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The learning outcome is that it will help to sustain your startups in the ever-changing business environment especially in the context of emerging markets.

The present case is about Dilkhush Kumar from village Bangaon, India who developed a cab booking platform “AryaGo”, an innovative platform completely dedicated for rural road transport connectivity. AryaGo is the service line of Aryan Cabs and Rural Trans-solution Pvt. Ltd., a Startup founded in the year 2016 under Startup Bihar, a seed capital support scheme of State Government. The idea was to provide comfort, convenience, safety and affordability to all the commuters travelling from or within far-off villages. The biggest challenge during implementation in villages includes availability of updated geo-mapped images for app development and vehicle tracking. Company was foremost in providing the kiosk-based booking facility for its customers. It took the decision based on the profiling of customers and their preferred booking methods. When a customer booked a cab using IVR, they did not had access to app-based customer panel and hence they could not avail services such as, location tracking, SoS, real time tracking of vehicle. However, heavy invest in IT has put the company in financial stress and Kumar is wondering whether to expand fast or penetrate in the given target market. Should he re-design his business model so as it can really make a difference in terms of service delivery?

Post Graduate/ MBA.

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CSS 8: Marketing

This paper aims to propose a typology of corporate communication strategy; to investigate whether the typology is present among Fortune 500 corporations; and to explore whether there is a dominant strategy and industrial differences among them.

A content analysis of all 2008 Fortune 500 corporate web sites was undertaken.

This paper finds that there are three corporate communication strategies used to affect publics' corporate associations: corporate ability (CAb) strategy; corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy; and a hybrid strategy. The results demonstrate that a majority of corporate public relations for Fortune 500 companies emphasize a CAb communication strategy over a CSR or hybrid strategy, whereas the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations focus on a CSR strategy over the other two strategies. Industrial differences are also found in adopting different corporate strategy among the companies.

The applied value of this research it is that provides convincing and realistic insights about contemporary corporate communication strategy and a valuable set of communicative directives to public relations practitioners managing corporate‐context communications with stakeholders since it explores dominant corporate strategy among Fortune 500 companies.

This study aims to extend existing theories and fills research gaps regarding the acceptance and use of new technologies by consumers by exploring the adoption of app-cab services in India. Through the application and comparison of a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and UTAUT 2/expanded-UTAUT (E-UTAUT) models, this paper empirically tests the relationships between important constructs related to technology adoption, acceptance and utilization in India’s emerging economy.

In total, 612 responses to a questionnaire of active and regular users of app-cab services in India are examined. Path analysis and structural equation modeling presents interesting findings indicating that the expanded models have huge implications for the Indian app-cab industry.

This paper finds that the UTAUT 2/E-UTAUT models are a good fit for consumers and their behavior toward technology-based services. In particular, this study, one of the first of its kind, examines consumer acceptance and use behavior and identifies the factors that influence customer behavior with regard to new technology (app-cab services) in an emerging economy (India). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Very few studies are available on app-cab adoption in emerging economies.

The case is written for MBA or senior undergraduate courses on communication global strategy, leadership or strategy implementation.

The case is written for MBA or senior undergraduate courses on communication global strategy, leadership or strategy implementation. The case can be taught towards the end of a communications course to learn about crisis communications and the importance of understanding the local institutional and socio-political contexts, including the media during a crisis. For a strategy implementation class, this case can be used in the segment focusing on action and leadership.

An extremely difficult situation arose for Uber Cab, a US-based company operating in India, on December 8, 2014, when its taxi services were banned by the Delhi government due to growing anger over the suspected rape of a 27-year-old female executive by one of its drivers. Uber Cab claims that it offers the “safest rides on the road”, but this episode proved otherwise, as the accused was identified as a repeat offender. Initial interrogation by the police highlighted the negligence of the company regarding background checks and police verification while recruiting driver partners. The police further revealed that the driver did not have a Delhi Transport Authority-issued license. Furthermore, the company was not able to provide a call log to police, as such information was said to be gathered at the company’s headquarters in New York. To handle this situation, Uber Cab suspended its operations until the company could apply for a fresh registration and trade license. What was the significance of this incident to a brand like Uber Cab? Could its effect on the regulation of taxi services have been anticipated? How and when should the brand have reacted? Looking forward, what contingency planning would be appropriate? Should brand management, customer service management or the human resources department have been held accountable, or did the responsibility lie elsewhere in the organization?

The expected learning outcomes are as follows: to understand how institutional differences can create unintended consequences for an multinational enterprise working in an emerging market (early-stage institutions); to understand the critical role of a country manager in mobilizing the local organization and the headquarters to respond to a crisis; also, the role of the headquarters to provide flexibility and support to the local executive; and to understand the inevitable role of the local press in an organizational crisis, and the need for business leaders to deal with the press effectively.

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CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Given the increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, egalitarian ecosystems may play an important role to establish equality among various stakeholders. With this idea, the study aimed to understand conflicts and challenges in creating an egalitarian ecosystem in the application-based cab aggregator (ABCA) market.

Narratives of various stakeholders involved in the ABCA business were collected. The study involved narrations from direct and indirect stakeholders up to saturation till common themes were found. Grounded theory methodology using constant comparison was explored to interpret the results. After the results were obtained, root cause analysis was undertaken using the why–why methodology to understand ground-level reality.

In total, 13 major issues were identified using grounded theory for narrative analysis that cab aggregator companies, driver-partners, and riders faced. The stakeholders' inability in the ecosystem to see each other's problems could be accorded to their self-interest, rational boundedness and asymmetric information. These findings collude with Banaji et al. (2004) and Chugh et al. (2005).

This study explained each stakeholder's perspectives about their counterparts that influence non-egalitarianism. The study further suggested possible areas for solving the issues and promoting cooperation.

Business/technology strategy. The purpose of the case is to enable the students to understand the following: how technology implementation can change the face of business like cab service? How information technology deployment can influence competition? How investment in company's IT infrastructure affects the bottom line?

The case can be discussed at Master of Business Administration (MBA)/Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (PGDBA) level students as well as executive education program. It is aimed at graduate level and postgraduate level management courses such as management information systems, strategic information systems, and technology management.

Meru Cabs, started in April 2007 at Mumbai, was one of the firsts to provide “radio taxi” service in India. Meru Cabs delivers a reliable taxi service by concentrating on three C's, namely customer, call centre and chauffeur. Much of its growth can be attributed to successful deployment of the technology. This case presents the growth of Meru Cabs and how it has differentiated itself by utilizing the technology to attain market leader position in the four cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore, where it operates. Also the case discusses about the future of cab service in general and what it has in store for Meru Cabs. With the flurry of cabs service coming up in every city and the competition getting intense, the case put forth the opportunities and challenges existing for cab companies in general and Meru Cabs in particular.

To enable the students to understand that technology is a strategic tool: to enhance customer relationship, to manage business operations, to achieve sustained competitive advantage and that forms an integral part of company's growth and/or expansion strategy.

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There is a paucity of information on the characteristics and reasons for workers contacting the CAB with employment problems. This paper seeks to fill this gap in people's knowledge by providing a detailed profile of the employment and personal characteristics of Citizens' Advice Bureau (CAB) clients.

A total of eight bureaux, from contrasting localities in Greater London, participated in the research. The data for this paper are derived predominantly from interviews with CAB clients and reinforced by quantitative data, which were also garnered.

It is argued that the use of the CAB, for employment advice, is rooted in a structural rather than an attitudinal explanation.

There is a growing recognition within the industrial relations literature of the increasing plurality of sources of representation available to workers. However, very little is known about those employees seeking advice and representation and the types of issues with which they approach bureaux.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s deregulation had become the “recipe” for many countries’ economies to obtain increased efficiency and lower prices. Yet many empirical and theoretical studies of deregulation show that expectations rarely became fulfilled. The purpose of this paper is to develop the model of competition by introducing static and dynamic competition, which has different consequences for market performance. We claim that the development of static and/or dynamic competition post deregulation can be explained by structural conditions, both regarding entry barriers and customer influence. Four different competitive conducts are identified based on an explorative study of four deregulated industries: static, dynamic, hyper, and unheated competition.

Just who is the ‘analyst’ who practices rhythmanalysis? The extension of the name ‘rhythmanalyst’ to other than scholarly practitioners makes possible an investigation of the relationship of rhythmanalysis to other rhythmanalytic forms of knowing and representing urban space and the ways in which these differing but related practices may challenge, undermine or inform each other. In this paper, drawing on years of ethnographic and autoethnographic research in three North American cities, I discuss the rhythmanalytical practice involved in cabdriving, as this is shaped by the technologies drivers use to sense the city and by the transformation of the taxicab into the ‘ridesharing’ or soft cab. First, I discuss the occupational knowledge and wayfinding practice of cabdrivers and the extent to which their work requires the development by means of a variety of tools and practices, of a sense of the city as composed of multiple interacting rhythmic movements or polyrhythmia, with which they must strategically converge and facilitate. Second, I discuss the redelegation of the role of rhythmanalyst to predictive algorithms and mobile interfaces, as part of the reinvention of the taxicab, and its associated micropolitics and power/knowledge relations, by smartphone-enabled hailing and dispatching services. Struggles over, and transformations of, these non-academic forms of rhythmanalysis may provide insight, in turn, into the contemporary politics of the production of social space.

The competitive landscape of the U.S. domestic airlines dramatically changed when the industry was deregulated in 1978. While airline traffic and revenues grew exponentially, aided by unfettered market competition and resulting efficiency, airline profitability had mostly stayed lackluster due to cost pressures, chronic oversupply of seats, and intense price-based rivalry to fill seats. Thirty-two years into deregulation, the major airlines were still searching for the Holy Grail that would defend them against industry threats and deliver sustained profitability. This case describes the evolution of the U.S. domestic airline industry over the years, the cost pressures and revenue uncertainties airlines faced at the beginning of 2010, and the strategic options they were contemplating to effectively deal with these issues. The options ranged from shaping the industry structure to achieving differentiation through service offerings. The exact choices they made would determine their survival and long-term success.