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This study investigates the relationship between buyer-supplier top management team (TMT) demographic misalignment (defined as differences in TMT composition based on background, age and gender) and environmental performance (EVP).

The empirical setting is publicly held US manufacturing firms that are present in both the Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini’s (KLD's) annual EVP ratings and Bloomberg's supply chain database. The study employs panel data regression methods on an unbalanced panel dataset of 7,493 dyad-year observations comprising 427 unique firms.

The research shows that misalignment in functional background and gender composition between TMTs have a negative outcome on both the buyer's and the suppliers' EVP. However, increasing presence of females across TMTs has a positive influence on EVP. Further, the research shows that misalignment based on age between the TMTs does not impact EVP in any significant way. On the contrary, increasing age across TMTs is a significant predictor of EVP.

This study builds on existing works in TMT heterogeneity and adds context to the heightening belief in the positive linkage between heterogeneity and performance through extension to a boundary spanning interfirm context.

This study aims to develop a framework for cybersecurity risk assessment in an organization. Existing cybersecurity frameworks are complex and implementation oriented. The framework can be systematically used to assess the strategic orientation of a firm with respect to its cybersecurity posture. The goal is to assist top-management-team with tailoring their decision-making about security investments while managing cyber risk at their organization.

A thematic analysis of existing publications using content analysis techniques generates the initial set of keywords of significance. Additional factor analysis using the keywords provides us with a framework comprising of five pillars comprising prioritize, resource, implement, standardize and monitor (PRISM) for assessing a firm’s strategic cybersecurity orientation.

The primary contribution is the development of a novel PRISM framework, which enables cyber decision-makers to identify and operationalize a tailored approach to address risk management and cybersecurity problems. PRISM framework evaluation will help organizations identify and implement the most tailored risk management and cybersecurity approach applicable to their problem(s).

The new norm is for companies to realize that data stratification in cyberspace extends throughout their organizations, intertwining their need for cybersecurity within business operations. This paper fulfills an identified need improve the ability of company leaders, as CIOs and others, to address the growing problem of how organizations can better handle cyber threats by using an approach that is a methodology for cross-organization cybersecurity risk management.

The purpose of this paper is to build and test theory regarding how rivalry in environmental management (EM) affects a focal firm’s environmental image and financial performance.

The theory is tested with an original panel data set of 2,776 focal-rival dyad pairs. Measures of environmental signals are developed from content analysis of corporate sustainability reports. Environmental performance data are drawn from the Newsweek US 500 Green Rankings database. Financial performance data are drawn from COMPUSTAT.

The main findings are that focal firm signals have a positive and significant impact on both focal firm environmental image and financial performance. Rival firm signals have a negative effect on focal firm environmental image. Surprisingly, rival firm signals have a positive impact on focal firm financial performance.

This paper can serve as a testament to the value of monitoring rival firm strategies and signaling to counter the impact of rival signals in the environmental domain. Environmental practices can be a source of competitive advantage for firms, and failure to compete in this space can place the firm at a competitive disadvantage.

This study makes several contributions to the EM literature. Leveraging competitive dynamics and the institutional viewpoints, this study builds theory with regard to how signals of competitive EM activity among a focal firm and its rivals affect environmental image and financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study which examines the relationship between transformational leadership and intention to leave through the mediating role of employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment.

Transformational leadership, employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment were assessed in an empirical study based on a sample of 405 full-time employees working in information technology (IT) organizations in India. The data which were obtained using Google doc and a printed questionnaire was analyzed through structural and measurement model.

The results reveal that transformational leadership style directly influences employee intention to leave. Transformational leadership and employer branding is mediated by employee engagement. The leadership relation with psychological attachment is mediated by employer branding.

The implications of the study are of utmost importance for Indian IT industries facing high voluntary turnover in recent times. Transformational leaders in teams contribute to develop employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment. Imparting transformational leadership training to team leaders can help in generating psychological attachment with the employees which would go a long way.

This study explores the relationship among transformational leadership style, employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment which has not been explored theoretically and tested empirically in an Indian context.

Strategy.

The case can primarily be used for a Strategic Management course for teaching the revival strategies for financially weak plants. The case highlights the need to shift from a product manufacturing perspective to a market orientation perspective and, hence, may add value as an add-on case in a Strategic Marketing course. The case also covers the topic of benchmarking which may be of use in an Operations Management course.

DJSL Ltd. is the largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise in India in the energy-related/infrastructure space in the public sector. Its Lucknow unit, manufacturing porcelain insulators and wear resistant ceramic lining (CERA LINING), has started reporting losses. A change of management took place in October 2015, whereby Mr. S P Singh was appointed as the Head of the Lucknow Unit. Mr. Singh had rich functional experience of 30 years, mainly in the domains of strategy, project execution and commercial aspects. He was asked to come up with a revival plan for the Unit by the top management of DJSL. The case highlights the importance of operational issues in turnaround management.

Students may be encouraged to debate the benchmarking practices that are best suited for the Lucknow unit. They can also discuss the impact of benchmarking efforts upon turnaround strategy. Students are also encouraged to understand the constraints which may limit the success of initiatives impacting operational improvements. Students need to develop the understanding of marketing strategy to perform a SWOT analysis of each product of the Lucknow unit and to sense the business opportunities in and around the environment. Students need to discuss how productivity may be improved with the adoption of appropriate people development strategies. Students are encouraged to discuss the revival/turnaround strategies and to identify the influence of improvement in operational efficiency/productivity upon revival plan.

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 paper aims to examine the effect of perceived work–life balance on the perceived level of employer branding attraction valueand organizational talent management. Accordingly, the structural model is developed that delineates the interactions among these and explores the mediating effect of employer branding attraction value between the relationship of work–life balance and organizational talent management.

This study is based on survey results and review of literature in terms of their implications for the proposed framework. Data have been collected by convenience incidental sampling from middle-level executives working in different information and technology (IT) companies. The model and posited hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling analysis.

Perceived work–life balance was found to be positive and significantly predicted the employer branding attraction value and organizational talent management. The study also showed that there exists a significant and positive correlation between employer branding attraction value and perceived organizational talent management. Further, employer branding attraction value found to be a mediating construct between the relationship of work–life balance and organizational talent management.

The present study will add insight into the human resource practitioners to design cost-effective and prolonged popular practices in order to meet the employees work and personal expectations under the organizational association. The research investigated issue within focused IT sector employees to understand and solve the issues generated with changing factors in an organizational environment such as increasing women participation, duel earning couple, and maintaining the difference between various categories of employees at the practice level.

The study has value at both the scholarly and practice level. At a scholarly level, the research investigated an important contemporary issue at both level individual as well as organizational level. In practice if organization implements people friendly work-life balance policies, then this will be surely be helpful in organizational productivity in form of talent management and employer branding and further this will improve the personal and professional performance of most elementary component of developing society.

Work–life balance much more depends upon employees' perception, but so far the study has neglected the impact of this perception on other organizational attributes maintained under human resource management. Changes in demographic characteristics and interchangeable role of the youth population in organizations and society as well thrive for the newer approach to deal with the personal and professional aspects of the employees.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to understand the following aspects:▪ how good strategic planning can convert a crisis into an opportunity;▪ importance of service excellence and customer satisfaction through customer delight and customer feedback; and▪ utilisation of resources and excellent time management strategies.

This case discusses how vital teamwork and motivated leadership can convert a crisis such as Covid-19 into an opportunity. This case study talks about Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC), a metro rail corporation working to develop metro trains in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The case discusses how challenging it was for the metro rail corporation to transform its processes in a short period and deal with the crisis on major fronts such as facilities maintenance, human resource management, ensuring safety and security of its staff and riders, motivation of staff, service quality and maintaining all operational aspects. The case discusses how UPMRC is a leader on all fronts and has excelled in its operational work. It talks about what challenges the lockdown and unlocking phase posed in front of the leadership and how teamwork, dedication to exemplary service quality and customer satisfaction gave the team the strength to make changes that improved their processes and helped them overcome the crisis.The case starts with a discussion of metro rail inception and incorporation of UPMRC and then how this newly formed metro has to face the challenges of pre-lockdown period where the team worked very hard for sanitisation and safety. The lockdown created a completely different set of challenges related to the facilities and the entire metro train systems, which was a difficult situation to deal because of restrictions and other challenges. However, the team dealt with situations with strength and strategic planning, leading to better managed processes and staff. The unlocking phase also gave many challenges that the team handled with a lot of care and efficiency.

This case is suitable for post-graduate-level courses on services marketing, service operations management, general management, crisis management and strategic management. Participants can use the case to develop an understanding of strategic planning and management.This case can also be used in the executive education program for managers to encourage them to think through challenges faced by metro rail corporations.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public Sector Management.

Blockchain technology can overcome many complicated problems related to confidentiality, integrity and availability of fast and secure distributed systems in the agri-food supply chain. In emerging economies like India, blockchain application in the agri-food supply chain is still new, and their adoption is underdeveloped. This paper aims to investigate the drivers of blockchain technology adoption and their effect on the behavioral intention of stakeholders in adopting blockchain technology among various stakeholders in the agri-food supply chain. The study also develops a framework to enhance understanding of blockchain adoption in the agri-food supply chain as well as the stakeholders' motivation in seeking blockchain solutions.

Considering the most significant aspects of blockchain adoption in the agri-food supply chain, this study attempts to develop an adoption model by using the extended unified theory of acceptance and technology model with interfirm trust and transparency as additional factors. Data was collected from a sample of 200 stakeholders in the North Indian state of Punjab. The empirical analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling in Smart PLS3.

The findings supported the developed framework and the results of SEM indicate that all the paths are supported. In particular, the findings of the study reveal that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, interfirm trust and transparency are the drivers of blockchain adoption and have a significant impact on the behavioral intention of stakeholders. Cumulatively, the results positively impact the performance of agri-food supply chain. From this study, it is found that the adoption of blockchain technology in agri-food supply chain enhances their performance.

The originality of the study lies in the developed framework, technology adoption will help them focus in the right direction by eliminating manual methods and converting the agri-food supply chain into a digitalization system.

This paper aims to present a new mathematical model for laminated rhombic conoids with reasonable thickness and depth. The presented model does not require the shear correction factor, as transverse strain variation through the thickness was assumed as a parabolic function. The zero transverse shear stress provision at the bottom and the top of rhombic conoids was enforced in the model. The presented model implemented a C⁰ finite element (FE) model, eliminating C¹ continuity requirement in the mathematical model. The proposed model was validated with analytical, experimental and other methods derived from the literature.

A novel mathematical model for laminated composite skew conoidal shells has been proposed. Parabolic transverse shear strain deformation across thickness is considered. FE coding of the proposed novel mathematical model was done. Slope continuity requirement associated with present FE coding has been suitably avoided. No shear correction factor is required in the present formulation.

This is the first attempt to study the bending response of laminated rhombic conoids with reasonable thickness and depth. After comparisons, the parametric study was performed by varying the skew angles, boundary conditions, thickness ratios and the minimum rise to maximum rise (hl/hh) ratio.

The novelty of the presented model is reflected by the simultaneous addition of twist curvature in the strain field as well as the curvature in the displacement field allowing the accurate analysis of reasonably thick and deep laminated composite rhombic conoids. The behavior of conoids differs from that of usual shells such as cylindrical and spherical due to the conoid’s inherent twist curvature with its complex geometry and different location of maximum deflection.

Natural calamities like earthquakes, floods and epidemics/pandemics like COVID-19 significantly disrupt almost all the supply networks, ranging from medicines to numerous daily/emergency use items. Supply Chain Resilience is one such option to overcome the impact of the disruption, which is achieved by developing supply chain factors with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics (BDA).

This research examines how organizations using AI and BDA can bring resilience to supply chains. To achieve the objective, the authors developed the methodology to gather useful information from the literature studied and developed the Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) by consulting 44 supply chain professionals. The authors developed a quantitative questionnaire to collect 229 responses and further test the model. With the analysis, a conceptual and comprehensive framework is developed.

A major finding, this research advocates that supply chain resilience is contingent upon utilizing supply chain analytics. An empirical study provides further evidence that the utilization of supply chain analytics has a positive and favorable effect on the flexibility of demand forecasting to inventory management, resulting in increased efficiency.

Few studies demonstrate the impact of advanced technology in building resilient supply chains by enhancing their factors. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no earlier researcher has attempted to infuse AI and BDA into supply chain factors to make them resilient.