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The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for holistic geriatric health care in rural India. Many older people in Indian villages suffer from chronic ailments without any relief or intervention because of inaccessible and unaffordable health-care services. This paper explores how holistic health care can be assured for older people in Indian villages.

This paper is based on reflections of the authors who have had experiences as caregivers to older persons within their respective families rooted in the Indian villages. Besides, they interacted with 30 older persons (18 males and 12 females in the age group of 60–80 years) living in the villages in three states of India, namely, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to develop a comprehensive viewpoint on the need of geriatric health care in rural India. Relevant reports, newspaper articles and research papers were also reviewed while developing viewpoints on such an important topic.

Geriatric health-care facilities in rural India are abysmal. The older people in the villages cannot leverage health-care facilities that are generally inaccessible, inadequate and unaffordable. Even the government support for medical treatment is minuscule. Furthermore, there is lack of trained health-care professionals at all levels, namely, doctors, nurses and paramedic personnel. Training opportunities in geriatrics are also negligible. The scenario vis-à-vis geriatric health care in rural India can be upturned by increasing public spending on health-care infrastructure, increasing numbers of health-care professionals and expanding training programmes in geriatrics.

This paper is based on the critical reflections of the authors as well as their informal interactions with some of the older people in the Indian villages.

This paper aims to examine the level of awareness and determinants of the actual adoption of fintech services. This paper further focuses on how usages of different kind of fintech services fulfills the business needs of the micro-entrepreneurs of urban slum dwellers of Uttarakhand.

The research investigated the predictive significance of actual adoption of fintech services using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and prospect theory framework. Data was collected from 80 micro-entrepreneurs of urban slum areas of Uttarakhand, using an adapted semi-structured questionnaire. For analysis of data partial least square structural equal modeling has been used.

This paper finds that different fintech services have different levels of awareness whereas payment, regulation and market provision-related fintech services have high awareness. The main drivers for adopting fintech are services trust (ST) and behavioral intention (BI). BI significantly influences fintech adoption, while ST positively impacts BI, actual usage and facilitating conditions; perceived risk, however, negatively affects ST. The widely used fintech services are payment-based fintech (unified payments interface), followed by regulatory fintech (Khatabook app). Fintech effectively serves the business needs of micro-entrepreneurs in the urban slums of Uttarakhand with innovative product solutions.

The findings of this study are valuable for various fintech providers. These results can serve as a roadmap to strengthen fintech services in the broader population, including niche market segments.

This study uniquely contributes to the literature that addresses the issues of entrepreneurs of the lower strata of society through the use of fintech services.

Influencer marketing is a widely used digital marketing strategy. Marketers consider follower count as one of the key criteria when deciding promotion strategies using influencers. However, past studies have primarily studied the impact of follower count on engagement, reach and purchase-related outcomes. The effect of follower count on price perception has not been studied. This research employs the signaling theory to examine how an influencer’s follower count impacts the price perception of the product they endorse. Perceived competence and status explain this effect. Lastly, we elucidate the boundary condition for this effect through thinking styles.

We conducted three experimental studies (N = 460) to empirically test our theorization, employing different product categories and respondents from the USA and India.

The findings suggest that consumers are likely to perceive products promoted by mega (vs micro) influencers as more (vs less) expensive. The perceived competence and status serially mediate the relationship between influencer type and price perception. Thinking style moderates the hypothesized effect.

Given the growth in influencer marketing and its impact, this study has important implications. The findings suggest that marketers need to exercise caution and be conscious of the impact of social media influencers on their product perceptions.

This is possibly the first research study to investigate the effect of the types of influencers on consumers’ perception of price. We not only demonstrate the effect but also explain the process. The research advances the influencer marketing literature by understanding consumers’ perceptions from a pricing perspective.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting behaviour intention (BI) to use and actual usages of investment-related FinTech services among the zoomers (Gen Z) and millennials (Gen M) retail investors of India.

The study explores the predictive relevance of actual adoption behaviour among the two different age categories of Indian retail investors. It uses the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology-2 and the prospect theory framework as guiding frameworks. Data has been collected from 294 retail investors, actively engaged in the investment-related FinTech services. The multi-group analysis using variance-based partial least square structured equation modelling has been used to compare the two groups. The invariance between the two groups was achieved through measurement invariance assessment.

The study reveals distinct factors significantly affecting BI to use investment-related FinTech services among Gen Z and Gen M retail investors are performance expectancy (PE) to BI, perceived risk (PR) to BI, price value (PV) to BI and PR to service trust (ST).

This study provides insights for financial providers and policymakers, emphasizing different factors influencing BI to use investment-related FinTech services in both age groups. Notably, habit emerges as a common factor influencing the actual usage of investment-related FinTech services across Gen M and Gen Z retail investors in India.

This study explores the heterogeneous behaviour of the heterogenous population in the domain of technological adoption of investment-related FinTech services in India.

This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review on the fintech services and financial inclusion of the developing nations that particularly focuses on lower middle-income group nations (LMIGN) and upper middle-income group nations (UMIGN) to highlight the research areas that have not received attention and present opportunities for future research.

This paper adopts a systematic approach to examine 65 research articles published from 2016 to 2021, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

The study identifies research gaps in two key themes: backward and outward linkages. In backward linkages, the literature on UMIGN should pay attention to the behavioural patterns associated with lending, investment and market provision-related fintech services. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between fintech services on the usage and quality dimension of financial inclusion in both LMIGN and UMIGN. For outward linkages, future research work should explore the role of fintech and financial inclusion in the development of LMIGN. This study provides valuable insights and guides future research directions by comprehensively mapping the existing studies.

This study does not use quantitative tools, such as meta and bibliometric analysis, to validate the findings.

This research paper offers new perspectives that introduce a novel framework for analysing literature on fintech, financial inclusion and its impact on the overall development of UMIGN and LMIGN.

Blockchain technology, renowned for its decentralization, security, reliability, and data integrity, has the potential to revolutionize businesses globally. However, its full potential remains unrealized due to adoption barriers, necessitating further studies to address these challenges. Identifying these barriers is crucial for businesses and practitioners to effectively tackle them. This systematic review analyzed 70 eligible studies out of 1944 gathered from various databases to understand and identify common blockchain adoption barriers. The Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework was the most popular theory used in these studies. Despite differences in variable definitions, financial constraints, lack of stakeholder collaboration and coordination, and social influences like resistance to change and negative perceptions emerged as the top three barriers. The supply chain domain had the highest number of studies on blockchain adoption. Notably, there was a significant increase in studies addressing blockchain adoption in 2023, comprising 34.2% of the total reviewed studies. This review provides a comprehensive overview of identified barriers, serving as a valuable foundation for future research. Understanding these challenges allows researchers to design targeted studies aimed at developing solutions, strategies, and innovations to overcome obstacles hindering blockchain adoption.

Given the continuing need to study service marketing adaptations that emerged in the wake of Covid-19, this paper aims to look at the formation and evolution of purchase groups (PGs) that arose in Indian gated communities during the pandemic and have continued functioning in the post-pandemic marketplace. Not only did these groups act as much-needed interstitial markets during a time of significant external disruption, but they also served as sites of value co-creation, with consumers collaborating with each other and with service providers.

Using a phenomenological research approach, the authors conducted 22 in-depth interviews with Indian consumers and small service providers to gather accounts of how PGs started and evolved with time. Subsequent data coding and analyses are conducted with NVivo 12.

Using the service ecosystem perspective, the authors illustrate seven distinct themes that capture the nuances of the formation and evolution of PGs. These consist of entrepreneurality, collectivity, and fluidity at the service ecosystem level, hybridity and transactionality at the servicescape level, and mutuality and permeability at the service encounter level.

This study provides an empirical and theoretically grounded account of a long-term service marketing adaptation that has persisted in the post-pandemic marketplace. This helps us address recent calls for such research while also adding to the work on value co-creation in collective consumption contexts and extant discourse on service ecosystems.

This paper aims to report the effect of titanium oxide (TiO₂) particles on the specific wear rate (SWR) of alkaline treated bamboo and flax fiber-reinforced composites (FRCs) under dry sliding condition by using a robust statistical method.

In this research, the epoxy/bamboo and epoxy/flax composites filled with 0–8 Wt.% TiO₂ particles have been fabricated using simple hand layup techniques, and wear testing of the composite was done in accordance with the ASTM G99-05 standard. The Taguchi design of experiments (DOE) was used to conduct a statistical analysis of experimental wear results. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to identify significant control factors affecting SWR under dry sliding conditions. Taguchi prediction model is also developed to verify the correlation between the test parameters and performance output.

The research study reveals that TiO₂ filler particles in the epoxy/bamboo and epoxy/flax composite will improve the tribological properties of the developed composites. Statistical analysis of SWR concludes that normal load is the most influencing factor, followed by sliding distance, Wt.% TiO2 filler and sliding velocity. ANOVA concludes that normal load has the maximum effect of 31.92% and 35.77% and Wt.% of TiO2 filler has the effect of 17.33% and 16.98%, respectively, on the SWR of bamboo and flax FRCs. A fairly good agreement between the Taguchi predictive model and experimental results is obtained.

This research paper attempts to include both TiO₂ filler and bamboo/flax fibers to develop a novel hybrid composite material. TiO₂ micro and nanoparticles are promising filler materials, it helps to enhance the mechanical and tribological properties of the epoxy composites. Taguchi DOE and ANOVA used for statistical analysis serve as guidelines for academicians and practitioners on how to best optimize the control variable with particular reference to natural FRCs.

The digital evolution of production and logistics systems requires seamless integration of various functions. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can streamline operations, reduce costs and optimise freight transport dynamics. Therefore, CPS adoption is essential to transform existing logistics infrastructure by connecting logistical equipment to cyberspace. This research addresses the critical issue of low CPS adoption in logistics. By analysing the barriers, the study proposes effective strategies to increase CPS integration significantly.

This study used the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and identified 18 barriers to CPS adoption in freight logistics. The barriers were then analysed using the fuzzy data-driven multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method, i.e. fuzzy-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (Fuzzy-DEMATEL).

The computational analysis of the proposed framework shows that “the complexity of CPS and lagged data-driven logistics infrastructure” (T₁) is a major technological inhibitor to CPS adoption. The “high cost of CPS technology” (O₈) and a “lack of top management support” (O₃) are the top causal inhibitors at the organisational level. “Lack of data governance and regulatory framework” (E₂) is the main environmental inhibitor.

The causal mapping of the TOE-based barriers helps policymakers and logisticians to develop strategies or follow recommended adoption strategies to improve CPS adoption in logistics.

This study is a pioneering effort to unveil the adoption barriers of CPS in the freight logistics industry and suggest strategies for fostering adoption. This research could provide valuable insights for logistics organisations to support CPS-driven logistics modernisation.