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Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the linkage between brand development and advertising/marketing communications plan; and to understand the critical role of branding for organizations and its clients against competition in a business-to-business environment.

The case presents a very dilemma faced by firms such as Bharat Oil Company in developing economies such as India. The public sector entities in India have always enjoyed state-vested power, authority and control. Employees in the organizations lack the appreciation for concepts such as branding and marketing communications. It is a similar situation with the case protagonist Deepak Dixit. The company has completed its first phase of marketing communications/advertising exercise for Prosell, the petrochemical brand. Deepak’s boss Aakash wants Deepak to prepare the marketing communications plan for the second phase of Prosell. Deepak’s meeting with the customers and line managers left him perturbed about the success of the first phase of brand Prosell. The case ends at a point where Deepak has to come up with a branding and marketing communications plan rather than an advertising plan. Research methods: this case is based on data gathered from primary interviews with the case protagonist (name disguised), five line managers and eleven actual business customers of the Bharat Oil Company. Secondary data has been collected from published reports and company website. The name of the company has been disguised.

Postgraduate, Executive, Undergraduate.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Agriculture is a vital sector for every country, especially for a country like India, where the majority of the population is dependent on agriculture as their earning source. Technological improvements in agriculture will increase output with proper forecasting of input resources. In this study, the author tries to investigate the attitude of end users (farmers) about the use of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies.

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model is used to assess the behavioral aspects. The significance of socioeconomic and technological factors is highlighted, providing the study with a thorough understanding of farmers' decision-making processes. A research questionnaire was developed for data collection, and descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the results using AMOS and SPSS software.

A total of 371 survey responses were collected. The results demonstrate that the hypothesis regarding UTAUT model components is validated, while several mediating hypotheses are not supported, indicating that they are not significant in farmers' decision-making.

In this study, socioeconomic and technological factors are considered to be mediating and moderating elements between the constructs of the UTAUT model. Increasing the accuracy and reliability of our study by integrating mediating and moderating variables. This study assists industry specialists in understanding the elements that farmers consider while switching toward new technologies.

The problem of portfolio optimization involves selecting appropriate stocks for investment by maximising the returns from the portfolio at a pre‐specified level of risk. The current approaches center around Markowitz’s mean variance optimization method that suffers from several pitfalls like instability of beta, and are either computation extensive or lead to sub‐optimal solutions. The present work suggests a heuristics and evolutionary approaches to portfolio optimization. The approach is computationally less intensive. It further extends the approach to include cardinality constraints that limit a portfolio to have a specified number of assets, and to impose limits on the proportion of the portfolio held in a given asset. The heuristics technique is employed for asset selection while the evolutionary technique is used for allocation of funds among the already selected assets. The approach is capable of handling a large number of instruments and scenarios, and is relatively stable to minor variations of the inputs, as is practiced in real life situations. The performance from this approach compares well with the Markowitz’s model, and performs better than the stock market indices of US and India.

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis to provide a comprehensive picture and identify future research directions to enrich the existing literature on behavioral biases.

The data set comprises 518 articles from the Web of Science database. Performance analysis is used to highlight the significant contributors (authors, institutions, countries and journals) and contributions (highly influential articles) in the field of behavioral biases. In addition, network analysis is used to delve into the conceptual and social structure of the research domain.

The current review has identified four major themes: “Influence of behavioral biases on investment decisions,” “Determinants of home bias,” “Impact of biases on stock market variables” and “Investors’ decision-making under uncertainty.” These themes reveal that a majority of studies have focused on equity markets, and research on other asset classes remains underexplored.

This study extracted data from a single database (Web of Science) to ensure standardization of results. Consequently, future research could broaden the scope of the bibliometric review by incorporating multiple databases.

The novelty of this research is to provide valuable guidance by evaluating the existing literature and advancing the knowledge base on the conceptual and social structure of behavioral biases.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge sharing behavior in freelancers. Also, the study focuses upon mediation of the relationship by employee engagement and moderation by social support.

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to find validity and reliability of the model under study. To study the relation between variables, the Pearson correlation was used. Further, the PROCESS macro of Hayes (2013) was used to test mediation and moderated mediation.

Transformational leadership influenced knowledge collecting and knowledge donating behavior in freelancers. The relation was mediated by employee engagement. Social support was found to moderate the mediated path by employee engagement between transformational leadership and knowledge collecting behavior. A similar result was found for knowledge donating behavior as a dependent variable.

The model under study can be tested in other contexts with extended data.

The study asserts importance on freelancers in knowledge sharing in client organizations; leaders should take a transformational role to create a culture of free flow of knowledge and information between various types of employees.

This study is the first to research how transformational leadership, through engagement, motivates freelancers in engaging in knowledge collecting and knowledge donating. The importance of social support is also noted.

This study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to determine the intellectual structure of cross-listing studies and suggests a road map for future research in this field.

A step-by-step procedure was carried out. With the help of a defined search string, 580 articles from reputed journals have been retrieved from the Scopus database. Bibliographic coupling and keyword analysis were executed to understand the current research scenario and future research directions in this research field. In addition, R Studio combined with VOSviewer was employed to analyse and visualise the data.

The results provide a deeper insight into publication trends, most prolific countries, institutions and journals in the area of cross-listing. The highest collaboration was observed between the authors in the USA and Canada. Moreover, the results contradict Bradford's and Lotka's laws. A thorough review of the literature identifies five clusters in this domain. Finally, keyword analysis offers a future road map in cross-listing research.

Researchers have shown greater interest in cross-listing topics over the past decades. Even though the research volume on this subject is increasing, the current retrospective is still insufficient. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to provide valuable insights to practitioners, academicians, and prospective researchers about the intellectual structure of cross-listing and also offers future avenues in this research field through bibliometric analysis.

Board meeting was in full swing as an important announcement had been made by Manish Jain, MD FinMen Advisors Pvt. Ltd. ‘We need to get 5,000 clients by 2023’. Management board members look at each other in wonder as they have only 500 clients in 2018. ‘That's a herculean task’, says a board member, ‘Besides, the clients’ fees are reducing in our business'. Manish interrupts to suggest that it is precisely the reason they want to enhance their client base. But the board members were still not convinced. Their questions revolved around whether they are equipped enough in terms of resources and infrastructure to reach to the number suggested by Manish. There were issues in the processes and systems of the company, there were issues in employees taking onus of leading certain verticals in the company, there were no branding exercise in terms of increasing awareness about the company. On the whole, in order to reach 5,000 clients, a total revamp of processes, systems and training employees needed to be given huge emphasis. But does the company have money for revamping all these issues? ‘I don't care’, says Manish, ‘Any client in any industry looking for credit ratings should be our client’. As Manish moves out of the board room, he says to himself that he was well aware of the facts questioned by the board members. But as a person ready to take up challenge and enjoy the perils of it, Manish was not ready to reconsider any of the points raised by the members. He thought whatever has to be done, has to be done to achieve targets set by him. However, sitting in his office and thinking about the future, Manish was still on the same dilemmic question as any employee in his company: how does he achieve the figure of 5,000 clients by 2023?

This paper aims to explore the determinants of intention towards the use of agro-advisory mobile applications by extending the technology acceptance model (TAM) with addition of the following constructs: result demonstrability (RD), trust, self-efficacy (SE) and mobile usage proficiency (MUP).

The study employed a survey on farmers (n = 446), which was analysed through structural equation modelling using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS).

The results show that RD and farmer's trust on agro-advisory mobile apps (AAMA) positively impact their perceptions of usefulness. Also, farmer's SE and MUP positively affect their perceptions of ease of using AAMA. Further, interestingly, farmer's attitude towards the AAMA fully mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on intention to use them.

Understanding the antecedents of agro-advisory mobile application offers a unique contribution to policymakers, private firms, and non-government organizations by proving key insights on the acceptance of agriculture based mobile technologies in context of developing nations.

To the best of author's knowledge, this is one of the first research enquiries on the adoption of agro-advisory mobile applications. The new theoretical framework adds to the original TAM and offers novel insights that are helpful in augmenting the current understanding on AAMA and their acceptance by the beneficiaries.

Implementing big data analytics and client customization programs is causing a significant revolution in the insurance sector. This study examines how big data analytics may revolutionize the insurance industry, emphasizing how consumer customization can improve customer experiences, maximize risk assessment, and spur company expansion.

An empirical study with statistical analysis using tools like correlation and regression was carried out to ascertain the relationships between the various sets of variables—personalized customer experiences and customer satisfaction and customer profiling leads to more effective targeting of marketing efforts. We explore essential ideas like client segmentation, profiling, and retention via a thorough analysis of the literature and case studies, showcasing best practices and inspirational tales from top insurers.

The empirical study found that there is a very high correlation between transparency in data and stakeholders' trust. The study found that insurers may preserve their innovation-driven culture, strengthen customer relationships, and achieve sustainable development in a competitive market by embracing future technological innovations and resolving current challenges.

Insurance companies may seize new chances for individualized client experiences and long-term success in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive by utilizing cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. To effectively manage the changing terrain of consumer customization in the digital age, insurance professionals, academics, and legislators will find this study highly insightful.

The study is an original contribution based on literature and case studies analysis, showcasing best practices and inspirational tales from top insurers.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ to explain the marketing of products that fall under “stigmatised” products;▪ to develop a multi-segmentation strategy and identify variables used in segmentation;▪ to identify the target segments;▪ to draw a value proposition canvas;▪ to construct positioning statements; and▪ to decide the product portfolio based on segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP).

This case considers the dilemma faced by Deep Bajaj, CEO of Sirona Hygiene Pvt. Ltd., a company in the female menstrual and intimate hygiene products space, in May 2021. During an investor meeting, an investor questions Sirona’s focus on menstrual cups (MCs) and advises Deep to expand instead the sanitary pads category. While the company has been growing at more than 100% year-on-year and has also been profitable for the last three years, the case considers how Deep can better participate in the bull run in the Indian menstrual hygiene market. Should he discard menstrual cups from Sirona’s product portfolio and concentrate on sanitary pads – India’s most highly accepted menstrual hygiene product? Alternatively, should he discard sanitary pads from his product portfolio and focus on MCs – his flagship product? Or, could he tap the large and growing menstrual hygiene market to “have his cup and pad too”?

This case is suitable for a class of 90 min in an undergraduate course or an extended session of two 90-min classes in a graduate MBA course. It can be studied as part of the STP module in a Marketing Management course. It may also be used in a strategic management course within a graduate MBA program to provide an understanding of the value proposition canvas as part of the module on business model canvas.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.