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This study aims to explore the determinants of digital technology adoption within micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) operating in a developing economy. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of fit-viability and task-technology fit models, this study investigates the impact of environmental fit, task-technology fit and viability on the intention to adopt digital technologies among MSMEs.

This study validates the theoretical model using structural equation modeling, using data collected from 280 experienced respondents employed in the MSMEs in India.

The results indicate that both functional and symbolic benefits positively impact managers’ intention to adopt digital technology. However, subgroup analysis reveals that in the case of service enterprises, only functional benefits have a positive influence on managers’ intention to adopt digital technology. In addition, the findings underscore the crucial role of viability in shaping the intention to adopt digital technologies among MSMEs. This study highlights how functional and symbolic benefits motivate digital technology adoption in MSMEs.

There is a dearth of empirical studies investigating the factors influencing the adoption of digital technology by MSME firms, especially within the context of developing economies and specifically within the MSME domain. This study contributes to the theoretical discussion surrounding digital technology adoption among MSMEs in India. Through empirical research, it expands on the fit-viability model and formulates a technology adoption model within the MSME context.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the Islamic banks fix their mark-up for Murabaha contract strategically when traditional banks also co-exist in a country. This study also aims to investigate what role the varying degree of Iman (faith) plays in shaping the preferences of the consumers to choose between the services of Islamic banks and the traditional banks.

This paper constructs a mathematical model like the Bertrand competition in neo-classical economic theory. A religiosity parameter for the consumers has been inserted into their demand functions for their products. A simple optimization technique from mathematics has been used to arrive at the results.

This paper applies game theory to analyze how Islamic banks determine their mark-up when they are facing competition with traditional banks. It considers the demand functions of the consumers for the products of Islamic banks and traditional banks. The demand functions depend on the mark-up, as well as on the interest rate with the difference that they also depend on the religiosity of the consumers. The paper shows that Islamic, as well as the conventional banks charge lower prices for their loans if there is consideration of religiosity aspect of the consumers. Further, it shows that as religiosity increases in a country, the lending rates decrease. The theoretical result is also consistent with the real practices of the banks. Therefore, the dual banking system is welfare enhancing for the customers.

The Islamic banks can leverage the religiosity aspect of the consumers and expand their business competitively by charging them lower mark-up. The adherence of religious customers to the services of Islamic banks creates some kind of loyalty premium for them. This could lead to the reduction of mark-up price triggering competition between both types of banks to attract more customers. Therefore, it is prudent for the government to develop a system for furthering the quality of honesty that is an integral part of Islam.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper where it has been analyzed theoretically how the Islamic banks determine their mark-up for Murabaha contract strategically. This approach explains why the rate of return of Islamic banks hinges on the interest rates of traditional banks. One of the novel feature of this paper is that religiosity character of the consumer is good for banks because religiosity prohibits the people to default on their loans.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of demand information sharing on products’ greening levels with downstream competition. Specifically, this study examine two types of green products, “development-intensive” (DI) and “marginal-cost intensive” (MI), in a two-echelon supply chain where the manufacturer produces substitutable products, and competing retailers operate in a market with uncertain demand.

The authors adopt the manufacturer-led Stackelberg game-theoretic framework and consider a multistage game. This study consider how retailers receive private signals about uncertain demand and decide whether to share this information with the manufacturer, who then decides whether to acquire this information at a certain given cost. This paper considers backward induction and Bayesian Nash equilibrium to solve the model.

The authors find that in the absence of competition, information sharing is the only equilibrium and improves the greening level under DI, whereas no-information sharing is the only equilibrium and improves the greening level under MI, an increase in downstream competition drives higher investment in greening efforts by the manufacturer in both DI and MI and the manufacturer needs to offer a payment to the retailers to obtain demand information under both simultaneous and sequential contract schemes.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining how the nature of products (margin intensive green product or development intensive green product) influences green supply chain decisions under information asymmetry and downstream competition.

Automation of detecting cracked surfaces on buildings or in any industrially manufactured products is emerging nowadays. Detection of the cracked surface is a challenging task for inspectors. Image-based automatic inspection of cracks can be very effective when compared to human eye inspection. With the advancement in deep learning techniques, by utilizing these methods the authors can create automation of work in a particular sector of various industries.

In this study, an upgraded convolutional neural network-based crack detection method has been proposed. The dataset consists of 3,886 images which include cracked and non-cracked images. Further, these data have been split into training and validation data. To inspect the cracks more accurately, data augmentation was performed on the dataset, and regularization techniques have been utilized to reduce the overfitting problems. In this work, VGG19, Xception and Inception V3, along with Resnet50 V2 CNN architectures to train the data.

A comparison between the trained models has been performed and from the obtained results, Xception performs better than other algorithms with 99.54% test accuracy. The results show detecting cracked regions and firm non-cracked regions is very efficient by the Xception algorithm.

The proposed method can be way better back to an automatic inspection of cracks in buildings with different design patterns such as decorated historical monuments.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the capability of finite element analysis (FEA) in performing the virtual thermal cycling reliability test to evaluate the reliability of solder joints in a ball grid array (BGA) package.

Thermal cycling test has been used to evaluate the reliability or fatigue life of the solder joints in BGA package using commercially available FEA software, ANSYS™. The effect of different temperature cycling condition is studied by applying different value of dwell time and ramp rate. Two types of analyses are used namely, the physics‐based analysis and the statistical‐based analysis. Two screening design methods namely, central composite design (CCD) and Box‐Behnken Matrix Design method are used to isolate the most important factors amongst six selected design variables. The optimization process is carried out using response surface methodology (RSM).

It is observed that changes in ramp rate produce significant effect in solder fatigue life than changes in dwell time but the dwell time at high temperature has a negligible contribution to solder fatigue life. It has been found that the thickness of the mold has a significant effect on the performance of the solder joint reliability (more than 50 percent) as compared to that from other factors. Besides, the effect of individual factor, the interaction among factors also changes the solder joint reliability. RSM based on Box‐Behnken Matrix design offers the highest characteristic solder joint fatigue life with a value of 2,861 cycles.

This paper provides a comprehensive method to evaluate the reliability of solder joints in terms of physics and statistical‐based analysis.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of offset angle in wave soldering by using thermal fluid structure interaction modeling with experimental validation.

The authors used a thermal coupling approach that adopted mesh-based parallel code coupling interface between finite volume-and finite element-based software (ABAQUS). A 3D single pin-through-hole (PTH) connector with five offset angles (0 to 20°) on a printed circuit board (PCB) was built and meshed by using computational fluid dynamics preprocessing software called GAMBIT. An implicit volume of fluid technique with a second-order upwind scheme was also applied to track the flow front of solder material (Sn63Pb37) when passing through the solder pot during wave soldering. The structural solver and ABAQUS analyzed the temperature distribution, displacement and von Mises stress of the PTH connector. The predicted results were validated by the experimental solder profile.

The simulation revealed that the PTH offset angle had a significant effect on the filling of molten solder through the PCB. The 0° angle yielded the best filling profile, filling time, lowest displacement and thermal stress. The simulation result was similar to the experimental result.

This study provides a better understanding of the process control in wave soldering for PCB assembly.

This study provides fundamental guidelines and references for the thermal coupling method to address reliability issues during wave soldering. It also enhances understanding of capillary flow and PTH joint issues to achieve high reliability in PCB assembly industries.

The financial crisis of 2007/2008 has caused many to question the basic premises of the current business system. Porter and Kramer suggest that the purpose of the corporation needs to be redefined. They posit that the corporation, rather than merely pursuing financial value creation set out to pursue shared value creation. They further declare social entrepreneurs the paragons of said shared‐value creation. The purpose of this paper is to explore that claim.

This paper critically analyzes the pathway of shared‐value creation in three leading social enterprises employing a genealogical perspective.

It is found that very innovative shared‐value creating ventures opted out of balance‐oriented, shared‐value creation strategies and embraced either financial or social‐value primacy strategies over time. The findings thus question the power of the shared‐value creation notion when viewed as balance orientation.

The paper presents a new concept, a new methodology, and interesting case studies.

“Business as usual” has come under heavy scrutiny. The financial crisis has caused many to question the basic premises of the current business system. In the following chapter, I will examine how organizations can cope with the current crisis by creating sustainable value. I propose that businesses learn from a newly emerging field called social entrepreneurship. The concept of social entrepreneurship is discussed and examined for its potential to support for sustainable value creation. A detailed case study of bracNet provides an example of shared-value creation. bracNet is a for-profit enterprise in Bangladesh aiming to close the digital divide globally and regionally. New business models and cross-sectoral partnerships allow bracNet to implement a social and financial value creation strategy. Key for success seems to be the shared ownership of bracNet, by BRAC, a nonprofit organization, and various for-profit entities (including VCs, industrial conglomerates, and hedge funds).

A simplified general purpose analytical finite element model has been developed to analyze the thermal performance of a continuous flow polymerase chain reaction (CPCR) microdevice. The corresponding governing differential equations along with the appropriate boundary conditions have been solved using a self‐developed code in Matlab®. Results obtained from the finite element simulations have been validated with available published results and also showed good agreement with those obtained from commercial FEA package, ANSYS®. The present methodology has an added advantage due to its flexibility where the unit cell of the finite element model can be arranged into different orientation for analyses of different CPCR microdevice configuration. In microchannel heat sinks, the results obtained agree well with the published result which demonstrates the flexibility and robustness of present methodology to be used for various applications.