Search results

The purpose of this exploratory study is to look at how the Internet was used by political parties and candidates during the Indian parliamentary elections of 2009.

A total of 31 web sites belonging to political parties and their candidates in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were examined for how they were used to mobilize volunteers and voters. An online questionnaire and in‐depth interviews were administered to the web site coordinators/designers and politicians.

The study found that sites were not used to their maximum potential but instead, merely for publicity, online presence, and to explore the new medium. There was greater reliance by most candidates on traditional media such as rallies and face‐to‐face interaction. The reason may be due to the limited Internet penetration in India, which also means the Internet may have less influence on voters. Some candidates have shown the way to the potential use of the medium for fund raising and recruiting volunteers. But Indian politicians will likely continue to be cautious in using the Internet.

This study was limited to the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat and did not consider the impact or the effectiveness of the Internet.

This is the first such study of the use of web sites for electioneering in India. It also documents the development in the use of the new medium for campaigning in 2009 as compared with the elections of 2004.

Prisoners are at a higher risk of HIV infection compared to the general population. The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of HIV and related risk behaviours among inmates of the Central Prisons in four states of North India.

The HIV sentinel surveillance was conducted in seven Central Prisons in four states of North India from February to April 2019. Four hundred inmates were included from each prison. The interviews were conducted at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre located within the prison premises. The Ethics Committee of the National AIDS Control Organization, New Delhi, granted ethical approval before the start of the surveillance.

Overall, 2,721 inmates were enrolled in this study. The mean (SD) age was 38.9 (13.9) years. One-third of prison inmates had comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The proportion of convict (54%) and undertrial (46%) inmates was almost equal. The overall prevalence of HIV infection among inmates was 0.96% (95% CI 0.65–1.40). The odds of being HIV positive were significantly higher in never married inmates, undertrials, inmates who were in the prison for more than three months to one year, inmates incarcerated for multiple times, inmates with history of injecting drug use and inmates with history of intercourse with a commercial sex worker.

The findings from the very first HIV sentinel surveillance in central prisons in North India have been presented in this paper. This has huge implications for future policy decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate enablers, barriers and vignettes of South Asian women leaders and possible paths to increase the influence and leadership of women in South Asia.

Navratna, the nine precious gems of ancient Indian literature are used to frame reflections on South Asian women leaders, and the Global Gender Gap Report of 2015 is used to give context to five barriers and five enablers to women’s leadership in the region. Illustrative vignettes of South Asian women in leadership roles are presented. These vignettes have been selected based on a case study approach of South Asian women leaders.

Five enablers that may help empower women towards greater leadership and influence are proposed: involving men in what should change, greater economic participation by women, supportive family, country- and context-specific leadership training, and finally grassroots advocacy, mentoring and role models.

The paper shines new light on women leaders whose sparking excellence in their specific field illuminate paths for others to follow and thus contributes to promoting research on multifaceted women leaders in South-Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to present multiple case studies of women in leadership roles in India with a view to identifying inhibitors, facilitators and the strategies adopted by them to mitigate the challenges in their odyssey to these positions. The paper contributes to the pivotal subject of under-representation of women in apex positions, which has garnered the attention of researchers in recent years grappling with the identification of the underlying causes. Thus, with a view to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions, a greater understanding of this phenomenon is called for.

The paper adopts exploratory case study method using multiple case studies. Empirical data were gathered using in-depth semi-structured interviews and personality test (NEO FFI) from women in leadership positions. The qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis.

The analysis of data has led to the identification of challenges faced by the women that were categorised as personal, professional, organisational and social issues. Further, six themes emerged as the strategies adopted by the women leaders to overcome the challenges. The paper also highlights the critical social, behavioural and organisational facilitators that played an important role in their leadership journey. The paper also includes context-specific findings of women leaders from Indian industry.

The paper would have relevance for researchers and practitioners in the field of gender diversity, leadership, organisational behaviour and human resource management. The findings of this paper can be leveraged by organisations to retain and manage female talent, which is a focal area in the present dynamic business environment, when a need for gender diversity is widely acknowledged by the top management in organisations. The exploratory case studies provide vistas for gender-based context-specific and cross-cultural research on the challenges faced by women executives in their leadership journey and the strategies adopted to mitigate these.

Though a great deal has been written about the barriers to women’s career advancement, less is known about the facilitators of women’s advancement. Also, women in the Asian context face unique challenges which present a major problem for multinational companies whose hopes for growth are pinned on emerging markets. The paper has identified new emergent themes, which have not been mentioned in the extant literature nationally or globally. The findings provide inputs to companies to adopt policies and practices to facilitate gender equality in leadership. The paper bridges the knowledge gap and makes conceptual contributions for future research.

The primary objective of the present study was to design and develop a model to identify the antecedents and consequences of user satisfaction with digital libraries.

The theoretical framework of this study was based on information system success theory, technology acceptance model (TAM), media affinity theory, satisfaction-loyalty theory and engagement theory. In so doing, eight hypothesized relationships were formulated to develop the conceptual model. The study approach was quantitative. Using simple random sampling technique, a total of 409 Iranian students participated in the study and responded to the survey. Descriptive and inferential data analysis was also performed using SPSS and SmartPLS3 software.

The results showed that the generic usability of digital library and the quality of digital resources could be used as a functional theoretical framework to predict and understand the factors contributing to user satisfaction in the domain of digital library. Increasing user satisfaction with digital library may have implications including recommending the digital library to others, the digital library reusing as well as the digital library engaging and integrating with them. It should be noted that system quality, service quality, and information quality are important factors in the formation of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and digital libraries' affinity.

This study is the first attempt to empirically evaluate the antecedents and consequences of the user satisfaction with digital library presenting a new model. The model presented in this study can be used in future research as well. Also, this study has eloquently expanded the theories of user satisfaction with digital libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to validate the conceptual model that presents the determinants of Tier 2 consumer’s online shopping attitude and the interrelationships among the constructs across the three Tier 2 cities in India.

The paper uses survey-based data from three Tier 2 cities of North India – Kota, Agra and Jalandhar and uses a combination of statistical techniques to assess psychometric properties of the scales and conduct the measurement and structural invariance.

The findings of the paper reveals that technology readiness, consumer innovativeness, fondness for branded products and perceived brand unavailability act as determinants of online shopping attitude and there is a positive relationship between online shopping attitude and online purchase intention among Tier 2 consumers in India while perceived offline hedonic value do not have any significant impact.

Future researchers can use this model with additional confidence given its cross-segment robustness.

Online marketers can use the antecedents identified in this study to develop and encourage positive online shopping attitude in small town India.

This research paper is the first one that investigated online shopping attitudes of Indian Tier 2 consumers. Importantly, it validated the determinants of online shopping attitude among Tier 2 consumers. National and international e-tailers aiming to develop and expand their operations to India now have the critical empirical verification concerned with the determinants of online shopping attitude and behaviour in India which would be meaningful to develop a sound marketing strategy.

This paper aims to identify and model barriers to internationalising automotive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from emerging market perspectives using the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach.

In this paper, 13 critical barriers are identified through an exhaustive literature review and the Delphi method. The ISM tool is then used to establish interrelationships among the identified barriers to expose and discuss the key barriers having high-driving power.

It was found that barriers such as trade agreements and export documentation, exchange rates and material inadequacies were relatively less challenging than the other barriers. At the next level, there are barriers such as supply chain, high international quality standards, legal barriers, skilled labour marketing capacity and information and logistics and infrastructure. Finally, barriers such as government policies, entrepreneurial orientation and technology and finance availability posed the most significant challenge for the internationalisation of Indian SMEs. These barriers warrants immediate and considerable attention.

This study developed a model based on experts’ opinions, which may be biased and influence the final model as proposed in this study. This research will help the owners/managers of the SMEs and policymakers identify and understand the significance and relevance of automotive sector barriers while strategizing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time an attempt has been made to apply ISM methodology to explore the interdependencies among the critical barriers of internationalisation for SMEs of Indian automotive industries. This study will guide the owner–managers management practices to overcome ineffective practices and move towards successful internationalisation.

This paper aims to focus on how home-grown Indian companies explored the potential of Indian middle class and realized an opportunity to seize the market gap not catered by MNCs in India. Across three distinct business contexts, the authors describe the companies’ procedures of developing segment-specific offerings. Doing so, the authors outline novel strategies implemented by these companies to cater to specific needs of the segments.

Seizing Bandura’s (1986) framework that stresses on the role of cognitive, vicarious, self-reflective and self-regulatory processes, the authors develop a four-layered model of the Indian middle class consumers. Building upon this model, they took multiple case (three caselets) approach for illustrating the strategies of home-grown companies. The authors identify their potential to explore the unknown terrains of various market segments and rework with unique local solutions.

The study highlights the power of home-grown companies over MNCs in terms of better market understanding and realistic offerings best suited to their needs. Across the divergent business contexts the companies’ strategies have four features in common: customer targeting and developing; localization of business models, particularly services; relating the products to the Indian society; and ethnocentrism and pride.

This study gives priority to a “thick” description of the proceedings without claiming causality. The authors limit this qualitative investigation to pinpointing congruence and contradictions to previous established results.

A key implication of this paper is the relevance of linking firm’s strategy to social-psychological development of customers in emerging economies component. This study provides critical insights for both managers and policymakers on the economic and social upswing as socially responsible and ethical practices are likely to gain public awareness.

The study’s originality springs from understanding the domestic company’s strategies when facing the pressure of (mainly Western) MNCs entering the emerging economies markets. While the latter takes advantage of economies of scale, country of origin effects and the powerful brands, the home-grown businesses are forced to develop divergent advantages and capabilities. Notably, earlier literature focused on changed demand pattern brought by MNCs in emerging economies and not on later part whereby, home-grown companies carve a space for themselves with specially designed improved products and innovative strategies.

A new approach in the field of renewable energy is- the microbial fuel cells (MFCs). It is a technique to produce bioelectricity from available organic waste. It is helpful to fulfill the lighting requirements of rural areas. The aim of our research work is to construct twocompartment system and to study various parameters like performance of the different combination of electrodes, optimization of pH and temperature. In this study, using bacteria as biocatalyst, the naturally found cow dung was used to generate an open circuit voltage of 0.84 ± 0.010 V and a current of 3.51 ± 0.620 mA. Optimization of various parameters shows that among different temperature range, 37°C temperature gives the highest voltage production of 0.84 ± 0.091 V and current of 3.08 ± 0.512 mA. In case of pH there are not any significant changes were found when pH range is changed. Although, pH 4.0 is found to be more efficient as it produces voltage of 0.90 ± 0.045 V and current of 4.85 ± 0.587 mA. Furthermore, three electrogenic bacterial strains were isolated and studied for their electrogenic properties individually and among them CDB-3 was found best in their performance.

With the growth in internet technology, the competition between the e-commerce firms has become fierce. This has forced these online vendors to consider customer-centric strategies apart from the retail strategies for generating revenue. The purpose of this paper is to propose a structural model to study the interrelationship between a formative endogenous latent variable (LV), i.e. e-commerce success, and other LVs representing the customer-oriented success factors such as website service quality (WSQ), customer support system (CSS), personalization and electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM).

The authors develop a structural model to validate the determinants of electronic commerce success. Survey-based data obtained from 265 respondents are used to validate the model hypotheses. To analyze the data, partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is performed using smartPLS 2.0 software. The results on the interrelationships between the constructs are determined using path analysis.

The data analysis results infer the impact of these success factors on e-commerce success systems. After applying bootstrapping technique, the authors observed that WSQ, CSS, personalization and EWOM have a significant positive effect on e-commerce system success (ESS). Further studies can be performed considering mobile commerce and their critical success factors.

The findings of the study emphasize on the importance of these four exogenous variables for e-businesses in order to achieve a competitive edge over their competitors. The study provides a detailed managerial implication with respect to each causal relationship, so as to suggest some remedial measures to gain customer market.

Here, the authors consider an empirical model which shows the determinants of ESS. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a distinctive system success framework is modeled considering a unique combination of exogenous variables not considered by previous studies.