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Armstrong, a world famous cyclist, was charged with doping in 2012. Subsequent to this news, most of his endorsers terminated their contracts with him. Armstrong had started a foundation called Livestrong (formerly Louis Armstrong Foundation), to support cancer-survivors, which depended heavily on sponsorships received by Armstrong. Despite his resignation, the foundation was fast losing its sponsorships. Armstrong was trying to find a way to reduce negative publicity and save the foundation.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of two product-related variables – product type and product involvement on the relationship between shelf-based scarcity (SBS) and purchase intention.

The authors used four 2 × 2 between-subject experiments to test the proposed moderation.

Results from the four experimental studies provide the following insights. SBS enhances customers’ purchase intentions for utilitarian products and decreases purchase intentions for hedonic products. The positive influence of SBS cues on purchase intentions is more pronounced for low-involvement products than for high-involvement products. Perceived popularity and perceived quality mediate the relationship between SBS and perceived consumption risk for utilitarian products but not hedonic products.

This study builds on prior research on scarcity by investigating the impact of product-related factors on the SBS-purchase intention relationship through the elaboration likelihood model.

The results suggest that retailers benefit from using SBS cues for utilitarian and low-involvement products to increase purchase intention. Retailers can avoid SBS cues for hedonic products to prevent them from seeming commonplace. Furthermore, retailers can boost purchase intentions by highlighting the popularity and quality of utilitarian and low-involvement products.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first study to examine the interaction between SBS and product-related attributes, along with the serial mediation of perceived popularity, quality and consumption risk.

This case enables students to understand the nature of a typical crisis and manage a crisis drawing insights from the protagonist handling of the crisis and from the various crisis management models in the literature. The rich description of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the world in this case enables students to understand the nature of a typical external crisis. The critical appraisal of the protagonist’s plans and actions to overcome the crisis enables students to appreciate the various crisis management frameworks or models. In addition, students get perspectives about the leadership skills and competencies required during a crisis. In this way, students will not only learn about the theoretical concepts related to the crisis but also the practical know-how to effectively handle the crisis.

This case study describes the functioning of the International Delhi Public School (IDPS) Akhnoor, Jammu, and Kashmir, India, through the COVID-19 global crisis. The IDPS academic operations were disrupted because of the COVID-19 global crisis in March 2020. The protagonist, KCS Mehta, the school principal of IDPS, faced with the crisis, takes various steps to ensure the smooth transition of school’s academic operations from the physical mode to the online mode. This case explains the nature of an external crisis that completely crippled the organization’s day-to-day operations and how the organization’s leader tried to manage the crisis to revitalize the organization’s operations. The case can be used for teaching of alternate Models of Crisis Management and Change Management.

The case is developed to teach the courses of Executive training programs and MBA programs in business schools.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the recent global economic downturn. Particularly, the study explores the utilization of the concept of Brownian motion in financial risk management in organizations in the USA.

The three assumptions, namely, independence, stationarity, and normal distribution that underlie the concept of Brownian motion are examined.

It is concluded that the widely used risk management strategies predicated on Brownian motion fail to provide a rational understanding of financial turmoil. Consequently, prescriptive insights are offered to aid the industry in developing an apposite mechanism for risk management.

This paper offers new and improved risk management strategies that need to be undertaken to augment our understanding and prediction of financial scenarios.

The paper is useful for managers in all financial organizations, which employ computer models using Brownian motions. Specifically, this study contends that static models are unsuitable and dynamic models are more useful for risk assessment.

The paper reveals the weaknesses of the key assumptions of the risk management models used in financial organizations, namely, normal distribution of stock market price fluctuations, statistical stationarity, and efficient market assumption. Valuable guidelines are provided for financial managers who either do not have the inclination or time to sift through the voluminous literature related to the risk management models and computer software designed on these models.

Past consumer behavior researchers contend that there is a significant relationship between a consumer's religious affiliation and a number of consumption related variables. Based on Worthington et al.'s multi‐dimensional approach this paper aims to examine the concept of consumer religious commitment in the marketing domain.

Using cross‐sectional data of 425 respondents this research examines the outcomes of the direct influence of consumer religious commitment on two outcomes, namely, store loyalty and complaint intentions.

Results of the study indicate that consumer religious commitment significantly influences store loyalty and complaint intentions.

The paper offers prescriptive insights for managers, who may see potential value of consumer religiosity as a market segmentation tool.

This study investigates the relationship between accuracy of brand‐country of origin (COO) knowledge and COO image, in a franchising context. Accuracy of brand‐COO knowledge is found to be positively related to COO image. Inaccurate brand‐COO knowledge leads to a confusing and somewhat negative image about COO. In addition, antecedents to the brand‐COO knowledge are also investigated. Factors such as social class, education and travel abroad positively influence brand‐COO knowledge. This investigation, conducted in an emerging market, holds interesting research and managerial implications, especially for multinational franchisors.

The purpose of this paper is multifold. First, this study aims to proffer a psychometric scale to measure sales agent's perception of sales cannibalization due to the addition of an internet channel. Second, the study seeks to estimate the downstream impact of sales agents' perceived cannibalization (SPC) on two outcomes, namely, commitment and alienation from work. Third, it aims to examine the moderating role of environmental munificence in the relationship between SPC and the two outcomes.

The data for this study were collected from a contact pool of 2,108 insurance sales agents. A total of 511 valid responses were attained. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine the relationships posited in this study.

First, a multi‐item scale was conceptualized and developed for measuring SPC. Second, the properties of the scale were assessed following procedures recommended by Churchill, Anderson, Gerbing, Bagozzi, and Yi. The scale demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity. Third, SPC was shown to be not universally damaging to commitment. Rather, only under a low munificent environment does perceived cannibalization significantly reduce salespersons' commitment. Additionally, the severity of the influence of SPC on alienation from work increases in low munificent environment.

The data for this study were collected using a single survey of insurance agents. Future researchers should attempt to examine the relationships posited in this study using a sample from a different industry.

While recognizing that the internet is here to stay and that strategic channel decisions will unlikely be made based on the views or psychological reactions of sales agents alone, incorporating the sales agent perspective does allow organizations to take a holistic view of their distribution system. This may be particularly important in view of multi‐channel marketing, when a new marketing channel is employed to co‐exist with the traditional sales force.

Previous conceptualizations of inter‐channel cannibalization were all based on economic terms and, hence, were considered myopic by Porter. This study examines the psychological influence of the addition of an internet channel on sale agents' work related outcomes.

The purpose of this article is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the cellular manufacturing system (CMS) literature published from 1982–2021 to identify key issues and trends for the future.

A six-stage methodology is used to conduct a literature review, which includes: (1) article collection; (2) inclusion/exclusion criteria; (3) reviewing the articles; (4) analyzing the articles; (5) framework development; and (6) future research directions. A total of 936 CMS-specific articles are reviewed. This paper made use of three software tools: the R package, VOSviewer and SciMAT.

According to the findings, the majority of CM researchers focused on cell formation and design. The USA, Iran and India are the top three leading publishers. Additionally, the gap and future direction of CM are discussed.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the current study is the first attempt to investigate CMS evaluation through bibliometric and thematic analysis and provides a decisional framework as well as steps for CMS adoption. For individuals who are interested in understanding more about CMS and its evolution, this paper offers a starting point.

The purpose of this paper is to consider one of the recent and practical extensions of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) termed as the multi-skill resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MSRCPSP) for investigation. The objective is the minimization of the makespan or total project duration.

To solve this complex problem, the authors propose a teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm in which self-study and examination have been used as additional features to enhance its exploration and exploitation capabilities. An activity list-based encoding scheme has been modified to include the resource assignment information because of the multi-skill nature of the algorithm. In addition, a genetic algorithm (GA) is also developed in this work for the purpose of comparisons. The computational experiments are performed on 216 test instances with varying complexity and characteristics generated for the purpose.

The results obtained after computations show that the TLBO has performed significantly better than GA in terms of average percentage deviation from the critical path-based lower bound for different combinations of three parameters, namely, skill factor, network complexity and modified resource strength.

The modified TLBO proposed in this paper can be conveniently applied to any product or service organization wherein human resources are involved in executing project activities.

The developed model can suitably handle resource allocation problems faced in real-life large-sized projects usually administered in software development companies, consultancy firms, R&D-based organizations, maintenance firms, big construction houses, etc. wherein human resources are involved.

The current work aims to propose an effective metaheuristic for a more realistic version of MSRCPSP, in which resource requirements of activities may be more than one. Moreover, to enhance the exploration and exploitation capabilities of the original TLBO, the authors use two additional concepts, namely, self-study and examination in the search process.