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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to advance the knowledge of Circular Business Models (BMs) over linear models by focusing on new dynamics which are unique to developing countries and have mostly been overlooked by contemporary literature; and second, to bring to the fore aspects of human-sphere which are currently under-researched in the circular economy (CE) domain. Therefore, the research explores how collaboration can facilitate the transition of a developing country’s economy through the creation of value from circular BMs and human-sphere.

To fulfill the research objectives, the authors apply natural resource-based view (NRBV) theory to an in-depth case study. The authors draw the data from semi-structured interviews and observations in North African manufacturing companies.

It was found that multi-stakeholder collaboration is pertinent in implementing CE, especially in developing countries. Collaboration between companies, focusing on CE BMs, with other companies/SMEs could lead to technology transfer and organizational learning necessary for resource efficiency (RE) and clean technology (CT) – the basis for CE. The authors propose a model for collaboration as an enabler for CE.

The analysis found multi-stakeholder collaboration to be an important antecedent to CE implementation in a developing country context. Furthermore, the authors found multinational companies who implement CE BMs generate a beneficial symbiotic relationship with local businesses. These benefits mainly revolve around technology transfer and organizational learning which is necessary for RE and CT – the basis for CE. Therefore, to advance knowledge and practice in this area, the authors propose a model for collaboration as an enabler for CE.

The authors argue for the importance of collaboration in advancing CE practices which can yield tangible benefits for developing economies.

This paper helps address the lack of theory driven research in CE. The paper is a pioneer in this research field as it proposes a theoretical framework for collaboration in CE drawing on from NRBV.

This paper highlights how biological waste materials can be used for generating the much needed energy and obtaining nutrient-rich compost for agriculture through anaerobic digestion (AD). The paper further highlights the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in using AD for converting waste to energy (WTE), leading to many environmental benefits as well as clean energy generation. It would help to reduce pollution, water acidification and carbon emissions that eventually lead to climate change.

The researchers undertook an in-depth study to highlight the role played by an SME in converting WTE and helping towards achieving circularity. An exploratory case-based approach was used to understand value leakage for an AD plant operating on WTE principles in the UK. The plant is still currently active, and it is located in the Midlands, England. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were undertaken with different stakeholders.

This paper reveals the importance of WTE and the significant role played by AD in converting food waste into useful matter. It reports further into the value leakage issue faced in the AD plants. It demonstrates the importance of technological innovation in SME to capture value leakages in a circular model. Most importantly, it demonstrates how SMEs gain competitive advantage and generate value proposition, while they aim for zero waste to landfill objective.

The research involves a case study based on an SME, operating on a circular business model. It will be worth investigating how other businesses could gain competitive advantage. For SMEs interested in AD for WTE, this paper introduces further technological innovation to the AD process to leverage further potential for reuse of waste liquid. Any SMEs entering WTE market ought to take into consideration such design implications.

The paper reveals how the use of waste by SMEs would lead to many environmental benefits as well as clean energy generation. It would help to reduce pollution, water acidification and carbon emissions that eventually lead to climate change. It is useful for addressing the needs of waste food producers and is a cheap raw material for generating energy. The benefits to the public are that it reduces the need for landfill and increases recycling.

The WTE is an effective way of making use of last-stage waste.

Despite SMEs being the powerhouse of the European economies, there is limited research investigating how circular economy (CE) could unlock their potential. Moreover, development of AD in the UK has lagged behind other EU countries. We highlight value leakages and argue how technological innovation should be used to close the value chain loop in the WTE production process. This paper, therefore, demonstrates the important role of an AD process, which involves decomposition of biodegradable materials. It shows that AD is an economically viable and environmentally friendly process of obtaining clean energy at low cost.

Individuals often look up to external influencers (leaders) that determine their conduct and form their perception regarding organizational policies and practices which constitute their organizational climate. The importance of organizational climate has been realized off late in various job outcomes among doctors, such as commitment, turnover, etc. Therefore this study aims to investigate the relationship of ethical leadership with organizational climate that may further affect the commitment of doctors in Indian hospitals.

An empirical study has been done in 10 public and private Indian hospitals using a questionnaire survey. Data were collected from a sample of 537 doctors, which were further analyzed statistically using structural equation modeling (SEM) through AMOS and SPSS software.

The results show a significant influence of ethical leadership on organizational climate and organizational climate further has significant relationship with commitment of doctors in Indian hospitals.

The study has important implication for hospital administration, to identify and place an ethical leadership team at the top, which will further influence the behavior of the followers (doctors). This will further lead to formation of favorable organizational climate fostering commitment in doctors.

This is one of the few studies that determines the relationship of ethical leadership with organizational climate and it's further influence on commitment of doctors in large (500 beds and above) public and private hospitals in Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the prediction of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) using X-ray image.

This study proposed convolutional neural network (CNN) approach to predict COVID-19.

Prediction of COVID-19 using CNN.

The work has implemented multiple CNN models to classify chest X-ray of affected patients by using their chest scans. According to three models, the ResNet-50 is advantageous because of its high service reliability.

Using the case of women home-based workers in India and the aspirations they have for their children, this chapter argues that aspirations across generations can reveal constraints and conflicts of current social positions. As workers in the informal economy, women’s work experiences are shaped by a matrix of oppression shaped by gender, class, caste, and religion. Yet, resistance to this work only became apparent when discussing hopes for their children’s future. It was in these articulations of aspirations that women stressed the exploitative characteristics of their work and their wish for their children to avoid these same experiences.

The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in India has always been characterized by ungodly hours, monotonous job, low perceived value, dispirited efficiency resulting to high attrition level. Notwithstanding the ever rising attrition rate, it has become critical for the companies to satisfy their employees in order to retain them. The purpose of this paper is to determine what and how job‐related and demographic variables are associated with employee satisfaction of the BPO employees.

Data collected from 500 middle level BPO employees was analyzed using SPSS 16.0. T‐tests and Duncan's post hoc tests were done to compare the various dimensions of employee satisfaction across selected demographic variables such as gender, marital status, education, age and tenure. Correlation was done to find out the relationship between employee satisfaction and various job characteristics as well as demographic variables and finally, regression was done to find out the actual determinants of employee satisfaction.

There is difference of perception towards the job‐related variables on the basis of gender, marital status, education, age, and tenure. Correlations revealed that interpersonal relationships, career progression, salary, company policies, working conditions, and authority have significant positive relationship with employee satisfaction and only accountability had a significant negative relationship with employee satisfaction. Regression revealed the significant determinants of employee satisfaction which were interpersonal relationships, career progression, salary, gender, accountability, and authority.

The study exclusively used surveys to poll work‐related satisfaction from the employees working only in BPO in India and considers only ten job‐related variables and five demographic variables for the study.

The comprehensive study of employee satisfaction is helpful for both practitioners and academicians as it helps in disentangling the perceptions about employee satisfaction and also explains the variances among various groups of demographic characteristics. This will enable organizations to correctly gauge employee satisfaction based on the job‐related and demographic characteristics.

Now that the study has revealed the dimensions of employee satisfaction and the crucial determinants of satisfaction, each of these factors can be individually tackled to ensure employee retention.

The present study illuminates the existing theoretical foundations regarding employee satisfaction by exploring the detailed and ample responses provided by BPO employees in Indian industry; this can help practitioners to make robust managerial decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the new kind of investors – women entrepreneurs – and to find out the factors that drive their investment behaviour and investment decisions.

The approach of qualitative enquiry was used for the research in which 18 in-depth exploratory interviews were conducted to identify the determinants of the investment behaviour shown by women entrepreneurs, a growing segment in investment. The accumulated data was analysed using open coding.

The research show that women entrepreneurs consider investment as a long-term instrument are risk averse and quite conservative. They are willing to take risks in business but not for making investment decisions. The reasons for this low-risk behaviour include lack of time to understand investments and lack of knowledge about various products. The research asserts that if they spend time to be informed about the nuances of investment instruments, they are likely to take risks for their investments as well. The interviews also reflect that women entrepreneurs often mimic the investment behaviour of their parents.

The sample for this research was taken from only two cities in India and a broader research in other cities as well will expand the understanding of investment behaviours demonstrated by women entrepreneurs. The differences in women entrepreneurs’ investment behaviour due to culture and ethnicity of the respondent are also not considered.

The outcomes of the research will help the investment manager to get a better insight into the psychology of women entrepreneurs as investors. This will help them develop personalized and relevant portfolio recommendations. Second, the findings will help service providers to develop training modules for their investment advisors by sensitizing them to needs and wants of women entrepreneurs as potential investors. Third, the research will be of interest for policymakers and researchers to understand the determinants of personal investment decision-making amongst women entrepreneurs. Finally, it will help women entrepreneurs understand and mitigate their biases while taking investment decisions. It will lead them to take wiser investment decisions, thereby reducing the risk and maximizing opportunities of returns.

The research will provide opportunities for enhancing gender equality amongst investors. This can be achieved by educating the investment advisors on the traits and preferences of women entrepreneurs as investors. Designing and delivering specific workshops on investment awareness for women entrepreneurs can also be accomplished based on the findings of this research.

To the researcher’s best knowledge, the investment behaviour of women entrepreneurs in India has been little investigated. This study appears to be the first qualitative research attempt in that direction. This paper will be useful in understanding the behavioural biases by women entrepreneurs in considering their personal investment decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of transformational leadership on employee creativity through psychological empowerment, creative process engagement and intrinsic motivation.

Data were collected from 420 employees at 21 telecommunications enterprises in Vietnam directly by questionnaire survey. Statistical methods, such as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model (SEM), were used to analyze the data.

This paper shows that transformational leadership indirectly affects employee creativity through the mediating variables. Transformational leadership has a positive relationship with psychological empowerment. Psychological empowerment has a proportional relationship with both creative process engagement and intrinsic motivation. Creative process engagement and intrinsic motivation have been shown to have positive effects with the employee creativity.

The main limitation of this paper is that the study only explores the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity through a number of the mediating variables.

The telecommunications industry is an industry that requires constant innovation, so managers need to aim for a leadership style that promotes employee creativity. Therefore, transformational leadership is a style that should be considered during the appointing and recruiting.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by focusing on understanding the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity in telecommunications enterprises in an Asian country with an emerging economy like Vietnam.

The main impetus of the current paper is to identify and prioritize the work–family balance (WFB) satisfaction attributes specifically for working sole mothers' by deploying the Kano technique and weighted average method.

A multi-stage methodology has been used in the present analysis. Initially, the Kano method has been utilized to categorize the WFB satisfaction attributes using a three-dimensional WFB satisfaction scale. Afterward, the satisfaction coefficient technique was employed on Kano outcomes to get the WFB satisfaction and dissatisfaction index. Subsequently, the weighted average method was employed to prioritize the WFB satisfaction attributes.

Findings uncovered the significance of a non-linear association between WFB attributes and employed sole mothers' WFB satisfaction. The findings revealed that one-dimensional and must-be-based WFB satisfaction attributes are responsible for sole mothers' WFB satisfaction and employing organizations must not overlook them. Additionally, the results of weighted average method-based prioritization can help organizations to focus on particular WFB satisfaction criteria according to their priority level.

The findings are useful for WFB policy-makers and managers to formulate a suitable WFB strategy specifically for single mothers.

Results provide a path for employers to minimize the work–family role conflict and societal dissatisfaction that helps sole mothers to attain the desired WFB.

This study first employed a novel approach that incorporates the Kano application with the weighted average method in order to prioritize the WFB satisfaction attributes for lone mothers.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0074

Purpose branding is a concept that has gained momentum in recent years. It is a marketing innovation that has the potential to change why and how companies work. Still, academic research on purpose branding is scarce. This paper aims to increase awareness about purpose branding and showcase how it can be implemented successfully through account of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL).

The study is based on qualitative research and case analysis of HUL by examining its published reports, its parent company’s trade publications, press articles and relevant studies in indexed journals.

Purpose branding is a marketing innovation that delivers increased value to all stakeholders. The account of HUL reveals that purpose branding reaps economic rewards for the organization.

A study by Havas Media group involving 300,000 customers across 33 countries found that the customers would not care if 74% of brands in the world disappeared. In such a context, purpose branding provides a way to make the brand meaningful and play a worthy role in consumers’ lives. HUL’s brands that used this approach grew by 69% and accounted for 75% of its overall growth, showing how other organizations can imbibe it into their brands.

Despite many trade publications on this trending topic, there is limited academic research on purpose branding. This paper focuses on understanding this concept and demonstrates its successful use by an organization.