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Literature on strategic alliances (SAs) is large, diverse and growing. It needs synthesis and analysis for application and further research. Authors have also underlined the need for studies covering differences in structuring, situational application and management of alliances. This systematic literature review aims to cover dyadic, network and ecosystem (DNE) alliances with theory, context, characteristics and methodology (TCCM) methodology covering the life cycle stages of an alliance (pre-formation, formation and management) to uncover insights which inform practice and guide further research on this important subject.

This paper follows systematic literature review (SLR) methodology for research design and article selection and TCCM methodology for analysis. It also analyses the literature on DNE alliances using a nine-box matrix with DNE alliance forming one axis and three alliance lifecycle stages of pre-formation (alliance objectives), formation (alliance design and operationalisation) and post formation (alliance management) stages along the other axis.

Analysis indicates focus on individual firms and their own customer value proposition (CVP) in the dyadic and network alliances. Industries with fast-paced technological change benefit from loosely coupled alliances. Social context and social exchanges leading to collaboration and collective strengths mark network alliances, with a focus on knowledge creation and dissemination. Ecosystems focus on a collective CVP, which guides alliance behaviour. Ecosystem leadership guides this purpose through governance for sustained competitiveness. Negative consequences (dark side) of alliances can be mitigated by careful design, formation and management of DNE alliances.

While literature has focussed on static view of alliances in their industry or social context, this literature review analyses alliances along the dyadic, network and ecosystem typology, thus providing a new lens to study alliances. The review also recognises that alliances evolve over their life-cycle stages and observes their progression through their lifecycle stages aids for fuller comprehension of their behaviour. Areas for future research in structuring, leadership, value co-creation and technological change set an agenda for future research.

Dynamic managerial capabilities are drivers of alliance performance. The analysis using the nine-box matrix allows managers to better appreciate the options that exist and the consequences of their actions. Situating their alliance in the appropriate box can allow managers better plan, operationalise and manage their own alliances.

This systematic review compares and contrasts DNE alliances in extant literature and through their lifecycle stages. Insights from TCCM analysis and the nine-box matrix provide unique contribution to both theory and practice in this large and growing domain.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a background on developments in hospitality and tourism in India and its contribution to economic growth.

The paper discusses the importance of customer experience and provides insights on destination management approaches. It reviews the factors beyond the control of a specific service provider which impact the consumer experience. The paper also discusses the tourism potential for selected spiritual and cultural sites and gives an overview of the approach followed to assess consumer experience at each of these locations.

The paper focuses on elements that contribute to consumer experience at selected spiritual and cultural places. It also focuses on technology and its impact on creating a superior experience. Further, aspects of infrastructure and hygiene are also reviewed.

The paper explores spiritual and cultural tourism in the context of India where there is very little formal research in this area.

The purport of the Money Laundering Decree No. 3 1995 (hereinafter referred to the the Decree) is visible in three perspectives. The first part prohibits money laundering in all its ramifications. The second part stipulates punishments for the various categories of principal and accessory offenders whether individual or body corporate. The final part contains the miscellaneous provision dealing with substantive and ancillary powers vested in the Law Enforcement Agencies for the purpose of the implementation of the intendment of the Decree. In this article, an attempt will be made to analyse and scrutinise the general scope of the Decree, powers conferred therein and the resultant impact of the legitimate and illegitimate trade and the possible undue encroachment on the rights of the citizenry. Limitations will be identified and reforms suggested. Before delving into a detailed examination of the provisions of the Decree, a general introduction as to the meaning and contents would be helpful and necessary.

Modern wireless communication application requires an antenna system to meet the requirements of miniaturization and wideband characteristic. In recent years, several antenna designs, that meet these requirements, have been proposed in the literature. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to design a new microstrip monopole antenna with a bandwidth enhancement and size reduction for ultra wideband application.

The patch, of leaf of a plant shape, the feed line and the ground plane are printed on the inexpensive FR4 substrate material with permittivity 4.4 and loss tangent 0.02. To obtain optimal dimensions, a parametric study is conducted through numerical computations by using electromagnetic simulators HFSS and CST. A prototype of the optimized antenna is fabricated and subjected to a series of simulations and measurements.

The measurement results show a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 6.7 GHz (3.5 GHz-10.2 GHz) which can cover the whole bandwidth requirements of an ultra wideband application. The designed antenna exhibits nearly symmetric and omnidirectional radiations patterns over the operating band, which is a sought-after behavior in microstrip patch antennas and has overall size of 35 × 31 mm².

The proposed microstrip monopole antenna is very useful for modern wireless communications systems because of its compact size, its capability of covering the whole ultra wideband frequency band and its good radiation characteristics.

Organizations in India are multicultural in nature. In this context, cultural intelligence is a tool, which can increase an individual’s ability to interact with people outside his/her culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of cultural intelligence on task performance as well as to investigate the mediating role of cultural adjustment between the two.

Extensive review of literature was done to acknowledge the cultural intelligence and task performance concept. Data for the study has been collected from the 225 managers working in nationalized banks in Jammu province (J&K, India). Data collected has been validated using confirmatory factor analysis and hypotheses have been tested through structural equation modeling.

The study reveals that cultural intelligence significantly contributes toward task performance. The findings further reveal full mediation of cultural adjustment between cultural intelligence and task performance.

The study has been conducted in Indian cultural context, which can be extended to other Asian countries. Further, more outcomes of cultural intelligence can be taken into consideration in future for better understanding of the concept.

The study contributes toward cultural intelligence theory. Organization should provide cultural training to the managers before sending them to out of home state assignment, which helps to understand the culture of that state and effectively interact with people belonging to that place.

The paper empirically identifies the relationship between cultural intelligence and task performance in Indian context. Further, this relationship has been explored by using cultural adjustment as a mediator between the two. The model developed can be used for future research keeping it as a base.

Organisations operate in diverse cultural environment, which is a challenging task due to absence of cultural knowledge and difficulty in adapting the native culture that usually leads to expatriate failure. In this context cultural intelligence plays an important role in the adjustment of employees. The purpose of the study is to examine the mediating role played by cultural intelligence between cross-cultural training and cross-cultural adjustment relationship. It further analyses the moderating role of cross-cultural training and types of expatriate between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adjustment relationship.

Set in a large culturally diverse emerging economy context, data have been gathered from 530 managers working in banking sector. Data have been duly assessed for reliability and validity.

The results revealed that cultural intelligence mediates cross-cultural training and cross-cultural adjustment relationship. Evidence from the analysis further suggests that cross-cultural training and types of expatriate moderate the relationship between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adjustment. Lastly, the managerial and theoretical implications have been put forth for practical and academic perusal.

The study is cross-sectional in nature and data have been collected from single source.

Organisations should design such training programmes, which motivate the managers to successfully complete out of home state assignment and help them to adapt in the cross-cultural situations.

Culturally intelligent employees/managers are able to communicate with people belonging to diverse culture, which results in building trust, loyalty and cordial relationship amongst the people. This will create the feeling of unity in the society thereby bringing national as well as global peace.

The study develops the extant literature on cross-cultural training and types of expatriate as effective intercultural instruments to enhance the capability of the managers to interact and adjust in host region environment.

The subject area is corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The study is applicable to undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on CSR.

The case discusses the issue of integrating CSR in TPDDL’s (TPDDL – Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited) business model. TPDDL was formed as the result of a joint venture between Delhi Vidyut Board and Tata Power. At the time of the joint venture, a large number of users of electricity in Jhuggi-Jhopdi (JJ) clusters were not paying for electricity usage. A huge number of residents were not even in the system where they could be billed. The ones who were in the system had strong political banking as they were huge vote banks and hence would not pay. Only 40 per cent of electricity that was going to JJ cluster was billed due to this TPDDL was incurring huge commercial losses. As residents had very low income, TPDDL decided to invest in CSR activities to train the residents so that they could secure a job and pay the bills as well. Mr Praveer Sinha, MD and chief executive officer (CEO), urged his team to bring 100 per cent JJ clusters under the billing net without any coercive measures. TPDDL adopted parent company Tata’s CSR code and came up with innovative ways of engaging with these communities.

The outcomes are: strategic CSR initiatives for business excellence; incorporating CSR in existing business Model 3; role of stakeholders in CSR implementation; and benefits accruing from CSR activities.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The term ‘fundamentalism’ has come of late into popular usage more than any other. It has been used for various Christian movements. During the twentieth century, the term came to be used in Christian–Protestant circles in an effort to define beliefs that are fundamental to Christian religion. The world that emerged after the Second World War saw the emergence of many former colonial and semi-colonial countries as independent nations. Their development caused ferment among the Muslim countries also. It took the form of a resurgence of fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism. During the last several decades, the Islamic revival that is sweeping from Morocco in the West to Mindanao in the Philippines is considered with some reason as a response to the predatory policies of Western imperialism. This was the reassertion and the response of the Muslims to the challenge of the West. This was the promise of the fundamentalist Muslims: self assertive Islamic nationalism and simplicity of argument in the hope of recapturing the pristine purity and political glory of Islam (Ahmad, 1991). The first Muslim to react against the alien accretions to Islamic society, not necessarily the result of external or foreign influence, was Shah Waliullah (1703–1762) who was almost a contemporary of Abdul Wahab (1703–1787) in Arabia. Both evolved from attempting to purge the Islamic society of foreign accretions to protesting oppression and corruption of Westernisation (Jansen, 1979). The fundamentalism today is different from that of the eighteenth century. It is not of much use to trace historical continuity in the fundamentalist ideology; although, this does not negate some linkages between Islam's past history and modern day fundamentalist movements (Ahmed, 1994).

Researchers and policymakers are figuring out the adaptation technologies to cope with the changing climate. Adaptation strategies for crop production followed by the farmers at selected study locations had ranged from 6-30 per cent only, and this was mainly due to lack of awareness about the actual cost associated with adaptation and non-adaptation of these strategies.

Hence, this study aims to address the cost of adaptation for rice using joint probability distribution of rainfall and crop prices.

Cost of adaptation varied from INR2,389 to 4,395/ha for System of Rice Intensification (SRI); INR646 to 1,121/ha for alternate wetting and drying (AWD) and INR8,144 to 8,677/ha for well irrigation (WI), whereas expected cost for not using these technologies has ranged from INR6,976 to 9,172/ha for SRI; INR4,123 7,764/ha for AWD and INR10,825 to 17,270/ha for WI. Hence, promotion of the adaptation technologies itself will minimize the income losses to the farmers.

Even though, there are many ways for farmers (other than technology), to adapt to climate change (such as out-migration to cities, selling farm assets, focus on children’s education, etc.), this report, given the framework of the major research study undertaken, addresses only farm-level adaptation of the technologies to enhance farm income.

Public–private partnership in providing the technologies at cheaper costs, capacity building in handling the technologies and creating awareness about the technologies to minimize the expected cost of adaptation are suggested to improve the adoption level.

The analysis focuses on the perspective of overall strategic fit in the supply chain of onion seed in Nepal. The purpose of this paper is to analyze current status of onion seed sector in Nepal from the perspective of selected functional strategies that fit in supply chain, and also identifies how various actors involved coordinate among each other.

The integrated approach has been used. It is an actor-oriented approach used to trace product flows. Supply chains generally include several actors for the onion seeds supply chain in Nepal, all those actors may or may not be applicable. However, initial approach would be to first look for these actors then subsequently identify existing supply and its actors. Some traditional methods of product and market analysis isolate operational costs along various stages of production. But, this paper used more comprehensive methodology that has taken into account an entire spectrum of associated activities and inputs.

Result revealed that the market actors of supply chain are taking significant benefit of value addition due to more investment in value creation. Vertical coordination is completely absent and the existence of horizontal coordination is in fragile form. The functional strategies in the upstream as well as the market side are not properly matching with the preference of the downstream actors of supply chain. It is suggested that the supply chain activities should work with different functional strategies such as proper drying and storage of seed and production of preferred varieties to satisfy the need of end consumers.

It covers a single crop.

The findings and methodological discussions aim at providing practical guidance for supply chain researchers on how to analyze the strategic fit in supply chain.