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This paper aims to examine the influence of environmental concerns and consumers’ knowledge of green brands on their purchasing decisions of green products, utilising green trust as a mediator.

Responses from 383 Indian consumers were collected, which was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The causal relationships between latent variables and mediating effect of green trust were investigated by performing Structural Equation modelling.

Green trust served as a crucial factor in mediating the relationship between environmental concern and green purchase decision. Trust in eco-friendly products significantly influenced the consumers’ decisions to make green purchases. The study further validated that environmental concern significantly influences individuals’ decisions to make green purchases.

The study employed a cross-sectional research design to elucidate the relationship among the factors. However, a longitudinal research design is recommended for further study to ascertain the actual purchase decision and evaluate the reliability of the results.

Marketers can use the study findings to understand consumer knowledge better and trust in green and sustainable products. The proposed model will support marketers and policymakers in developing appropriate marketing strategies as well as facilitate educating consumers about the nuances of green products and the habit of buying eco-friendly products.

Study’s novel contribution is mediation between environmental concern and green purchase decision through green trust.

The purpose of this paper is to test the conceptual model of consumers’ intention and satisfaction towards mobile wallets. This study uses the integrated UTAUT model which includes variables such as ease of use, trust, security, self-efficacy, etc., and an additional variable (hedonism) to test consumers’ behaviour in the context of mobile banking technologies. Regression analysis, ANOVA and descriptive analysis are used to test the relationship among several dimensions such as perceptions, preferences, satisfaction and usage rate of mobile wallets in North India. A sample of 204 North Indian consumers was taken to understand the consumers’ adoption behaviour towards mobile wallet. The study explains the significance of the proposed model and its effectiveness to understand the behaviour of North Indian consumers. The result shows a significant association between consumers’ perception, preference, usage and satisfaction. Security, trust and hedonism are few of the most influencing variables in the study. Demographic variables such as gender and age also influence consumer satisfaction and usage rate of mobile wallets in North India. The proposed model and results of the study bring valuable insights into researchers and practitioners in the context of usage of mobile wallets.

Various standardized scales were used in the present study. Statistical techniques like descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, t-test, χ² and regression analysis were used to assess the data. The data were collected with three separate questionnaires on variables perception, preference, usage and satisfaction.

Findings of this study show a strong relation between customer’s perception, preference and satisfaction of mobile wallet users. The result also shows the impact of customer’s perception, satisfaction and preference on the usage rate of mobile wallets in India. The authors have collected responses from the various regions in south and North India.

The first contribution of this study is that it shows a strong correlation between consumers’ perception, preferences and satisfaction. Various studies are available to understand the impact of perception on satisfaction (Samudra and Phadtare, 2012; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000, Thakur, 2013), but very few studies have integrated it with preference and mobile wallet usage. Moreover, no study is available on these variables specifically for North Indian consumers. This study is unique in the sense that it discuss the association of consumer’s perception with type of transactions they prefer to do in M-wallets. This paper also identify one more crucial factors, “hedonism” which is not discussed extensively in the literature.

The study has several implications to the mobile technology industry and the banking system to identify new strategies for mobile wallet usage. Factors like security, convenience and trust influence consumers’ intention. This indicates that industries and banks must verify users’ privacy norms and evaluate social trends to enhance user’s satisfaction and usage rate. Hedonism is determined as one of the significant variable to measure consumer’s satisfaction and usage tendency. Mobile technology providers should work on the appearances and design of the apps, and promote its convenience and benefits to increase its usage in North India. Based on the findings of this study, companies can also evaluate preferred wallet services for consumers, and factors affecting those services. This will help them to add more attractive services based on consumers’ feedback, and remove unwanted services.

The study also stressed the impact of society and family/friends on mobile wallet’s usage. Customers learn new things from family and society and get influence with their choice and preferences. This will help institutions to understand various factors leads to mobile wallet usage and enhance the satisfaction level of customers.

Although various studies have been conducted on the perception of customers on various mobile payment systems, but this paper is the first of its kind to study customer’s perception about wallets and type of transactions; they prefer to do through mobile wallets. This paper also study the impact of mobile wallet usage and various factors affecting the usage rate. This paper also identified one crucial factor, “hedonism”, which is not discussed thoroughly in the literature, and its significance in North India.

There has been considerable discussion about the utilization of social media effectively in tourist research. Still, there is a paucity of information about its usage for ecotourism destination selection. The study aims to determine critical factors influencing travelers' behavioral and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) intentions to use Instagram reels to select an ecotourism destination.

This study is based on the motivated consumer innovativeness theory and technology acceptance model. Purposive sampling was applied to acquire data from Instagram users. Data were gathered from 445 respondents and 415 valid responses were analyzed using partial least square structural equational modeling.

The findings of the study confirmed the positive impact of perceived ease of use, socially motivated consumer innovativeness and hedonically motivated consumer innovativeness on travelers' attitude except for perceived usefulness. The outcomes also revealed a significant influence of travelers' attitude on behavioral and e-WOM intention.

The study's findings were intended to offer insights into traveler behavior to critical players in the tourism sector, including destination marketers, travel companies, the government and policymakers. They must comprehend how useful Instagram is for the tourist industry, which will help them better understand how to attract travelers through Instagram reels to market their destination.

The current investigation is the first attempt to investigate the travelers' behavioral and e-WOM intentions to use Instagram reels to select an ecotourism destination.

Organizations are moving beyond the gender binary in the workplace and are implementing diversity management practices, making Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) inclusion increasingly important as they continue to remain a disadvantaged group. This paper aims to look into the factors that affect job and life satisfaction among LGBTQ employees in India.

Data were collected from 348 LGBTQ employees and analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results showed that psychological safety has a positive impact on psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Additionally, inclusive climate and inclusive leadership were found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationships. The study also revealed that psychological empowerment plays a mediating role between psychological safety and life satisfaction.

The study stands pioneers among the works that discuss workplace inclusion among LGBTQ employees in Indian context since LGBTQ acceptance in normal social system is still in nascent stage in Indian scenario. The findings can be used to improve LGBTQ inclusion and promote social development and well-being in organizations and society, as the inputs from the study can be taken up for inclusive leadership development and wellbeing of the employees.

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.

The study examined the relationship between workplace toxicity and turnover intentions among Indian healthcare employees. It also explored the role of gratitude as a moderator in the workplace toxicity–turnover intentions relationship.

The study is based on a cross-sectional research design. The sample comprises 315 employees from the Indian healthcare sector. Approximately, 400 employees are approached both through email and office visits. Responses were received from 336 participants, and 21 incomplete questionnaires were discarded. The relationships between four variables of workplace toxicity and turnover intentions are examined using correlation and hierarchical regression. The moderation effect of gratitude is studied using the PROCESS macro in SPSS 21.

The results revealed that workplace toxicity could explain 45.8% variations in employees' turnover intentions. It also reported significant negative regression coefficients between all four dimensions of workplace toxicity and turnover intentions. It suggested that toxic health organizations may promote turnover intentions among healthcare employees. Also, findings recommended a significant moderating effect of gratitude amid the relationships of four dimensions of workplace toxicity and turnover intentions.

Hospital administrators must ensure that health professionals have the necessary support to remain effective in the field by providing a conducive working environment emerging from sound human resource practices that promote respect, collegial relationships, teamwork and collaboration. The present research demonstrates gratitude as one such factor that could act as a catalyst within the workplace. Practitioners could achieve a healthy work environment by developing complementary relief measures that build organizational capacities and improve its culture while sponsoring programs for individual employees that instill positivity through awareness of gratitude in everyday life.

This study offered a comprehensive understanding of workplace toxicity by investigating its four dimensions. Also, it is one of the pioneer studies that evaluate the role of gratitude in restricting workplace toxicity-induced turnover intentions.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of crowdsourcing-based social connections on the development of innovation competence (IC). The conflicting results in existing studies regarding the influence of crowdsourcing-based social linkage on IC necessitate a thorough investigation into this relationship.

The research uses a sample of 300 senior managers from various industries in India. The data is analyzed using partial least squares (PLS), a component-based approach to structural equation modeling.

The results of the analysis indicate that knowledge transfer effectiveness and absorptive capacity (ABC) play a significant role as mediators in the relationship between social linkages based on crowdsourcing and IC. This suggests that the effectiveness of knowledge transfer and the organization’s ability to absorb and apply new knowledge are crucial factors in leveraging crowdsourcing-based social connections for enhanced innovation capabilities.

The findings of this study hold crucial implications for managerial practices. The research highlights that successful crowdsourcing outcomes necessitate more than mere establishment of external social linkages. Managers must recognize that internal organizational readiness plays an equally critical role. This study offers two key managerial insights: first, exclusive focus on external linkages is inadequate; internal capabilities such as ABC and optimized knowledge transfer processes must be actively nurtured. Second, the concept of “crowdsourcing maturity” is introduced, emphasizing the evolving dynamic capabilities over time. Managers are urged to adopt a balanced approach, aligning external partnerships with internal adaptability, to fully optimize IC.

This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by shedding light on the mediating variables that influence the conversion of crowdsourcing-based social linkage into improved IC. By considering the role of knowledge transfer effectiveness and ABC, the study provides insights into the mechanisms through which social linkages based on crowdsourcing can impact innovation capabilities. These findings offer valuable implications for organizations seeking to leverage crowdsourcing for innovation purposes and enhance their overall IC.

The issue of mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) in Indian banking industry is serious and attracting attention of academia and policy planners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis whether NPAs in Indian commercial banking have reached at alarming state where they start affecting the technical efficiency levels adversely or not.

The efficiency score have been computed using case model (model with NPAs as bad/undesirable output) vs control model (model without NPAs as bad/undesirable output) methodology under meta-frontier data envelopment analysis framework.

It has been noticed that the effect of NPAs on overall technical efficiency and its various components is insignificant. The comparison of the case models (i.e. model with NPAs as bad output) with the control models (i.e. model without NPAs) reveals insignificant difference in average efficiency scores and rank distribution of commercial banks. The major source of inefficiency is technology gap (i.e. structure, setup and objectives of banking) among public, domestic private and foreign private categories of banks.

Though NPAs are increasing in Indian banking industry and specifically in Indian public sector banks because of their compulsory lending to priority sector yet the banks have huge scope to extend credit to priority sector as the NPAs have not reached at alarming stage where they start affecting adversely the efficiency performance.

Given the fact that the banking penetrations, structure and objectives differ significantly across ownership, separate frontiers for each ownership (public, private and foreign banks) category has been used to evaluate the technical efficiency levels of 81 commercial banks operating in India over the period 2005 to 2013.

Purpose of This Chapter: This chapter examines the gender-based skewness witnessed in terms of women-led unicorns, as well as, in the field of entrepreneurship in general in India. India has been witnessing a booming startup landscape lately, with the country producing several new unicorns. Competing internationally, India comes third in world rankings regarding the number of unicorns made.

Design / Methodology / Approach: The methodology adopted in this chapter is case-based analysis of individuals with the help of secondary data available in the public domain. The authors employ comparative analysis methodology keeping two major parameters of interest as the verticals that form the basis of the comparative analysis.

Findings: The special provisions in place that are especially meant for women entrepreneurs in order to help them scale up their business and target higher profits have loopholes in them and as a result, a very low number of women-led businesses have been able to mark their presence in the unicorn club.

Research Limitations / Implications: A lesser number of women entrepreneurs in the unicorn club, so making generalizations has not been possible.

Practical Implications: The chapter gives a better understanding of the dynamics of the entrepreneurship arena in India with respect to women entrepreneurs who are doing significant work on the basis of scale of operation and profits.

Originality: This is an original chapter which has not been presented or published before. This chapter can be of immense value to anyone interested in India’s current entrepreneurial scenario, and useful to policymakers, researchers, and academicians.

The steady rise in aged population has brought many challenges such as social, economic and health care that confront of the older people in their later life. The purpose of this study is to understand the nature of challenges among the older people and to assess the role of social security programmes for the welfare of the older people. The qualitative descriptive research has been applied in this paper.

The qualitative descriptive research has been applied in this paper. The study was conducted in a sample of 220 elderly living in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, using purposive sampling. The study was based on interviews. The order of questions and samples depended on the information flow during the interviews. The purposes of using the qualitative descriptive research in the present study are to satisfy the researcher’s curiosity and desire for better understanding to discuss the challenges faced by older people (these challenges are social vulnerability, poor economic conditions, poor health and no familiarity with government programmes), to understand the practicability of the study in extensive way and to explain why any phenomenon occurs or why older people face problems in later life.

The first finding demonstrates that the different challenges among older people such as social, economic and health challenges are affecting their way of life and sense of well-being and are fracturing their social bonds from the family and society. The second finding indicates that only 46.3% older people are benefitted from government pension programmes schemes. While the numbers of older people are unknown from other government welfare programmes such as health programmes, concession for older people and maintenance and welfare of parent and senior citizen act are not able to work properly due to lack of awareness and lack of proper communication between older people and government bodies.

This is an original work of the author. The research work is based on primary data that examine the nature of challenges such as health, economic and social challenges faced by older people in later life and impact of these problems on the well-being of older people.