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The case deals with Arihant Retail, a family business firms located at Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. It is a small scale firm, with a turnover of ‘340 million in 2009–10. Mr. Vishal Surana, the young Chief Executive of Arihant, dreams of making this into a ‘3 billion store by 2015. He has a concept named “Hot Male”, a chain of stores stocking trendy fashionwear targeted at the “funky” young generation belonging to the SEC (Socio Economic Classification) “B” group. He is excited about it, and thinks he can build a whole new concept and grow based mainly on these “Hot Male” stores. Being a family firm, however, he has to take into consideration the views of his family members (they do not seem to interfere in any way) and family friends of long standing, who have their own views. The case outlines the broad options available to Vishal taking into account the business logic, the family logic, and the top management aspirations.

In 2013, ‘Fashion Destination’, a well-established clothing retailer considered setting up a clothing and accessories rental service. They hired a market research agency ‘Wright & Company’ to conduct a research on the sustainability and profitability of such a business model. The consultants collected primary data and did an extensive analysis for Fashion Destination. Based on the secondary research, expert interviews, extensive qualitative and quantitative research the consultants recommended the management to start a clothes and accessories rental service but suggested that the product offering be limited to formal clothes only and offer accessories. Vishal had doubts despite of the go-ahead signal from consultancy. He wondered what recommendations should he accept and which needed further verification.

The purpose of this paper is to ground in serious empirical evidence the debate on whether the post-reform acceleration in growth has helped bring poverty down for all economic, social and religious groups and in all state or has left certain groups or states.

The paper uses unit-level data from the so-called thick rounds of expenditure surveys by National Sample Survey (NSS) in the years 1993-1994, 2004-2005, 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 and estimates the proportion of the population below the official Tendulkar line. Adequate care is taken to address the issue of sample size in reporting the estimates.

Whether we slice the data by social, religious or economic groups, by states or by rural and urban areas, poverty has significantly declined between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 with a substantial acceleration during the faster-growth period from 2004-2005 to 2011-2012. Poverty rates among the disadvantaged social groups and minorities have declined faster so that the gap in poverty rates between them and the general population has declined. In 7 of the 16 states with large Muslim populations, the poverty rate for them is now below that for the Hindus.

Use of survey data has its limitations, especially when the sample sizes are small. The paper also does not assess the direct contribution of growth in relation to that through redistribution.

The paper presents implications for identification of the poor for the purpose of designing targeted interventions.

This is the first paper to offer up-to-date estimates of poverty by social, religious and economic groups, by states and by rural and urban areas.

‘Fashion Destination’ was a prominent one-stop shop of clothing retail in Ahmedabad which has faced business slowdown in the last 5 years. Vishal, who had recently taken over the management wondered, would renting of premium clothing be a good business model to get back to the business. While pondering over the issue Vishal did some secondary research had found that the Indian retail industry is growing at a fast rate and that the online rental service is an upcoming trend in Indian market. Vishal hired an external market research agency ‘Wright & Company’, before changing the business model, to clarify certain doubts regarding renting clothes as a social stigma, willingness of people to rent clothes, requirement of physical store, about target consumers and product assortment.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Graduate, undergraduate and executive education.

The Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur, in the year 2013 started the Centre for Corporate Governance to emerge as an academic and research center for the industries in the vicinity of Nagpur and engage industries in CSR activities. On completion of one year of the center, the team responsible for execution of the programs was disappointed with the Centre’s progress. They decided to start an empowerment program with students from a poor village school. The initiative was well received by the school and its students. Now the team is facing the challenge of sustainability and scale up of the initiative.

To understand the concept and motives of CSR; to evaluate how a nonprofit-making entity can contribute to its communities; to explain the nuances of stakeholder engagement; social empowerment and inclusiveness; and student engagement and volunteerism.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This study examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the investment-cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) of Indian manufacturing firms.

This study uses the fixed-effect method to investigate the effect of EPU on ICFS from 2004 to 2019.

This study finds that EPU increases ICFS, which is more (less) during the crisis (before and post-crisis) period. The authors also find that the effect of EPU on ICFS is more for smaller, younger and standalone (SA) firms than the larger, matured and business group affiliated (BGA) firms. This study also reveals that EPU reduces corporate investment (CI). Further, the authors find that cash flow is more significant for the investment of financially constrained firms and the negative effect of EPU is more for these firms.

This study considers the Indian manufacturing sector. Therefore, this study can be extended by analyzing the relationship between EPU and ICFS for the service sector.

First, this study can be useful for corporates, academicians and government bodies to understand the effect of EPU on ICFS and CI. Second, this study will help corporates to focus on internal funds to finance corporates' investment during the crisis period because EPU increases the cost of external finance which may increase ICFS and reduce CI. Third, lending agencies, investors and stakeholders should also focus on the firm's nature, ownership, size and age because these factors play a crucial role to reduce or increase the negative effect of EPU on ICFS. Fourth, the Government should make appropriate policy measures in terms of concessional interest rates to increase the easy availability of external finance for SA, small size, and young firms to reduce the negative effect of EPU on CI because these firms are considered as more financially constrained firms.

This study adds new inputs to the current literature of EPU in several ways. First, this study is one of the main studies focused on the relationship between EPU and ICFS (CI). Especially in emerging countries like India, examining this relationship extends previous research. Second, this study also examines the impact of EPU on ICFS for BGA, SA, small, large, matured and young firms as well as crisis and non-crisis periods. Third, this study uses the sample of the Indian manufacturing sector which has emerged the qualities to become a global manufacturing hub and attracting global investors. Therefore, examining the effect of EPU on ICFS for these firms will be more interesting.

Since the concept of rental clothing business was new for Indian market and very few players were dealing in it, ‘Wright & Company’ consulting did an exploratory research to understand the model. Through two expert interviews and extensive survey of the business model of existing players across countries, they developed better understanding of kinds of business models, range of products offered, customer expectations and concerns regarding such service and business challenges. The research showed the purchase intention but further detailed primary research was required to validate the findings. To conduct the quantitative survey they designed a questionnaire but was not sure of the appropriateness of the questionnaire and thus wanted to pre-test it and construct a final detailed questionnaire. Vishal also wondered if he needed to do more extensive in-depth qualitative research.

This study aims to examine empirically the nature of supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly on the Indian automobile sector.

The authors evaluate the stock market performance of individual company and its quantitative relationship to certain variables related to company’s supply chain.

The authors analysed the company’s operations considering several ratios like asset intensity, company size, labour intensity and inventory to revenue.

The results of analysis can help the companies to understand how disruptions in the supply chain can affect the company’s operations and how it is perceived by the investors in the stock market.

Also, investors are benefitted, as they can understand how different companies with different operational characteristics react to global disruptions in supply chains, which in turn would help them to find better investment opportunities.

Although there is some literature available on the qualitative as well as quantitative analysis, the authors go further to analyse the impact of supply chain disruption on the stocks of the automobile sector.

The presence of barriers in the supply chain finance (SCF) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) cripples the productivity and efficiency of SMEs and makes it challenging to execute strategies. SCF barriers can be internal and external which tend to impede the desired performance and profitability of the SMEs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discern the possible SCF barriers and analyze the criticality of the barriers to understand how they impact on the SMEs market of India.

This study proposes a novel hybrid approach called best worst method (BWM) to evaluate the discerned barriers. BWM technique is espoused to appraise the SCF barriers, so that the decision-makers can rationally comprehend the reason behind dominance of one barrier over other. Although such an assessment may possibly vary for different industries, that is why proposed approach is generic in nature and can be applied in real-world cases. The robustness of the suggested model is also assessed through sensitivity analysis.

SCF barriers are identified through extensive literature review and inputs from the industry. The results derived through BWM approach concludes that the “Financial Barriers” are censorious and foremost inhibitors for SMEs to flourish, therefore, require special attention by the top management. Likewise, “Supply and Suppliers Barriers” are ranked second, conversely, “Market and Policy Related Barriers” are found least critical in nature in SMEs of India.

This work is specific to SCF barriers and other barriers have not been touched upon. The study is based on expert panel opinion for seeking information which is restricted to Indian context, as the members of the expert panel belong to same geography.

This research could aid decision-makers and strategists to comprehend the deep-rooted initiatives to achieve a comprehensive implication of SCF across SC network. By assessing SCF barriers, this study helps SMEs to understand their shortfalls and in answering the pertinent question of how to gain excellence in this intensely competitive market.

SMEs are considered as engines of economic development worldwide. India too is striving for increasing the growth and development of SMEs in every aspect, to gain operational excellence, to make profits or employment generation but presence of SCF barriers makes it difficult to achieve this in Indian SMEs. Therefore, it is imperative to analyze the criticality of the SCF barriers to understand how they impact on SMEs market of India. The paper illustrates the modeling of SCF barriers among SMEs using BWM approach, exhibiting how comprehending barriers can improvise productivity and efficiency of the SCs in SMEs.