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This research aims to model the existing system of destination competitiveness, identifies leverage points and develop revised model to achieve sustainable competitiveness.

System dynamics is used as method of modeling destination competitiveness. Structure of model utilizes 9-factor model as reference. Leverage points are identified using system archetypes. Revised model is built with resource-based view (RBV). Case study was conducted in Samosir, Toba Lake. Data used are secondary data and results of in-depth interviews.

There are 3 sub-systemic characteristics (archetypes) that hinder competitiveness. They are limit to growth quality gap, fix that fails infrastructure and promotion, tragedy of common lake pollution. Destination was unable to meet tourist expectations. Tourists spending decreased, demand size was small. Industries are unable to increase capabilities. Professionals, entrepreneurs, local workers, supporting industries are less interested in entering industry. Government policies do not match with destination's needs. Lake as main attraction is getting polluted. To achieve sustainable competitiveness, destination must utilize their valuable, rare and inimitable (VRI) resources and capabilities to design unique experiences for tourists, hence sustainable.

Government policy should be shifted to prioritizing development of valuable, rare, inimitable and well-organized resources and capabilities of destination, to produce unique tourist experience and achieve sustainable competitiveness.

Methods and findings, combining system dynamics, system archetype, 9-factor model and RBV to achieve sustainable competitiveness is novel and can enrich tourism sustainable competitiveness theory/concept.

Purpose: This chapter investigates the current skill gap in small-scale industries, the need for skill development and digital training in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME), and reviews policies for skill development and solutions.

Need for the Study: While the legislature and organisations have initiated various considerations for the successful implementation of the Skill Development System in the country’s MSMEs, there are significant challenges that must be addressed quickly to fill the skill gap in workers in this digital era.

Research Methodology: Secondary data has been used for the chapter review. Analysis has been done based on review data from women handloom and handicraft workers in the micro or craft industry who received a Star rating from the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) partners in Lucknow. For data collection, a questionnaire based on random sampling was used. The data were analysed using a rudimentary weighted average and a percentage technique.

Findings: The studies provide answers to some fundamental problems: are small industry employees indeed mobilised to be skilled outside the official schooling system? Is the training delivery mechanism adequate to prepare pupils for employment? Would industries be willing to reduce minimum qualification criteria to foster skill development?

Practical Implication: Non-technical aptitudes digital and soft skills for workers in this sector should be emphasised in MSMEs, and significant reforms in MSME sectors and capacity-building education and training programmes should be implemented in the Indian industry to generate small and medium enterprises production and employment.

This study aims to investigate the perceptions of Iranian English teachers about their teaching efficiency through a specific practicum course, namely, language teaching methodology. Drawing on a marketing education perspective, the researchers sought to measure the service quality offered in universities by examining teachers’ satisfaction with the curriculum.

Using quantitative gap analysis, the study evaluated the knowledge and skills of teachers in their preservice education regarding the perceived importance of knowledge and skills required in practice. The study involved 120 English as a foreign language teachers holding a BA degree from two universities in Iran, each with two to four years of teaching experience in the private sector. Data were collected using a 40-item semantic differential Likert scale developed by the researchers. The scale incorporated two components that assessed teachers’ perceived importance of knowledge and skills and their preservice educational preparation.

The findings revealed that most participants were overprepared in various items. However, there were some gaps in content knowledge and skills. Reasons for these gaps mainly included having adequate experience of and/or familiarity with course content, having completed relevant courses beforehand and imitating role model teachers. Teachers’ underpreparation was attributed to their lack of preparation in some specific subjects due to limited skill, practice, motivation, experience and familiarity with that content area.

This study explores the perceived knowledge and skills of Iranian English teachers and provides empirical insights into higher education service quality and customer satisfaction.

The scope of this study is to explore and summarize the pool of dimensions, models and measurement techniques of service quality used in healthcare services and to propose a comprehensive conceptual model for practitioners and researchers.

This research employs a comprehensive review of available literature by using multiple keywords on different electronic repositories using the recommendations of the PRISMA approach for the selection of articles. A critical analysis of available studies helped in compiling a list of core service quality dimensions in healthcare services.

This paper presents a comprehensive account of different dimensions and their measurement items used by various researchers to assess service quality in healthcare systems. Most of the researchers have used SERVQUAL model either in its original or modified form while the others have proposed and used totally different dimensions to assess the service quality in healthcare. Many dimensions are just an existing dimension of SERVQUAL that has undergone a name change while others are completely new. The dimensions used by many researchers have items drawn from more than one dimension of SERVQUAL model. The availability of so many dimensions and models adds to the confusion that researchers and practicing managers experience when determining the appropriate model to be used in their work. To mitigate this confusion, there is a need to develop a comprehensive model; the current work is an attempt to meet this need. Through our analysis, we identify four major service quality dimensions: clinical quality, infrastructural quality, relationship and managerial quality and propose a model named CIRMQUAL.

After exploring all available models in the domain of healthcare, this research presents the best possible areas to enhance the quality of healthcare services. It also enhances the research insights for academicians and working professionals by developing and proposing a comprehensive model for measuring healthcare service quality. The proposed model covers almost all of the service quality dimensions used by other researchers and will make the choice of dimensions/model easy for the future researchers/practitioners interested in measuring and improving the quality of services offered by their healthcare units. Such a comprehensive model has not been developed by any researcher thus far.

This chapter focuses on two aspects of the achievement gap – underachievement and low achievement among Black males in urban school contexts. More specifically, the authors explain several problems/issues confronting Black male students in P-12 gifted and talented, advanced placement, and special education programs, along with the school-to-prison pipeline – inequitable discipline in the form of suspensions and expulsions. We parse underrepresentation and overrepresentation for this student group. A central part of this discussion is grounded in the achievement gap literature on Black students in general with implications for Black males in particular. Another fundamental aspect of this discussion is the need for educators to adopt an anti-racist (social justice or civil rights) and cultural competence approach to their work, which means being equity-based and culturally responsive in philosophy and action. Suggestions for closing the achievement gap and otherwise improving the achievement of Black males are provided for educators. We also compel educators to go beyond talking about equity by setting quantifiable equity goals for minimum and maximum percentages (and numbers).

To gain and differentiate competitive advantage, the sustainable service quality is a determining factor that railway companies can use. The purpose of this study is to identify both the importance and performance of rail transportation service quality factors in a case study as well as determine the most influential quality features.

A comprehensive approach namely importance–performance analysis (IPA) technique and decision-making trail and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Matriced’ Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) techniques was utilized.

The relative position of each attribute is specified on the IPA matrix proposing four strategies of concentrate here, keep up the good work, low priority and possible overkill. This study reveals that attributes of “the company cares about having a good society” are the most influential factor, and “having good business relations with shareholders” is the most permeable factor. Actually, consumers pay attention to how companies act toward society and maintain communication with shareholders. Through ISM technique and by summing the row and column of the consistency matrix, the attributes were partitioned into four levels. Also, MICMAC analysis identified the four clusters of linkage, independent, autonomous and dependent status of the attributes in terms of the driving power and dependence power.

Due to the nature of single case study methodology, caution should be taken into consideration regarding the generazability of the obtained results.

The hybrid DEMATEL-ISM technique is used to analyze service quality factors in Iran’s transportation industry, which can be utilized in other industries as well as other countries.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to examine the service failures faced by Nykaa; propose a resolution to the service failures faced by Nykaa through service recovery strategies; analyse the service quality gaps faced by Nykaa and propose strategies to bridge the gaps; learn and comprehend more about business models in e-commerce; and evaluate the e-commerce business models for deciding the best fit for Nykaa.

“Nykaa” was the brainchild of Falguni Nayar, who was an IIM alumna and had worked with the Kotak Mahindra Group for nearly 20 years as a venture investor and merchant banker. After representing the group’s global operation in the UK and the USA, she became the head of the institutional equities division. In 2005, she was the Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank’s project. Nayar had reached the pinnacle of her career, but something was troubling her. In 2012 when Nayar noticed anomalies in India’s beauty and personal care market, her goals were realised. Unlike in other nations such as Japan or France, the availability of beauty products in India was limited, despite significant demand, owing to product unavailability in many areas. Nayar founded “Nykaa”, an online portal for multi-beauty, personal care and well-being items that also later branched out into fashion. However, after 10 years of its establishment, Nykaa was facing challenges regarding services outages, casting doubts over Nykaa’s business model practiced by it for the past 10 years.

This case is intended for discussion in the undergraduate, postgraduate management courses and executive MBA courses with marketing specialisation, services marketing and strategic marketing.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy

The study's objective is to examine the relevance of globalization in affecting the size of the shadow economy in selected African nations.

To do this, the authors employ the KOF globalization index and implement both static and dynamic common correlated mean group estimators on a panel of 24 African nations from 1995–2017. This technique accommodates the issue of cross-sectional dependence, sample bias and endogenous regressors. Panel threshold analysis is also conducted to establish the nonlinearity between globalization and the shadow economy. To examine the causality between the variables, the study employs Dumitrescu and Hurlin's panel causality test.

The results show that globalization reduces the size of the shadow economy. The results of the nonlinear analysis suggest a U-shaped relationship. Overall globalization has a threshold impact of 48.837%, economic globalization has 45.615% and political globalization has 66.661% while social globalization has a threshold value of 35.744%. The results of the panel causality show that there is a bidirectional causality between the two variables.

The results suggest that the government and other relevant authorities need to introduce capital controls and other policy measures to moderate the degree of social, political and cultural diffusion. Appropriate policies should be formulated to monitor the extent of African economic openness to other continents to maximize the gains from globalization.

Apart from being the first study in the African region that evaluates the relevance of globalization in controlling the shadow economy, it also analyzes the dynamics and threshold analysis between the two variables using advanced panel econometrics which makes the study unique. The study suggests that globalization tools are useful for affecting the size of the shadow economy in Africa. This study provides fresh empirical evidence on the impact of globalization on the shadow economy in the case of Africa.

The author studies the determinants of public trust in government doctors and hospitals (DH) – a crucial indicator of the quality of a country's healthcare system – in India by analyzing the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011–2012.

The author uses descriptive statistics and a set of ordered probit regression models controlling for a set of individual-specific, household-level and other covariates and analyze across heterogeneous contexts (national/rural/urban/male heads/female heads/social groups).

Across contexts, people reporting a great deal of trust in private DH (PDH) are significantly more likely to report a great deal of trust in government DH. Those people with a great deal of trust in government schools to provide good education (vis-à-vis people with only some trust in government school) have significantly higher likelihood of reporting a great deal of trust in government DH. Visiting a private doctor last time (vis-à-vis a government doctor) makes reporting higher trust levels in government DH less likely.

India's healthcare system is afflicted with several resource allocation problems and low public trust issues are indicative of misgovernance. In presence of limited state capacity, ubiquitous corruption and underwhelming institutional trust, understanding the factors influencing public trust in healthcare providers is critical to designing appropriate trust-enhancing public health policies.

Given the sparse empirical literature on public trust in healthcare systems in the developing countries such as India, this study is a pertinent contribution as the study explains the determinants of public trust in DH using a comprehensive unit-recorded household survey dataset.

Compulsive social media use has the potential to reduce well-being. In this study, the authors propose that there are two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One is behavioral and based on habit; the other is motivational and rooted in the fear of missing out. This study aims to test the antecedents of these two drivers as well as their consequences for the tendency to engage in compulsive social media consumption.

The authors applied a quantitative research design and collected data through a survey of 600 respondents from a representative sample. The authors used structural equation modeling to test their conceptual model and hypotheses. Gender and age were included as moderators to investigate the model’s boundary conditions.

The authors found support for all the suggested relationships in the conceptual model. The findings indicate two main manifestations of compulsive social media use – always being logged in (i.e. the frequency of social media consumption) and excessive use (the intensity of consumption) – that in turn spurred a reinforcer of compulsivity: disconnection anxiety. The findings also indicate two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One path is behavioral, based on habit, and the other is motivational, based on fear of missing out. Moreover, the authors identified the key antecedents of both paths. Habit formation was observed to be a function of situational cues (technological nudges in the online sphere) and consumer engagement. Fear of missing out was shaped by both injunctive norms (a consumer norm to be online) and descriptive norms (social proof).

Although the antecedents of compulsive social media consumption suggested in this study have a strong and significant effect, the explained variance in the dependent variables being always logged in and excessive social media use indicates that there might be other drivers as well. These should be explored along with moderators other than gender and age to identify the potential boundary conditions of the model.

The main implications of the present work point to the “ease” with which typical or normal social media use may spiral out of control and become compulsive, with adverse implications for consumer health and well-being.

The behavioral and motivational paths to compulsive social media consumption have been less explored and have not yet been studied in conjunction, nor have their antecedents and consequences. Thus, this is a novel approach to understanding how social media use can potentially lead to reduced control and well-being.