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The advent of information and communication technologies in workplace settings has broadened the range of bullying behaviours that can manifest in the digital realm. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the impact of situational factors on employees' perceived cyberbullying within the workplace framework. Broadly, this study aims to investigate the effects of workplace cyberbullying on employees' wellbeing at work and their intention to stay with the organization, across two groups of employees: those who work in a fully remote mode and those employed in hybrid work arrangements.

The current descriptive and time-lagged study was conducted among a sample of 373 employees who work in the information technology sector in India, in either fully-remote or hybrid mode. The study utilized self-report questionnaires, which employed previously validated questionnaires. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis using IBM SPSS, AMOS, and STATs Tools Package.

The results demonstrate that cyberbullying negatively affects wellbeing at work and employees' intentions to stay with the organization. Remote-work employees experienced higher effects of workplace cyberbullying on their wellbeing at work. Also, the indirect effect of wellbeing at work was more pronounced and influential among remote work employees than hybrid work employees, suggesting the need for tailored support and resources for remote workers. Multi-group analysis across employees working in remote and hybrid work arrangements revealed that the relationship between workplace cyber-bullying and wellbeing at work is statistically stronger for remote-work employees.

This study represents a novel approach to developing and evaluating a theoretical model that explores the relationship between workplace cyberbullying, wellbeing at work, and the intention to stay with the organization within the context of remote/hybrid work arrangements. The findings offer theoretical and practical implications regarding the impact of workplace cyberbullying on job outcomes and aim to bridge a gap in current research. Particularly, the study highlights the positive outcomes of hybrid work over remote work and offers recommendations to mitigate the negative experiences among employees who work remotely.

A cooperative bank customer in India has varied needs and is a unique segment of Indian banking. The purpose of the study is to provide the sector with an understanding of the needs of the cooperative bank customers in the context of improving core competencies required for the delivery of service.

The study adopted multiple methods that included the Delphi method as well for competency identification. Appropriate factor analyses are conducted to confirm the construct validity and to determine the underlying structure of the variables chosen for the study. Stepwise multiple regression analysis is employed for data analysis.

Surprisingly, emotional competency showed an insignificant relationship with customer satisfaction. The social and technical competencies are found significant. The findings suggest the incorporation of technological advancements in cooperative banks.

The generalization of the results is limited as the work was confined only to cooperative banks and also because of the limited sample size. The self-reported nature of competency measures also limits the accuracy of results.

This work suggests that a bank has to concentrate on improving the technical competencies of the employees. The findings could also aid the bank managements in policy decisions in recruitment, selection, performance appraisal among others.

Competent employees could help meet the customers to satisfy their financial needs and thereby the social and economic development of the weaker section of the society could be achieved.

Conducting primary research and identification of technical competency as the major contributor to customer satisfaction are the major contributions.

This study examines whether customer-perceived employee competence (CPEC) furthers customer loyalty through justice perception and affection, and whether gender and service failure moderate these relationships.

Data were collected from 535 customers of five Indian rural banks administering the questionnaire. The questionnaire gathered information on sociodemographics and measured constructs using standard inventories. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that when the effects of age are controlled for, CPEC enhances attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. The effects of CPEC partially influence attitudinal and behavioral loyalty through justice perception and customer affection. Attitudinal loyalty also promotes behavioral loyalty. With a few exceptions, stronger (weaker) effects are observed for female (male) gender and low (high) service failure, including CPEC influencing loyalty and justice perception, justice perception impacting customer loyalty and affection, customer affection promoting loyalty and attitudinal loyalty furthering behavioral loyalty.

Customers need competent employees to address bank service failure. CPEC fosters justice perception and affection, which in turn increases customer loyalty to the bank.

Numerous studies have examined effective or positive leadership styles and their effects on employees and organizational outcomes. In recent years, toxic leadership has drawn the attention of several organizations, and toxic managers undoubtedly harm an organization’s social, economic and individual quality of life. This study aims to examine academicians’ perceptions of toxic leadership behavior exhibited by their immediate leaders in the higher education sector.

A qualitative interpretive phenomenological research design was used, and data was analyzed using Clarke & Braun’s thematic analysis method. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 26 teachers from the technical education sector within higher education who had five years or more of experience in the higher education sector.

Five themes emerged from the teacher's narratives based on the research questions that were framed with the help of expert opinions and a thorough literature review (“frequency of occurrences,” “outward behavior,” “repercussions,” “coping strategies” and “support mechanisms”). Using the NVIVO 14.0 software, auto-coded themes were generated and corroborated with the findings. The triangulation of outcomes reveals toxic behaviors exhibited by the leaders in universities and colleges, which conforms with the toxic leadership literature.

This study advances the understanding of the harmful or toxic side of leadership, specifically in the higher education sector. This work advances earlier studies in the field by examining teachers’ perceptions of toxic leadership behavior exhibited by their leaders in the higher education sector. The study continues by highlighting areas of toxic leadership research that are yet to be explored in academic literature and are still to be studied.

The study aims to test the color fastness of wool and linen fabrics dyed by simple immersion in ethanol dissolutions of fungal dyes.

Ethanol dissolutions of Talaromyces australis and Penicillium murcianum dyes were prepared to a concentration of 0.3% and used to dye wool and linen samples by immersion. Color fastness to washing, dry cleaning, wet and dry rubbing, perspiration and light, were tested according to AATCC standards.

Color fastness reached acceptable results at dry cleaning and wet and dry rubbing by crocking but did not performed well at laundering, perspiration and light exposure. Results indicate that ethanol dissolutions of tested dyes had better affinity for wool fabrics than linen, but the dyeing method requires further improvements to be considered attractive for full scale applications.

In this work sustainability of fabrics dyeing is improved by using natural pigments produced by filamentous fungi and a method to dye that requires no increment of temperature and mordants.