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The growing market for organic products presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to extend their existing brands. However, there is hardly any research that investigates the factors extension from an organic parent brand is preferred over extension into same product category for success of such brand extensions. This paper investigates the role of two different bases consumers may use to evaluate the extension into organic product – organic status of the parent brand and its similarity to the extended product category.

The study involved a 2 × 2 (organic versus regular parent brand and same versus different product category) between-subjects factorial design. Data collected from 164 postgraduate students presented with one of the four scenarios were analysed using ANOVA.

The results reveal that extensions from organic parent brand versus regular brand, and in the same product category versus different category, are evaluated more favourably. Moreover, extension from an organic parent brand is preferred over extension into same product category.

The research contributes to the extant literature on branding and retailing by building on categorisation theory to explain consumer preference for brand extension when launching a new organic product. The findings provide valuable insights to practitioners to launch a new organic product using brand extension.

The increasing globalization of business has led to increasing demand for executives who can function in cultural milieus different from their own. This demand has been exacerbated by the fact that globalization has not led to cultural homogenization and hence, for good or bad, executives are not able to universally apply the home country's conceptualizations of rights, responsibilities and duties and must operate within the constraints of host country's cultural environments. Hence, business scholars and global executives increasingly need to reflect on the conceptualization of rights, responsibilities and duties; understand the historical context which has led to different conceptualizations across geographies and appreciate and harness these differences for improving business effectiveness. This paper helps in this endeavor by explaining the differences and similarities that exists between the Indian and Western cultures regarding the concepts of roles, responsibilities and duties. This exposition will help multinational organizations improve their internal practices and employee training methods.

This study attempts to trace the differences and similarities in the conceptualization of rights, duties and responsibilities between the Western tradition and the Indic tradition by literature review. The Indic tradition refers to the broad cultural paradigm that shapes the thinking of the people of Indian subcontinent. The prominent sources of the Indic tradition include Hinduism and Buddhism. India was a British colony for two hundred years and is home to one of world's largest English-speaking population. There are more Muslims in the Indian subcontinent than in the Middle East (Grim and Karim, 2011). Hence, the Indic tradition has also been substantially influenced by the Western and Islamic traditions.

The paper argues that Westerners and Indians have different conceptualization of rights, duties and responsibilities and their relative importance. Broadly speaking, Indian ethos focuses on context-specific responsibilities while the Western attitude focuses on universal rights. These differing conceptualizations have been shaped by the cultural history of the two regions and are manifested in the decision-making styles, levels of individual autonomy and views on the ethicality of actions. There is a need to train expatriate Western and Indian managers on these issues to enable smooth functioning.

The cross-cultural literature has tended to lump together all non-Western civilizations under the category of East thereby ignoring significant differences between them. The Far-East countries of China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan have been highly influenced by the Confucian ethics. India-specific social systems like the caste system, division of human life span into stages with specific responsibilities, enduring worship of nature and Western influence through colonization have been absent in these countries or much less marked. The paper aims to bring forward the distinguishing features in Indian thought that contributes to its distinctive attitude toward rights, responsibilities and duties; contrast it with the Western views on rights and duties and identify the relevance of the discussion to the business context.

The cross-cultural training needs to emphasize both conflict resolution and behavioral aspects. For example, the conflict resolution process in Western countries can be more algorithmic with conflicts being rationally determined by consistent application as well-defined rules (as nature of duties is more universal in Western tradition). On the other hand, conflict resolution practices in India need to be contextual and may require appeals to higher ideals (as nature of duties is more contextual and idealistic in Eastern tradition).

The differences in attitudes regarding rights, responsibility and duties between the West and India suggest the need for cross-cultural training of managers and contextual conflict resolution techniques. The need is exacerbated by the increase in the number of multinational corporations (MNCs). Earlier, most MNCs were headquartered in the West and hence cross-cultural training was primarily geared to help Western expatriates fit into the host country culture (Nam et al., 2014). The growth of Asian MNCs has increased the need of cross-cultural training for Asian expatriates (Nam et al., 2014).

The training processes can be customized to supplement cultural strengths and promote behaviors that are culturally inhibited. Employees in India can be trained to emphasize the value of assertiveness in communication, the need to articulate one's personal success and appreciate the rigid nature of rules in Western contexts. Similarly, Westerners can be trained to emphasize the importance of context in business interactions, the need to forge personal relations for business success and the importance of paternalistic behavior in securing employees commitment.

This study attempts to analyze the overall effectiveness of Lean System (LS)-based India post facility layout design (FLD) selection.

We have grouped all Lean Six Sigma elements into three different categories: Lean Technical Practices, Lean Workplace Environment Practices, and Lean Ergonomics Practices based on literature support and field surveys in the Indian postal service. Further, it employs a mathematical model known as the graph theory (GT) method. From the GT approach, interactions were identified through LS tools represented through the digraph, matrix model approach. This study was directed at the National Sorting Hub in Mysuru, Karnataka, in the southern part of India. A number of insights were given in the GT area where FLD is possible to evaluate.

The results showed that Layout five has the highest value, followed by Layout one from the GT approach. The relative relevance and effect values are given as inputs to the permanent function in the digraph technique, and an evaluation index is obtained as an output.

When solving any optimization issue with a high number of attributes, the digraph and matrix technique is successful. The layouts that have been identified have yielded valuable insights into how to enhance critical decision-making processes, which are necessary to accomplish company strategic objectives like growing postal business services.

The process operations carried out in India post service as well as its heterogeneity of articles and the intangible measures of production are the significant challenges to keenly analyze the layout design through lean service principles.

A literature review revealed that government of various developing economies have put an effort on health-care supply chain through the executing critical factors (CFs) directly. Although they have attained some significant benefits in this tactic, but it was not up to satisfactory level. One of the reasons can be attributed to the fact that government/policy makers are not quantifying the impact of CFs on health-care supply chain. This paper aims to propose a methodology to quantify and estimate the impact of CFs on government-supported health-care supply chain (GHSC).

The Graph Theoretic Approach is proposed for estimating the impact and utility of CFs on an Indian GHSC. This study is also extended to scenario analysis for comparing results with different performance situation.

The results obtained from this study show that performance of Indian GHSC is satisfactory, but performance gaps exist which need to be reduced. In this research work, 12 CFs are identified under two significant categories (SCs), i.e. enablers and barriers and the intensity of enablers and barriers have been calculated to show the impact or influence of CFs on GHSC. The value of intensity shows that the role or impact of enabler category (i.e. performance measurement, employee recognition and reward, technology adoption, training cell, inbuilt analytical tool for IT system) is higher on Indian GHSC in comparison to barriers category to enhance the performance of GHSC.

The obtained numerical results are completely in specific to the Indian perspective only; hence, they cannot be generalized for other countries. Simultaneously, this study is related to government supported health-care system; hence, the selection of expert panel was crucial due to the unavailability of doctors and other stakeholders of government system.

The proposed approach is aimed at providing a procedure for evaluating the impact of CFs on HSC in general and GHSC in specific. This study is an attempt to assist government and top management of GHSC to assess the impact of CFs on GHSC and accordingly define its course of actions.

Although various issues related to the CFs have been broadly identified and analyzed, no dedicated study has been reported in the field for quantification of impacts of CFs. Furthermore, this proposed model has an ability to recognize the specific contribution of each CF and overall contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to identify various factors influencing additive manufacturing (AM) implementation from operational performance in the Indian manufacturing sector and to establish the hierarchical relationship among them.

The methodology includes three phases, namely, identification of factors through systematic literature review (SLR), interviews with experts to capture industry perspective of AM implementation factors and to develop the hierarchical model and classify it by deriving the interrelationship between the factors using interpretive structural modeling (ISM), followed with the fuzzy Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) analysis.

This research has identified 14 key factors that influence the successful AM implementation in the Indian manufacturing sector. Based on the analysis, top management commitment is an essential factor with high driving power, which exaggerates other factors. Factors, namely, manufacturing flexibility, operational excellence and firm competitiveness are placed at the top level of the model, which indicates that they have less driving power and organizations need to focus on those factors after implementing the bottom-level factors.

Additional factors may be considered, which are important for AM implementation from different industry contexts. The variations from different industry contexts and geographical locations can foster the theoretical robustness of the model.

The proposed ISM model sets the directions for business managers in planning the operational strategies for addressing AM implementation issues in the Indian manufacturing sector. Also, competitive strategies may be framed by organizations based on the driving and dependence power of AM implementation factors.

This paper contributes by identification of AM implementation factors based on in-depth literature review as per SLR methodology and validation of these factors from a variety of industries and developing hierarchical model by integrative ISM-MICMAC approach.