Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-relationship of dimensions for consumer-based brand equity and brand loyalty with customer satisfaction as a mediator for oral care segment with special reference to Delhi and connecting areas.

For achieving the objective of this study, the theoretical model was tested through structural equation modelling. Research scales from the literature were modified for suitability. Data were collected from 250 respondents.

The results indicate that for the oral care segment, customer satisfaction is significantly related to the perceived quality, brand trust, perceived value of cost and lifestyle congruence. Moreover, customer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship of perceived quality and perceived value of cost with brand loyalty, whereas it fully mediates the relationship of lifestyle congruence and brand trust with brand loyalty. Thus, even for low-involvement products, consumer purchases are based on the attributes of the brand rather than being merely habitual.

The literature supports the direct influence of brand equity on brand loyalty. However, no other study has investigated the mediating role of customer satisfaction on the relationship between brand equity and brand loyalty for low-involvement products.

This study explores how effectively the Indian government utilized social media to communicate emergency information and promote citizen engagement and awareness during the first wave of COVID-19 crisis.

This research investigates the tweets scraped from the official Twitter handle “CovidnewsbyMIB” of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India; the authors unearthed patterns in the communications between the government and its citizens by adopting various social media analysis techniques. Further, the authors also tried to examine the influence of media richness and dialogic loop on citizen engagement through government social media (CEGSM) using multivariate analysis method.

The results highlighted clusters of words/terms present in the tweets related to COVID-19 combating strategies, guidelines, and updates. The authors also found that media richness has a significant positive relationship with CEGSM, but dialogic loop has an insignificant relationship with CEGSM.

This study provides suggestions to government agencies about ways to improve CEGSM by enhancing media richness and dialogic loop elements such as surveys, polls, and responses in the crisis communication.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2021-0307.

The purpose of this paper is to unearth various dimensions of employee experience (EX) and explore how pandemic impacted various EX factors using online employee reviews. The authors identify employee-discussed EX-factors and quantify the associated sentiments and importance.

This paper employs Latent Dirichlet Allocation on the online employee reviews to identify the key EX-factors. The authors probe sentiments and importance associated with key EX-factors using sentiment analysis, importance analysis, regression analysis and dominance analysis.

The result of topic modeling identifies 20 EX-factors that shape overall EX. While skill development plays a major role in shaping overall EX, employees perceived Salary and Growth as the most important EX-factor and expressed negative sentiments during the pandemic. Employee sentiments significantly influence overall EX.

When employees have extensive change experience, managers should consider various facets of EX to manage the smooth change and deliver a better EX. This research offers key EX-factors to be considered by managers while dealing with employees. Online employee reviews websites are recommended to include the identified key EX-factors to comprehend the holistic EX.

This study contributes to the growing literature on the employee experience as a concept by identifying various EX-factors. The authors expand the extant EX scales by identifying an inclusive and updated set of EX-factors.

During the last two decades there have been significant policy changes in the banking system, primarily in the emerging market economies. These changes have impacted the competitive structure of banking. In India, since 1991, gradual reform measures have been initiated to improve efficiency, productivity, competition and stability of the banking sector. There is a requirement for a formal approach to examine level of competition in Indian banking sector after the liberalization. This paper aims to address this issue.

The article applied the conjectural variation method using 2‐stage least square for assessing the degree of competition in the Indian banking system.

The paper finds that competitive condition in the Indian banking sector has been improving 1996. However, big banks with market share more than 1 per cent have been exercising some degree of price mark‐up over their marginal cost.

Due to the paucity of data competition at the regional level is not analysed which is a limitation of the article.

Analysis of competition allows the policy formulators to design proper liberalization measures to ensure greater competition in the banking sector so as to prevent any cartel formation.

Since the Indian banking sector is monopolistically competitive, the article advocates for more liberalization measures to improve competition in the Indian banking sector.

To assess competition the article has covered 53 banks involving more than 90 per cent banking sector assets of the country. Through Lerner Index the article has found that big banks are able to charge a price which is about 30 per cent more than their marginal cost. The conjectural variation method is a monopolistic market structure prevailing in the Indian banking sector.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of caste-based conflict in India. The data for this paper are from the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (REDS) of 2006 encompassing 8,659 households in 242 villages in 18 Indian states.

Using these data, the authors examine two broad issues: the sources of conflict in rural India and the degree to which these sources contribute to caste-basted, as opposed to non-caste-based conflict; the sources of conflict resolution in rural India: are some conflict-resolving agencies more effective at dealing with caste-based conflicts and others more effective with non-caste-based conflicts?

There was a rise in caste-based conflict over the (approximate) period 1996-2006. There are several reasons for the rise in caste-based conflict but, in the main, is the rise in assertiveness of persons belonging to India’s lower castes. In terms of conflict resolution, panchayats and prominent individuals were important in resolving village conflicts: 69 per cent of caste-based, and 65 per cent of non-caste based, conflicts were resolved by one or the other of these two agents.

This is the first attempt, using econometric methodology, to study caste conflict at a village level in India.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the heterogeneous relationship among financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth, examining the possible directions of causality among them in both the short and long runs.

A sample of the G-20 countries over the period 1970–2016 is utilized. A vector error-correction model is used to consider the possible directions of causality among financial development, FDI and economic growth.

Results suggest a cointegrating relationship among the three series. Although short-run links among the variables are mostly non-uniform, both financial development and FDI matter in the determination of long-run economic growth.

Attention must be paid to policies that promote financial development. This, in turn, calls for fostering incentives to guarantee continued support to liberalize the economy and promoting capital openness. Additionally, financial infrastructure should be improved to improve financial innovation. The establishment of a well-developed financial market, including well-functioning banks and other financial institutions, can facilitate further investment and an easier means of raising capital to support the activities of FDI. Economic growth can ultimately be elevated through both financial development and FDI.

The study considers a sample of the G-20 countries, which have received relatively little attention in the existing literature. In addition, the study concurrently analyses the trivariate causal relationship among financial development, FDI and economic growth, a topic on which there has been a dearth of research.

The study aims to investigate the relationship between competition and efficiency. Using bank-level data for Indian banks, relationship between competition and efficiency is examined by applying the Granger causality test for the period 1996 to 2011.

Lerner Index is a measure of market power and is applied for estimation of competition. Data envelopment analysis technique is applied for measuring efficiency in the Indian banking system along with the Granger causality test to look at the relationship between competition and efficiency.

Results show an increasing trend for competition for the period 1996 to 2004, and after that there is fall in competitive levels. Granger causality tests show that competition positively effects efficiency and vice-versa.

This study gives an insight into the relationship between competition and efficiency, thus providing an alternative view to the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. An efficient banking system can positively impact the growth of an economy and, hence, competition and efficiency are important decision parameters for regulators and could help them in decision-making and policy formulation.

This study has covered more than 90 per cent of the banking assets for looking at competition and efficiency in the banking sector. Policymakers can try to improve competitive levels in banking so as to improve efficiency in the banking sector which can further help in developing the investment-savings cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy and kinetics along with diffusion properties of a new source of natural dye obtained from leaves and fine stems of the Sesbania aculeata plant, using metallic mordants for cotton dyeing.

The approach followed in this work is to conduct experiments with the application of the natural dye obtained from Sesbania aculeata plant and to study the kinetics, dye uptake and the diffusion properties of this dye.

Sesbania aculeata with simultaneous mordanting with different metal mordants imparted shades which varied from cream to light brown to dark brown in case of aqueous extract. The different mordants used not only changed the hue colour and K/S values but also L* and brightness index values. The results of fastness properties of the dyes were found to vary from fair to good. The percentage dye exhaustion values varied with different mordants. The dye uptake value increased with time and reached its saturation limit after 4 hours of dyeing. In the absence of mordants, the diffusion coefficient values increased with increase in the temperature. In the presence of mordants, the diffusion process appears to slow down, which could be attributed to the binding effects of mordants.

The extraction and dyeing process of Sesbania aculeata plant is less tedious and time consuming compared to the other sources of natural dyes.

Sesbania aculeata is relatively easier to grow and does not require much tending operations. Thus, it promises to be an affordable source of natural dye. If this dye is commercialised, it will help to generate sustainable employment and income for the farmers in rural and sub-urban areas. This could be both for dyeing and for non-food crop farming.

An advantageous feature of this plant, in contrast to the other natural dyes based on vegetable and fruit sources, is that its usage in making the natural dye does not result in any wastage of an otherwise highly commercial product. The current experimental study on a new source of natural dye would be a significant contribution to the existing database of knowledge regarding the kinetics and diffusion properties of natural dyes. There are several reported studies in the literature pertaining to the application of natural colourants and evaluation of their dyeing properties on various fibers. However, relatively fewer studies exist on the kinetic and exhaustion aspects. Thus, the current study would help to develop a set of predictable settings for application of natural dyes on various textiles.

Waste generated from electrical and electronic equipment, collectively known as E-waste, remains a persistent environmental, economic and social problem. Sustainable E-waste management (EWM) has numerous benefits, such as preventing electronic waste from entering landfills, reducing the need for virgin materials by recovering valuable materials from recycling and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Circular economy (CE) practices are considered the initial steps toward sustainable EWM, but some hurdles have been reported in the adoption of these practices. Therefore, the current study aims to identify the common CE practices, sustainability of the EWM process and the challenges in EWM, and to develop a conceptual framework for effective EWM.

Very few studies have proposed frameworks that acknowledge the challenges and CE practices of EWM. To fill this gap, a systematic literature review (SLR) was performed, and 169 research articles were explored.

A total of seven challenges in the adoption of effective EWM were identified: rules and policy, infrastructure, consumer behaviour, informal sectors, community culture, technology and economy. Eight common CE practices were also found for effective EWM: reuse, recycle, remanufacturing, refurbishment, repair, reduce, recover and repurpose.

A conceptual framework guiding sustainable EWM was proposed, which includes solutions for the identified challenges, and CE practices with sustainable benefits.

This study aims to explore the antecedents and consequences of reliance and its relationship with trust in the context of business-to-business (B2B) branding. The study also explores the above relationships in various B2B contexts.

Survey data of 135 respondents from different B2B firms was analyzed, and the proposed theoretical model was validated using partial least square structural equation modeling technique followed by multigroup analysis.

The results suggest that commitment, management capability and innovation capability are positively related with reliance, while trust acts as mediator between commitment–reliance relationships. Moreover, while both reliance and trust lead to B2B brand image, reliance has higher relationship strength. Furthermore, reliance mediates the trust–brand image relationship too.

The paper contributes to the literature of reliance and its role in B2B brand image by providing newer insights about the antecedents and consequences of reliance and its relationship with trust.

The findings provide managers with key insights for creating B2B brand image using reliance and trust by focusing on capabilities and commitment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few papers in B2B marketing which focuses on the antecedents of reliance and relative importance of trust and reliance.