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School climate, or the physical and social conditions of the learning environment, has implications for academic achievement. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The authors examine how school climate varies by school-level characteristics in California using administrative data and the California School Climate Survey.

Teachers/staff at secondary schools, schools in large cities, schools that serve low-income populations, Hispanic- and black-majority schools, and/or low-performing schools reported less positive school climates, including staff/student relationships, norms and standards, student facilitative behaviors, and perceived safety, than their counterparts, paralleling other education inequity trends.

The authors encourage educators and school leaders to use data-driven and evidence-based strategies to overcome systematic inequities in positive school climate in order to create social contexts that nurture students’ academic progress and teacher retention particularly in historically under-resourced schools.

Instant messaging (IM) apps like WhatsApp have given an impetus to rapid sharing of information through multimedia messages in this information age and their clear impact has been noticed in the academic sector. The present study is conducted with the aim to understand the magnetism of WhatsApp among veterinary students. The major purpose of the study is to analyse the use of WhatsApp for academic proposes with a special emphasis on its impact on studies.

Data were collected from students of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) using questionnaires as a tool. Questionnaires were randomly distributed among 100 postgraduate (PG) and 100 undergraduate (UG) students. In total, 78 PG and 77 UG students responded to the survey.

More than 90 per cent of the students were using WhatsApp for academic purposes. More UG students were using WhatsApp to chat, share images/videos and so forth for academic purposes as compared to PG students. Nearly two-thirds of the students admitted that addiction to using WhatsApp diverted attention from doing any other kind of activity. More than 75 per cent of the users were using WhatsApp while studying at their home or hostel. About 28 per cent of the students said that the use of WhatsApp had affected their studies, and more than 60 per cent of these students noticed a positive effect.

WhatsApp increases knowledge sharing, leading to enhanced creativity. Thus, WhatsApp can contribute significantly to the academic community by users consciously controlling its use and not allowing its addictive nature to divert attention from their studies.

In an environment where favoring organizational learning is imperative, the option of business cooperation is considered an optimal means to transmit knowledge between companies and to encourage the generation of new ones. But differences in organizational cultures of the cooperation partners can make this process difficult. Through an empirical study of small and medium‐sized companies that had established international cooperation agreements during 1997 and 1998 in the Valencian community (Spain), the influence of the differences in size and in national culture of the partners in organizational learning is observed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of spin-off announcements on the parent firm’s share prices. Also, it is studied that during which period the announcement impacts the share prices significantly thereby affecting the shareholder wealth.

A sample of 76 Indian firms has been taken which announced the spin-off of their one or more divisions during 2010–2011 to 2015–2016. The authors have used the event study methodology with an event window period of −35 to +35. Estimation window of 256 (−290, −35) days is considered in the study. S&P BSE 500 is used as a market index.

The authors found that spin-offs have a significantly positive influence on the share prices of the parent firm. The authors also found that average abnormal return (AAR) of all the 76 companies taken together have been highest on day 0 and the cumulative AAR is highest for day +1. These results are in consonance with what had been concluded by Hite and Owers (1983), Cusatis et al. (1993), Miles and Rosenfeld (1983) and Rosenfeld (1984). All these studies are based on the data derived from the USA. Outcome of this study substantiates the same results when Indian spin-offs are analysed.

This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of Indian spin-offs on the shareholder’s wealth.

Consumer behavior has evolved because of technological development. Nowadays, consumers carry out the different stages of the decision-making process by combining multiple devices which has been defined as multi, cross and omnichannel behavior. These behaviors have attracted the attention of academics and become a hot topic in literature. As a result, vast amounts of studies on the subject need to be revised and clarified. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to synthetize the primary academic literature that analyzes multi, cross and omnichannel behavior from the consumer point of view. To do that, first, the main concepts (multi, cross and omnichannel) and their differences are clarified. Second, the major findings of channel mix literature regarding the topics, channel scope and theories are exposed and described. Third, the opportunities and future lines of research are presented. This chapter contributes to the literature by clarifying the conceptualization of multi, cross and omnichannel behaviors; offering a complete picture of the main topics, channel approaches and theories addressed in channel mix literature; and presenting future research opportunities and open research questions in a channel mix context that could serve as a starting point to build further research.

In the context of heightened awareness and understanding of responsible tourism, it has become increasingly imperative for luxury hotels to introspect on the impact of their operations on environmental and social sustainability. This study aims at examining the prevalence and growth of sustainability practices in the Indian luxury hotel segment as it increasingly competes on a global platform.

The research approach adopted in this paper is qualitative and emic. Primary data is gathered for the study through semi-structured interviews with select luxury hotel general managers from four hotel chains of Indian origin – ITC Luxury Hotels, Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, Taj Hotels and Palaces and The Leela – to gain an insight into sustainability initiatives adopted in the Indian hospitality industry. Secondary research data regarding the eco-friendly, green measures implemented in these hotels is collected primarily from the websites of the respective hotel chains and supplemented by review of academic literature, media articles, industry reports and company press releases.

The findings of the study reveal that Indian luxury hotel brands are increasingly adopting green products and integrating innovative sustainability practices in their day-to-day operations. However, several of these initiatives are in the non-customer-facing domains such as the engineering and back-of-the-house operations. Very few Indian hotel chains are building these sustainability initiatives into their core philosophy and embedding it in the front-line customer service experience at their properties to reinforce the green image of the hotels.

The paper also proposes the 6Cs Framework of Sustainability that can be utilised to categorise the green sustainable practices adopted in responsible hotels in a simplistic manner under six broad verticals. Practitioners, researchers and educationists in the hospitality industry would find the implications of this study useful in the context of a post-pandemic world where sustainability is influencing consumer choices across industries in today’s eco-conscious and enlightened business and marketing environment.

Innovative restaurant service designs impart food wellbeing to diners. This research comprehends customer aspirations and concerns in a restaurant-dining experience to develop a service design that enhances the dining experience using the design thinking approach and evaluates its efficiency using the Taguchi method of robust design.

The sequential incidence technique defines diners' needs, which, followed by brainstorming sessions, helped create multiple service designs with important attributes. Prototype narration, as a scenario, acted as the stimulus for evaluators to respond to the WHO-5 wellbeing index scale. Scenario-based Taguchi experiment with nine foodservice attributes in two levels and the wellbeing score as the response variable helped identify levels of critical factors that develop better FWB.

The study identified the best combination of factors and their preferred levels to maximize FWB in a restaurant. Food serving hygiene, followed by information about cuisine specification, and food movement in the restaurant, were important to FWB. The experiment revealed that hygiene perceptions are critical to FWB, and service designs have a significant role in it. Consumers prefer detailed information about the ingredients and recipe of the food they eat; being confident that there will be no unacceptable ingredients added to the food inspires their FWB.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on design thinking and transformative service research, especially in the food industry.

This paper details a simple method to identify and evaluate important factors that optimize FWB in a restaurant. The proposed methodology will help service designers and technology experts devise settings that consider customer priorities and contribute to their experience.

This study helps to understand the application of design thinking and the Taguchi approach for creating robust service designs that optimize FWB.

This chapter aims to contribute to the literature on public governance and its link to corruption. In particular, the chapter presents conceptual arguments for better understanding the ways in which public governance choices may affect corruption levels, thus identifying governance policies, mechanisms, and roles that can contribute in fighting and preventing corruption at macro-, meso- and micro-levels of analysis.

Starting from a macro-, meso- and micro-perspectives, this chapter is based on a literature review in order to understand connections between public governance and corruption.

Even if literature on the causes of public corruption are analysed from the macro-, meso-, and micro-perspectives, contributions of public governance scholars in relation to anticorruption efforts are mainly concentrated on a macro-perspective of analysis, while only a limited number of scholars offer a reflection on the possible interdependencies among governance policies and instruments and anticorruption efforts at the organizational level.

Despite the importance of the meso- and micro-perspectives, the literature review presented in this chapter shows us an important gap on the definition of which governance mechanisms and instruments or organizational policies are important to carry out in order to prevent or fight corruption, thus highlighting the need to improve research on this important field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a local trade union improves living conditions for women entrepreneurs in India and how its activities have evolved over time.

The authors conducted a longitudinal case study of the self-employed women’s association (SEWA) in India. Founded in 1972, this organization fosters and supports women’s entrepreneurship. The approach of this study combines qualitative face-to-face interviews and secondary data analysis.

The findings highlight the fact that SEWA, which combines the features of a trade union and a social movement, improves women’s conditions in several different ways. The study shows that the organization’s main role has evolved from creating a community to expanding it and finally to becoming an agent of societal change.

The study contributes to the literature by analyzing how locally grown organizations fight social exclusion and improve the conditions of deprived groups in emerging economies.

The subject areas are entrepreneurship, start-up ventures and business strategy.

The case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate MBA.

Shikhar Veer Singh (Singh), a post graduate in Medical Biotechnology, quit a cushy corporate job to start his own food venture WoknStove Foodworks Pvt. Ltd. (WSFL) in October 2015. WSFL sold the ubiquitous popular Indian snack food “Samosas” under the brand name of “Samosa Singh”. “Samosa” – a deep fried triangular in shape with conical edges crispy wrap with variety fillings of potatoes/vegetables – was part of unorganized sector and sold by small shops and road-side hawkers. Singh spotted an opportunity to “brand” the “Samosas” that as well was gaining momentum in the international convenience food markets. The company set up a central kitchen near Electronic city, Bangalore, and started experimenting with different fillings. In February 2016, WSFL opened its first quick service restaurant (QSR) in Electronic city, Bangalore. It was an instant hit with consumers of all age groups. Gradually, the company started supplying bulk orders to various other customer segments such as corporate customers, schools and movie theatres/event stalls, that resulted in revenue growth. By January 2017, his monthly annual revenues amounted to INR […] Singh had ambitious plans to expand his business from a single QSR to 15 QSRs across the city by 2018. However, to cater to the increasing demands and support his expansion plans, he was yet to find out the most suitable back-end processes. He had adopted few standard operating procedures (SOPs) for quality operations and implemented 30 per cent of automation for backend processes at his central kitchen. Singh was aware of the automated machinery available in international markets that had conveyor belt arrangements where one could place the flour dough and filling consecutively to get the end product in a shape, unlike the shape of the Indian “Samosas”. The triangular shape with conical edges of the Indian “Samosas” was of utmost importance for the Indian consumers, as the shape associated them with the favourite snack, the “Samosas”. Singh preferred the method of manual filling to maintain the shape and decided to focus on increasing the shelf life of the “Samosas” instead. He felt that an increased shelf life would better equip him to cater the increased market and seasonal demands. However, the question was that whether this was a feasible option to support his ambitious expansion plans (with only 30 per cent automation)? Was Singh’s thinking right with respect to the business operation? More importantly, whether WSFL venture would be able to make an attractive business proposition for investments from any future institutional/angel investor? Singh’s mood turned reflective as he pondered on the above questions.

The case is structured to discuss the structure of Indian QSR market and factors contributing to its growth, evaluate WSFL’s ability to leverage the Indian QSR market potential, its strengths and shortcomings, to highlight the steps of consumer decision making process in terms of selection of a QSR and discuss WSFL’s business model and its future sustainability.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship