose: The research aims to identify the risk-return analysis of financial geared stocks of Nifty 50 companies in India, which have debt equity ratios of more than 1.

Methodology: Convenience and cluster sampling techniques were used to identify companies with debt equity ratios of more than 1. The considered time period is 2010–2019.

Findings: This research found capital structure ratios, debt equity ratio, and total debt ratio. The total equity ratio does not have any visible effect on any of the dependent variables, i.e., Return on equity (ROE), Return on Assets (ROA), Earnings per share (EPS), Return on capital employed (ROCE). It explains the impact of high-levered firms’ performance on profitability and functioning. The study highlights that highly geared companies do not significantly impact the ROA, proving Modigliani and Miller’s (1958) irrelevant theory.

This study aims to analyse the behaviour of plane waves within a nonlocal transversely isotropic visco-thermoelastic medium having variable thermal conductivity.

The concept of enunciation is used in the generalized theory of thermoelasticity in accordance with the Green–Lindsay and Eringen’s nonlocal elasticity models. The linear viscoelasticity model developed by Kelvin–Voigt is used to characterize the viscoelastic properties of transversely isotropic materials.

It has been noticed that three plane waves, which are coupled together, travel through the medium at three different speeds. The derivation of reflection coefficients and energy ratios for reflected waves is carried out by incorporating suitable boundary conditions. Numerical computations are performed for the amplitude ratios, phase speeds and energy partition and displayed in graphical form.

The outcomes of the numerical simulation demonstrate that the amplitude ratios are significantly influenced by variable thermal conductivity, nonlocal parameters and viscosity. It is further observed from the plots that the phase speeds in a transversely isotropic medium depend on the angle of incidence. In addition, it has been established that the energy is preserved during the reflection phenomenon.

This study aims to investigate the conditional relationships among sustainability implementation, brand awareness, brand attitude and brand loyalty through the lens of transformative service research (TSR). The research also aims to explain how brand loyalty moderates the mediated effect of brand awareness and attitude in the context of social and environmental sustainability initiatives.

Using both primary and secondary data sources from 31 prominent service companies and their 6,891 customers, this paper investigates the impact of sustainability practices and brand awareness on customer attitude. The paper also examines the moderated mediation effect of brand loyalty, explaining how it alters brand attitudes in the context of sustainability implementation. Finally, the study conducts a comparative analysis of how environmental and social shape brand attitudes in loyal customers.

Sustainability implementation has a negative impact on both brand awareness and customer attitude. However, this negative influence is mitigated for highly brand-loyal customers, resulting in a positive brand attitude. Further, the comparative analysis reveals that social implementation positively influences brand attitude in high-loyalty contexts.

This research uses subjective judgments of researchers regarding companies’ sustainability practices, combining them with customer attitudes gathered through survey questionnaires. Additionally, the data set comprises data from 31 large service companies, potentially limiting the generalizability of findings to large service companies. Nevertheless, this paper extends TSR into the realm of sustainability and branding.

The positive outcomes of sustainability implementation practices are most pronounced when customer loyalty toward a brand is strong. Social implementation has a more potent effect on brand attitude, particularly among loyal customers. Companies can tailor their sustainability efforts more effectively.

With the lens of TSR, this research deepens our understanding of how sustainability affects consumer psychology but also offers a methodological advancement by using advanced statistical models and a variety of data sources. The distinctiveness of this research is also highlighted in the examination of how environmental and social sustainability initiatives influence brand attitude, especially among customers who exhibit strong brand loyalty.

The integration of augmented reality retail technology (ARRT) in retailing industry has emerged as a key driver for transforming the consumer experiences and driving online sales. However, inconsistent findings in the existing research literature highlight the need for subsequent research efforts. The purpose of this study is to examine how augmented reality (AR) features like interactivity, flow experiences, augmentation and consumer engagement, contribute to retailer’s success in the online marketplaces.

This meta-analysis study uses the theoretical lens of task-technology fit to synthesize and analyze the empirical results of existing AR studies published until March 2024.

All ARRT features examined in this study directly impacted online buyers’ purchase intention. Moderators’ analysis only partially supported the hypotheses proposing a significant difference in the effect size of ARRT features on purchase intention based on the country’s GDP per capita and innovation level. While GDP per-capita moderated three relationships, innovation level moderated four out of six interactions studied.

This meta-analysis enhances the existing ARRT literature by using the task-technology fit theoretical framework, offering a dual perspective encompassing customers and businesses. Unlike popular technology innovation theories and models, such as Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and technology acceptance model, which predominantly focus on consumers, this perspective provides concrete directions for designing AR-enabled retail platforms that meet the task requirements of both consumers and retailers.

La integración de la Tecnología de Realidad Aumentada en el Comercio Minorista (ARRT, por sus siglas en inglés) ha surgido como un factor clave para transformar las experiencias de los consumidores y fomentar las ventas en línea. Sin embargo, los hallazgos inconsistentes en la literatura de investigación actual destacan la necesidad de más esfuerzos de investigación para comprender cómo características de RA, como por ejemplo la interactividad, las experiencias de flujo, la aumentación y el compromiso del consumidor, contribuyen al éxito de los minoristas en los mercados en línea.

Este estudio de meta-análisis utiliza el marco teórico de ajuste tarea-tecnología para sintetizar y analizar los resultados empíricos de estudios de RA publicados hasta marzo de 2024.

Todas las características de ARRT examinadas en este estudio impactaron directamente en la intención de compra de los compradores en línea. El análisis de moderadores solo apoyó parcialmente las hipótesis que proponían una diferencia significativa en el tamaño del efecto de las características de ARRT sobre la intención de compra, en función del PIB per cápita y el nivel de innovación del país. Mientras que el PIB per cápita moderó tres relaciones, el nivel de innovación moderó cuatro de las seis interacciones estudiadas.

Este meta-análisis mejora la literatura existente de ARRT al emplear el marco teórico de ajuste tarea-tecnología, ofreciendo una perspectiva dual que abarca a consumidores y empresas. A diferencia de las populares teorías y modelos de innovación tecnológica, como la Teoría Unificada de Aceptación y Uso de Tecnología (UTAUT) y el Modelo de Aceptación de Tecnología (TAM), que se centran predominantemente en los consumidores, esta perspectiva proporciona orientaciones concretas para diseñar plataformas de comercio minorista habilitadas para RA que satisfagan los requisitos de tareas tanto de consumidores como de minoristas.

增强现实零售技术（ARRT）的整合已成为零售行业转变消费者体验、推动在线销售的重要驱动力。然而, 现有研究文献中的不一致发现表明, 需要进一步研究来深入理解增强现实功能（如交互性、流体验、增强效果和消费者参与度）如何在推动零售商在线市场成功中发挥作用。

本研究以任务-技术契合理论为视角, 对截至2024年3月发表的增强现实相关实证研究进行了元分析, 以系统整合和深入分析现有研究成果。

研究中考察的所有ARRT功能均直接影响在线买家的购买意向。调节效应分析部分支持了假设, 即ARRT功能对购买意向的效应大小因国家人均GDP和创新水平而异。具体而言, 人均GDP对三种关系起到调节作用, 创新水平则调节了六种关系中的四种。

本项元分析运用任务-技术契合理论框架, 深化了现有ARRT文献, 通过顾客与企业双重视角提供洞见。不同于以统一技术接受与使用理论（UTAUT）和技术接受模型（TAM）等为代表的流行技术创新理论和模型, 这一视角为设计符合消费者和零售商任务需求的AR零售平台提供了切实的指导。

This study investigated the potential of partially replacing cement with red mud (RM) in concrete and examined its effects on its mechanical properties and microstructure. This study aims to explore sustainable alternatives to traditional cement and evaluate the performance of concrete mixtures with varying percentages (%) of RM as cement replacement.

This research aims to comprehensively understand the impact of RM on concrete, aiming for both environmental sustainability and improved construction materials. Subsequently, concrete mixtures were prepared with varying RM contents, ranging from 0% to 21% in increments of 3%, replacing cement. The workability of these mixtures was evaluated using the Slump Cone Test, whereas their mechanical properties (compressive strength, flexural strength and split tensile strength) were assessed through standardized tests. The durability was further investigated via water absorption, acid attack, rapid chloride permeability tests, open porosity test and Sorptivity test. To gain deeper insights into the internal structure of concrete, microstructure analysis was conducted using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Finally, the results were analyzed and quantified.

The finding demonstrates that substituting 12% of cement with RM not only boosts the mechanical characteristics of concrete but also mitigates waste disposal. The microstructural analysis identified a denser cement matrix and improved bonding between the cement paste and the aggregates, suggesting potential improvements in strength and durability.

These results suggest that RM can be efficiently used to produce sustainable concrete with potential applications in construction projects with environmental considerations.