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The case is written using secondary data sources (namely, research documents, press information, journal articles and published interviews). Publicly declared company information has further been leveraged to augment case facts. All information sources have been duly acknowledged in the reference section.

The case is written in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the Indian retail industry, revolving around scenarios in which a multinational retailer has to decide on its long- and short-term strategy in such an economic crisis. The case story has been developed around Marks and Spencer’s retail venture in the Indian market. With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting business at various levels, with countries moving to lock down and economies shrinking to recessionary levels, one of the worst affected sectors is retail. The teaching case builds upon Mark and Spencer’s initial decision of not entering and extending its food/grocery business in India. While it remained a dominant player in Indian fashion retail for almost two decades, it needs to re-think its decision of entering food retail owing to a pandemic situation affecting its offline sales/store footfall and increasing competition from global fashion brands such as Zara and H&M that had flooded the Indian fashion retail sector. The case provides a context for students to perform environmental factor and competitor analysis for a sector, with special focus on decision making in a changing crisis scenario.

This case could be used in undergraduate and MBA classroom programme, across subjects such as retail management, marketing management, international business, international business environment and strategic business management. This case fits while discussing topics such as business environmental factors, competitor analysis, decision-making under crisis, market entry decision, omnichannel retail strategy, consumer behaviour and brand management.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in countries reacting differently to an ongoing crisis. Latent to this reaction mechanism is the inherent cultural characteristics of each society resulting in differential responses to the epidemic spread. In this study, the moderated moderation role of culture, on information dissemination by media during epidemic recovery-phase has been investigated.

Hofstede’s cultural factors are hypothesized to moderate the moderating effect of free-liberal media on the relationship of COVID-19 recovery rate and human mobility. Panel regression model, using mobility data and recovery rate across 95 countries for a period of 170 days has been preferred to test the hypotheses. The results are further substantiated using factor wise interaction plots and slope difference analysis.

The findings suggest that societies with high power distance and masculinity scores strengthen the impact of media on the relationship between COVID-19 recovery rate and mobility whereas, high individualistic and long-term orientation societies weaken the same effect. However, similar conclusions were not confirmed for uncertainty avoidance. Cross-cultural impact, as elucidated by this study, forms a crucial element in policy formulation on epidemic control by indigenous Governing bodies.

While most of the studies emphasizing on cultural characteristics of a society in an epidemic situation covers the growth phase of infection, This research talks about the recovery-phase of the epidemic and the effect of culture.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2023-0314

The purpose of the paper is to systematically review and summarize the literature addressing various sources of online brand equity. The evolution of social media, online forums and virtual communities drive the diversity in nomenclature of online marketing variables. Different researchers have used different marketing variables to indicate the same source of online brand equity. The definitions of the marketing variables change with the change in context, due to the complex e-commerce environment. The marketing variables used in different studies have lead to a conceptual overlap and repetitiveness.

This confusion is sought to be classified by the proposed classificatory scheme that used content analysis of 42 previous studies. The definitions of the antecedents of sources of the online brand equity used by the authors are analyzed with the help of content analysis to summarize the marketing variables in a meaningful way.

The paper identifies 15 major marketing variables by authors in their studies related to various sources of online brand equity. The final list contains 13 frequently used variables which also comprises variables which are evolving due to the dynamic e-commerce environment like the feeling of “virtual-real”.

The variables identified can be used by the businesses as a check list to their marketing activities.

This is the first paper which identifies and clarifies the ambiguity present in the application of the various online marketing variables.

The purpose of this paper is to present the diversity and equality perspectives from the national context of India and introduce a special issue about equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in India.

This special issue consists of six articles on current EDI issues in India. The first three of the contributions are focused on descriptions of diversity challenges and policies regarding caste and disabilities, while the remaining three papers address gender diversity.

In addition to providing an overview of this issue's articles, this paper highlights developments and current themes in India's country-specific equality and diversity scholarship. Drawing on the special issue's six papers, the authors show the relevance of Western theories while also pointing to the need for reformulation of others in the context of India.

The authors conclude with a call to further explore diversity in India and to develop locally relevant, culture-sensitive theoretical frameworks. Religious and economic diversity should receive more attention in future diversity management scholarship in the Indian context.

How does India experience equality and diversity concepts? How are India's approaches similar or different from those experienced in other countries? How do theoretical frameworks originated in the West apply in India? Are new, locally grounded frameworks needed to better capture the developments at play? These questions are addressed by the contributions to this special issue.

Blockchain technology is predicted by many to be the most disruptive technology which might bring accessibility, efficiency and transparency in the financial industry. This study aims to understand the challenges likely to be faced by the Indian banking industry while adopting the technology.

The study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the challenges faced by the banking industry in India. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with senior executives and academicians in the finance and the information technology industries helped gain explorative insights about the challenges.

Thematic analysis suggested a framework comprising five challenges while adopting blockchain technology. These challenges relate to technology, organisation, operation, regulator and environmental context.

The paper contributes to the limited literature on the nascent blockchain technology adoption in banking industry in an emerging country context.