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The purpose of this paper is to examine organisational learning as a mediator among small-scale manufacturing enterprises (S-SMEs) which comprise the majority of economic activity in an emergent/developing economy. This study offers further understanding regarding the mediating role of organisational learning in developing world economies, due to its potential regional influence.

A cross-sectional survey of Indian S-SMEs was undertaken from the District Industrial Center. The study employed a systematic sampling technique to contact owner/managers. Overall, 204 S-SMEs owners/managers participated in the study and 192 usable survey instruments were received.

The study offers novel insights to the following questions. First, the factors that prompt entrepreneurial orientation to achieve superior business performance, i.e. the antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation? The results reveal competitor orientation is an antecedent of entrepreneurial orientation that leads to an S-SME’s business performance. Second, the outcomes of entrepreneurial orientation, i.e. the consequences of entrepreneurial orientation? The study reveals organisational learning and business performance are the corollary of entrepreneurial orientation. Third, the examination of whether organisational learning mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance? The findings found the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance are, in part, mediated by organisational learning.

Three study limitations are recognised. First, other strategic orientations, including technology orientation, production orientation and selling orientation are not included. Second, other constructs have a potentially significant relationship with market and entrepreneurial orientation, such as organisational capabilities, innovation and social context, were not considered. Third, the study is industry-sector specific and does not consider alternative sectors which also may play a potential role in economic development.

This study enhances the existing S-SME literature by identifying factors contributing to entrepreneurial orientation and its repercussions on business performance. For S-SMEs it adds credence to the role played by organisational learning in mediating the link between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance which potentially encourages owner/managers to dedicate increased time and resources towards creating and maintaining a conducive learning environment. The results support entrepreneurs in acknowledging the importance of competitor orientation during the emergence and development of entrepreneurial orientation, specifically in emerging economy contexts.

India’s retail sector is going through a significant transitional period with the internet as a new distribution channel becoming more common. Given the barriers to adoption, the purpose of this paper is to understand the role played by trusting beliefs when engaging with an online retailer. In the Indian market, online vending is expected to increase at a rate of 35 per cent per annum, and by understanding trusting beliefs retailers will be able to develop their market share by developing appropriate and/or innovative strategies.

The work is based on a sample of more than 200 internet customers in India. In understanding the data and the relationships that emerged from the modelling, the authors used a range of tools to analyse the data, including CFA and structural equation modelling. The authors also used descriptive statistics to provide a holistic overview of response profiles.

The study reveals that trusting beliefs are negatively influenced by an uncertainty avoidance culture and positively influenced by a firm’s image and a customer’s price awareness. Moreover, purchase intentions (PIs) are significantly enhanced by trusting beliefs in an online environment. Hence, it leads us to conclude that PIs can be augmented by facilitating and ensuring good quality service by placing special emphasis on timeliness, accuracy and conditions of the order, security and privacy paradigms, aftersales services, etc.

As can be seen, the internet is an emergent tool for retailers in India. By understanding trusting beliefs, retailers will be able to better understand customers’ behaviour and thus design management strategies accordingly. Although this is likely to take more than a decade, as internet retailing becomes embedded it may have a detrimental effect on the historical channel to market, thus altering the country’s retail landscape which is currently dominated by small retailers.

The work’s findings are insightful for those seeking to maximize the opportunities presented by the internet as a channel to market. The works shows how the channel is influenced and thus how it can be managed. In making the contribution the authors provide guidance in terms of operational activity to engage with potential customers.

This paper examines trusting beliefs when using the internet as a channel to market and in doing so it makes a new contribution because it establishes links with culture and other factors. For the research venue the authors use a developing market and therefore the findings are applicable to markets with similar characteristics.

This study investigates the role of personal resource (i.e. psychological empowerment) in reducing the negative impact of emotional exhaustion of frontline employees on their engagement. It also examines the moderating effects of ethical climate and transformational leadership in mitigating the negative influence of emotional exhaustion on engagement among frontline service employees (FLEs).

Data were collected from 671 frontline employees from financial services sector. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical regression analysis (HRA) were used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results show that the impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement is greatly affected by psychological empowerment. Transformational leadership moderates the negative effects of emotional exhaustion on psychological empowerment, while ethical climate weakens the negative impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement.

Service firms need to provide enough autonomy to emotionally exhausted frontline employees so that they feel valued. The emotionally exhausted employees can be engaged if they are empowered to discharge their job most effectively and a climate is ensured which can keep them motivated toward accomplishing their targets. A fair and just treatment shall boost their morale to perform better and to strengthen their staying intentions.

The novelty of our study lies in examining and fostering engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs. It shows that job resources at the individual level (i.e. psychological empowerment), team level (i.e. transformational leadership) and organizational level (i.e. ethical climate) can help in encouraging work engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs.

Previous research has provided limited evidence on whether and how demographic factors associate with sensory processing patterns (SPP) in adults. This paper aims to examine relationships between SPPs and sociodemographic factors of age, sex, education and ethnicity in healthy adults.

A cross-sectional study design was used. A total of 71 adult participants was recruited from the community, using convenience sampling. Each participant completed the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales – short version (DASS-21). Demographic information on age, sex, education and ethnicity was collected. Results were analysed using descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA).

SPPs, as measured by the AASP, were significantly correlated to demographic factors of age and education after controlling for emotional distress using the DASS-21. A statistically significant multivariate effect was found across the four dependent variables (low registration, seeking, sensitivity and avoiding) for the age category, F = 6.922, p = 0.009, ηp2 = 0.145, in the presence of a covariate DASS. The education category showed significance only in the seeking domain (p = 0.008, ηp2 = 0.10) after controlling for DASS. There was no significant correlation between SPPs and gender or ethnicity. Results also indicated that mean scores of participants in this study were “similar to most people” as standardised in the AASP.

This was a cross-sectional study with limitations including that the study used a relatively small sample and was based on self-reported healthy participants.

SPPs may correlate with healthy adults’ age and to a lesser extent education. This suggests that it might be helpful to consider such demographic factors when interpreting SPPs in clinical populations, although further research in larger samples is needed to reach firmer conclusions about possible implications of demographic variables.

The findings in this paper add to the growing evidence that suggest that SPPs vary with sociodemographic factors.

Relationship marketing is about developing, maintaining and sustaining mutually beneficial customer–organisation relationships as measured by economic gains. Yet, a purely economic focus does not fully offer a psychological explanation of relationship marketing outcomes. In this regard, this paper has considered gratitude as a significant component of personal relationships, which offers insights into a customer–organisation relationships. Accordingly, this study aims to examine gratitude as a mechanism to predict relationship marketing outcomes, such as overall satisfaction, trust and commitment.

Data were collected from 1,093 millennial consumers across three university campuses.

Results indicate that gratitude is a mediating mechanism that can explain the relationship between young consumers’ perceptions of relationship marketing investments and overall satisfaction, trust and commitment. Perceived benevolence strengthens the relationship between perceived relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude.

The gratitude model contributes an alternative understanding of how young consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s marketing investments are important in achieving a high degree of relationship marketing outcomes. This paper further incorporates the moderating roles of customer cynicism and perceptions of benevolence, key individual and relational characteristics, that influence the level of gratitude individuals to experience in response to the investments made by organisations.

Premised on dynamic capability theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the link between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and operational responsiveness (OR). In addition, grounded in contingency theory, the authors examine the roles of competitive intensity and technological turbulence in affecting the entrepreneurial orientation and OR link.

This study proposes that firms’ entrepreneurial initiatives in terms of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking significantly affect their responsiveness. Competitive intensity and technological turbulence moderate the EO and OR relationship. Using hierarchical regression analysis, the authors analyze the data generated from a sample of 164 small-and-medium enterprises in the USA.

The findings show that entrepreneurial initiatives are instrumental in responding to market requirements, which in turn results in superior performance. The authors also find that the interactive effects of innovativeness/risk-taking and competitive intensity are significant and positive, while those of innovativeness/proactiveness and technological turbulence on responsiveness are significant but negative. These findings imply that OR is effective when the level of competitive intensity is high while technological turbulence is low.

The authors conclude the paper by suggesting that entrepreneurial actions are pre-requisites for OR, which becomes effective only when the market experiences a moderate level of competition and a low level of technological change. The study provides implications for cross-functional research in the areas of entrepreneurship and operations management (OM) and also suggests future directions in this research stream.

Although responsiveness has been recognized as a critical competitive capability in the OM literature, its relationship with EO is not fully understood and has not been empirically tested. Moreover, the interplay between EO and competitive intensity/technological turbulence and their effects on effective OR have not been gauged in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a customer engagement-enabling platform on a value captured by the firm and value acquired by the customer. It explores the relevance of relational and expertise value for customers during the engagement process so as to ensure positive referrals about the service provider.

Using a sample of 482 students, the study examines the customer engagement efforts of professional institutes that provide training to prepare for the civil service examinations of the Union Public Service Commission. The survey is confined to central areas of New Delhi, India. Statistical techniques including confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are used to analyse the data, and reliability and validity tests are performed.

The findings reveal the indispensable role of service providers as creators of a meaningful effective learning process and of interpersonal relations with customers for generating more business through customer referrals.

The study validated the moderating role of relational value between customers’ expertise value and their referrals on the basis of motivation theory, which asserts that customers’ motivation to contribute to the organisation is driven by the individuals’ extrinsic relational need for belongingness, acceptance by like-minded individuals, and feedback, recognition and respect from employees of the organisation.

The study contributes to the existing literature by integrating the well-developed social exchange and motivation theory so as to investigate the factors that propel customers’ positive word of mouth for the service provider.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test an integrated model incorporating the constructs of organisational commitment (OC), behavioural intentions (BI), actual turnover behaviour (ATB) and telecom work characteristics (WC) so as to examine the impact of commitment on employees’ BI, whereby they wish to dissolve their relationship with the employment provider.

Structural equation modelling technique has been used to test the data collected through questionnaire from a sample of 139 employees including managers and executives across the hierarchy of an Indian telecom organisation named Aircel Dishnet Ltd from the Jammu and Kashmir circle head office in India.

The theoretical constructs were validated before incorporating the hypothetical structural model. SEM results indicate a good fit to the empirical data. The findings confirmed that affective, continuance and normative commitments lay significant impact on employees’ OC. Also, commitment influence attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, thereby affecting the BI of the employees. An indirect significant impact of OC on the ATB was also revealed. A partial mediation of WC was also found between BI and ATB.

The generalisability of the study is limited as the sample concentrates to one organisation of a single industry in India.

The study provides insights for the policy makers to create and develop mechanisms and programmes leading to the enhancement of affective OC for employee retention.

The model clearly explains telecom employees’ OC and its impact on the ATB through their BI. Though the findings do not reveal any component of commitment to lay more impact on OC, it exhibits higher career commitment than OC among the telecom employees.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of customer switching and the reasons that underlie customer‐switching intentions. The paper aims to focus on the various factors on account of which a customer may or may not switch a particular bank.

A total of 800 bank customers were selected randomly from a total population of 71,600 and were contacted personally to gather the requisite data.

The paper finds that the model reveals significant effect of quality, satisfaction and trust on predicting switching barriers. Of these relationships, satisfaction emerged as the strongest factor which influences switching barriers.

The study is limited to Indian banks; a larger empirical study would be useful to replicate the results in the banking as well as other services.

In order to ensure loyalty among bank customers, increased value addition in the banking services and wide‐ranging relationships with customers can make the switching process more complex.

The preliminary work in this paper demonstrates the impact of various relationship marketing factors, namely, service quality, customer value, satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty, switching costs and barriers on customers' switching intentions.

Marketing thought originating from the era of the barter system, gradually evolved into production and sales orientations, with greater emphasis on the process, quality, and selling of products. Thereafter, customer satisfaction as an essential component of the strategic decision process occupies a significant position among various marketing activities. This paper aims to address the inadequate research inputs on determining the time‐specific evolutionary relevance of marketing thought divulging into the essential components of each marketing concept, especially those with customer satisfaction as a dimension in the measurement construct.

A detailed, conceptually integrated analysis of various marketing philosophies is offered to facilitate business executives in examining the philosophy followed by their companies and how to move vertically in pursuance of improved business performance.

In comparison to the Indian market, which is fast becoming an attraction for the developed nations as an investment hub, it is the observed and experienced that public sector corporations are still at the production orientation stage, whereas private companies are predominantly using the sales‐oriented approach. The present status of customer orientation, market orientation and relationship marketing culture in India, is quite distinct from the status in the West as indicated by literature published in the developed countries. Banking, insurance, tourism, and hospitals still need to ensure minimum customer‐oriented services, which are not performed impressively in India.

Being a conceptual and country specific paper, the paper lacks wider generalization of its findings. Moreover, at many instances personal judgment of the authors might have resulted into biased interpretation.

Indian companies, with a few exceptions, lack an adequate orientation to pursue continuous market research in order to sense new developments, which are taking place due to the implementation of advanced information technology leading to greater exposure to customers. It can, thus, be synthesized that with respect to marketing practices in Indian settings, the existing large gap between the theory and implementation is drawing much attention from those concerned with the socio‐economic consequences associated with future business goals.

This paper can help managers in evaluating their business orientation level, but how to improve it further or update them as per ongoing changes in marketing thought and practice, has to be investigated and examined on continuous basis. Hence, empirical testing and validation of the constructs originating from the study have to be pursued, so as to analyze both the nature and the extent of the business orientation of a particular firm.