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Mahindra Trucks and Bus Division (MTBD) of Mahindra & Mahindra is at an interesting stage of its evolution. Having gone through a bad patch with a product that was not quite up to the mark, it appears to have got the product right by early 2018 and truck sales had been going up in the country for the previous four years. While Mahindra & Mahindra as a company is a large firm with revenues of more than USD 15 billion, MTBD itself is a small player (INR 2400 crore, USD 350 million) within the firm and in an Indian truck industry that is dominated by goliaths, Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland that between them had more than 81% market share and a customer mindset that was loath to leave the comfort of a known brand. The case provides data on product specifications, prices, marketing communication, channels, positioning, the context and competition. The intention is to use the case to go through the steps involved in evaluating and developing and creating a marketing plan for MTBD to increase its market share from the 4% in 2018 to an intended 8% in 2022.

Subject area information and communication technology (ICT) for development.

Master of Business Administration Program’s Management Information Systems courses. Or introductory courses in Masters in ICT for Development.

The paper aims to highlight the endeavour of public distribution system (PDS), a food security scheme for under-privileged people in India, towards excellence, using ICT in the state of Chhattisgarh. It presents two important roles of ICT: one, as a system improvement tool, through supply chain integration (in Phase 1) and, the other, as tool for empowerment, by providing choices through computerized online real-time electronic (CORE) PDS (in Phase 2). CORE PDS was intended to provide choices of retail outlets to poor beneficiaries for collecting their food entitlement, breaking the retail outlet’s monopoly. The project was successfully implemented in some urban areas of Chhattisgarh, providing motivation for its mass scale roll-out. But, the contextual differences between rural and urban settings were raising questions on the ultimate value expected to be delivered by the project in rural areas.

Two major learning outcomes of the case: students will appreciate the multi-faceted role of ICT in improving the performance of a system meant for a financially poor section of the society; students will understand the role of contextual settings in a developing economy in the endeavour of ICT projects for societal development.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 10: Public Sector Management.

In line with the fast development of information technology, the Internet of Medical Robotic Things (IoMRT) is gaining more ground in health care. Sharing patients' information effectively and securely can improve sensing data usage and confidentiality. Nevertheless, current IoMRT data sharing schemes are lacking in terms of supporting efficient forward secrecy; when secret key for a robotic nurse as a data requester is compromised, all the historically shared data with this robotic nurse will be leaked.

The presented paper suggests an efficient puncturable attribute-based data sharing scheme enabling guaranteed firm security and versatile access control over health sensing data in IoMRT. This scheme integrates attribute-based and puncturable encryption to avail a shared secret key for data sharing that can be encrypted by an access structure over the Data Requester (DR) attributes. Additionally, the establishment of the shared key and the mutual authentication is simultaneously done between the cloud servers and DRs.

The proposed scheme can achieve forward secrecy by adopting the bloom filter technique that efficiently helps the updating of a private key with no need for the key distributor to reissue the key. The security proof illustrates that this scheme adheres to the security model. Besides, the performance evaluation expresses the feasibility of the suggested scheme.

The main goal of designing a puncture algorithm is to devise an updated key from the ciphertext and a secret key, allowing the decryption of all ciphertexts except the one that has been punctured on. This research illustrates the first effort to develop a puncturable attribute-based encryption scheme to achieve efficient finegrained data sharing in IoMRT.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of home-based teleworking globally. Coupled with this, there are rising concerns about workplace cyberbullying. However, less studies have explored workplace cyberbullying in non-western countries. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether workplace cyberbullying affects employees' intention to stay and to find out the mechanisms underlying the relationship.

Data were collected among Indian home-based teleworkers. Data were analysed using SmartPLS and SPSS-PROCESS macro.

Results show that workplace cyberbullying negatively impacts intention to stay and affective commitment acts as a mediator between this link. The results also reveal that workplace social capital moderates the negative effects of workplace cyberbullying on affective commitment. The results further confirm that workplace social capital moderated the indirect impact of workplace cyberbullying on intention to stay via affective commitment.

This study highlights the potential of leveraging workplace social capital in order to reduce the negative effects of workplace cyberbullying.

These findings can complement the previous studies on the impact of negative work events on affective commitment and intention to stay as well as extend researchers' understanding of the underlying mechanism between workplace cyberbullying and intention to stay. Furthermore, this research explains how employees can utilise social resources from workplace social capital to mitigate the negative outcomes of workplace cyberbullying.

The long-term sustainability of microfinancing institutions (MFIs) is essential for poverty reduction. This study aims to empirically evaluate whether contemporary microfinance economics supports the institutionalization of MFIs, which are crucial for the socioeconomic development of marginalized communities.

This research examines the flow of funds from wealthy economic areas (high-income countries, richer urban areas and capital-rich corporations) to poorer regions (low-income countries, poorer rural areas, female borrowers and financially constrained microenterprises) as a proxy for microfinance economics. Financial sustainability and institutionalization are assessed through return on assets and operational self-sufficiency. The study also considers credit risk as a key independent variable. Using panel data analysis of 333 MFIs from the USA and India, covering 2008–2018, sourced from the Microfinance Information Exchange data set on the World Bank website, this paper analyzes these dynamics.

Results show that credit risks negatively affect the financial sustainability of MFIs in both developed and developing countries. Contrary to expectations, the development status of a nation positively moderates the impact of credit risks on financial sustainability. In developing countries, intra-nation investments do not yield additional returns for MFIs or interact with credit risks. However, the economics of microfinance support the institutionalization of MFIs in these regions.

This study provides valuable empirical evidence on the relationship between microfinance economics and institutionalization, addressing a critical need in the microfinancing sector.

The purpose of the study is to examine the value-based performance of firms in construction sector in India using Tobin's Q and Market Capitalization (MCAP) and then determine their significant financial drivers.

The study is based on data from 87 firms engaged in infrastructure, real estate, industrial construction and allied areas in India over a study period of 10 years. Three distinct forms of panel regression models have been developed using Tobin's Q and MCAP as dependent variables. The models developed are using Baltagi's (1981) Error Component 2SLS, Varadharajan-Krishnakumar's (1987) Generalized 2SLS and Arellano – Bower/Blundell – Bond's (1991) dynamic panel.

The study found that MCAP is a better suited value-based performance measure for construction sector firms in India. The study further reports that the age of the firm, profit after tax, investment in research and development, dividends, leverage and net fixed asset are significant positive drivers, whereas cash flow is a significant negative driver.

The study is limited to a geographic location; therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalized.

As MCAP is a better suited value-based performance measure of a firm in the construction sector, managers should focus on improving profitability, higher research and development activities, higher dividends and higher expenditures on net fixed assets for improvement.

This is an original attempt to examine the value-based performance of firms in the construction sector in India using Tobin's Q and MCAP.

This paper aims to identify the factors that influence students' mental health, particularly in the context of MBA students passing through an emotional phase of the placement season.

A conceptual model through literature has been proposed. To test the proposed model of this study, a survey was conducted among the students of three MBA institutes of national reputation in India. The study's hypotheses were investigated using partial least squares-structural equations modeling and analysis of variance. To corroborate the findings of the survey data, a qualitative study in the form of open-ended interviews with five students was conducted.

The study revealed that female students, non-engineering graduates and students from non-family business backgrounds undergo stress, anxiety and depression higher than their classmates. Cumulative grade point average and bank loans do not significantly affect students' stress, anxiety and depression during the placement season. It was found that the increase in the levels of mindfulness scores led to a significant negative impact on stress, anxiety and depression among the students.

There is a gap in the literature that addresses the mental health of MBA students during campus job placements and the role of mindfulness in mitigating stress, anxiety and depression in these students. This research attempts to fill these research gaps.

Although the importance of trust in creating and maintaining interorganizational relationships has been acknowledged, little research has focused on the processes leading to the development of trust in international strategic alliances. This article addresses this shortcoming and reports the results of field research on the evolution of AMRAD Pharmaceuticals, a strategic alliance between U.S. and Australian biomedical firms. Based on this case study, a process model of trust is developed which describes how trust can be created and expanded between strategic alliance partners, and its implications for alliance performance. Propositions are developed to motivate and guide future empirical investigation.