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This paper aims to explore the factors that contribute to inclusive leadership (IL) through the lens of leaders and further segregate these factors into four levels to highlight the attributes required at each level in an inclusive leader’s growth journey.

This study adopts a qualitative research method comprising 31 in-depth interviews with managers across various domains to comprehend their views on traits of an inclusive leader.

This paper provides valuable insights into the vital characteristics of an inclusive leader. The study demonstrates that an inclusive leader’s journey moves from tolerance to acceptance, value, and finally celebration. Leaders need to continuously work on their awareness, efforts, accommodation, openness and cultural intelligence to become truly inclusive. Leaders who appreciate diversity and embrace inclusion create a workplace that impacts employees positively and subsequently influences engagement, performance and productivity of the workforce.

This study will promote awareness and understanding amongst practitioners about critical attributes of inclusive leaders and how organizations can facilitate leaders’ journey in becoming truly inclusive leaders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore the conceptualization of IL through various levels of inclusion (tolerance, acceptance, value and celebration) leading to maturity and growth as an inclusive leader.

The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the short form of personal optimism and self-efficacy optimism-extended (POSO-E) among Indian teachers.

Two studies were conducted to adjudge the reliability and validity of the scale. In the first study, the sample of 510 respondents was randomly divided into subsamples. The first subsample was subjected to the Exploratory Factor Analysis which yielded a two-factor solution explaining 71.02% of the variance. This model was subjected to the Confirmatory Factor Analysis using a second subsample. Acceptable model fit indices suggested factorial validity of the two-dimensional POSO-E among Indian teachers. In the second study, acceptable Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability estimates (greater than 0.70) indicated the scale's reliability. Also, as expected, personal optimism, self-efficacy optimism and overall optimism reported a positive correlation with spiritual well-being and a negative association with distress. It confirmed the criterion validity of the POSO-E among Indian teachers.

The results showed appreciable psychometric properties of the POSO-E in the context of Indian teachers. The study offered a valid and reliable scale to measure teachers' optimism levels. It is poised to generate renewed interest among scholars to emphasize teachers' positive and optimist thinking. The findings also reported a positive association between teachers' optimism and spiritual well-being. It suggests that spiritual practices and interventions could be used to develop an optimistic academic workforce.

The study is one of the pioneer studies that evaluated the reliability and validity of the POSO-E among Indian teachers.

Using Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), this paper establishes a statistically significant link between CPI and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to 54 developing and developed countries. In addition to each country’s CPI, several location and economic characteristics are also postulated to influence FDI. For a group of 22 developing countries, the paper then simulates the impact of an improvement in the CPI score on FDI. This simulation shows that a one point improvement in CPI would generate on average additional FDI of 0.5% of GDP. For instance, the gain in annual FDI would be $7.5 billion for India and $18 billion for China. The paper further simulates the effects of larger FDI on the generation of taxable income and tax revenues in each country using country-specific rates of return on US investment and the highest marginal corporate tax rate in each country. This simulation shows that a three point improvement in CPI would more than double the corporate tax take on average with the biggest beneficiaries such as India, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.

In the final step, the trust model is applied to the on-demand federated multipath distance vector routing protocol (AOMDV) to introduce path trust as a foundation for routing selection in the route discovery phase, construct a trusted path, and implement a path warning mechanism to detect malicious nodes in the route maintenance phase, respectively.

A trust-based on-demand multipath distance vector routing protocol is being developed to address the problem of flying ad-hoc network being subjected to internal attacks and experiencing frequent connection interruptions. Following the construction of the node trust assessment model and the presentation of trust evaluation criteria, the data packet forwarding rate, trusted interaction degree and detection packet receipt rate are discussed. In the next step, the direct trust degree of the adaptive fuzzy trust aggregation network compute node is constructed. After then, rely on the indirect trust degree of neighbouring nodes to calculate the trust degree of the node in the network. Design a trust fluctuation penalty mechanism, as a second step, to defend against the switch attack in the trust model.

When compared to the lightweight trust-enhanced routing protocol (TEAOMDV), it significantly improves the data packet delivery rate and throughput of the network significantly.

Additionally, it reduces the amount of routing overhead and the average end-to-end delay.

This case will help students to analyse and develop insights into the concepts of servant leadership; to analyse and develop insights into women’s empowerment and a process to achieve such empowerment; and to explore the social business models for scaling up.

The Lakhpati Kisan programme under the aegis of Tata Trusts focussed on empowering women marginal farmers in the tribal belts in India to significantly increase their income from 2015. Ganesh Neelam, Executive Director, Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), a nodal agency of Tata Trusts, advocated various livelihood options in agriculture, livestock, non-timber forest resources and water conversation. Initially, CInI faced the challenge of getting the farmers to sign up for the programme due to lack of trust. CInI facilitators educated the farmers about the purpose of the initiative and the benefits they would accrue and built trust. CInI created awareness through knowledge-sharing sessions on best practices in agriculture. They formed self-help groups of farmers for decision-making and for easy access to capital. CInI established farmer producer organisations (FPOs) to bring in a business perspective among farmers. The farmers as Board members and executives ran the FPOs like commercial organisations. CInI built capabilities to create a sustainable and autonomous ecosystem that looked impressive. But still the programme was falling short of the desired target. The farmers were so far reluctant to move forward independently. Ganesh felt that the social business model that CInI had evolved needed a re-look to achieve a significant and lasting impact on the majority of the marginal farmers in India.

The case can be used in the organisation behaviour, human resource management courses and courses on social enterprises as part of the MBA or post-graduate management programme or in executive education programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Given that existing retail brand research tends to treat each level of a retail brand as a separate concept, this paper aims to unveil the holistic nature of a multi-level retail brand, considering the distinctiveness of each level and the interrelationships between the images of different levels.

This study uses a scoping review approach that includes 478 retail brand articles. Subsequently, a thematic analysis method is applied.

The brand attributes that shape the distinct image of each retail brand level encompass diverse intrinsic and extrinsic attributes. Moreover, the holistic nature of a multi-level retail brand is formed by the interrelationships between the images of different levels, which are reflected in the presence of common extrinsic attributes and their interplay at attribute, benefit and attitude levels.

Theoretically, this review provides conceptual clarity by unveiling the multi-level yet holistic nature of a retail brand, helping researchers refine and extend existing theories in retail branding, while also providing new research opportunities in this field. Practically, the findings could guide retailers in implementing differentiated branding strategies at each level while achieving synergy across all levels.

To investigate changes at molecular level in lac‐resole blends, occurring due to the effect of thermal stress at higher temperatures and different intervals of baking time.

Films of lac‐resole blends were applied on tin‐panels and baked at 200°C for different time intervals. The baked films were examined by specular reflectance spectroscopy, as they were otherwise difficult to examine through conventional IR techniques, using KBr pellet method. The results obtained were compared and reported.

When lac‐resole blends are baked at 200°C, in addition to possible chromic ring structures, esters linkages are formed between lac and resole molecules through cross linkages among different reactive sites of lac and PF resin. Blend of 70 per cent lac: 30 per cent resole, baked at 200°C for 20 min was found to be the best in terms of different physico‐chemical properties.

Lac‐synthetic resin blends are structurally complex in nature. Chemical researches on such blends have been typically limited due to lack of modern tools. The present method, to determine molecular level changes in lac‐resole blends due to heating effects, using state‐of‐the‐art instrumentation and computational techniques, opens a new field for research and industry.

Lac and its blends retain their significance in the surface coatings and food applications, in the formulation of lacquers, varnishes and in the finishing industry. This study could have significant implication for such industries from application point of view.

As of now, there is no report of specular reflectance data on lac‐synthetic resin blends. This paper represents the first attempt to obtain and correlate reflectance data on such blends. It also highlights the convenience of the method and the scope of sophisticated data analysis, including derivative spectrometry.

Existing business model frameworks show weak conceptual unification, a paucity of measurement focus and limitations when applied in emerging economies. The study proposes a new business model framework – “Start-up Evaluation Calculus Using Research Evidence” (SECURE). The purpose of this study is to allow the measurement of the impact of business model design on start-up performance in emerging economies.

Data collected from 713 entrepreneurs in select cities of India, Oman and the United Arab Emirates is analyzed through structural equation modeling. The study uses measurement and structural models to examine the validity of measures and additionally tests the five hypothesized relationships proposed in the study.

The SECURE’s components comprising desirability, marketability, feasibility, scalability and viability showed validity and reliability. They synergistically demonstrated a statistically significant effect on a mix of financial and non-financial start-up performance outcomes. An alternative structural relationship that examined the impact of SECURE on only financial performance outcomes showed a weaker model fit. The findings indicate that a business model framework is useful when its ex ante measures show a positive causal effect on the desired performance outcomes.

The scores obtained by the SECURE framework serve as an evaluative tool that informs entrepreneurs and start-ups on the readiness of their proposed, incubated or existing start-ups.

Replacing subjective judgments with objective assessment criteria, SECURE is one of the first quantitative and performance-driven business model frameworks that contain measures from all functional domains of a start-up business. Start-ups can evaluate their business models against the SECURE model’s research-driven quantitative criteria and assess their impact on start-up performance.