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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.

Innovation is considered as an important tool to succeed and survive in periods of great uncertainty such as COVID-19 crisis. This paper aims to empirically examine the propensity to engage in product, process and organizational innovation under uncertainty among small and medium enterprises and how that propensity varies depending on the gender of the manager.

Using the results of 213 responses by managers of Armenian small and medium enterprises in the scope of GLOBE-2020 survey, the authors investigate the role of manager’s gender in encouraging innovative attitude under uncertainty. To measure the relationship between uncertainty and innovation (product, process and organizational), Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated between managers’ perception about the uncertainty and their perceptions of innovation within their companies compared to the players in the external environment. In addition, a linear regression was run between the three innovation types and uncertainty.

The results of our analysis confirmed the positive relationship between uncertainty and innovation. Moreover, our results indicate that male managers have a higher tendency to undertake innovation under external turbulence.

This study fills the gap in the literature by studying the relationship between uncertainty and innovation, focusing on SMEs during adversarial times, which in contrast to bigger companies are limited in terms of their resources and, hence, capacity to innovate. The paper examines the gender dimension as an internal factor affecting innovation under uncertainty in an under-researched country context of Armenia, where female entrepreneurs deal with unique challenges to engage in innovative activities.

This study is based on the consumer purchase intention (CPI) in real estate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between CPI and preferred individual investment capacity in buying real estate properties. This study investigates if commonly known factors of CPI such as attitude, social power or subjective norms, perceived behavior power or control, location, surrounding environment and socialization can influence a consumer’s preferred investment amount when buying a house, either for own use or for rental purpose.

A total of 334 respondents participated in this study. The survey data was analyzed using factor analysis technique, ordinary least square technique and Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood technique.

This study finds that location, surrounding environment, property/construction papers, roads, mosque/temple and fire services significantly influence the preferred investment amount of a real estate investor.

This study suggests that a link exists between CPI and real estate investment decision through factors such as location, surrounding environment, legal documentation and communication facility. These identified CPI factors require serious consideration by the real estate developers and their financing partners.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the role of entrepreneurship, in general, and women entrepreneurship, in particular, in advancing the cause of sustainable development. Future research directions that emerge from the body of knowledge that the paper relied upon have been identified. Second, it presents unique cases of eight women-led enterprises in energy sector spread across three continents, namely, Asia, Africa and the USA; identifies the constraints and opportunities, analyses the business models and their impact on the quality of life pointers to demonstrate the role of women-led enterprises in sustainable development.

The paper combines a schematic review of literature at the interface of entrepreneurship and sustainable development coupled with select relevant case studies addressing the interface. The real-life case studies, which are consciously chosen and compiled from secondary data sources, complement and testify the insights drawn from the schematic literature review. The framework for analyzing the case studies is designed around multidimensional drivers and factors that steer the women-led enterprises.

The paper identified the need to look at entrepreneurship through the gendered lens not only for studying entrepreneurship as a discipline, in general, but also to gauge whether the inclusion of women as entrepreneurs is actually advancing the cause of sustainable development. Besides analyzing real-life case studies of accomplished women entrepreneurs to gauge their motivations and mindsets, the process of identification of pain points, identifying differentiating and innovative features, or studying the impact on society, economy and environment, the paper eventually created a schematic framework of key enablers, constraints and strategic response of women entrepreneurs.

Given the dearth of adequate theoretical and empirical contributions on the study of effectuation, mindsets and drivers of how women entrepreneurship steers the process of sustainable development, the paper is an endeavour in that direction.

Zyne is a mid-sized Delhi-based firm engaged in the home linen business under the company’s brand name. Raman was the Managing Director of Zyne. In 2019, Prashanth the head of the second-best region (West) quit abruptly without grooming a successor. Prashanth’s team consisted of greenhorn executives whom he recruited from colleges. Raman has options of selecting a replacement for Prashanth from within the organization. Two candidates are in the reckoning, namely, Amit and Neha. Amit was 48 years old, a veteran in the business and associated with the Zyne group for over 15 years. He was a top sales performer in the Central region and was interested in relocating to the West. Twenty-seven-year-old Neha was industrious, talented and creative. Within three years of joining Zyne, she had proven herself as a go-getter with remarkable ability to develop strong channel partner relations. Raman had to decide whom to select from among the two or go for an outsider from the industry. Raman has to contend with selection issues related to insider vs an outsider. If one of the internal candidates is chosen how could he motivate the other to continue to perform and deliver? The case focuses on the challenges of recruitment of a Sales Manager (SM) in a small home furnishing business. Use of competency framing to validate the candidates is the high point of the case

By the end of case discussion participants should be able to understand the following: differentiate skills required in a sales leadership role as compared to that of a sales executive; evaluate the pros and cons of internal promotions versus hiring an outsider; apply the concept of competency framework to evaluate different candidates vying for the same position; and understand how a candidate not selected for the position understands the reasons thereof to enable improvements.

Started in 2010, Zyne Furnishings headquartered at Delhi, was in the business of selling home furnishings. Raman, a second-generation entrepreneur was Zyne’s Managing Partner. With help from his father Rajesh Gupta, Raman worked toward expanding Zyne’s business operations in India. Raman was facing a challenge because of the abrupt resignation of Prashanth, the Western Region SM. Prashant had done well in the region and assiduously built Zyne brand’s presence there. As Raman pondered over the ways of filling up the SM position, questions confronted him for which he did not have immediate answers. He had 30 days in which a replacement must be finalized. Raman looked at the file containing the applications of the two internal candidates, namely, Amit (Southern region) and Neha (Western region) who had applied for the position. What evaluation process should he adopt to ensure an objective assessment is done before deciding on which of the two candidates fit the bill? Given that it was the first week of January 2020 and the year-end targets had to be met by March, Raman knew time was running out. He had to take a quick call. Use of competency mapping to evaluate candidates is a high point of the case. This case can be used to enhance the participants understanding of the challenges of identifying the right candidate for a senior position and weigh the pros and cons associated with the selection. Motivating the rejected internal candidate through the procedural justice system adds value to the case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

School-based nutrition education programmes have the potential to reinforce healthy dietary behaviours in adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to understand the views of secondary school students in Kolkata, India, regarding the food and nutrition curriculum, food skill acquisition at school and home and barriers to learning food skills.

The sample of 1,026 year nine students was drawn from nine private, English-speaking secondary schools in Kolkata, India to participate in a cross-sectional, self-reported paper-based survey. Data analyses including descriptive statistics and χ² analyses were performed.

The majority of the respondents (65.3 per cent) were female. Biology, Home Science and Life skills classes were the main places in which students acquired food and nutrition knowledge. Almost two-thirds of the respondents acknowledged the importance of acquiring food-related knowledge and skills. Approximately half (48.3 per cent) reported that the food and nutrition curriculum involved excessive memorisation while around the same proportion described the curriculum as interesting (47 per cent) and easy to comprehend (50.3 per cent). However, relatively few students said they enjoyed attending food and nutrition classes (38.7 per cent). Only a minority reported receiving food skills training, i.e. cooking skills (23 per cent), meal planning skills and food purchasing skills (12.3 per cent) at school. Despite some parental support received at home, time constraints (50.5 per cent) and lack of interest (26.3 per cent) were cited as prominent barriers to learning food skills.

These data underscore the need for a skills-focussed food and nutrition curriculum to improve Indian adolescents’ food-related skills, nutritional knowledge and dietary behaviours.

This is the first cross-sectional survey to investigate the delivery of nutrition education and food skills in the Indian school context.

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is a rich source of nutrients as compared to the major cultivated cereal crops. However, major factors which limit its utilization are the presence of anti-nutritional factors (phytate, tannins and polyphenols) which lower availability of minerals and poor keeping quality because of higher lipase activity. Therefore, this paper aims to focus on the impact of different processing methods on the nutrient composition and anti-nutritional components of pearl millet.

This is a literature review study from 1983 to 2017, focusing on studies related to pearl millet processing and their effectiveness in the enrichment of nutritional value through reduction of anti-nutritional compounds.

From the literature reviewed, pearl millet processing through various methods including milling, malting, fermentation, blanching and acid as well as heat treatments were found to be effective in achieving the higher mineral digestibility, retardation of off flavor, bitterness as well as rancidity problems found during storage of flour.

Through this review paper, possible processing methods and their impact on the nutrient and anti-nutrient profile of pearl millet are discussed after detailed studied of literature from journal articles and thesis.