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This study aims to contribute to the field of customer portfolio management by proposing a novel approach rooted in dialectic critical realism (DCR). DCR, as an ontological theory, enables a fundamental reimagining of customer portfolio management as a dialectic process. The conceptualized dialectic portfolio management is motivated by the concept of “absence”, akin to Hegelian “antithesis”, which highlights limitations, problems and tensions in portfolio management. In essence, “absence” serves as a diagnostic tool that directs portfolio actions towards resolving problems by pursuing a more comprehensive “totality”, similar to the Hegelian notion of “synthesis”.

This conceptual paper theorizes DCR in business marketing and customer portfolio management.

DCR conceptualizes customer portfolios as relational structures characterized by omissions and tensions. These issues are addressed through a dialectic synthesis aimed at achieving a more comprehensive “totality”. Consequently, DCR guides portfolio management to continually re-think the connections and distinctions that define a portfolio within its network context. This dialectic process is facilitated by a novel vocabulary that enhances the understanding of network and portfolio relations, incorporating concepts such as “intrapermeations”, “existential constitutions”, “intra-connections” and “intensive” and “extensive” portfolio practices.

This study aims to foster a fresh and process-oriented perspective on portfolio management, drawing inspiration from the growing demand for enriched dialectic theorizing within the realm of business marketing. The adoption of a dialectic process orientation based on DCR revolutionizes the comprehension of portfolio management by fundamentally reimagining the underlying ontological assumptions that underpin the existing body of literature on customer portfolios. Moreover, DCR asserts that ethical considerations are inextricably linked to human experiences and associated practices, emphasizing ethics as an integral component of customer portfolio management.

The globalisation of markets, emerging concepts of sustainable development, and circular economy have defined the boundaries within which organisations must compete and address the needs of key stakeholders. As circumstances change, boundaries are often replaced by the relationships between companies and the communities they serve. Consequently, strategy has become a central aspect of sustainable leadership and the foundation for implementing strategic management in a dynamic system of relationships. Every company is born and grows within social and economic ecosystems. Drawing on the metaphor of biology, ecosystems are described as dynamic interconnections among various elements that influence and foster entrepreneurship. Interconnections between players (such as marketplaces, organisations, governments, and universities) create a flow of expertise, abilities, knowledge, experience, and tangible resources. Economic and social ecosystems involve various actors and components that continuously coexist and interact, leading to the creation of numerous mutual relationships. Consequently, it is crucial for managers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the internal and external environments. Various decision-making tools and strategies can be used to achieve this goal. These tools were developed to assist managers, researchers, and consultants in making informed decisions under complex scenarios. This chapter presents several decision-making strategies and tools, including the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix, General Electric (GE) matrix, Balanced Scorecard (BSC), PEST, PESTEL analysis, and SWOT analysis.

The paper frames modern slavery as a global wicked problem and aims to provide a set of international business (IB) policy recommendations for taming it. The outlined approach can also guide IB policymaking to address other kinds of wicked problems.

This is a conceptual paper that reviews existing literature on wicked problems and integrates it with an IB policy double helix framework. The paper focuseses on the role multinational enterprises (MNEs) play in moderl slavery globally, either through global value chains or within global factory modes of operation.

As a global wicked problem, modern slavery will never be solved, but it can be re-solved time and time over. Understanding the social reproduction of modern slavery can help shift the focus from labor governance and a narrow supply chain focus toward the role of transnational governance and the need to address institutional, market and organizational failures.

The paper contributes to the gap in an overarching theory of modern slavery and systematically applies the concept of wicked problems and wickedness theory to modern slavery. Drawing on an IB policy double helix framework, the paper addresses the governance nexus between modern slavery, IB and policymaking which can in turn advance IB policy research and theory.

This study aims to investigate the factors that drive housing loan default in India based on unique micro-level data drawn from a public sector bank's credit files with a national presence in India. The authors address endogeneity in the loan to value ratio (LTV) while deciphering the drivers of default.

The study uses a probit regression approach to analyze the relationship between the probability of default and the explanatory variables. The authors introduce two instrumental variables to address the issue of endogeneity. The authors also add state-level demographic and several other control variables, including an indicator variable that captures the recent regulatory change. The authors’ analysis is based on 102,327 housing loans originated by the bank between January 2001 and December 2017.

The authors find that addressing the endogeneity issue is essential to specify default drivers, especially LTV, correctly. The nature of employment, gender, socio-religious category and age have a distinct bearing on housing loan defaults. Apart from the LTV ratio, the other key determinants of default are the interest rate, frequency of repayment, prepayment options and the loan period. The findings suggest that the population classification of branch location plays a significant role in loan default. The authors find that an increase in per capita income and an increase in the number of employed people in the state, which reflects borrowers' ability to pay by borrowers, reduce the probability of default. The change in the regulatory classification of loan assets by the Reserve Bank of India did not bear the main results.

The non-availability of the house price index in analyzing the default dynamics in the Indian housing finance market for the period covered under the study has constrained our analysis. The applicability of the equity theory of default, strategic default, borrowers' characteristics and personality traits are potential research areas in the Indian housing finance market.

The study's findings are expected to provide valuable inputs to the banks and the housing finance companies to explore and formulate appropriate strategic options in lending to this sector. It has highlighted various vistas of tailor-making housing loan product offerings by the commercial banks to ensure and steady and healthy growth of their loan portfolio. It has also highlighted the regulatory and policy underpinnings to ensure the healthy growth of the Indian housing finance market.

The study provides a fresh perspective on the default drivers in the Indian housing finance market based on micro-level data. In our analysis, the authors find clear evidence of endogeneity in LTV and argue that any attempts to decipher the default drivers of housing loans without addressing the issue of endogeneity may lead to faulty interpretation. Therefore, this study is unique in recognizing endogeneity and has gone deeper in identifying the default drivers in the Indian housing market not addressed by earlier papers on the Indian housing market. The authors also control for the regulatory changes in the Indian housing finance market and include state-level control variables like per capita GDP and the number of workers per thousand to capture the borrowers' ability to pay characteristics.

This study aims to discover a practical and effective way to apply the quality cost concept in Strategic Cost Management (SCM) framework. The interaction of preventive, appraisal and failure (PAF) activities in a company's internal value chain will be the starting point of SCM implementation.

This study begins by establishing value chain and quality costs as the scope of conceptual analysis. Discussions on the interrelationships between activities, quality and costs were gathered to clarify conceptual and practical gaps in the scope of the study. The PAF quality cost model is applied to find viable, practical solutions. The costs of activities will serve as performance indicators.

The PAF quality cost model depicts opportunities to lower costs and increase profit in a business simultaneously; current poor quality costs are the benchmark. Identifying PAF activities and costs in the business value chain and linking it with others is crucial in evaluating SCM applications. These linkages will generate a Quality Cost Chain (QCC). The leading indicator of improvement is a higher ratio between new possible failure costs (FC) and the combination of prevention and appraisal costs (PAC) than the current value, followed by a lower total quality cost (TQC). The subsequent attention is a lower ratio between the appraisal cost (AC) and prevention cost (PC). Mathematically, for assessing the operability of new quality-related activities, ΔPAC_new < ΔFC_new, TQC_new < TQC_current, (FC/PC)_new>(FC/PC)_current and (AC/PC)_new<(AC/PC)_current are proposed as feasible conditional-quantitative improvement criteria.

This study only discusses the relationship between quality costs and activities related to quality management in the PAF quality cost model, not cost behavior. This limitation opens up opportunities for future research that intends to link QCC with cost behavior in the context of managerial accounting and Strategic Cost Management. The use of QCC in certain industrial areas is the next research opportunity. The variety of PAF activities this study addresses originates from a wide range of industrial sectors; QCC research by sector may produce unique industrial quality cost phenomena.

QCC will make it easier for managers to evaluate how strategically their departments or activities contribute to quality costs at the departmental or organizational level, as well as to effectively and efficiently improve quality cost performance.

The quality-related activity and quality cost issues are still rarely treated as subjects of research studies in the field of Strategic Cost Management. Even so, the discussion tends to be very broad, complex and difficult to apply. This study combines a simple diagrammatic and mathematical approach to simplify the discussion and, at the same time, manage the value of strategic quality management.

Motivated by lack of empirical research on sukuk (Islamic bonds) defaults and factors influencing the credit risk in sukuk industry, the study investigates the impact of corporate governance (CG) practices and corporate social sustainability (CS) disclosures on default risk of Islamic bonds in an emerging market.

In the Malaysian context the authors use generalized method of moments (GMM) to examine the mitigating effect of CG structure and CS disclosures on distance to default (DD) of sukuk issuers.

The results show that although both CG and CS have a significant and positive relationship with distance to default, the contribution of CS to augment DD is higher. Moreover, different CG variables have a varied relationship with distance to default, while the association is positive for all three pillars of CS, videlicet economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The findings of the study hold important implications for issuers, subscribers and regulators in the sukuk industry.

Limited research investigates the relationship between CG, CS and default risk of Islamic bonds. In light of this, the study attempts to fill the theoretical void in literature by examining the relationship among the underlying variables.