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Traditional artisans are the worst victims of globalisation and corporate entry into their local economy and hand-driven production processes. For their rehabilitation, protection, preservation and promotion of cultural heritage, embedded, inter alia, in the built environment, a suitable framework need to be crafted within the broad domain of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) envisaged under The Indian Companies Act, 2013. Conceived in the above backdrop, the study attempts to situate traditional artisans as stakeholders worthy of development interventions under CSR. For want of studies and notable interventions in the above context, few small CSR cases are reviewed and a number of worthwhile areas of interventions are proposed in terms of a wish list, drawn from the socio, economic, educational, employment and cultural milieu of traditional artisans. It is found that they come under the discretionary category of stakeholders, who possess the attribute of legitimacy, but they have no power to influence the firms and no urgent claims. The study points to the necessity for establishing a National Artisans’ Rehabilitation and Development Fund, besides artisan-friendly sharpening of the schedule of CSR activities in the Indian context.

The global economic fallout following the unexpected onset and rapid spread of COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, in early 2020, has necessitated international and national action plans towards new normal models of realignment in enterprise bottom-line and management. In 2020, ‘Supporting Small Business through the COVID-19 Crisis’ was declared the lead theme of the MSME Day – June 27 – by the UN. A ‘COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs’ was launched by an affiliate of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Drawing inspiration from the ‘small business’ focus of the UN MSME Day declaration and the ‘social entrepreneurship’ perspective of the WEF, the study seeks to draw few perceptions and conclusions in the post-COVID economic recovery context of India, where Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are observed to be a key driver of development, thanks to an add-on supportive package in the wake of the COVID-19 economic crisis. It is found that the package fails to provide a direct push for promotion of social enterprises/entrepreneurship in the Indian MSME sector, as there is no focused policy approach on leveraging ‘entrepreneurship resources’. Hence, the general trend of the sector continues to be dominated by the ‘for-profit first’ concern rather than a fair blend of ‘social value creation first’, with ‘profit’. Discourse on social entrepreneurship and action-oriented rehabilitation tools proposed in the Covid context globally have failed to reorient the dominant outlook of social enterprises in India – business as a tool for achieving social impact – to social impact as a spontaneous/positive outcome from business. The study highlights the lapses on the ground, of theoretical formulations, despite their couching in Covid contexts, and the need for a more institutionalised enabling environment for social value creation, impact investment and social stock exchange in the social enterprise ecosystem.

As numerous scholars have noted, the law takes a strikingly incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. States overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. This chapter argues that this oft-noted contradiction in the law on teenage reproductive decision-making is in fact not as contradictory as it first appears. A closer look at the law’s apparently conflicting approaches to teenage abortion and teenage childbirth exposes common ground that scholars have overlooked. The chapter compares the full spectrum of minors’ reproductive rights and unmasks deep similarities in the law on adolescent reproduction – in particular an undercurrent of desire to punish (female) teenage sexuality, whether pregnant girls choose abortion or childbirth. It demonstrates that in practice, the law undermines adolescents’ reproductive rights, whichever path of pregnancy resolution they choose. At the same time that the law thwarts adolescents’ access to abortion care, it also fails to protect adolescents’ rights as parents. The analysis shows that these two superficially conflicting sets of rules in fact work in tandem to enforce a traditional gender script – that self-sacrificing mothers should give birth and give up their infants to better circumstances, no matter the emotional costs to themselves. This chapter also suggests novel policy solutions to the difficulties posed by adolescent reproduction by urging reforms that look to third parties other than parents or the State to better support adolescent decision-making relating to pregnancy and parenting.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a model of hierarchical manpower systems which follow proportionality policies in recruitment and promotion of their staff, ostensibly with a view to safeguard the career interests of their existing employees.

The manpower systems are modeled as Markov systems, and their inherent characteristics and long‐term behavior are studied.

Significantly it is shown that such proportionality systems do not compromise on flexibility in the long term, and can also provide an additional means of controlling the blend of manpower in the system. The theoretical results were tested with real‐world data, and a good degree of conformity was observed between the theoretical predictions and the actually observed behaviour.

The model can also be applied to organizations which outsource a part of their work, the outsource workforce being notionally being considered as recruits to the system.

Outsourcing of work is being practiced on an ever‐increasing scale nowadays, and becoming, at times, even controversial, and as a consequence, an increasing number of organizations are resorting to protectionist policies; the model in this paper provides a theoretical framework in which to view and analyze this phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how project managers, influence the assignment of project team members by directly assigning or specifying who they want or by indirectly using lateral influence strategies to secure the appropriate resources. This study is part of a wider study investigating the balance between vertical and horizontal leadership in projects in which nomination (or assignment) was identified as a key event contributing to balancing the leadership. It focuses specifically on the nomination or assignment event at the start of a project.

Based on the philosophy of critical realism, case studies were used to collect data through 70 semi-structured interviews in Australia, Scandinavia and South Africa. Interviews were conducted with senior managers, project managers and project team members. Two project team members who worked with the same project manager were interviewed to gather diverse views. The data were analyzed individually by researchers from each location using a coding method proposed by Miles et al. (2014). The researchers then jointly analyzed the findings to arrive at five common themes from that explained how team members were assigned in practice.

Despite the recognized need for project managers to form their own teams, this study found that project team members were often assigned by others. This was because project managers lacked authority to secure their resources. Therefore, they used lateral influence strategies to help with assigning project team members. The study identified five lateral influencing strategies adopted by project managers to assign team members: creating an image of competence; creating coalitions; taking a gamble; waiting for the right moment; and reasoning with facts. Two of these lateral influencing strategies were not identified in the previous literature on influencing strategies used in organizations.

The findings should not be viewed as representative of the respective continents where the cases were studied. However, this study contributes to the literature on project management, illuminating how project teams are assigned and by whom and, specifically, the role that influence plays during this event of the balanced leadership theory. It also identifies the types of lateral influence strategies used by project managers when assigning team members to their projects. It provides a pathway to explore the use of lateral influencing strategies by project managers beyond the assignment process.

This study will help project managers to become aware of influencing strategies that they can use in practice while assigning team members to their projects. It will also highlight the importance of assigning the right resources to projects with a view to achieving balanced leadership.

This research is of value to organizations using projects to successfully deliver their strategies by assigning suitable resources to their projects.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between various drivers of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) for m-payments and to demonstrate practical relevance. The study examined the indirect relationship between m-payment drivers and satisfaction and their subsequent association with brand equity drivers in the context of m-payments.

A survey was administered to a total of 725 respondents. Structural equation modeling, SPSS AMOS and a multi-mediation model using process macros were used to analyze the primary data.

The results of this study corroborate the post-use driver (satisfaction) and trust mediates drivers of m-payments (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) with overall brand equity. Satisfaction and trust exert a positive influence on overall brand equity, and this research will help organizations devise strategies to retain consumers, offer loyalty schemes and brand effectively to bundle services.

Novelty was achieved in this study by extending the technology acceptance model to determine the association between m-payment drivers and satisfaction and their subsequent association with overall brand equity, thus providing practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is the determination of reliability sampling plans in the Bayesian approach assuming that the lifetime distribution is exponential.

Sampling plans are used in manufacturing companies as a tool for carrying out sampling inspections, in order to make decisions about the disposition of many finished products. If the quality characteristic is considered as the lifetime of the products, the plan is known as a reliability sampling plan. In life testing, censoring schemes are adopted in order to save time and cost of life test. The inverted gamma distribution is employed as the natural conjugate prior to the average lifetime of the products. The sampling plans are developed assuming various probability distributions to the lifetime of the products.

The optimum plans n and c are obtained for some sets of values of (p1, a, p2, ß). The selection of sampling plans is illustrated through numerical examples.

Results obtained in this paper are original and the study has been done for the first time in this regard. Reliability sampling plans are essential for making decisions either to accept or reject based on the inspection of the sample.