Search results

This paper seeks to understand how a new elite, known as the cork aristocracy, emerged in the Bordeaux wine field, France, between 1850 and 1929 as wine merchants replaced aristocrats. Classic class and status perspectives, and their distinctive social closure dynamics, are mobilized to illuminate the individual and organizational transformations that affected elite wineries grouped in an emerging classification of the Bordeaux best wines. We build on a wealth of archives and historical ethnography techniques to surface complex status and organizational dynamics that reveal how financiers and industrialists intermediated this transition and how organizations are deeply interwoven into social change.

This chapter explores an analytical method to understand the decades-long literature on informal lending in the informal sector. Assessing the predominance and interrelationships of numerous issues in informal loans in the informal economy helps in identifying emerging research trends. The analysis employs a method of investigation by thematically analyzing research publications indexed by Scopus from the first publication to 2023 using bibliometrix and PRISMA model in R Studio. Research ideas may be visualized using thematic slices and other visual representations that show their evolution and interconnectedness. Key concepts like “rural credit” and “informal sector” become apparent, shedding light on the evolution of these concepts through time with the help of thematic analysis. Findings on trending themes and tree maps improve thematic comprehension. The study majority restricted to thematic analysis in depth confined to available information. The results may be used as a road map for further study and policy choices in the field of informal lending. Informal lending research promotes financial inclusion and sustainable informal sector economic growth. This bibliometric analysis illuminates informal lending research themes and their consequences for informal economy issues. The results enhance informal lending research and policy development.

In line with global initiatives, the state of Kerala in southern India is actively working towards formalizing its informal solid waste management (SWM) sector. Despite this, there is a dearth of studies on formalization processes, particularly focusing on the conditions of workers within this sector. This study addresses the gap by examining the challenges faced by women workers operating within the formalized framework of Kerala’s SWM sector. It aimed to investigate challenges faced by grassroots women workers in Kerala’s SWM sector during its transition from informal to formal, identifying gaps in the process through their experiences. Using a qualitative methodology, the research gathered data from 10 women workers in the SWM sector in Kozhikode, Kerala, who were part of the Haritha Karma Sena (green task force). Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews revealed two major challenges faced by these women. Firstly, there was a negative societal perception towards them, and secondly, there was a lack of appropriate state response to their needs and requirements. These challenges were attributed to gaps and pitfalls in the formalization process, leading to a lowered socio-economic status for the women, increased vulnerability to health hazards, and societal stigma. The findings underscore the need for significant improvements in the formalization process of Kerala’s waste management sector. The study advocates for targeted policy interventions to enhance the working conditions of SWM workers, emphasizing the importance of expediting and streamlining the formalization process. This, in turn, would contribute to the overall effectiveness of the SWM system in the state.

COVID entered the world in 2019 as a pandemic and the intensity of this health crisis is only increasing in several regions. Therefore, it is critical to study and detect the public's frame of mind, government and economists' perception regarding the COVID crisis, as well as the primary worries that the public has expressed, and how this evolves over time. Responsive measures towards COVID-19 from the Indian economy have been explored as a key objective. Moreover, efforts have been made to explore recovery in India through economists and policymakers. Data have been explored through online interviews of key economists which were published in leading newspapers and covered through media channels such as NDTV, CNBC, etc. Moreover, various newspapers and reports were explored to understand government initiatives to address COVID-19 in India. The study's findings show how essential economic recovery from the second wave is in India, and how it may be achieved by strong fiscal and monetary policies, as well as specific attention to impoverished households, small and micro-businesses and increased employment. The short-term focus of the developing economic strategy must be on giving crisis relief to the most unprotected segments of society since long-term system stimulation is impossible.

Smart technologies in today's Internet of Things (IoT) era cover a wide spectrum, including smart identification technologies, robotics, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), wearable technologies, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain. This study aims at revealing the role and importance of smart technologies in service systems which encompass a wide spectrum of sectors. The scope of this study covers the main applications in transportation and logistics, retail, health care, hospitality, and financial services sectors. A broad overview is provided for the potentials and benefits of smart technology utilization in these service areas, and future research agenda is suggested. Findings reveal that simultaneous use of smart technologies bring tremendous opportunities in terms of efficiencies and automation, reshaping and transforming operations and business processes of the service enterprises. The study highlights that although core proven applications of smart technologies are in manufacturing, generally lagging service sector applications promise radical productivity improvements, performance enhancements, and increased service quality. By radically upgrading the customer satisfaction to entirely new levels and providing unique customer experiences, smart technologies lead to bottom line profitability improvements as well competitiveness.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been gaining support for the role it plays in employee outcomes, such as organizational identification (OID), the view of CSR from a social identity perspective is underdeveloped. This conceptual chapter explores the role of social identity processes grounded in organizational justice to develop a model of CSR attributions and the moderating role these attributions play in organizational member outcomes. CSR is understood as the relational processes happening with stakeholders, and these relationships engage specific organizational identity orientations. The social identity process flows from there, resulting in CSR attributions including strategic, relational, and virtuous. Using social identity, organizational identity, and organizational justice, this chapter makes two specific contributions: a CSR attribution typology grounded in organizational justice and the moderating impact of these attributions between activated justice dimensions and resulting organizational member outcomes.

Financial technologies form the heart of considerable disruptive innovation. Fintech is the emerging financial infrastructure for modern business. Big data are the feedstock for artificial intelligence (AI) that drives many fintech sectors – start-up finance, commodities and investment instrumentation, payment systems, currencies, exchange markets/trading platforms, market-failure response forensics, underwriting, syndication, risk assessment, advisory services, banking, financial intermediaries, transaction settlement, corporate disclosure, and decentralized finance. This chapter demonstrates how analyzing big data, largely processed through cloud computing, drives fintech innovations, scholarship, forensics, and public policy. Despite their apparent virtues, some fintech mechanisms can externalize various social costs: flawed designs, opacity/obscurity, social media (SM) influences, cyber(in)security, and other malfunctions. Fintech suffers regulatory lag, the delay following the introduction of novel fintechs and later assessment, development, and deployment of reliable regulatory mechanisms. Big data can improve fintech practices by balancing three key influences: (1) fintech incentives, (2) market failure forensics, and (3) developing balanced public policy resolutions to fintech challenges.

We have come to a point where the common way to characterise what is taking place presently, or, better yet, for the past almost two years, is with the term ‘pandemic’. The task of this chapter is to bring to awareness certain critical reflections with the hope of disturbing the normalised discourse which excepts the authentic meaning of pandemic, a meaning which affects the totality of the human existence. Following the thoughts of Agamben, Baudrillard, and Heidegger, the hypothesis that this chapter is advancing revolves around the idea that the term ‘pandemic’ has been appropriated by biological thinking excepting its authentic meaning, that is, the ultimate reality of the human existence which is death.