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Introduction: The world is passing through a technology explosion phase where one technology is being replaced by another very quickly. Emerging technologies play more important roles in the insurance sector directly or indirectly. These technologies have a high potential to change the insurance paradigm.

Purpose: In this chapter, we discuss emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, blockchain, the internet of things (IoT), mobile technology, predictive analytics, social media, telematics, chatbots, low codes, and drones in the context of the insurance industry.

Methodology: To carry out our analysis, we searched for data using the keywords for each technology from the Web of Science (WoS) coral database. Certain inclusion and exclusion criteria were followed to select the articles for further analysis. R-studio was used for the data analysis and visualisation.

Findings: It was found that the highest number of research articles published are related to big data, followed by AI and social media. The first article on AI in insurance appeared in 1975. Social media is the highest cited new technology, whereas the low codes are the undiscovered paradigm for the insurance sector with no published research. Research on the impact of chatbots, drones, and mobile technology in the insurance industry is still at a nascent stage. We also noticed that the United States is leading the research on emerging technologies in the insurance sector.

Implications: This chapter audits the emerging technologies in the insurance sector and identifies technological areas with the highest, least, or no research, dominant journals, authors, and countries. This holistic overview empowers managers and academicians to decide the future course of action.

Ample literature is available on the impact of socio-cultural and political conditions on corporate social responsibility (CSR), but the reverse has not been adequately studied. COVID-19 pandemic disrupted humankind and business, but CSR was resilient. COVID-19, an unprecedented crisis, developed into a disaster but had some positives too. In fact, it championed the businesses' role and relationships between businesses and regulators, society, stakeholders, environment at large. Some available literature analyses how CSR metamorphosised itself and disrupted and converged into all similar and associated phenomenon like philanthropy, charity, governance, sustainability, and as a regular business activity. The present research uses mixed methods to analyse the CSR data published by the government of India during COVID-19 years and refer to the firms' disclosures in the CSR reports. Findings offer a nuanced input to the understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on CSR by studying it in a regulated environment where firms emerged as responsible corporate citizens attending to the needs of all the stakeholders. Firms acts of responsibility transcended law and contributed in form of funds (PM relief funds) and other necessary health equipment like PPE kits, oxygen cylinders, masks, sanitizers, vaccines, etc. Interestingly, the government amended the law to include contributions to COVID-19 mitigation as a part of CSR. While the current study is based on a data from a limited time, it lays a ground for future studies analysing the nature of shift (short term or long term) and how changes have impacted the policies (public and organisational policies).

Purpose: This chapter explores the two major schemes applicable to skill development in India: Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY).

Need for the Study: The primary objective of this research is to check the role of these schemes in enhancing the skills of socio-economically stressed community members for their livelihoods. The secondary aim is to analyse the outcomes of these schemes through a qualitative inquiry.

Methodology: A survey was conducted, and the data was collected from trainees of the skill development programmes. Based on the responses, a qualitative content analysis was performed, which showed that most trainees have the thirst and urge to enhance their life skills for a minimalistic livelihood.

Findings: The study concluded that though there are many schemes, only PMKVY is active. They focus on more than just youth communities. Instead, they consider individuals in different age categories.

Practical Implications: The Government of India (GOI) is progressing towards a healthy economy to compete with other countries. For this mission to be achieved, skill and labour development is paramount. Appropriate training must be provided and administrated through government schemes.

Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.

The study aims to study the extent of research done in luxury marketing in an emerging economy like India by conducting a bibliometric analysis. A period of 21 years has been considered to present a comprehensive picture for results and analysis. Key findings indicate the gaps and scope of further research for academics in India and abroad. The findings indicate a dearth of research by scholars and academicians in luxury, counterfeit and masstige, especially when there is a surge of the upper middle class in India. More specifically, Indian-grown luxury brands also present a massive scope for future research.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

We investigate the effect of distance – political, economic, cultural and spatial, on developed-economy multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) ownership decisions in cross-border (CB) acquisitions. We start with the premise that distance discourages full and majority ownership in CB acquisitions, and further investigate the moderating role of distance-reducing factors. We examine how the relationship between distance and acquisition ownership decision is moderated by firm-specific characteristics, such as firm size, general international experience, and specific host country experience. Our data sample consists of 1,041 CB acquisitions under taken by Finnish MNEs in 58 countries during the time period 1990–2010. We find substantial support for all our hypotheses and conclude that the negative effects of distance on CB acquisition equity stake are positively moderated by the three firm-specific resources but their individual importance is conditional on the host country type (developed or emerging).