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Esports has been emerging as a multi-billion dollar industry by attracting players, viewers, advertisers and investors across the globe. Even though there are plenty of professional titles present, only a few have been considered mainstream due to lack of formal governance mechanisms, presence of corruption and cheating mechanisms. “Doping” is one such practice where the players try to gain unfair advantage over their competitors, causing major hindrance in esports development. This qualitative study would draw insights from their perceptions about different doping mechanisms and possible recommendations to curb them.

This study has analyzed the semi-structured interviews of selected esports professionals to draw insights from their perceptions about different doping mechanisms and possible recommendations to curb them. This qualitative study would explore the content of their interviews for extracting relevant themes and subthemes.

The findings of this study have made significant contributions to deeply lacking literature about the esports industry and barriers it faces in order to be considered as a legitimate sport. The study has extracted contemporary and new emerging themes about the rising trends in the industry and their impact on society and the way we see sports as a whole. Moreover, this study dwells upon the rampant drug abuse persisting in this industry and how it offers itself as a barrier to the legitimization of esports as a viable global industry.

This study provides an on-ground reality reports on esports and various malpractices rampant in the industry by conducting interviews with various industry professionals and analyzing them through a thematic analysis method using an inductive approach.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the importance and performance of managerial training in India among different industrial sectors in the light of asynchronous industrial growth in last two decades which has unevenly touched various business organizations.

For the purpose of analysis organizations are divided at two levels. At the first level, they are divided between multinational and Indian origin category and at the second level between service and manufacturing category. A 2×2 full factorial design with unequal numbers is used to analyze main as well as interaction impacts. A sample size of 542 is taken which comprises training professionals, top/general managers and trainee employees.

Study concludes that Indian origin organizations fall short in terms of importance given and performance of training function compared to multinational companies. Further, it is found that service companies have an edge over manufacturing companies in terms of importance and performance of training.

Study is mainly focussed on large organizations in India and may not be representative of small organizations. The major implication is that Indian origin organizations as well as manufacturing organizations have to devote more time and financial resources to training to compete in the era of globalization.

It is implied from the findings that a concerted effort by training professionals in Indian and manufacturing companies is required to improve the content as well as image of the training function to get the due attention and resources within the organization.

The paper presents an original perspective on situation of training function in Indian organizations and will be of importance to training professionals and other stakeholders.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

So is it full marks all round to India’s business leaders? Well, not quite, because some of them stand accused of not giving due importance to training. Training is recognized as an integral part of work and development if an organization is to be successful, with the USA spending billions of dollars on employee training and development. However, look closely at large and important companies in emerging markets, including India and China, and it can be seen that, in spite of enormous business opportunities, many of them are still falling short of their operational and revenue goals.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper advances a research agenda for service researchers at the intersection of healthcare and information technologies to improve access to quality healthcare at affordable prices. The article reviews key trends to provide an agenda for research focusing on strategies, governance and management of key service processes.

This paper synthesizes literature in information systems, service management, marketing and healthcare operations to suggest a research agenda. The authors draw on frameworks such as the interpretive model of technology, technology acceptance model, assemblage theories and Baumol's cost disease to develop their arguments.

The paper situates strategy-related service management questions that service providers and consumers face in the context of emerging healthcare and technology trends. It also derives implications for governance choices and questions related to that.

The paper discusses service management challenges and concludes with an agenda for future research that touches on governance and service management issues.

This paper provides implications for healthcare service providers and policymakers to understand new trends in healthcare delivery, technologies and facilities management to meet evolving customer needs.

This paper provides implications for managing healthcare services that touch on many social and societal concerns.

This conceptual paper provides background and review of the work at the intersections of information systems, marketing and healthcare operations to draw implications for future research.

This article deals with the evolution of customer service practices in grocery products distribution in Brazil (1994‐2001), based on a longitudinal survey of grocery retailers. Data were collected on retailers’ expectations on four relevant dimensions of customer logistics service provided by manufacturers, as well as on their perceptions of logistics service performance of the typical supplier and the best supplier. The evolution of the gaps between retailers’ expectations and manufacturers’ perceived distribution performance was investigated, as well as a trend in terms of an increase or decrease in customer satisfaction with service provided by suppliers in such dimensions. Results indicate that retailers typically tend to be satisfied with the service provided by their suppliers. In addition, there may be an adjustment of distribution performance to expectations of retailers and to the provision, in some cases, of service above customer expectations.

Currently, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) concentrate on developing their employees’ potential to ensure high job performance. Enhancing the perception of efficacy is important to encourage employees to perform their responsibilities with increased self-confidence. Perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing are also significant factors that boost employees’ potential to achieve targets. The purpose of this paper is to examine how self-efficacy (SE) relates both directly and indirectly to employee job performance through perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing.

Empirical data were garnered from a sample of 344 admins working at SMEs in Central Thailand and structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed relationships.

SE had a strong positive influence on employee job performance, perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing, while perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing positively influenced employee job performance. Perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing were considered to be partial mediating factors of SE in the employee job performance model.

This research extends understanding of the relationship between SE and employee job performance. The findings shed light on mediating roles of perceived environmental support and knowledge sharing regarding the relationship between SE and employee job performance.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between personal sense of power (PSP) and compliance as a function of the interaction between negative emotion intensity and emotion regulation tactics.

First, hypotheses linking PSP to different emotional reactions and to different levels of compliance with two types of conflict management styles were formulated. Subsequently, data were collected in three waves with a five-week interval between them to test the hypotheses.

Results based on principle component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that workers with high PSP reported lower internalized negative emotions (negative emotions directed to the self) in the workplace and were less inclined to comply with harsh tactics, in comparison to workers with low PSP. The importance of emotional components (suppression and negative emotions in the workplace) was underscored by the moderated mediation model: internalized negative emotions mediated the association between PSP and compliance with harsh tactics as a function of level of suppression such that the link between negative affect and compliance was negative only under high suppression, but not under low suppression.

The findings point to the deleterious influence of high emotional suppression of negative emotions on study behaviors, especially for employees with a low sense of power. Because the data were collected from a single source, which could raise concerns about common method variance and social desirability bias, future study should examine other-reports.

Recruitment and training of employees and managers should aim to create an open and safe organizational environment that encourages emotional expression and lessens emotional suppression.

The findings can help develop empowering interventional programs to coach employees to use suppression in an adaptive manner.

The current study sheds new light on the relationships between PSP and compliance from the emotion regulation perspective.

The purpose of this study is to extensively explore the vehicular network paradigm, challenges faced by them and provide a reasonable solution for securing these vulnerable networks. Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication has brought the long-anticipated goal of safe, convenient and sustainable transportation closer to reality. The connected vehicle (CV) paradigm is critical to the intelligent transportation systems vision. It imagines a society free of a troublesome transportation system burdened by gridlock, fatal accidents and a polluted environment. The authors cannot overstate the importance of CVs in solving long-standing mobility issues and making travel safer and more convenient. It is high time to explore vehicular networks in detail to suggest solutions to the challenges encountered by these highly dynamic networks.

This paper compiles research on various V2X topics, from a comprehensive overview of V2X networks to their unique characteristics and challenges. In doing so, the authors identify multiple issues encountered by V2X communication networks due to their open communication nature and high mobility, especially from a security perspective. Thus, this paper proposes a trust-based model to secure vehicular networks. The proposed approach uses the communicating nodes’ behavior to establish trustworthy relationships. The proposed model only allows trusted nodes to communicate among themselves while isolating malicious nodes to achieve secure communication.

Despite the benefits offered by V2X networks, they have associated challenges. As the number of CVs on the roads increase, so does the attack surface. Connected cars provide numerous safety-critical applications that, if compromised, can result in fatal consequences. While cryptographic mechanisms effectively prevent external attacks, various studies propose trust-based models to complement cryptographic solutions for dealing with internal attacks. While numerous trust-based models have been proposed, there is room for improvement in malicious node detection and complexity. Optimizing the number of nodes considered in trust calculation can reduce the complexity of state-of-the-art solutions. The theoretical analysis of the proposed model exhibits an improvement in trust calculation, better malicious node detection and fewer computations.

The proposed model is the first to add another dimension to trust calculation by incorporating opinions about recommender nodes. The added dimension improves the trust calculation resulting in better performance in thwarting attacks and enhancing security while also reducing the trust calculation complexity.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to: understand how product markets in a given global region are to be analysed and assessed; assess various dimensions of consumer behaviour that would impact the strategies of a firm under consideration; identify how a firm can create its brand image and value proposition in a given international market; and evaluate and categorize various threat dimensions that a firm would experience in an international market.

Bajaj Auto (BA) was India’s largest two-wheeler exporter, with ongoing exports to more than 75 countries worldwide. Besides being in other regions of the world, BA’s foray into the African market had been very successful, and it was growing from strength to strength in this market. BA’s motorcycles, three-wheeler rickshaws and small commercial vehicles had been successfully plying the roads of many countries in Africa such as Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya.

Rakesh Sharma (Sharma), the Executive Director of BA, knew very well that Africa was a high-risk-high-gain market for BA. Intense competition from Indian and international two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturers, global supply chain and logistics issues, various economic and legal challenges, and the threat of losing African consumer patronage were the challenging issues that Sharma was facing in this market. Would Sharma be able to effectively assess the market environment and consumer behaviour prevalent in the African countries? Would he be able to recognize BA’s brand and value-propositions and identify the international marketing challenges threatening BA’s smooth ride in this market?

The case can be taught in advanced undergraduate, MBA or executive-level programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International Business.

While the significance of principals for the organizational behavior of schools is crucial, school leaders’ influence on school outcomes is indirect and mediated through various means that leaders employ in order to increase the productivity of their school. Although the exercise of power is viewed among the main factors explaining followers’ willingness to comply with leaders’ demands and means to promote school effectiveness, it is rather surprising that the educational administration literature lacks substantial evidence testifying to the mediating effect that principals’ use of various powerbases has on school effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to make an attempt to fill this gap.

Questionnaires were administered to 954 teachers coming from 191 randomly sampled public elementary schools.

Evidence testifying to the relation between leadership styles and use of powerbases suggests that the transformational leadership style is positively related to the use of soft powerbases and negatively related to the use of harsh powerbases. Findings also show that leadership style and powerbase utilization differentiate effective and ineffective schools. Finally, it is evident that soft powerbases such as expertise, personal reward and referent powerbases partially mediate the relation between the transformational leadership style and school effectiveness, moderating the negative relation found between the passive leadership style and school effectiveness.

These findings confirm that powerbases are in fact a mechanism through which school leaders influence school effectiveness. Implications are further discussed.