Alok Tewari, Ram Singh, Smriti Mathur and Sushil Pande
The current study employs a modified framework of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to predict students' intention to adopt online learning in India…
Abstract
Purpose
The current study employs a modified framework of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to predict students' intention to adopt online learning in India. The moderating role of openness to change in influencing the proposed relationships is also assessed.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured questionnaire was emailed to 650 students enrolled in various courses in public and private universities in India. In total 424 responses were considered for analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM). Moderation analysis was carried out with multi-group SEM and chi-square difference tests.
Findings
The results reveal that there is a significant impact of performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FS) and perceived security (PS) on students' intention to adopt online learning. Further, openness to change moderates the impact of PE, FS and PS on intention of students to opt for online learning.
Originality/value
This study is one of the initial efforts to examine the factors affecting students' intention to adopt online learning at the onset of third wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in India. Besides the factors of the UTAUT model, this study highlights the importance of PS and openness to change in influencing students' intention to opt for online learning.
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Allaby Martin, Christine Preston, Laxmi Byanjankar, Dirga S. Bam, Shanta Bahadur Pande, Sushil Chandra Baral and James N. Newell
The purpose of the paper is to show that, despite comprehensive coverage of services for TB provided by a public‐private partnership for TB control in Patan, a city in Nepal, case…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to show that, despite comprehensive coverage of services for TB provided by a public‐private partnership for TB control in Patan, a city in Nepal, case finding is low, compared with the target based on an Annual Risk of Tuberculosis Infection (ARTI) of 4 per cent. Doubts have been raised as to the appropriateness of the target. The objective of the study was to estimate the number of new TB cases occurring in Patan, to assess whether the target was appropriate.
Design/methodology/approach
In the paper doorstep interviews were conducted with all households in the study area, followed by in‐depth interviews of households with possible or probable TB cases. The survey findings were validated against the patient registers of the five DOTS centres in Patan.
Findings
The paper finds that, among the study population of 36,918, the household survey identified 17 smear‐positive TB cases (none privately‐treated) and 24 smear‐negative/extra‐pulmonary cases (including four privately‐treated cases). Validation against the DOTS patient registers indicated that the survey was 54 per cent complete. After adjusting for incompleteness, the number of smear‐positive cases in the study area was estimated as 31, equivalent to an incidence of 85 smear positives per 100,000 population and an ARTI of 1.7 per cent.
Originality/value
The paper shows that using the ARTI may lead to misleadingly high targets for urban TB control. Unrealistically high targets may cause TB workers to become demoralised, and useful strategies to be abandoned. Therefore, further work is needed to identify better ways of setting targets.
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Abhay Kumar Bhadani, Ravi Shankar and D. Vijay Rao
This paper aims to understand and identify the various barriers in adopting new telecom services in rural areas for improving the penetration and revenue of the telecom companies…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand and identify the various barriers in adopting new telecom services in rural areas for improving the penetration and revenue of the telecom companies. These barriers are modeled to study their inter-relationships and prioritize them for strategizing appropriate management action plans.
Design/methodology/approach
Delphi technique has been used to form a consensus with the telecom managers working in rural areas to finalize the barriers. An integrated Interpretive Structural Modeling–Analytic Network Process (ISM–ANP) approach has been adopted to establish the complex relationships, cluster the relationships, to understand and prioritize the telecom service adoption barriers.
Findings
The major contribution of this research is imposing directions and dominance of various barriers to promote better adoption of new telecom-based mobile services in rural areas. The proposed integrated method can aid in decision making by providing more informative, accurate and a better choice than using either ISM or ANP in isolation.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizabilty of these research findings is limited, as it was generated specific to rural telecom service adoption barriers in Indian context. Because decision-making problems are usually complex and ill-structured, every decision is based on the decision-maker’s expertise, preferences and biasness of the experts who showed their interest to participate in the research.
Practical implications
This paper forms the basis of identifying the reasons for poor adoption of telecom-based mobile services in rural India. This study would help the telecom companies and the managers to understand and develop strategies to target the rural audience by introducing action plans and innovative mobile services to overcome the identified barriers. By applying the proposed methodology, telecom companies can classify and prioritize their action plans as short-, medium- and long-term plans to systematically overcome the identified barriers.
Originality/value
This paper provides a base for understanding various factors that affect the adoption of telecom-based mobile services. It demonstrates the use of an innovative approach to develop an integrated model to understand the barriers.
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Ashish Soti, Ravi Shankar and O.P. Kaushal
The purpose of this research paper is to study the enablers of Six Sigma and to establish relationship among them using interpretive structural modeling (ISM).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research paper is to study the enablers of Six Sigma and to establish relationship among them using interpretive structural modeling (ISM).
Design/methodology/approach
The research paper presents a blend of theoretical framework and practical applications. In the paper, 11 enablers of Six Sigma are identified from literature survey and experts' opinion and then these are validated by questionnaire survey in India. Finally, ISM is used to obtain structural relationship among these enablers of Six Sigma.
Findings
The ISM‐based model indicates that “effective top management leadership role”, “availability of funds” and “availability of expert training” are strategic requirements; “organizational culture”, “organizational infrastructure”, “quality maturity level of organization”, and “employees' adaptability and flexibility towards learning” are tactical requirements. “Statistical thinking”, “committed work force”, “reliable data gathering and retrieval system”, and “technical competence” are operational requirements for Six Sigma applications.
Originality/value
Enablers are the building blocks for deployment of Six Sigma. To know the key enablers and relationship among them can help many organizations to develop Six Sigma competences. It is one of the foremost attempts to model enablers of Six Sigma. The paper provides useful insights to the Six Sigma implementers, consultants, and researchers.
This paper aims to find the role of education in enhancing the status of women entrepreneurs through empowerment and self-employment. This will also help in upliftment of women…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to find the role of education in enhancing the status of women entrepreneurs through empowerment and self-employment. This will also help in upliftment of women and community services being contributed by them. The data were collected from all over India (east, west, north and south).
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical study aims at developing the understanding about role of nature of business-influencing community services through women entrepreneurship. Several organizations from manufacturing and services sectors were selected for the empirical study established by women entrepreneurs.
Findings
The data were collected through a questionnaire survey, observations and an interview method. There is a significant relationship between size of the business expansion and the sector of business and profit generated for enhancing community services through women entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
This implies that in the Indian context, mostly women entrepreneurs invest and set up enterprises mostly in sectors of beauty, retail, food and childcare, other sectors that require less investment, less manual labor and comparatively non-heavy engineering sectors.
Originality/value
The results show that the expansion plan is dependent on the profits and objective of community services generated in the business.
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Shubhangini Rajput and Surya Prakash Singh
The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and model Internet of Things (IoT) enablers essential for the success of Industry 4.0.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and model Internet of Things (IoT) enablers essential for the success of Industry 4.0.
Design/methodology/approach
IoT enablers for Industry 4.0 are identified from literature and inferable discussions with industry experts. Three different techniques namely, principal component analysis (PCA), interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) are applied to model IoT enablers. In addition to this, DEMATEL is also applied under two different situations representing the behavioral characteristic of experts involved. These are termed as optimistic (maximum) and pessimistic (minimum).
Findings
The integrated approach of PCA-ISM-DEMATEL shows that IoT ecosystem and IoT Big Data are the most influential or driving IoT enablers. These two enablers have been identified as the pillars for Industry 4.0. On the other side, IoT interchangeability, consumer IoT, IoT robustness and IoT interface and network capability have also been identified as the most dependent enablers for Industry 4.0.
Practical implications
The findings enable the industry practitioners to select the most appropriate driving enablers for an effective implementation of Industry 4.0.
Originality/value
The integrated approach-based hierarchical model and cause-effect relationship among IoT enablers are proposed which is a novel initiative for Industry 4.0. Moreover, two different variants of DEMATEL namely, pessimistic and optimistic are applied first time.
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Vikas Gupta, Shveta Singh and Surendra S. Yadav
In initial public offerings (IPOs), the media plays a pivotal role by disseminating the information to the investors who generally lack the expertise to understand the information…
Abstract
Purpose
In initial public offerings (IPOs), the media plays a pivotal role by disseminating the information to the investors who generally lack the expertise to understand the information through the prospectus. Thus, media coverage can impact the investment decision of the investors and the IPO performance. Media typically covers the IPO before listing, suggesting that it may play an important role in explaining the opening price rather than the closing price on the day of listing. Therefore, this study aims to disaggregate the traditional IPO underpricing into three categories: voluntary, pre-market and post-market and provides a comparative analysis of the media sentiments impact on the traditional and disaggregated IPO underpricing. The authors’ disaggregated IPO underpricing analysis will facilitate the investors in making an effective investment strategy based on media sentiments.
Design/methodology/approach
The study deploys sentiment analysis using bags of n (2) grams approach to gauge the sentiments on 2,891 media articles and uses “robust-regression” technique to analyze them on a sample of 222 Indian IPOs during 2009–2018.
Findings
The study reports that the sentiment score is positively related to the traditional underpricing; the sentiment score is positively associated with the pre-market underpricing and does not have any significant relationship with the post-market underpricing; the number of media articles does not play a significant role in explaining the IPO underpricing. The findings highlight the presence of a semi-strong form of efficiency in the Indian IPO market.
Originality/value
Existing literature focuses that the role of media on IPO performance is based on the developed countries. IPO laws differ based on the countries. For instance, in India, investors can check the demand by the other categories of investors on a real-time basis. Thus, it is interesting to study whether, with such a high level of transparency, media can explain IPO performance in the Indian market. Media generally covers IPO before listing; therefore, the present study disaggregates the IPO underpricing to evaluate the role of media on the primary and secondary market separately. It will help the investors to decide when to enter and exit the market.