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After completion of the case study, students are expected to demonstrate understanding of the process of strategy formulation (which include conducting situational analysis) and strategy implementation.

Perusahaan Azan, which trades under the brand name Roti Azan for its fresh bread and Azan for its dry bread or rusks, was established as a family business in 1968 by Haji Abu Bakar bin Ali in his hometown in Kuala Pilah, in the state of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. In the mid-1980s, the management of the business was passed on by Haji Abu Bakar to one of his sons, Haji Mohd Ghazali bin Haji Abu Bakar. Haji Ghazali was named managing director in 1985 and officially inherited his father’s company in 1987. By 2004, Perusahaan Azan breads had started to penetrate major grocery stores nationwide, and later the business began to expand internationally in 2010, with Oman and Iraq among the first countries it ventured into. The company sold both its fresh and dry bread in local stores; however, in the international market, only dry bread types were sold, specifically wholemeal rusks and long rusks, which had longer shelf lives. Post-pandemic, by 2022, the company had exited the retail fresh bread market and had focused only on its contractual fresh bread and retail dry bread markets. He thought about the main strategic choices he had of going forward, either to revive its retail fresh bread segment or venture into a coffee shop business. The former was the bread and butter of the company in the last 50 years. However, he knew that re-entering this market was getting more difficult, as it requires competing head-to-head with the giant breadmakers. There were also issues of rising costs and high wastage. For the latter coffee shop project, the company did not have experience in directly “serving” the customers, with its businesses so far had been mainly in production. He pondered on the best decision to undertake to sustain the company’s profitability into the next generation. Few family businesses can pass this crucial stage. He knew he had to act fast to ensure that the company’s plans for the future could be successfully implemented. The case study is suitable for use in teaching courses in strategic management, organisational management and integrated case study for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in the programmes of business administration, Muamalat administration and accounting.

The case study is suitable for use in advanced undergraduate students in management, business administration, Muamalat administration and postgraduate students in MBA, Master in Muamalat Administration or other related master’s programmes with a course in strategic management, organisational management and integrated case study.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The COVID-19 situation affected the whole landscape of retailing in India and around the world. However, some businesses have used the pandemic-related difficulties into opportunities. E-tailing is one of the ways that helped people in India to continue shopping their essential products and choosing their luxury products without making any physical visits during the lockdown. This research understands the current situation through an observation study and suggests the e-tailing model suitable during the COVID-19 and beyond.

We used secondary data to make the observational study. We also conducted two case studies and interviews with grocery shops and an automotive company.

This research suggests a simple collaborative e-tailing model combining all supply chain players to reduce people’s movement, timely delivery and enhanced service to meet customers demand during the lockdown period.

This paper has considered two real cases for discussion and also obtained information from public domain. The proposed model has been discussed with the case companies, and it hoped to support business planning for online services.

Virtual kitchens are a new business phenomenon, and how customers react to the new business model is still a largely unexplored topic. The purpose of this study is to examine the underlying mechanisms of consumers’ different responses to their reasoning of the new and disruptive business model of the virtual kitchen.

Based on the attribution theory and situated focus theory of power, this study conducts three online experiments to test the proposed framework. A total of 487 US residents who had prior experience with restaurant food delivery participated in the studies.

The results indicate that external attribution (vs internal attribution) and ethnic cuisine (vs mainstream cuisine) are more likely to elicit customers’ empathy and justice, leading to higher purchase intentions with virtual kitchens. A mainstream virtual kitchen is better off attributing itself to external factors. The significant effects of causal attribution and cuisine type on purchase intention only exist with powerful customers and those with high moral identity.

The results of this study provide valuable insight to virtual kitchen businesses to better position and market themselves to gain customers’ support. The findings also suggest that ethnic and mainstream restaurants should strategize their marketing communications about virtual kitchens differently.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to provide in-depth insight into the growing phenomenon of virtual kitchens. It also contributes to the extant literature on attribution theory and situated focus theory of power.

Information for this case was gained first-hand as the case authors are also the protagonists. Care was taken to ensure case material was presented in an unbiased and accurate manner.

Sherry Finney, co-manager and partner at Escape Outdoors (EO), North Sydney, Nova Scotia, has just about completed a social media campaign collaboration with Cape Breton outdoor influencers, Davey and Sky. This was the company’s first collaboration with social influencers, and EO had done it to increase their follower base, particularly on Instagram. Defining measures of success was the task now facing Finney and her Sales and Marketing Assistant, Megan Penney. The campaign costs were in the range of $500, and if EO were to do this campaign again, they needed to understand the pros and cons and if it was a success. The campaign would end in a few days, and before it was finalized, Finney and Penney had to decide what final metrics would be required for evaluation and, specifically, how the campaign would be evaluated.

This case is intended for courses in social media marketing, marketing management, marketing analytics, digital marketing or entrepreneurship. The typical user of this case will be an undergraduate or graduate business student who has completed an introductory marketing concepts course.

After reading this case study, the students will be able to identify the various choices available in social e-commerce using network marketing, interpret data-driven decisions in social e-commerce and evaluate their role in scaling business, analyse cost and revenue management in value segments, evaluate technology adoption among the masses using appropriate communication structures and develop customer relationships and manage their sentiments in the era of social media.

DealShare became a unicorn in 2022 and targeted the rural and low-income groups. Based on a networking model for customer acquisition and a hyperlocal supply chain model, DealShare is increasing its customer base at a rapid pace. However, profitability was still a challenge, and converting high volume into high value continued to be a daunting task. This case study delves deep into the challenges co-founder Sourjyendu Medda and the DealShare team faced. It seeks to address key issues: how should DealShare leverage customer network for faster customer acquisition and how should they increase ticket size and profitability? As a data-driven business, what advantages does DealShare have in influencing customers’ buying behaviour using data? Dependence on social media could have a cascading effect on “word of mouth”. How can they manage customer complaints and increase engagement?

This case study has the potential to be used in different settings. In strategic cost management, this case study can demonstrate strategies for cost management in the value-conscious segment. This case study can be used in marketing management courses while teaching “positioning” in business-to-consumer markets and CRM. For second-year management students, this can be used in entrepreneurship and strategic management courses to demonstrate the network effect in social e-commerce start-up businesses. This case study is also relevant for various course modules in graduate management programmes to demonstrate the power of data-driven decision-making in business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

The concept of ubiquitous assimilation in e-commerce, denoting the seamless integration of technologies into customer shopping experiences, has played a pivotal role in aiding e-satisfaction and, consequently, fostering patronage intention. Among these, text-based chatbots are significant innovations. In light of this, the paper aims to develop a conceptual framework and comprehend the patronage behaviour of artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot users by using chatbot usability cues and to determine whether the social presence and flow theories impact e-satisfaction, which leads to users’ patronage intention. The current research provides insights into online travel agencies (OTAs), a crucial segment within the travel and tourism sector. Given the significance of building a loyal clientele and cultivating patronage in this industry, these insights are of paramount importance for achieving sustained profitability and growth.

The research framework primarily focused on the factors that precede e-satisfaction and patronage intention among chatbot users, which include social presence, flow, perceived anthropomorphism and need for human interaction. The researchers collected the data by surveying 397 OTA chatbot users by using an online questionnaire. The data of this cross-sectional study were analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

Findings reveal that e-satisfaction is positively linked with patronage intention and the variables of social presence and flow impact e-satisfaction along with chatbot usability cues. There were direct and indirect relations between chatbot usability and e-satisfaction. Moreover, the personal attributes, “need for human interaction” and, “perceived anthropomorphism” were found to moderate relations between chatbot usability cues, social presence and flow.

The impact of chatbot’s usability cues/attributes on e-satisfaction, along with perceived attributes – social presence and flow in the realm of OTAs contributes to the human–chatbot interaction literature. Moreover, the interacting effects of perceived anthropomorphism and the need for human interaction are unique in the current contextual relations.

When retail businesses, especially small businesses with greater vulnerability, could not meet consumers in person during the recent pandemic crisis, how did they adapt to the situation? This study examined how small business practitioners (SBPs’) perceptions, trust and adoption intention levels for social media, as well as the relationships among these variables, changed before and during the crisis based on the integration of the contingency theory and the diffusion of innovation theory (DIT).

Online surveys were conducted with USA SBPs before (n = 175) and during (n = 225) the recent pandemic. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple-group SEM analysis.

The results confirmed significant sequential positive relationships between SBPs’ perceived external pressure and perceived benefits of adopting social media, which in turn led to their trust in and then adoption intentions for social media. Further, the comparisons between the pre- and in-pandemic samples revealed that SBPs’ perceptions and adoption intentions all became significantly higher during (vs before) the pandemic, but the structural relationships among these variables weakened during the pandemic.

This study uses a novel approach to integrate the contingency theory with the DIT to propose small businesses' perceptions, trust and adoption intentions for social media during the innovation decision process under rapid contingency changes. Our findings also offer practical implications including recommendations for small businesses’ innovation management as well as training programs.

This study offers a structured literature review (SLR) on female digital entrepreneurship (DE). This is done by providing insights into the recent developments of the topic, reviewing and critiquing previous studies in the literature, and pinpointing areas for future potential studies.

A comprehensive SLR was conducted on 18 papers published between 2017 and 2022 by discipline, time, methodologies, context, topic, and theoretical emphasis. The authors employed the three phases of critical research – insight, critique, and transformative redefinition – to conduct the literature review.

The literature on female DE is inadequate, fragmented, and divergent in terms of less practice-based insights. Furthermore, most female DE research is published in nonspecialized journals. The examination of the impact of gender and cross-country comparative studies is scarce. Existing literature lacks epistemological and methodological diversity. The lack of theoretical connections across the various research areas on female entrepreneurship may be the reason why this area of study has proven difficult for scholars. Few authors exhibit high specialization in the topic, whereas most authors contribute to either DE or female entrepreneurship.

This SLR research aims to provide an overview of the female DE field by identifying the current trend of research and recognizing future research directions and to improve readers’ knowledge of this research branch.

This review has classified the field's main topics and found that the influence of context (institutional and social) is the most investigated issue. Further, it presents a potential for practitioners' contribution to the field as coauthors and outlines needed studies.

This study provides a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary, updated review and research agenda that supplements rather than substitutes the existing literature reviews on female entrepreneurship. Moreover, this study makes a significant contribution by presenting the stages of development in female DE research within the context of the overall literature on female entrepreneurship.

Data-driven marketing is replacing conventional marketing strategies. The modern marketing strategy is based on insights derived from customer behavior information gathered from their facial expressions and neuro-signals. This study explores the potential for face recognition and neuro-marketing in modern-day marketing.

The study conducts an in-depth examination of the extant literature on neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing. The articles for review are downloaded from the Scopus database, and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is then used to screen and choose the relevant papers. The systematic literature review method is applied to conduct the study.

An extensive review of the literature reveals that the domains of neuro-marketing and face recognition marketing remain understudied. The authors’ review of selected papers delivers five neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing themes that are essential to modern marketing concepts.

Neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing are artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled marketing techniques that assist in gaining cognitive insights into human behavior. The findings would be of use to managers in designing marketing strategies to enhance their marketing approach and boost conversion rates.

The uniqueness of this study lies in that it provides an updated review on neuro-marketing and face recognition marketing.

The paper argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”. Big data platforms are shaping the processes of production, labour, the price of products and market conditions. “Digital platforms” and “big data” have become an integral part of the processes of production, distribution and exchange relations. These twin pillars are central to the capitalist accumulation processes. The article argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”.

As a conceptual paper, this paper follows critical methodological lineages and traditions based on non-linear historical narratives around the conceptualisation, construction and transition of the “Marxist theory of capital accumulation” in the age of platform economy. This paper follows a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-led platform economy helps identify and conceptualise new forms of capitalist accumulation. It engages with Jørgensen and Phillips' (2002) contextual and empirical discursive traditions to undertake a qualitative comparative analysis by exploring a broad range of complex factors with case studies and examples from leading firms within the platform economy. Finally, it adopts two steps of “Theory Synthesis and Theory Adaptation” as outlined by Jaakkola (2020) to synthesise, adopt and expand the Marxist theory of capital accumulation under platform capitalism.

This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within the platform capitalism. The findings suggest that an AI led platform economy creates new forms of capitalist accumulation. The article helps to develop theoretical understanding and conceptual frameworks to understand and explain these new forms of capital accumulation.

This study builds upon the limited theorisation on the AI and new capitalist accumulation processes. This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within platform capitalism. The article helps to understand digital and platform capitalisms in the lens of digital labour and expands the theory of capitalist accumulation and its new forms in the age of datafication. While critiquing the Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation, the article offers alternative approaches for the future.