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The case study incorporated a combination of primary and secondary data collection approach. The authors interviewed Dr Varghese, the co-founder of Sunbird Straws and the protagonist in this case study. In addition, secondary data was obtained from various sources such as newspaper articles, journal publications and company reports.

On a rosy and vibrant morning in 2017, Dr Saji Varghese, a professor at Christ University in Bangalore, stumbled upon a curved coconut leaf on the campus resembling a straw. This sparked his motivation to transform coconut leaves into a natural straw, prompting him to initiate experiments with coconut leaves in his kitchen. The process of boiling and straining leaves became his method for crafting an eco-friendly straw. After numerous attempts, he successfully produced straws from coconut leaves, introducing a distinctive and creative concept incubated at IIM Bangalore. These unique straws, crafted by Varghese, prioritised environmental friendliness and were also crafted entirely from biodegradable materials, free from harmful chemicals. These straws demonstrated durability in hot and cold beverages for up to 3 h, maintaining their integrity without becoming soggy or leaking. As the business flourished, it reached a critical juncture. The primary challenge centred around product marketing, mainly due to consumer unfamiliarity with such sustainable straws. This was a product that also fell under the category of low involvement for consumers. Raising awareness about the product and persuading consumers to purchase presented a significant hurdle. In response, Varghese assigned his team to develop cost-effective marketing strategies. Given the start-up nature of the business, advertising budgets were constrained, and the objective was to achieve a positive return on advertising spend for every investment in advertising the product. In addition, the focus was on increasing the likelihood of selling the straws on both business-to-business and business-to-consumer levels. In this case study, Varghese’s role and predicament exemplify the delicate equilibrium that entrepreneurs frequently grapple with, striking a balance between marketing strategy and return on ad spent to steer the trajectory of their businesses. It offered a valuable examination of the nuanced decisions marketers encounter as they strive for both profitability and customer-centric products.

The case study is relevant to the marketing discipline. All undergraduate and postgraduate-level marketing courses in higher education institutions can use this case study. It can also be used in integrated marketing communication or digital marketing classes. It can be used further in the hospitality and management fields. Also, online courses in marketing can include this case study.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of social media analytics on firm performance using a sample of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand. This study also investigated whether entrepreneurial orientation (EO) moderated the effects of social media analytics on firm performance.

This study used SMEs listed in the Department of Business Development of Thailand as the sampling frame. Probability sampling was used to draw the sample. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 334 firms. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results supported the positive association between social media analytics practices on firm performance. Moreover, this study found that EO moderated this association significantly. In particular, the positive association between social media analytics practices on firm performance was higher for firms that exhibit a high EO than those that exhibit a low EO. This result indicated that firms that implement social media analytics practices achieved higher performance when they exhibited a high EO.

Social media data analytics should be implemented to strengthen the technological competence of firms. Moreover, firms should integrate EO practices into their implementation of social media analytics to increase their ability to generate substantial improvements in their strategic implementation, thereby enabling them to gain sustainable competitiveness in their market.

Because SMEs are the driving force for economic growth and development in Thailand, their ability to achieve higher performance when they effectively integrate EO practices into their implementation of social media data analytics could be beneficial for the sustainable development of Thailand, especially in the current data-driven era.

The result that EO moderates the effect in enhancing social media analytics practices’ influence on firm performance provides new knowledge that extends the boundary of research on this topic. The authors provided a theoretical explanation to clarify the way the implementation of social media analytics practices should be integrated with EO to increase the level of performance that firms achieve from such practices.

This study aims to develop a moderated mediation model that enables the examination of the direct relationship between brand orientation (BO) and export performance, the mediating effects of external and internal branding capabilities on the BO-export performance link, and the moderating influence of institutional environment, i.e. regulatory turbulence and policy support.

A time-lag primary data was collected from two-wave survey of 684 cross-industry exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using an online-email based survey technique, and the research model was validated using ordinary least squares regression analysis in SPSSV.27 and Hayes’ PROCESS macroV.2.13.

Regression findings indicate that the relationship between BO and export performance is not direct, but rather mediated by means of both external and internal branding capabilities. It further helps to uncover the dual role of institutional environment, with regulatory turbulence weakening and policy support strengthening the indirect influences of BO on export performance via external and internal branding capabilities.

This study advances branding literature by conceptualizing and empirically testing the role of BO associated with internal and external branding capabilities and, subsequently, with export performance.

The research findings indicate that brand-oriented SMEs must actively engage in the development of branding capabilities to improve their export performance.

While brand creation is essential for the success and growth of SMEs competing in the worldwide marketplaces, there is a dearth of research explaining the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions through which BO influences export performance.

Artificial intelligence and augmented reality are two key tools gaining importance in the digital era due to their wide range of applications in different fields and sectors. Industry 4.0 lays emphasis principally on the technology used to help the business remain competitive and sustainable. Sustainable development goals are another important objective of the UN which has laid responsibility for every business to support addressing the global challenges. Purpose: This chapter essentially aims to present the standpoint of artificial intelligence and augmented reality in meeting the sustainability perspective of organizations. Information about the study is gathered through secondary approaches, critically reviewing published literature, scientific reports, and statistical data accessible through business reports, and corporate websites. Further analyzed to present the perspectives of the authors in the study. Globally artificial intelligence market size is predicted to reach $190 billion by 2025, while the funding for startups doubled during the period 2011–2020 globally. The investment in artificial intelligence is going to reach $500 by 2024 resulting in substantial revenue returns. The augmented reality market size could reach $97 billion by 2028. Artificial intelligence today is increasingly used in many fields and is attracting multiple applications in many sectors such as manufacturing, retail, education, IT, and health care and has also contributed to sustainable development the same time by providing energy conservation options, optimization, and reduction of resources, minimizing wastage, offering timely assistance on maintenance schedules, practices which are enabling organizations to reach closer to sustainability and transformation.

This study aims to examine the impact of Lean 4.0 practices on value co-creation in the dairy ecosystem.

Data collection were carried out through a questionary application with 126 professionals linked to the dairy ecosystem, including milk producers, milk cooperatives and milk transporters. The data were analyzed using Cluster Analysis, Mann-Whitney test and Chi-Square test.

A strong relation was found between the use of Lean 4.0 tools and the increase in operational performance, in addition to milk quality. Moreover, it can be noted that the use of digital technologies from Industry 4.0 has a strong relation with dairy production optimization, in other words, it is possible to be more efficient in the dairy process via Lean 4.0 adoption.

The study is limited to analyzing the Brazilian dairy ecosystem. The results presented may not reflect the characteristics of the other countries.

Once the potential empirical impacts of the relation between Lean 4.0 and value co-creation are elucidated, it is possible to direct strategies for decision-making and guide efforts by researchers and professionals to deal with the waste mitigation present in the dairy sector.

Lean 4.0 proves to be a potential solution to improve the operational performance of the dairy production system. Lean 4.0, linked to value co-creation, allows the integration of the production sector with consumers, through smart technologies, so new services and experiences can be provided to the consumer market. Additionally, the consumer experience can be stimulated based on Lean 4.0, once the quality specification is highlighted based on data science and smart management control.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the interrelationship between the Lean 4.0 philosophy and the value co-creation in the dairy ecosystem. In this sense, the study reveals the main contributions of this interrelation to the dairy sector via value co-creation, which demonstrates a new perspective on the complementarity of resources, elimination of process losses and new experiences for the user through digital technologies integrated with the Lean Thinking approach.

Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

This study aims to investigate how companies’ understanding of the business network influences the creation of value in business-to-business relationships. The authors do this by analysing dimensions in actors’ “network pictures” and illustrating how value perception and network understanding influence actors’ mutual effort to create value. Approaching relationship value from the point of actors’ cognitive understanding of their business network has so far been largely overlooked in relationship value research.

This study applies a qualitative case study methodology whereby dyadic data from a well-established business-to-business relationship is collected from 18 company representatives through personal interviews and group interviews supplemented by participant observations and company data.

The findings contribute with new insight into how companies’ understanding of their surrounding network influence (facilitates or limits) relationship value creation. The authors find that companies continuously reflect on changes in their networks and the related changes in partners’ value perceptions. Through value articulations, companies seek to explicitly express their value perception. Value reflections and value articulations create a dynamic process formed not only by the individual actor but also through their relationship and engagement in their network environment. This requires companies to develop their networking capabilities.

This paper presents findings, insights and contributions limited to a case study of a particular business relationship within an industrial setting. Although the findings and contributions are valid and in line with the criteria for rigorous qualitative research, the authors advocate and call for additional studies that investigate relationships value creation and address the interplay between actors’ network understanding and their actions and behaviour. One way to approach this would be to test the four propositions derived and presented as part of the present study.

The findings imply that management needs to be aware not only of the value created and delivered to a specific partner but also of how the partner’s understanding of the wider network will influence the value delivering and capturing process.

This study contributes to the growing literature on relationship value creation by outlining a dynamic process where relationship partners reflect upon and articulate value. Such activities are influenced by the partners’ network understanding and form the basis of the mutual relationship value creation effort. The findings also contribute to the network pictures literature by emphasizing insights into the formation of value perceptions through actors’ understanding of their surrounding networks.

The Internet has encouraged rural tourism experience providers to develop a new management strategy that opts for disintermediation to access the market. In this context, incoming travel agencies (destination management companies [DMCs]), despite the local component, lose capacity to promote the rural tourism. The main question is what kind of relationship between stakeholders would enhance effective intermediation processes between them. The paper examines such constraints and limitations of existing relationships between small local rural tourism producers and DMCs.

Using the Basque Country region of northern Spain as a case study, the authors used a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and an online survey. The data analysis strategy used incorporated descriptive and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

In this research, most of the tourism disintermediation factors identified in previous literature were reinforced when tested in the rural context. The results confirm that power, value, product differentiation, digitisation and stakeholder collaboration are key elements. The value provided in the international segment by DMCs, though, was found to be irrelevant.

This article contributes to filling a gap in the literature on rural tourism destination management from a holistic view of the destination understanding the business-to-business (B2B) relationship among stakeholders in rural tourism. This paper focuses on those elements that create value for local producers to sell the products through intermediaries and provides a framework for understanding the factors involved in value creation in rural tourism intermediation, which is applicable to further empirical studies and provides interesting managerial implications.

Non-performing assets (NPAs) are classified as loans and advances which are in default, either refund of principal or interest payments are not duly met. This not only leads to dishonour of loan agreement from the recipients' point of view but also huge NPAs result macroeconomic instability and economic crisis. The financial crisis may create hindrances towards achievement of sustainable development of an economy. Keeping NPA in balance sheet portrays lacunae in management of the lender. The non-recovery of interest and principal reduces the lender's operating cash flow, which upsets the budget and drops the earnings. Statutory provisions, set aside to cover probable losses, reduce the income further. When the non-recovery is determined to be definite in nature, they are written off against earnings of the lending institution. Thus, presence of NPAs in balance sheet gives a distress signal to the stakeholders of the lending institution. Under this consideration, the present study will look upon some of these issues related to NPA management in Indian banking sector. The main objective of this study is to discuss the nexus between the NPA of Indian scheduled banks for priority sector, non-priority sector and public sector and the gross domestic product (GDP) of Indian economy for the time period 2005–2020. To study this objective, the ratio analysis and the trend analysis of NPA of three sectors and GDP of Indian economy over the given time frame have been done. Finally, some policy prescriptions regarding achievement of sustainable development after taking into account NPA management of an economy have also been proposed.

This paper aims to explore how the owners of less competitive micro-firms (MFs) perceive the “crisis–innovation–change management” triangle. It examines whether their understanding of these overarching entrepreneurship theory principles is inadequate compared to the relevant scientific literature.

This qualitative analysis follows principles based on the inductive method and grounded theory, thickly describing the results from research conducted in a sample of 38 tertiary-sector MFs in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region – one of the least developed and competitive areas across Europe. It triangulates the data with 11 respective small firms.

MF owners perceive the crisis as an ostensibly exogenous phenomenon, innovation as something quasi-unattainable – although vaguely significant – and change management as a relatively unknown process. This understanding lies somewhat distant from the extant literature that examines the structural nature of crises, the innovational power to exit profound restructurings and the rebalancing requisite for building new overall organizational methods to survive this internal–external transformation. In essence, the triangle crisis–innovation–change management is a blind spot for the examined MF owners as they ignore its significance as an adaptation mechanism – contrary to several direct competitors.

Based on the reluctance of these individuals to cultivate their systematic business knowledge, it seems unrealistic that they would seek to pay the necessary high price for business consulting in the future. An ideal solution would be to build public entrepreneurship clinics to provide these less dynamic and adaptable organizations with free preliminary or in-depth counseling. The Institute of Local Development-Innovation could aim to provide free consulting services to reinforce organizational physiology by coordinating different socioeconomic actors.

To the best of our knowledge, this empirical research is one of the first to test the comprehension of weaker MFs – less competitive and developed in organizational terms – to the triangle crisis–innovation–change management.