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This study aims to examine the challenges posed by COVID-19 restrictions for audit processes in India and explore the perceptions of the profession on how technology was leveraged to conduct audits during this period. The opinions of auditors on future changes in post-COVID-19 audit practices and processes are also explored.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior auditors working in various audit firms in major business centers in India and subjected to content and thematic analysis using the institutional theory perspective.

The auditing profession used technology to respond to COVID-19-imposed disruptions of established audit process and practices while maintaining the legitimacy of audit reports. The findings indicate that auditors now seem to strongly support the integration of emerging technologies into their auditing practices post-COVID to ensure data accuracy and transparency. The interviewees displayed keen interest in continuing remote and in-person audits to maintain audit quality in the future. The experience of COVID-19 appears to have forced the auditing profession to overcome their reluctance to adopt technologies that were previously used by only Big 4 and large audit companies.

The results will be of particular interest to various stakeholders concerned with aspects of the acceptance of technology-assisted audit reports such as legitimacy, required infrastructure, cost involvement and resistance to change. The findings will also assist professional bodies and policymakers in both developed and developing economies in devising useful strategies to promote technology-aided auditing during and after COVID-19. Limitations posed by inadequate infrastructure and resistance to changes must be overcomed before implementation of technology-aided audits.

As COVID-19 pandemic is a recent phenomenon, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first few studies that have examined the use of technology to facilitate audits during the COVID-19 period, more specifically from a developing economy perspective.

Industries generally require good maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities. Maintenance activities at MRO cover the normal scheduled check-ups known as scheduled preventive maintenance (SPM) whereas an overhaul reviews and rejuvenates the complete system at a scheduled time. The literature is reasonably stocked with reliability modelling of repairable systems considering both the corrective maintenance (CM) and SPM as imperfect. However, in all these situations the overhaul is modelled as perfect repair. Thus, the purpose of this research paper is to develop a mathematical model for the estimation of reliability parameters considering the complete MRO as imperfect.

The paper proposes arithmetic reduction of age (Kijima I) based virtual age model to estimate reliability parameters by considering the complete MRO as imperfect and provides the likelihood and log-likelihood functions for parameter estimation of the proposed model and also presents the various extensions of the proposed model.

For analysis, two real-time data sets of two components, i.e. turbostarter and plunger pump are considered. The analysis mainly focuses on intensity function and availability of components. The availability analysis of the components directly affects the cost analysis. It is very important to analyze the realistic trend of availability, and the comparative analysis shows that the assumption of perfect overhaul overestimates and minimal overhaul underestimates the performance of the components whereas assumption of imperfect overhaul portraits more sensible deteriorating and availability trend of the components.

The proposed methodology in this paper is a novice and not available in the literature.

Degradation of repairable components may not be similar after each maintenance activity; thus, the classic (traditional-time based) maintenance policies, which consider preventive maintenance (PM), age-based maintenance and overhauls to be done at fixed time interval, may fail to monitor the exact condition of the component. Thus, a progressive maintenance policy (PMP) may be more appropriate for the industries that deal with large, complex and critical repairable systems (RS) such as aerospace industries, nuclear power plants, etc.

A progressive maintenance policy is developed, in which hard life, PM scheduled time and overhaul period of the system are revised after each service activity by adjusting PM interval and mean residual life (MRL) such that the risk of failure is not increased.

A comparative study is then carried out between the classic PM policy and developed PMP, and the improvement in availability, mean time between failures and reduction in maintenance cost is registered.

The proposed PMP takes care of the equipment degradation more efficiently than any other existing maintenance policies and is also flexible in its application as the policy can be continuously amended as per the failure profile of the equipment. Similar maintenance policies assuming lifetime distributions are available in the literature, but to ascertain that the proposed PMP is more suitable and applicable to the industries, this paper uses Kijima-based imperfect maintenance models. The proposed PMP is demonstrated through a real-time data set example.

Prayas is a unique healthcare initiative, launched in India by Sanofi-Aventis, a French multinational pharmaceutical company, with the objectives of updating the medical knowledge of doctors in semi-urban and rural areas, bridging the gap between diagnosis and treatment, and making available quality medicines at affordable prices. This case discusses the evolution of the Prayas model from its inception to its current state, and the company's business strategies around it. Cognizant of the success of Prayas, many competitors of Sanofi-Aventis are actively developing and implementing similar models. The company's top management team has to respond to the competitive threat.

In order to minimize the impact of variability on performance of the process, proper understanding of factors interdependencies and their impact on process variability (PV) is required. However, with insufficient/incomplete numerical data, it is not possible to carry out in-depth process analysis. This paper presents a qualitative framework for analyzing factors causing PV and estimating their influence on overall performance of the process.

Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is used to evaluate the weight of each factor and Bayesian network (BN) is utilized to address the uncertainty and conditional dependencies among factors in each step of the process. The weighted values are fed into the BN for evaluating the impact of each factor to the process. A three axiom-based approach is utilized to partially validate the proposed model.

A case study is conducted on fused filament fabrication (FFF) process in order to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed technique. The result analysis indicates that the proposed model can determine the contribution of each factor and identify the critical factor causing variability in the FFF process. It can also helps in estimating the sigma level, one of the crucial performance measures of a process.

The proposed methodology is aimed to predict the process quality qualitatively due to limited historical quantitative data. Hence, the quality metric is required to be updated with the help of empirical/field data of PV over a period of operational time. Since the proposed method is based on qualitative analysis framework, the subjectivities of judgments in estimating factor weights are involved. Though a fuzzy-based approach has been used in this paper to minimize such subjectivity, however more advanced MCDM techniques can be developed for factor weight evaluation.

As the proposed methodology uses qualitative data for analysis, it is extremely beneficial while dealing with the issue of scarcity of experimental data.

The prediction of the process quality and understanding of difference between product target and achieved reliability before the product fabrication will help the process designer in correcting/modifying the processes in advance hence preventing substantial amount of losses that may happen due to rework and scraping of the products at a later stage.

This qualitative analysis will deal with the issue of data unavailability across the industry. It will help the process designer in identifying root cause of the PV problem and improving performance of the process.

The world today is predicated on constant change driven by globalisation, economic restructuring, climate change, conflict crises, and the Covid-19 pandemic. People, businesses, and government are swiftly impacted by job and profit loss, a shift in knowledge, learning poverty, pressures, and adaptability. In addition, the twenty-first-century labour market is increasingly asking for advanced skills as many jobs experience digital transformation in the workplace.

The nature of work and the structure of employment are reinventing. The Covid-19 pandemic has created challenges that require responsive safety nets critical to prevent these hardships. An option of working from home was only for a relatively privileged segment of the labour force and colleagues may never meet personally. A new pattern of work may emerge changing how people worked and live. Such circumstances could be psychologically and financially taxing. Accordingly, businesses and individuals need to navigate this challenging space by developing different skills and resilient attitudes to be relevant in the new world of work.

Resilience is a positive attitude that is built to help people overcome significant challenges to achieve their goals. In the present context of work, resilient attitudes can necessitate proactively growing skills in such areas as adaptability, persistence, problem-solving in addition to foundational literacy. Building resilience will not only benefit the individual but the business also gains continued success.

The case helps to understand: the working mechanisms of a digitized salon service, with a focus on the lower- and middle-income strata. The changing scenario of the service marketing model, with the growth in digital service models. To investigate the organisational challenges of a digitally facilitated/based start-up and find solutions to overcome the challenges.

“Yes Madam”-salon at home was a business enterprise, providing beauty and wellness services at the doorstep through a mobile application and web-based platform. The case describes the reason for opening the doorstep beauty services, its revenue model and aims to provide quality services to lower- and middle-income strata. The case will help students to understand the working mechanism of digitized salon services and associated challenges; prominent ones being attracting, selecting and retaining the beauticians and providing the standardised services. The case has examined the low-price services for the consumers delivered by the company. The case also discussed their plans for diversification and penetration into the untapped markets.

Graduates and postgraduates.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Appreciative Inquiry is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengths-enriched world around them. In its broadest focus, “AI” involves systematic discovery of everything that gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, effective and flourishing, and most capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a very central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. It centrally involves the mobilization of whole system appreciation through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question” often-involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of people.

With over-the-top (OTT) streaming services rapidly transforming the media industry and saturating the market, the authors' study seeks to enrich the goal-directed behaviour model by exploring how perceived risks and descriptive norms influence OTT consumption.

Survey data from OTT subscribers were collected online to assess their risk behaviours. The 353 responses obtained were analysed with SmartPLS, validating the structural equation modelling (SEM) through structural and measurement model verification.

The authors' findings illustrate that descriptive norm, perceived behavioural control, as well as positive and negative anticipated emotion (NEM) and attitude, contribute positively to the desire to engage with OTT streaming services. Interestingly, the authors' study contradicts common assumptions, revealing that subjective norms do not significantly impact the propensity to utilise OTT services. This counterintuitive finding necessitates a reconsideration of prevalent theories and contributes to a nuanced understanding of OTT adoption determinants.

The data gathering for this study were conducted from the perspective of a single nation. Therefore, caution must be exercised when generalising this study's results.

The practical ramifications of this research are vast, providing OTT service providers and marketers with actionable insights to maximise user engagement and navigate perceived risks related to OTT service adoption and consumption.

This study's exploration of perceived risks and descriptive norms enhances the goal-directed behaviour model's breadth, facilitating a holistic comprehension of the constructs shaping OTT consumption behaviours. It would be the first attempt to combine perceptual, affective and behavioural factors and perceived risks to understand the user's predisposition to engage in OTT streaming services.

This study aims to understand the effect of consumers' national identity (NI) on their willingness to buy (WTB) domestic (Indian) products vis-à-vis foreign (Chinese) products. Secondly, it explores the role of psychological ownership (PO) and consumers' animosity in explaining their WTB domestic products.

In this paper data were collected online from Indian consumers (N = 408) through the survey method, using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS AMOS Version 24 and the PROCESS SPSS macro, using mediations and moderated mediation models.

This study establishes the positive effect of consumers' NI on their WTB domestic products over Chinese ones. With a long history of hostility between India and China in the backdrop, the authors find a significant mediating role of PO and consumer animosity (CA) in the relationship between NI and WTB . The results also demonstrate that while consumer ethnocentrism (CET) positively moderates the mediating path via PO at all levels from low to high, it moderates the path via CA only at the mean and high levels.

This study applies the Psychological Ownership Theory, Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Attribution Theory to explore the interplay between consumers' NI, PO , CA and ethnocentrism in the Indian context. The study asserts the distinction between these constructs by analyzing the interaction and inter-relationships between these variables. Further, it provides a comprehensive understanding of Indian consumers' preference for domestic products over Chinese ones.