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Governmental regulations aiming to protect environmental goals often require firms to increase sales prices with negative consequences on price fairness perception. Companies might therefore either justify the price increase by highlighting the good cause (environmental framing) or they could blame the government for the regulation (governmental framing). Firms might also communicate their investments in the relationship to motivate customers to stay. This paper aims to examine the impact of such communication content on price increase fairness perception and switching intention in a contractual service setting.

This paper first examines the content of 119 price increase letters from electricity suppliers in a qualitative pilot study. The main study then tests our research framework with 552 respondents using a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects experimental scenario design (manipulating framing, effort and regret communication).

Customers perceive governmental framing as fairer than environmental framing. Effort and regret communication by firms weaken or reverse this effect. They reduce customers’ fairness perception for the governmental framing, while regret communication increases it for the environmental framing. However, regret communication also increases switching intention in both framings through a strong direct effect.

Cost-induced price increases are perceived on a “locus continuum” on which reason-framing and relationship investments can shift the consumer perception. Future studies may apply our framework in different industries and contexts.

The results provide guidelines for communicating price increases. Firms should prefer a governmental framing and they should also hesitate to communicate relationship investments, which signal internal locus of the firm, such as effort or regret.

Our results question the naive assumption of general positive effects of environmental framings and relationship investments on customer responses. Based on a new view on attributions of cost-caused price increases, we suggest and find several counterintuitive results. We argue that the framing and relationship investments shift the cause perception of an external cost increase on the attributional locus continuum.

The study research aims to examine the effects of supply chain management practices on risk mitigating (RM) by studying the correlation between social ties, institutional support, interagency cooperation and external flexibility in public healthcare sectors. Moreover, this research examines the impact of RM on supplier trust, and also the authors examine the relationship among supplier trust and logistics performance.

The authors used a structural equation model (SEM) based on 539 quantitative data from Ethiopian healthcare organizations. The model included control variables like company size and position to understand better how employees perceive risk mitigation.

The study's findings indicate that interagency collaboration and external flexibility positively affects RM. On the other hand, RM positively impacts supplier trust and also the supplier trust has a positive effects on performance dimensions. This study also shows that RM has not positively impacting institutional support and social ties.

The study investigation may help the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare service SC agencies and other stakeholders better understand the effects of supply chain management practices on RM and obtain information on progress made thus far.

This research helps managers and their organizations to manage the risk associated with their organizations. Though, this study focuses on Ethiopian healthcare SCM. The authors expect the findings might apply to other countries organizations with comparable demographic or SCM features.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to make strategic decisions for social entrepreneurship and carry out a sustainability and social impact analysis, assess the benefits of a circular economy-based retail model and investigate ways to preserve these benefits and recognize the ethical and sustainable issues facing the fast fashion sector and how social enterprises are addressing them.

The culture of fast fashion had proven to be dangerous for the environment as it had promoted a culture of consumerism and materialism. It had also increased the landfills in different countries. The need of the hour was to upcycle used and unwanted clothes into new innovative items. This idea had been practically implemented by Mrs Sujata Chatterjee of the Twirl Store, the protagonist of this case study. Chatterjee was a social entrepreneur who recognized the environmental and social problems caused by rapid fashion and abandoned apparel in landfills. She launched the Twirl Store, a social enterprise with the mission of advancing circular economy and sustainability practices in the textile sector. Rural women were economically and culturally empowered by the enterprise’s upcycling of used clothing using their abilities, and a sustainable source of income was created. Finding abandoned clothing, sorting and processing it effectively and locating clients who share her commitment to sustainability were difficult tasks for Chatterjee. Despite the difficulties, the Twirl Store served as an example of how circular economy concepts, cultural sustainability and women’s empowerment might be combined, highlighting the importance of social entrepreneurship in addressing global concerns and fostering positive social effects and economic impact.

This case study is applicable for undergraduate as well as post graduate students of management studies.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operate in complex and competitive international environments, implement market and non-market strategies, manage resources and value-added activities and contribute to the overall performance of their parent firms. Thus, the research question on the determinants of MNE foreign subsidiaries’ performance is of interest to managers and academic researchers. The empirical literature has flourished over the recent decades; however, the domains are fragmented, and the findings are inclusive. The purpose of this study is to systematically review, analyse and synthesize the empirical articles in this area, identify research gaps and suggest a future research agenda.

This study uses the qualitative content analysis method in reviewing and analysing 150 articles published in 24 scholarly journals during the period 2000–2023.

The literature uses a variety of theoretical perspectives to examine the key determinants of subsidiary performance which can be grouped into six major domains, namely, home- and host country-level factors; distance between home and host countries; the characteristics of parent firms and of subsidiaries; and governance mechanisms (the establishment modes and ownership strategy, subsidiary autonomy and the use of home country expatriates for transferring knowledge from the headquarters and controlling foreign subsidiaries). A range of objective and subjective indicators are used to measure subsidiary performance. Yet, the research shows a lack of broader integration of theories and presents inconsistent theoretical predictions, inconclusive empirical findings and estimation bias, which hinder our understanding of how the determinants independently and jointly shape the performance of foreign subsidiaries.

This study provides a comprehensive, nuanced and systematic review that synthesizes and clarifies the determinants of subsidiary performance, offers deeper insights from both theoretical, methodological and empirical aspects and proposes some promising avenues for future research directions.

This study aims to establish if risk factors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in older hospitalized psychiatric patients differ from geriatric inpatients and if the current risk assessment tools being used are suitable.

The authors undertook a single centre retrospective review of 75 records for presence of predetermined risk factors. In total, 55 discharged patients with thrombotic events within geriatric settings were compared with 20 from mental health settings. Differences in risk factors were determined using t-test and Fisher’s exact test.

VTE patients in geriatric units were older and had reduced mobility. Psychiatric patients were more likely to be dehydrated and treated with psychotropics. Whilst rates of VTE screening were comparable in both settings, geriatric inpatients were more frequently prescribed thromboprophylaxis.

Older psychiatric inpatients differ from those in medical/surgical settings in their profiles and risk factors for VTE. Approaches for VTE risk management also differed.

The study suggests the need for VTE screening tools and treatment protocols specific to older psychiatric settings.

Targeted approaches may improve outcomes specific to each group.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt in comparing VTE risk factors across acute physical health care and mental health settings.