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Strategic planning of the supply chain is an important decision problem determining the long‐term survival and prosperity of companies in the manufacturing, retail, and other industrial sectors. In general such companies rely on their information systems to acquire the essential data that are used in their planning models. The interaction of information systems and decision modelling, and the progressive transformation of data, into information, and knowledge is a key process underlying any decision support system (DSS) for strategic, tactical or operational planning. In this paper we consider a DSS for supply chain planning (SCP) decisions. The SCP system has an embedded decision engine that uses a two‐stage stochastic program as a paradigm for optimisation under uncertainty. The system has been used for decision making in diverse domains, including automotive manufacturing and consumer products.

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.

Mud architecture as one of the expressions of vernacular architecture illustrates the success of indigenous knowledge of traditional communities. Due to the pressure of industrialization, urbanization and globalization, the trend of using non-traditional measures guided by the Western-Euro-centric knowledge and technologies considers the traditional practices as expressions of backward past, under-development and poverty. Though mud as a building material is usually assumed as a fragile and ephemeral material that cannot survive against natural hazards, the surviving traditional mud buildings are needed to be investigated to know their performances during and after different types of natural hazard incidents.

This paper intends to study the available cases of mud architecture of Chattogram, Bangladesh to trace the history of their survival despite of experiencing multiple natural hazards and to understand their status and prospect of resisting hazards. Three individual homesteads are chosen as cases for conducting physical survey as well as engaging inhabitants and local masons of the locality in semi-structured interviews in a story telling mode to know the construction process and histories of experiencing natural hazards. Available literatures are reviewed, and experts are interviewed to understand the causes of their performances and possible ways to improve the quality.

Collected information on mud architecture demonstrates their quality of surviving against many natural challenges and this hazard-resilient quality can be enhanced through using contemporary building technologies and materials, promising to co-exist with the global trend.

This study as an attempt to reinvent the vernacular architectural heritage endorses the need of appreciating indigenous knowledge for enhancing community resilience against natural hazards.

The case is written on the basis of published sources only.

Doodlage, a start-up incorporated in 2012 by Kriti Tula, Paras Arora and Vaibhav Kapoor, used discarded waste to create sustainable fashion products. It had a first-mover advantage in recycled fashion goods in the first 10 years of its existence. The company contributed to sustainable fashion by providing an alternative to fast fashion production, creating enormous clothing waste and environmental degradation. In the first quarter of 2022, it saved and reused 15,000 m of fabric waste. From 2018 to 2021, the company grew 150% annually, targeting the right customers and regions to expand its business. It ensured that postproduction industrial waste and postconsumption garments were used to produce clothes. It also confirmed that the waste generated in its fabric screening process was used to create stationery items and other valuable accessories.

However, the sustainable fashion model that gave the company a competitive advantage became obsolete in 2022 due to increasing competition in the industry as various players using unique ideas entered the market. The company is encountering operational and logistical challenges that are affecting its performance. The demand for its products was also subdued due to high prices of upcycled and recycled clothes and less consumer spending post-COVID pandemic. The competitors of Doodlage offered multiple products produced using environmentally friendly farming and manufacturing techniques, attracting sustainable purchasers. What should be the new portfolio of products for the company to explore future growth opportunities? Considering their vast price, can consumers be encouraged to buy upcycled clothes? How should the company ride the winds of change in the industry?

The instructor should initiate the class discussion by asking questions such as how frequently do you shop for clothes? Do you care about the fabric of your apparel? After you discard your clothes, do you think about where these goods finally end up? Data on the amount of total waste generated in the fashion industry should be communicated to students to connect it with the importance of the concept of circular economy. Post this, the instructor should introduce the business model of Doodlage to bring the discussion into the context of the fashion industry before going ahead to discuss the company’s dilemma.

India is a country of socio-cultural diversity. Every society and culture existing in India is full of values, ethics and morality regarding good deeds. The exhaustive survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures from Indian philosophical perspectives observes many studies based on the socio-cultural and religious aspects. It has been observed all these philosophical views and concepts covering socio-cultural and religious backgrounds have received attention in the field of CSR. It is observed that almost all views have been fully explored in the context of CSR. Therefore this chapter tries to detect the drivers of CSR with all these philosophies prevalent in the culture of Indian society. This study utilises the hermeneutics, a qualitative research methodology which involves an in-depth study, critical analysis, thoughtful understanding and explanatory interpretation of the concepts of CSR originated from diversified Indian society and culture. In a nutshell, from these viewpoints and philosophies of different cultures, CSR is seen from an inside-out perspective.

Two major obstacles to tourism development in India have been identified as shortage of skilled manpower and dearth of rural tourism projects. Through the provisions under Section 135 of the new Companies Act 2013, the Indian government has initiated a reform process on how private companies, including leading hospitality businesses, should conduct their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Recognizing this opportunity for action, this paper looks at the opportunity for tourism growth under the new CSR regime by reviewing the barriers for hospitality companies falling under the ambit of Section 135 to make CSR investments toward tourism development. Upon establishing these barriers, the argument reviews the current CSR trends and the absence of diversification in spending CSR funds. Finally, the paper discusses the need for enhancing the capacity of tourism NGOs in India and for developing strategic partnerships between these institutions and hospitality companies.

Increasing scarcity of natural resources and the adverse effects of unsustainable practices call for more and more efficient management strategies in the energy industry. The quality of the coke plays a significant role in the quality and durability of the output steel which is produced using the energy from the coal. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic coal blending problem under overall cost and coke quality constraints in the steel industry within a periodic cycle of operations.

Considering the variability of the natural properties over a periodic cycle, this study proposes a multi-period mixed-integer non-linear programming formulation to optimize the total blending costs while taking various coke quality constraints into account. Besides, this study applies factorial design to investigate about the significant effect of coal proportions as well as improvement into the overall cost of blending.

In this case study, utilizing real data from a coal blending facility in India, through a factorial design, the authors obtain optimal desirable levels of coal proportions and their criticality levels towards the total cost of blending (TCB) or objective function. This analysis reflects the role of the coke quality constraints in the objective function value while characterizing the price of sustainability for the case study among other critical insights.

Objective function (or TCB) includes basic coal cost, movement cost and environmental costs during the coal and coke processing at a coke-oven and blast furnace of steel industry. The price of sustainability provides managerial insights on that sacrifices the industry has to make in order to become more “sustainable”.

Corruption within the Indian police organization is not a new phenomenon and folklore has always associated police with extortion and brutality. At present, corruption exists in many forms and in every rank and has reached an alarming stage where some practices are not even considered deviant. This paper argues that such pervasive corruption is an expression of the organizational culture that has its roots in the British Raj. The paper, based upon an insider’s viewpoints, describe some unusual forms of corruption and suggest how these emanate from organizational practices that have continued unchanged for more than a 100 years.

Managing e‐government is invariably managing change. Despite plethora of literature on change management, the rate of success of e‐government projects is dismal, especially in developing countries. Deriving from strategy and change management literature, this paper seeks to present a new approach to strategize for better change outcomes in e‐government domain. A new construct of “continuity” is introduced and proposed to be managed concurrently with change forces to attain better delivery of strategic deliverables in e‐government projects.

Continuity and change forces affecting e‐government domain identified from the literature are statistically validated by conducting an “idea engineering” exercise. For this response from e‐government experts to a structured questionnaire is elicited to validate the forces, which are further modeled in the strategic framework proposed.

Drawing from strategy and change management literature, it is hypothesized that “managing change in e‐government can be better leveraged by consciously and concurrently managing continuity”. Based on expert survey, out of the initial six continuity and eight change forces proposed, only one continuity force has been dropped and the rest are further modeled in the framework. Propositions for future research and implications for policy makers and implementers are highlighted.

Given the low rate of success of e‐government initiatives, especially in developing countries, this framework may serve as an important approach to strategizing in e‐government domain and may be of value to not just the policy makers but also to other stakeholders like project planners, implementers and also the beneficiaries.

The value of this paper lies in the application of the concept of strategic management of continuity and change in e‐government domain; identification of continuity and change forces in e‐government; and proposing a model linking the “constructs of continuity and change” forces with strategic deliverables of e‐government.

Over the last few decades there has been increased interest in studying the phenomenon of violence among people with intellectual disabilities (ID). Research addressing offending and victimization among this population suffers from generalised androcentrism by extrapolating findings to women, and is also homogenising, ignoring any individual and gendered differences. Existing research also demonstrates a clear focus on vulnerability and increased risk of victimization, but very little attention has been paid to women with ID as perpetrators of crime. Many factors play a role in the process of victimisation and offence, which implies the need to deconstruct the hegemonic vision of violence and examine its different manifestations and nuances. Therefore, this chapter provides a critical and historical review of the role of women with ID as victims and perpetrators of crime, by synthesising the different levels of analysis of the subject using an intersectionality approach. In conclusion, the evidence so far does not elucidate the prevalence or characteristics of these offenders. What we do know is that this group faces interacting, individual, social and environmental difficulties. They report high rates of victimisation and mental health comorbidity. Altogether they reveal an overlapping status of victim and offender.