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Autonomous vehicles rely on IoT-based technologies to take numerous decisions in real-time situations. However, added information from the sensor readings will burden the system and cause the sensors to produce inaccurate readings. To overcome these issues, this paper aims to focus on communication between sensors and autonomous vehicles for better decision-making in real-time. The system has unique features to detect the upcoming and ongoing vehicles automatically without intervention of humans in the system. It also predicts the type of vehicle and intimates the driver.

The system is designed using the ATmega 328 P and ESP 8266 chip. Information from ultrasonic and infrared sensors are analyzed and updated in the cloud server. The user can access all these real-time data at any point of time. The stored information in cloud servers is used for integrating artificial intelligence into the system.

The real-time sensor information is used to predict the surrounding environment and the system responds to the user according to the situation.

The system is implemented on embedded platform with IoT technology. The sensor information is updated to the cloud using the Blynk application for the user in real time.

The system is proposed for smart cities with IoT technology where the user and the system are aware of the surrounding environment. The system is mainly concerned with the accuracy of sensors and the distance between the vehicles in real-time environment.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the coherence between sustainability conceptualization (the “what”) and its implementation (the “how”) in terms of implemented actions and stakeholders’ interactions. The paper proposes a grid approach for the simultaneous evaluation of sustainability conceptualization and implementation.

This research is based on a multiple case study conducted in ten Italian Universities. In-depth interviews with general directors and administrative staff responsible for sustainable activities have been conducted together with documents and websites analysis.

The coherence between sustainability conceptualization and its implementation showed heterogeneity of practice. Results propose a grid approach, which highlights six different approaches to explain the connection between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability.

The research is focused on Italian universities and may have overlooked approaches to campus sustainability specific of other countries.

Understanding the coherence between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability can provide university managers with a practical tool of analysis when approaching and evaluating the sustainable campus.

While higher education scholars are widely exploring the conceptualization of a sustainable campus and its implementation, little is known about the coherence between these two realms, despite their importance to facilitate the transition of sustainability vision into real practice. This study contributes to this area by proposing a grid approach to evaluate the coherence between sustainability conceptualization and implementation.

This paper aims to understand the social work curriculum as perceived by the learners of the master’s degree programme. The study compares the perception as held by students’ originating from the same and different faculties regarding the curricular aspects of social work education in India.

The study uses a qualitative approach. It is a case study-based paper whereby the participants were selected using multi-phase sampling, universities were selected using purposive sampling and 106 students were selected using quota sampling. Semi-structured online interviews were taken using an interview guide and transcribed. Inter-coder reliability was tested using Cohen’s kappa. The paper used grounded theory to analyse data.

The study suggests a significant difference in the perception of curriculum between those originating from the same discipline and other faculty. It was found that the learners perceive the curriculum to be obsolete in addressing contemporary concerns and needs serious reframing.

As the study uses the case study method, it has been limited to four universities of Madhya Pradesh state of India to analyse the cases effectively. Further, only the domain of social work has been explored in the study. Thus, the results may lack generalizability. Further studies can also be conducted to test the propositions suggested. Even similar studies can be carried out with other disciplines. Also, the study being cross-sectional leaves scope for future comparative and longitudinal studies.

The paper presents some interesting perceptions of the student community, which can be used for redesigning and revising the social work curriculum. Such appraisals if done by every educational institute can bring significant reforms in the present education system of India and make it at par with the global standards and responsive to the contemporary needs of the society. Further, with such training, social workers can be true change agents.

The study can play a significant role in the redesigning of social work education in India. Thus, directly or indirectly benefit the entire society.

The paper addresses the concern to include the current student community in curriculum design to ensure quality curriculum.

University students have a clear need for bank accounts as they have fees, expenses and cash needs. The usefulness of a current account is therefore pre‐evident and Islamic banks need to focus on their brand image and the services they offer. Indeed, understanding bank selection from Muslim customer's perspective can provide useful information to banks' senior management to help them allocate resources and design products that promise to attract and better satisfy customers. Literature collected so far suggests a strong Islamic brand reputation as well as better financial and banking services are the main factors which influence the selection of a brand. The purpose of this paper is to test this within a positivistic empirical framework and amongst the younger generation in Malaysia.

The sample was based on 300 students at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. The study utilised five selection criteria based on previous research, personal experience and interview with bank officials and university students. The study also provides some insight into the younger generation's awareness of Islamic banking and the processes involved in the selection of their preferred brand.

It would seem that whilst the importance of religion is a major driver in the choice of Islamic banking the fundamental differences between Islamic and conventional banking are poorly understood. What is important is brand, ease of use and the quality of the customer interaction.

The paper investigates the factors which determine a customer's choice of a particular bank and provides insights into cementing relationships with existing customers as well as how to gain new ones.

The paper aims to report on an integrated techno-economic framework for the performance analysis of energy production based on the renewable energy resources (RERs). Whilst the majority of existing studies have focussed on technical aspects of RER modelling, the proposed framework incorporates financial assessment into the process of appraising the alternatives of hydropower, wind energy and solar energy infrastructures. An approach to the optimal choice of RER deployment for a specific developing region is formulated and applied to Ghana.

A model comprising technical and economic parameters was developed for analysing the investment rankings of different RERs and comparing them to that of conventional energy sources such as the natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) electric plant. The analysis also included the carbon cost and power generation capacity. The total life cycle costing and levelised cost of energy generated from each resource were modelled for three corporate ownership structures: a public utility that is not tax-liable (no-tax case); organisational power generation for internal use, ultimately concerned with its after-tax costs (after-tax case); and an independent power producer for the market, with before-tax revenues covering all costs (before-tax case).

Using the empirical data from Ghana together with the proposed framework, it is shown that when carbon incentives are provided, the hydroelectric and wind conversion infrastructures can effectively compete with the conventional NGCC in this country, whilst with no carbon credit, NGCC still appears to be the most viable option.

Policy-related recommendations on carbon incentives and preferential power purchase prices, which are critical for widespread RER deployment, can be directly derived from this research.

The study represents a comprehensive decision-making tool that can be used in regulatory and investment analysis on the expansion of RER systems in the developing countries.

This study aims, first of all, to analyze the extent to which Italian higher education institutions declare their mission statements in their official documents; then, to examine their content; and finally, to investigate whether mission statements include considerations on sustainability dimensions.

After a theoretical background on the new strategic approach adopted by higher education institutions and the related disclosure of their mission statements, the study deepens their sustainable perspective presenting the concepts of social engagement and knowledge transfer from a literary point of view. Then, a documentary analysis on the content of Italian universities’ official mission declarations will be conducted, to understand the role they play in society, by individuating their actual interest in sustainable dimensions.

Findings suggest that 36% of the 98 Italian universities state their engagement in societal issues, but only 3 of them mention sustainability targets in their mission declarations.

The study is limited, exclusively based on what higher education institutions share and, in terms of future perspective, the aim can be to investigate further official documents, especially for what concerns sustainability reports.

Practical implications regard the denounce of weak attention paid by Italian universities to sustainability, with the aim to foster them to increase connections with the external world, aware of the centrality of their role within society.

In a context that is not yet completely investigated, the originality of the paper regards the intent to study the sustainable propensity that characterizes the Italian higher education system.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the role of brand equity on mergers and acquisition (M&A) in the pharmaceutical sector; also to emphasize the various strategies and the benefits incurred in the arena of M&A in this sector.

The author studies two major mergers in recent years, i.e. the Daiichi‐Ranbaxy and the Pfizer‐Wyeth deals. Brand equities were calculated. This study applied the “RKS” model developed by the author and Inter‐brand model for calculation of brand equity. The results obtained after the application of the two models were analysed for financial‐based decisions.

The study captures the perceived importance of brand equity factors to M&A decision making. Although this strategy carries a high price tag, it offers quick returns, including access to new markets or a stronger position in current markets. A study on the recent acquisition and mergers in the pharmaceutical industry indicates that there is consolidation in medical devices, generic and consumer health segments of the healthcare industry.

The paper studies two recent mergers which indicate that often these decisions are based on emotion rather than rationality. Therefore, it is suggested that managers should be more rational while taking decisions on mergers or acquisition.

As a frequently observed business phenomenon, the use of product scarcity to improve a product’s market performance has received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. The resulting literature has covered a wide variety of issues based on various theories, using different research methods, in a diverse range of settings. However, this diversity also makes it difficult to grasp the core themes and findings, and to see the outstanding knowledge gaps. This paper aims to review previous studies on the use of product scarcity in marketing and identifies new directions for future research.

A systematic review was conducted to identify and analyse 66 research papers published in business and management journals between 1970 and 2017.

The authors examined the underlying theories of scarcity-based marketing, and developed a conceptual framework that describes the key factors of product scarcity and how they influence both consumers and the market. They also highlighted some key achievements in modelling the processes involved in using product scarcity in marketing.

This analysis of the identified papers suggests that there are substantial gaps in our knowledge of this field, which opens up new paths for future research. For future research, the authors identified three directions aimed at: addressing the practical needs of firms in understanding product scarcity; guiding the implementation of scarcity-based strategies; and measuring, monitoring and predicting the level of product scarcity and its impacts during implementation.

Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation. However, in the current scenario of technological dynamism, firms are exploring multiple sources to generate ideas for innovation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the relative effect of various sources of innovations on a firm’s performance.

We offer a conceptual framework where we identify six distinct sources of innovations – firm, customers, external network, competition, macro-environment, and technology and how they create value for focal firms especially their brand equity. We introduce a taxonomy of various costs and benefits related to innovations. We then argue using our proposed taxonomy to understand the relative strengths of various sources of innovation affecting a firm’s brand equity.

We discuss and compare the relative effects of these sources of innovations on a firm’s brand equity by rank-ordering the sources. The customers and the technology as a source of innovation have the maximum impact on the firm’s brand equity followed by the marginal impact of macro-environment and external network of a firm. The firm itself has a moderate impact on its brand equity, while competition has the minimal impact. Further, we also discuss how the relationship is moderated by different innovation characteristics (nature and type of innovations).

The main practical implication is to create awareness among managers about various costs and benefits of the proposed six sources of innovations and their effects on brand equity. Managers would be able to prioritize their sources of innovation based on firms’ current needs, and whether to focus on lower costs or building higher brand equity in the scarce resource environment.

We offer a comprehensive list of six sources of innovation, build a conceptual framework wherein we discuss the relative strengths of these sources affecting brand equity.

Shopper marketing describes the planning and execution of all marketing activities that influence a shopper along – and beyond – the path-to-purchase, from shopping trigger to purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation stages. Shopper marketing practices at manufacturers and retailers are growing at a tremendous pace and a rising portion of marketing budgets are now devoted to shopper marketing. The first phase of shopper marketing research and practice, Shopper Marketing 1.0, addressed interesting issues, primarily relating to in-store marketing. In the next phase, Shopper Marketing 2.0, will significantly extend to out-of-store marketing, including online and mobile marketing, resulting in an integrated practice. In this new environment, to formulate and execute effective shopper marketing strategies, managers need to better understand the complete picture of how online, offline, mobile and in-store marketing influence shoppers in the path-to-purchase-and-beyond cycle. In this chapter, we present the evolution of shopper marketing, summarize key learnings, outline important issues, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of Shopper Marketing 2.0.