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■ Understand the functionalities of various social media platforms. ■ Choose social media platforms to align various business goals. ■Consider how to develop strategies for monitoring, understanding and responding to different social media activities.

Acuver Consulting Private Limited (Acuver) is a niche, self-funded IT consulting services start-up. Founded in 2013 with the aim of providing IT consulting services in the supply chain domain, Acuver delivers IT solutions to the world’s leading IT conglomerates, Fortune 500 companies and emerging players across multiple geographies and industries. Changing consumer buying patterns in recent years has forced retailers and supply-chain businesses to invest in digital transformation projects, providing ample growth opportunities for Acuver. To meet increased demand, Acuver needs to acquire direct engagements with clients and hire the right talent to help it ride this growth wave. This case described challenges faced by the start-up in building visibility to expand its reach. The case provided an overview of the IT consulting services industry and Acuver’s vision. It then detailed the reasons for the company’s lack of visibility, which was curtailing its growth opportunities. It described the dilemma and possible strategies to overcome the problem statement. It also discussed the limitations associated with the potential strategies, which needed to be contemplated by the reader.

This case is appropriate for MBA and Executive MBA courses on Management of Information System, Digital Governance, Strategic Management of IT and Managing Digital Transformation.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Mobile banking (Mbanking) is one of the most widely used mobile technology applications in recent times. This research aims to develop and test a research model by integrating social influence, trust and compatibility along with demographic variables into the original technology acceptance model (TAM) for Mbanking adoption which can be useful for understanding individual behaviours from an international business perspective.

Data were collected through a structured survey from 208 Omani Mbanking users and analysed using a two-staged regression and neural network (NN) model.

The results showed that perceived ease of use and demographic variables were not statistically significant in the multiple linear regression model, whereas the importance of the aforementioned variables was relatively high in the results obtained from the NN model. Furthermore, other predictors, namely, trust, perceived usefulness, compatibility and social influence included in the proposed research model that were established as significant by the regression model were assigned high relative importance by the NN model as well.

The study reflects the customer’s opinion from a developing country perspective. In addition, the research makes a significant theoretical contribution by using predictive modelling instead of causal or explanatory modelling for the development of a new and extended TAM model. The findings can be gainfully used by international business to understand Omani customer- and design-appropriate strategies for market penetration.

This study offers deeper understanding about Mbanking adoption from a developing country perspective and identifies and integrates important variables that influence the adoption in the aforementioned context.

The main purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive review and critical insights of the application of fuzzy methods in modeling, assessing and understanding the various aspects of green and sustainable supply chains (SSCs).

The present study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis of 252 research articles. This study employs various tools such as VOSviewer version 1.6.10, Publish or Perish, Mendeley and Excel that aid in descriptive analysis, bibliometric analysis and network visualization. These tools have been used for performing citation analysis, top authors' analysis, co-occurrence of keywords, cluster and content analysis.

The authors have divided the literature into seven application areas and discussed detailed insights. This study has observed that research in the social sustainability area, including various issues like health and safety, labor rights, discrimination, etc. is scarce. Integration of the Industry 4.0 technologies like blockchain, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT) with the sustainable and green supply chain (GSC) is a promising field for future research.

The authors' contribution primarily lies in providing the integrated framework which shows the changing trends in the use of fuzzy methods in the sustainability area classifying and consolidating green and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) literature in seven major areas where fuzzy methods are predominantly applied. These areas have been obtained after the analysis of clusters and content analysis of the literature presenting key insights from the past and developing the conceptual framework for future research studies.

The research purpose is to explore the diffusion of mobile QR-code payment (MQP) in a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) context by formulating a behavioral response model based on an integration between protection motivation theory (PMT) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). This study also investigates the importance of physical distancing norm for behavioral intention toward MQP.

A web-based survey was designed and data were accumulated from 411 validated respondents who have used MQP or tend to utilize it in Vietnam. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS and AMOS to verify the hypotheses.

Results illustrated that behavioral intention is motivated by key antecedents of PMT (including perceived severity, perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy) and important factors of UTAUT (including performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence), and physical distancing norm. Moreover, perceived severity promotes performance expectancy, whereas self-efficacy boosts effort expectancy in MQP. Lastly, behavioral intention and recommendation were indicators of the diffusion of MQP under COVID-19.

MQP is just in its infant stage in Vietnam; thus, the findings provide managerial implications, which will aid service providers and firms to adopt marketing strategies that enhance consumers' acceptability and recommendation of MQP to the public.

Little is empirically considered the effects of perceived threat-related factors in PMT and physical distancing norm on behavioral intention toward MQP in a salient pandemic setting. Furthermore, the antecedents in UTAUT contribute greatly to behavioral intention. This study enlightens the diffusion of MQP based on behavioral intention and recommendation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictabilities of five intra-personal factors to predict pro-environmental consumer behavior (PECB) and the moderating role of religiosity in Oman.

The study uses neural network to analyze the antecedents/antecedents × religiosity → PECB relationships by using a sample of 306 consumers from Oman.

This study finds that the most important predictors of PECB, according to the order of importance, are attitude × religiosity, knowledge, concern × religiosity, knowledge × religiosity, value, religiosity, attitude, concern and value × religiosity.

The convenience sample from a single Islamic country limits the generalizability of the findings. Future studies should use probabilistic sampling techniques and multiple Islamic countries located in different geographical regions.

To promote PECB, businesses and policymakers should provide environmental education to expand knowledge and value, leverage ecological religious values in integrated marketing communications, make positive inducements to change attitude and concern enhancing interventions.

As religiosity enhances PECB by moderating the impacts of environmental intra-personal factors on PECB, businesses and policymakers should find ways to use faith-based ecological messages in Islamic countries.

Determining the predictabilities of psychological factors and their interactions with religiosity to predict PECB in Islamic countries is necessary for promoting environmentally friendly products in Islamic countries and for reducing the ecological damage to the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of religiosity in consumer pro-environmental behavioral intention (CPEBI). Consumer pro-environmental value, knowledge, concern and attitude predict CPEBI; however, previous findings are neither consistent about their predictabilities nor clear about the order of importance of these predictors. Further, while religiosity has the potential to affect values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, its role in CPEBI research has been neglected.

Data are collected from a sample of 306 respondents from Oman, an Islamic country with mostly Muslim consumers, and analyzed using a neural network model.

This study finds that the most important predictors of CPEBI, in order of importance, are attitude, concern, knowledge, religiosity and value. Further, results indicate that religiosity moderates the impacts of, in order of importance, attitude, value, concern and knowledge on CPEBI.

Both businesses and policy makers can prioritize intervention strategies according to the importance of the predictors and can leverage faith-based messages and programs for promoting CPEBI toward creating a better environment for all.

Determining the predictabilities of psychological factors and their interactions with religiosity to predict CPEBI in Islamic countries is necessary for promoting environmentally friendly products in Islamic countries and for reducing the ecological damage to the environment.

This study aims to investigate the key factors that motivate learners to use handheld devices to access library resources. To do so, this study integrates the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the DeLone and McLean information systems success (D and M-ISS) model.

The relationship between the causes and the outcomes may not be symmetrical. To test this proposition, data were collected from 210 respondents in a Gulf country and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) and complemented by fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The SEM results revealed that three constructs – perceived ease of use (PEOU), service quality (SQ) and system quality (SEQ) are strong drivers of students’ continuous intention to use handheld devices to access library resources. However, perceived usefulness (PU) and information quality (IQ) do not significantly influence students’ intentions. Besides, SQ and PEOU are positively related to PU. Furthermore, fsQCA results show that two different conjunctions, PU*PEOU*IQ*SEQ and PEOU*SQ*IQ*SEQ, cause the students to show a continuous intention to use handheld devices to access library resources.

Unlike previous studies on mobile library resource utilization, this analysis extends TAM to investigate the linear additive influence of two basic TAM constructs: PEOU and PU, and three constructs, namely, SEQ, SQ and IQ of the ISS model, on students’ library resource utilization. Furthermore, the findings of SEM were complemented by a set theory-based configuration method, fsQCA, to investigate the asymmetrical, equifinal and configurational causation leading to the desired outcome. The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications.

This paper aims to integrate Big Data in e-government in Oman, also known as “e-Oman”, wherein Big Data might be better harnessed to tackle real-time challenges.

Besides a description of the concepts of e-government and Big Data in general, the paper underscores the dimensions of “e-Oman”. Following a qualitative approach, the paper asserts how integration of Big Data in “e-Oman” may be useful by invoking examples from four short case studies across different sectors.

The paper supports the integration of “e-Oman” and Big Data wherein besides providing smooth public services, the government is encouraged to forge inter- and intra-ministerial collaboration and public-private partnership. The paper probes through the challenges and opportunities in effecting this integration.

The paper provides a platform for the policymakers to conceive of a synchronized programme for integrating “e-Oman” and the Big Data generated by it. This integration would go a long way in building upon the economy of Oman, besides providing better public services to the individuals and businesses on a real-time basis.

The paper does throw light on the issues of privacy and confidentiality of data available with the government. There are challenges of cybercrime as well. Therefore, the paper posits that a robust fool-proof infrastructure should be instituted by the government for effecting integration of e-government and Big Data.

This paper seeks to fill the gap in extant literature which remains scant on the integration of e-government with Big Data. This is especially true in the case of Oman where not a single study has been presented to probe this issue. Given that “e-Oman” is expanding its scope over the years, this paper foresees the concomitant opportunities and challenges in the integration of Big Data in “e-Oman”.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the productivity and quality of the wire arc additive manufacturing process by benchmarking the strategies from the selected six strategies, namely, heat treatment process, inter pass cooling process, inter pass cold rolling process, peening process, friction stir processing and oscillation process.

To overcome the lack of certainty associated with correlations and relationships in quality functional deployment, fuzzy numbers have been integrated with the quality functional deployment framework. Twenty performance measures have been identified from the literature under five groups, namely, mechanical properties, physical properties, geometrical properties, cost and material properties. Using house of quality weights are allocated to performance measures and groups, relationships are established between performance measures and strategies, and correlations are assigned between strategies. Finally, for each strategy, relative importance, score and crisp values are calculated.

Inter pass cold rolling process strategy is computed with the highest crisp value of 15.80 which is followed by peening process, heat treatment process, friction stir processing, inter pass cooling process,] and oscillation process strategy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no research in the literature that analyzes the strategies to improve the quality and productivity of the wire arc additive manufacturing process.

Manufacturing supply chains (SCs) across the world have become increasingly vulnerable to disruptions due to the increasing fragmentation of business functions and tasks across many firms located within the country and abroad. Despite the numerous instances of SC disruptions being reported in the literature, the study of SC vulnerability lacks adequate conceptual and empirical support. This study aims to address this research gap.

The concept of SC vulnerability was examined considering the outcome and contextual models of vulnerability, which are well established in extant multi-disciplinary vulnerability literature. An exploratory Delphi study was then conducted to understand the extent of vulnerability of various manufacturing SCs in India, drivers of this vulnerability and the key hazards exploiting this vulnerability.

The study confirms the increasing vulnerability of manufacturing SCs in India. It also highlights the lack of top management commitment to risk mitigation as the key vulnerability driver and frequent changes in government laws and regulations as the key hazard being faced by the manufacturing SCs in India.

This study highlights the utility of outcome and contextual models of vulnerability as conceptual frameworks for understanding SC vulnerability. These conceptual insights along with the key manufacturing SC vulnerability drivers and hazards identified in the study should provide a basis for SC redesign for vulnerability reduction and the selection of SC risk mitigation strategies.