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The marketing of immersive and competitive online gaming products has proliferated in recent times. Consumption has also shown a substantial increase, especially among children. Such elevated levels of gaming have adversely affected children’s overall well-being. This paper aims to examine the role of parental attachment variables in enhancing children’s self-control behavior in counteracting the adverse effects of excessive gaming. The role of gender in excessive gaming is also studied.

A conceptual framework is tested that examines the direct relationship of features of parental attachment with excessive online gaming behavior and an indirect effect through the mediation of a child’s self-control construct using structural equation modeling.

The findings indicate that parental attachment through self-control can play a significant role in limiting excessive gaming behavior among vulnerable young gamers. Excessive gaming behavior was more pronounced for boys than girls. Alienation explained excessive gaming behavior among girls, while communication was significant for boys, but in a reversed direction.

All possible antecedent variables from the literature, like parental rearing style, that may further contribute to developing a comprehensive theoretical framework could not be studied.

The study suggests that the priming of children achieved through parental attachment relationships may help prevent excessive gaming behavior among vulnerable young gamers.

This study addresses the gap in the understanding of parental attachment features related to excessive gaming among different genders. It also establishes the role of the intervening mechanism of a child’s self-control in regulating behavior in relation to excessive gaming in the Indian context.

Almost every study undertaken by academicians or practitioners on the Internet of Things (IoT) has mainly highlighted the privacy concerns and information security issues with the IoT products. On the contrary, this paper aims to explore the motivators that could encourage customers of an IoT product to share their IoT product’s data with a third-party aggregator system to facilitate computer-generated product reviews which are defined as electronic Word of Thing (eWOT) in this paper.

An experiment was conducted with customized e-commerce prototypes of eWOT. Structural equation modeling analysis was conducted to test the measurement model by using confirmatory factor analysis and thereafter a structural model to test the relationships amongst the latent variables.

This paper found that five consumer motivators (personal innovativeness, enjoyment of helping, anticipated extrinsic rewards, moral obligations and venting negative feelings) contribute to eWOT intention.

This research advances the understanding of human interaction with computer-generated product reviews and opens up avenues for future studies in online consumer behavior in the IoT context.

This paper presents motivators for eWOT intention to share IoT product data. This is done through a novel concept of an experimental IoT-based prototype, namely, eWOT. These eWOT reviews can be generated from the IoT products data by applying analytics and using natural language generation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted on this subject.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of a household on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption and also the enhanced level of this relationship for the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) households.

Hypotheses formulation was guided by cultivation theory and the concept of compensatory consumption. The hypotheses were later examined by using ordinary least square (OLS) regression on the data from the large nationally representative India Human Development Survey, 2011 (IHDS-II) database.

Television viewing duration of the household exerts a positive effect on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption expenditure. The nature of this relationship is enhanced for the BoP households. The annual category-level conspicuous consumption for the BoP households increases by close to four percent for every hour increase in their television viewing duration while such increase for other households is close to one and a half percent only.

Findings can be further strengthened by using time-lagged dependent variable taken at monthly intervals, as well as survey data linking household television viewing duration with desirability of conspicuous goods.

Managers can rely on television for reaching BoP consumers while being cognizant of the negative effects of promoting conspicuous consumption among them. They need to adopt a responsible marketing approach. Besides regulating television, policymakers need to work toward increased provisioning of educational and financial services for BoP households. They can leverage television for promoting beneficial behavior in BoP households.

The study empirically establishes the external validity of cultivation theory at the household level in an emerging economy by using a large nationally representative database. It also establishes the higher vulnerability of BoP households to increase category-level conspicuous consumption in response to television viewing. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of household on its annual category level conspicuous consumption.

Employee well-being is increasingly relevant and crucial for organizational success. As work engagement and employee well-being affect employee performance, this area is the focus of increasing attention both from scholars and industry professionals. The main objective of the present research study is to investigate the mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between mindfulness at work, organizational justice and employee well-being.

The study was conducted on information technology (IT) employees in India, and 331 complete responses were collected for the data analysis. The cross-sectional data were collected through purposive sampling. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to evaluate the proposed research hypotheses.

The findings support the convergent and discriminant validities of mindfulness, organizational justice, work engagement and employee well-being. The results indicate that mindfulness and organizational justice have an indirect relationship with employee well-being. In addition, the study demonstrates that work engagement significantly mediates the relationship between mindfulness and employee well-being as well as between organizational justice and employee well-being.

The findings will help organizations and human resources (HR) departments to understand the importance of work engagement and employee well-being in the workplace.

The mediating effect of work engagement between the workplace mindfulness–organizational justice relationship on employee well-being is addressed by drawing on conservation of resources (COR) and job demand–resource (JD–R) theories. Prior research has exclusively studied the relationship of employee well-being with either mindfulness or organizational justice. This research provides empirical insights regarding the fact that both mindfulness and organizational justice simultaneously have a relationship with employee well-being.

Workplace spirituality is presently a prominent research topic and is gaining recognition and importance among industry professionals and academicians. Workplace spirituality is defined as a sense of community, meaningful work and organizational values. The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the relationship between workplace spirituality and mental health, wherein employee engagement is considered as a mediator. Furthermore, this study examines the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between organizational justice and mental health.

Data were gathered from 344 information technology professionals working in India. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model fit of workplace spirituality and its relationship to employee engagement, organizational justice and mental health.

The results revealed that workplace spirituality and organizational justice significantly and positively predict employee engagement, which is significantly related to employee mental health. The results also revealed that employee engagement significantly partially mediates the relationship between workplace spirituality and mental health as well as the relationship between organizational justice and mental health.

Results of research guide HR professionals, employee mental health concerns can be addressed by promoting workplace spirituality, improving employee engagement strategies and implementing organizational justice policies that are perceived to be fair. This study makes a significant contribution to the extant literature regarding mental health issues in the IT sector.

Findings of this research contribute to the area of human resource management and employee engagement. The current study fills a gap in the extant literature by investigating employee engagement intervening mechanism between organizational justice, workplace spirituality and mental health.

The key research issue addressed in this paper is whether individuals perceive advertisements featuring themes from their own religion more positively, and advertisements featuring religious themes from other religions less positively, than neutral ads. In the process, this paper aims to test whether the in-group bias theory (IGBT) and the polarized appraisal theory (PAT) apply in a religious context.

Respondents in a large Indian University were shown advertisements featuring Hindu and Muslim themes as well as a neutral advertisement in the context of pet adoption. Cognitive and affective response measures were used for evaluation.

Respondents did not evaluate advertisements with their own religion’s symbols any more positively than neutral advertisements but did evaluate advertisements with themes from other religions more negatively than neutral ads. In sum, religious advertisements did not have any positive effect on in-group respondents, but rather worked in antagonizing out-group respondents.

Both IGBT and PAT did not work as predicted when tested on in-group respondents but worked as expected on out-group respondents.

In the Indian market, using religious themes has largely negative consequences in terms of alienating out-group members, with no commensurate advantage on in-group members. Firms are better off not using religious advertising, and this decision would likely have a positive impact on a firm’s bottom line.

Though, the general topic of religious advertising has been much researched, but this paper deals with the role of religious symbols in advertising in the Indian context, which is done for the first time in a multi-religious context. Further, the applicability of IGBT and PAT is also tested for the first time in religious advertisement context.

The potential impact of E‐CRM on cost savings, revenue growth, and increased customer’s convenience has generated considerable interest and speculation across the industries. The immense growth of E‐CRM market has opened new vistas of business for E‐CRM vendors. However, with plethora of vendors and products available in the market it makes the choise of the companies difficult. The present study after reviewing the literature of E‐CRM attempts to do a comparative analysis of various E‐CRM vendors.

This paper seeks to explore how Indian buying firms practise an open book (OB) policy in supplier relationships in three industries, i.e. the vehicle industry, the construction industry and the information technology industry. It also aims to study determinants of open book practices.

Application of the OB policy is operationalised as the nature of open book practices, the extent and stage of data disclosed, the form of data disclosed, the direction of data disclosed, the attitude towards cost data disclosed, and the purpose and conditions of data disclosed. Determinants of the open book policy comprise characteristics of the exchange, the product, the buyer, the supplier and the supply market. Qualitative data were collected in the form of 22 interviews with representatives of three buying organisations and several of their suppliers in order to build three case studies.

The results suggest that the OB policy is used by buyers for diverse purposes ranging from strategic to operational, for example value engineering at the product development stage, to ensure supplier margins, for self improvements and cost reductions, and country entry decisions. Similarly, the data shared ranged from narrow to wide in scope and scale. Suppliers' attitudes ranged from fairly neutral to very negative towards open books. Power asymmetries, the number of alternative suppliers, product performance characteristics and value, incentives offered, and buyer efforts were found to influence OB practices.

Experiences gained from employing an OB policy in vehicle manufacturing suggests that firms in other industries can better leverage the use of open books for joint problem solving, equitable profit sharing and supplier selection.

The paper highlights that an OB policy can have broader applicability than recognised by many past studies and indicates that it can serve purposes of strategic decision‐making. It can also be an integrated part of a buyer's risk reduction strategy. Further, the study provides specific recommendations for Indian companies with regard to the application of an open book policy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the changing perceptions of an iconic American product, namely Levi Jeans, in a rapidly developing country, namely Costa Rica, over a 20‐year period from 1988 to 2008.

Changing perceptions were measured with regard to product attributes (e.g. relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and risk), and experience‐related attributes (e.g. product durability, fit, comfort, and price). Further, the changing influence of these variables on repurchase intentions was measured. Data collected in 1988 and again in 2008 at a large Costa Rican university were compared.

The results suggest that globalization, increased competition, and cultural individualization have reduced Levis' attribute advantages and thus brand equity. Implications for branding in other developing countries, especially India, are provided.

Modern Indian consumers are more picky, and are more concerned with lifestyle fit and observability issues. This combined with the growing affluent youth market in India leads to specific suggestions on how Levi can approach marketing strategy in the Indian market.

The paper is unique in that it is a longitudinal study of changing perceptions with data collected over a 20‐year time period. Further, it provides specific recommendations for apparel manufacturers aiming to enter the Indian and other rapidly developing markets.