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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of superior IT capability on financial performance of firms in the chemicals and chemical products industry in India.

Financial performance of 28 firms with superior IT capability has been compared with benchmark over a period of six years.

This research has five important findings for the chemicals and chemical products industry in India: there is positive association between superior IT capability and return on sales (ROS); firms with superior IT capability are able to earn higher margins on their products; asset turn of firms with superior IT capability is less than benchmark; capital markets give higher valuation to firms with superior IT capability; and this superior performance in terms of better ROS and higher capital market valuation is sustainable over a period of time.

This is the first empirical study that has analysed the influence of IT capability on financial performance of firms in a specific industry in the context of India.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:

1. the benefits of differential pricing over uniform pricing;

2. the differences between second- and third-degree price discrimination;

3. the rationale for charging different prices for segments having different willingness to pay; and

4. how different prices for the same product can lead to perceptions of unfairness and how companies might manage such an issue.

This case outlines the decisions that Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of Serum Institute of India (Serum), had to make in late April 2021 concerning its pricing for the COVID-19 (Covid) vaccine. Serum was the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, and its Covishield vaccine had received regulatory approval, but faced an unusual challenge and opportunity. In most countries, governments had procured Covid vaccines from manufacturers and then delivered the vaccines to consumers free of cost. But in India, there was a three-tier pricing system. While the Government of India had committed to free vaccines in government-run public hospitals, it also allowed vaccine makers to directly sell vaccines to state governments, as well as private hospitals, who were at liberty to charge consumers for the vaccines. This created an interesting pricing dilemma for Serum: as different customers had different willingness to pay, should Serum use differential pricing? Would such a tiered pricing system be considered fair? How many different price points should Serum maintain? By exploring these and related decisions that Poonawalla had to make, the case is intended to teach price discrimination.

The case is intended for graduate-level courses in marketing, pricing and economics. This case illustrates the principles of differential pricing/price discrimination. More specifically, it highlights pricing strategies motivated by second- and third-degree price discrimination in an emerging market’s health-care context. From the information in the case, the student can learn to apply the concepts of second- and third-degree price discrimination in marketing. After working through the case and assignment questions, instructors will be able to help students understand the following concepts:

Teaching objective 1: the benefits of differential pricing over uniform pricing.

Teaching objective 2: the differences between second- and third-degree price discrimination.

Teaching objective 3: the rationale for charging different prices for segments having different willingness to pay.

Teaching objective 4: how different prices for the same product can lead to perceptions of unfairness and how companies might manage such an issue.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

Infrastructural revolution, intense competition and customer attraction towards organised apparel retailing in India are potentially affecting traditional retailing. The authors seek to identify the factors that customers perceive during shopping in organised apparel retail store. This study also investigates the indirect effects of identified factors on behavioural outcomes such as loyalty.

The study randomly selected the customers immediately after shopping to minimise the experience's carryover effects. A sample of 648 customers was collected. Data were analysed using multivariate analysis of covariance.

The study has found that in-store logistics is the second order factor with ease of return, on-shelf availability, product accessibility, shopping convenience, and product information as the variables. The result shows that in-store logistics, store environment, store communication, merchandise assortment, perceived price and employee attribute influence customer satisfaction. As expected, these factors indirectly influence the loyalty.

This study focused on organised multi-brand apparel retailing, and the survey was conducted in a tier-II city of India only. Hence, any attempt to generalise the findings must be undertaken with caution.

In the context of multi-brand retailing, competition is fierce. New entrants and traditional apparel retailers hesitate to adopt organised apparel retailing. The findings of this study can be helpful for new entrants and traditional apparel retailers to adopt organised apparel retailing.

Previous studies in the field of multi-brand retailing have mainly focused on the marketing aspect of retail stores. This study contributes to the operations aspect and tests the impact of operational function (in-store logistics) on customer satisfaction.

This study's main objective is to investigate the influence of brand credibility on the intention to purchase organic food. In addition, this research studies the moderating role of customer ethnocentricity as well as the mediating role of customer value.

To explore correlations between brand credibility and purchase intentions, cross-sectional data were collected from 433 Indian consumers. The data were analysed by structural equation modelling.

The findings indicate that brand credibility is positively related to purchasing intention. The association between brand credibility and purchasing intentions is partially mediated by customer value. Customer ethnocentrism was also shown to have a negative moderation effect. Healthiness, high quality and sensory properties (i.e. natural taste) were found to be some of the most significant organic food characteristics, according to Indian consumers.

The research is confined to India's geographical area, specifically the National Capital Regions.

To increase the purchase frequency of local or global branded organic food, businesses can include rational features in their marketing method such as the health benefits compared to the conventional product, a better emphasis on environmental safety and the social advantages of organic food.

This study develops an integrative model, including brand credibility (PBG & PBL), to predict organic food purchase intentions. This is an important contribution as, according to the results of the literature review, no previous studies have analysed these relationships.

The Government of India dramatically altered the dynamic between business and society when it introduced the Companies Act 2013, which mandated firms to expend at least 2 per cent of average net profits on corporate responsibility (CR) programmes. This reconfiguration of social value creation may serve as a template for a closer and participatory relationship between the private sector and government in emerging economies and beyond. This paper aims to analyse how CR expectations have taken shape in the print media in India. Specifically, the authors ask the following: What are the dimensions of CR expectations in mainstream Indian newspapers?, and Why, according to the newspaper narratives, do corporations have these responsibilities?

In this qualitative study, the authors randomly selected and analysed 50 per cent (n = 442) of the newspaper articles that dealt explicitly with CR. The articles appeared in the top five Indian English-language newspapers and the top two Hindi-language newspapers between 1 January and 31 December 2015. Using Content Configuration Analysis (CCA), the authors developed a typology of CR expectations and analysed their associated justifications. Finally, they used CCA to analyse how this typology and its justifications connect to the two main stakeholders: the business sector and government.

The analyses reveal how the introduction of the Companies Act 2013 had a major impact on CR expectations by explicitly and legally casting the business sector as the engine of social development. The authors were able to describe how contextual and cultural dimensions frame evolving interests and societal demands towards corporations, and how difficult it may be for corporations to fulfil CR expectations that are well beyond their core business and that reach domains usually pertaining to government.

This study contributes an empirical exploration of media discourse on contemporary CR expectations in India and its associated notions of social value creation, and how these are shaped by various cultural and contextual influences. The authors discuss how this novel approach to CR modifies the relations between business and society, and they reflect on the opportunities and limits of this model for other emerging economies, which struggle to formulate a symbiotic relationship between business and society.

This paper aims to focus on compliance of workplace sexual harassment-related provisions under Indian companies and securities law, based on an empirical analysis of companies’ sexual harassment-related disclosures contained within their directors’ annual reports (ARs). Specifically, sections devoted to sexual harassment-related disclosures, inbuilt within directors’ ARs for the financial year 2019–2020 for a selected sample of companies listed under the National Stock Exchange, have been analysed.

To examine the nature of companies’ disclosures to demonstrate their compliance with statutory requirements under the POSH law, aligned with the Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014 and Securities and Exchange Board of India’s regulations, an empirical-based, descriptive content analysis of ARs of 200 listed companies were used.

This study primarily finds that the majority of companies from the sample have disclosed to have prepared a corporate-level policy, as required under the POSH law. As also required under the POSH law, companies, reportedly, have constituted an Internal Complaints Committee to adjudicate and dispose of incidents related to sexual misconduct reported at their workplaces. However, companies lack in disclosing qualitative information, with sufficient detail, on many important aspects related to prevention and resolution of reported cases of workplace sexual harassment.

This paper adds to the broader narrative of the lacunae within the disclosure and reporting requirements on enhancing the liabilities of the companies to prevent and address sexual harassment under India’s corporate and securities regulations.

This case is intended to help students of business communication and public relations to trace the effects of communication by public figures and understand essential elements of designing effective communication. After working through the case and assignment questions, the students will be able to:understand the drivers of vaccine hesitancy;analyze the effects of mass communication on public sentiment, in a fast-changing public health situation; anddesign interventions to influence public awareness and action, using a simple model (5W) for mass communication.

As the vaccines first arrived after the devastating first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Indians hesitated to take the shot. Vaccine hesitancy, a worldwide phenomenon, hampered the uptake of the first Covid vaccines despite the dark clouds of the lethal disease. The case looks at the massive problem of vaccine hesitancy and how an integrated communication strategy could overcome and mitigate the challenge. The case protagonist, the leader of a communications agency, looks at the messaging, medium and platforms needed for strategic communication pitch to combat this vaccine hesitancy.

The case was designed for use in a graduate-level course in business communication. This case may be positioned toward the middle or end of the course to illustrate mass communication strategy for pressing and sensitive challenges. The case may also be used in a course on public relations, both at graduate and undergraduate levels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This study aims to advance two sets of explanation on the evolution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) – one set of explanation in the context of a developed country, USA, and another in the context of a developing country, India. The discussion includes the period after mandatory CSR rules were implemented in India.

This is a conceptual paper on the historical evolution of CSR in the USA and India. It reviews the chronological evolution of CSR. It compares the phases of CSR evolution between the two countries by tracking their CSR growth curves.

This study divides the evolution of CSR in the USA into four phases – conceptualization, introduction, growth and consolidation. In the first two phases, the rate of growth in CSR increases at a decreasing rate; in the growth phase, it increases at an increasing rate which stabilizes in the consolidation phase. In the Indian context, the study considers a three phase growth – conceptualization, introduction and growth. In the first two phases, the growth in CSR curve is inelastic. In the third phase, the growth rate increases but at a rate less than that in the USA.

Though past research has examined historical evolution of CSR in the US context, scant research has tracked CSR evolution in India. Not many studies have compared the growth of CSR between developed and developing countries. This study also contributes the concept of CSR growth curves to the extant literature on CSR.