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Use of thin film microstrip patch antenna for leaf moisture studies.

In this paper, the studies on the effect of leaf used as in‐touch overlay on thin film microstrip patch antenna in the X band (8‐12 GHz) is reported. The patch was used as the transmitting antenna and a pyramidal horn antenna was the receiving antenna. Three leaves Furcarea Gigantea, Kalanchoe Pinnata and Cereus Prerogonus have been used as overlay. All these leaves have high chlorophyll content, but are different in their surface texture and rate of moisture loss.

Size of leaf, orientation with respect to direction of propagation and moisture content dependent changes in the patch antenna output are observed. When the size of the overlay is larger than the patch and the feedline is in contact with it, frequency changes are more, whereas when only patch is in contact with the leaf, amplitude changes are more. Thin film microstrip antenna can provide a means for sensing moisture content in leafy vegetation.

The study of moisture effects of leafy vegetation using the technique of in‐touch overlay on microstrip components can be used to generate data base about the plant conditions in various places.

Global crises create an environment that is characterized by a fight for survival by countries, companies and citizens. While firms have adopted business initiatives to ensure survival in a global crisis, many measures are geared toward preventing customer churn, declining revenues and eroding market share. Such short-term focus raises an important question regarding long-term survival – how can firms survive a global crisis? The purpose of this study is to investigate how firms can survive a global crisis.

This study considers pandemics as the study context and uses a triangulation methodology (past research, managerial insights and popular press articles) to advance the organizing framework. Using the process study approach, the proposed framework recognizes the onset characteristics of a global crisis with a focus on pandemics and the government actions that reflect the pandemic onset. The framework also identifies a logical order of three marketplace reactions to the pandemic – management response, consumer response and critical business transformations that ultimately lead to firm survival – and advances related research propositions of such reactions.

By deploying critical business transformations, firms can ensure firm survival in a pandemic by fostering engagement with customers, employees and resources. Additionally, the moderators that influence the relationships between (1) management response and critical business transformations, (2) consumer response and critical business transformations, and (3) critical business transformations and firm survival are identified. Finally, this study presents an agenda for future research.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first study to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to study firm survival in a global crisis such as a pandemic. This study answers the call for more research to the growing field of pandemic research in the areas of marketing research and marketing strategy.

The learnings from this study can help firms on what to anticipate and how to respond in a crisis such as a pandemic.

Societal welfare is accounted for as firms plan to deal with a crisis.

This is the first study to propose a strategic framework to deal with a crisis that is largely unanticipated where the duration and the impact is not predictable.

The study addresses the mechanism of how cultural dimensions influence the different dimensions of emotional intelligence. Building on the cascading model described by Joseph and Newman (2010), we extend our previous findings (Gunkel, Schlaegel, & Engle, 2014) by exploring the influence of cultural dimensions on a cascading model of emotional intelligence.

We use survey data from 2,067 business students in nine countries (China, Colombia, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States), representing 8 of the 11 cultural clusters identified by Ronen and Shenkar (2013).

We find that uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation have a positive influence on self-emotional appraisal, which in turn influence regulation of emotion, which then has a positive influence on the use of emotion. At the same time, others’ emotional appraisal mediates the relationship between all cultural dimensions except power distance and use of emotion. We also find that uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation directly influence the use of emotion, suggesting a partial mediation effect.

Our findings have to be interpreted in the light of the limitations of our approach owing to the cross-sectional study design and the limited generalizability of the sample.

We contribute to the existing literature by examining the mechanism through which culture influences the different facets of emotional intelligence and whether and how the different facets affect each other. The proposed influence of culture on a cascading model of emotional intelligence provides a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the mechanism and the pathways in which culture affects emotional intelligence.

Strategy.

MBA.

On 20 May 2016, the Management team at Patanjali Ayurved Limited (PAL), an Indian fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company, had assembled in their Haridwar office, India, to discuss their future growth plans. The team was in a celebratory mood, as their internal reports suggested the annual revenue forecasts for the year 2016-2017 to be INR 10bn, an increase of 100 per cent as compared to the previous fiscal year 2015-2016 that recorded annual revenues of INR 5bn. PAL incorporated in 2006 and co-founded by Acharya Balkrishna operated in four business segments of foods, personal care, home care and Ayurved products. The products sold under the brand name Patanjali were single-handedly promoted by Swami Ramdev (hereafter referred as Ramdev), a popular Yoga practitioner and preacher amongst the Indian masses, as well as PAL’s co-founder. Ramdev recommended PAL’s products in his yoga sessions on television and yoga shibirs which had led to huge positive “word-of-mouth” publicity for their brand Patanjali. Their fast-paced growth in less than a decade had generated a disruption in the Indian FMCG sector, resulting in a negative impact on the sales of established multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Colgate-Palmolive, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), ITC Limited (ITC), besides the domestic players such as Dabur India Ltd. and Emami Ltd. This had led their FMCG competitors to launch plans to strengthen their product portfolios so as to provide a tough competition to PAL. The management team at PAL, though confident of achieving their annual revenue targets, were apprehensive of this new competition from the big players of the FMCG sector. Were they capable of continuing their success story? Going forward what strategic steps would ensure them a sustainable growth and a market leader position? The mood turned reflective as the team pondered on some of these questions.

The case is structured to enable discussion on: conducting and understanding a general environment analysis and industry and competitive analysis and critically evaluating the firm’s strategic positioning and scope in a competitive environment.

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 learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to explain the importance of rationalizing business operations to achieve efficiencies. To explain the importance of constantly re-inventing the product portfolio and the business for the survival and growth of the business. To discuss the use of product-market expansion strategies as used by businesses for growth and sustainability. To evaluate the internal challenges faced by a company as they adopt business strategies for business growth. To discuss a firm’s strategy to exploit significant opportunities in an evolving business environment.

Panasonic Life Solutions India Limited (PLSIND) an electrical products company with operations in India – an emerging market has set a Vision 2022 to achieve INR 69.21bn revenue target by the year 2022. PLSIND is marketed through the distributor business to consumer sales channel. To achieve the new growth targets, it was imperative for them to expand the product portfolio and explore marketing through the new business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) sales channels. Dinesh Aggarwal the Joint Managing Director of PLSIND was tasked with this responsibility. Both propositions depicted attractive business potential but at the same time came with additional risks of a longer sales/revenue cycle. PLSIND to a certain extent had ventured into new business projects with the launch of home automation, solar solutions for industries and smart street lighting business projects. In 2019, they also made a modest beginning by achieving revenues of INR 3.4bnn (constituting 10% of their aggregate revenues of INR 34bn) from B2B/B2G sales channels. Aggarwal believed that this was a good beginning. However, to achieve 2022 growth targets, they had to aggressively move forward with the new business strategy. Aggarwal had to work with the management team to gain acceptance and then to manage these additional risks for growth that came with this new business strategy. How could he win the confidence of the management team? How could he best reorganize the business teams and processes internally to enhance the required operational efficiencies for business growth?

This case is designed for business students at the MBA or executive MBA level courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This chapter presents an overarching overview of how the rather recent technological phenomena, like data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, are applied in the field of education. The author provides examples of how technological developments associated with the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution are applied in education and considers the benefits and challenges they may bring regarding the economic system, as education (at least in the higher education sector) tends to be monetized and commercialized. The framework for education is perceived in the context of the economic intelligence of states, which is instrumental in ensuring their economic security. It is further expanded to the global scale, as Digital Education is crossing national borders and is being implemented in broader national processes.

As a result of the increasing challenges of time overrun, several companies regularly set up delay assessment procedures for performance improvement and profit maximization. In the construction industry, projects are enormously complicated and involve significant budgets, and therefore optimizing project performance through the root cause analysis should be imperative for every project manager. Typically issues of delays in projects are generally discussed and problematized separately, yet a comprehensive framework for systematic analysis and grouping of delays is rarely contended. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the 4P concept (project related, practices, participants, and procurement) for identifying, analyzing, and classifying delays in the internal environment of the project development process.

The 4P conceptual framework was validated through the synthesis of the existing literature.

Interestingly, despite the increasing concerns about delays in the construction industry, most research on delays are project and/or country specific, thus no consensus about the sources of delays. The application of the proposed concept as a theoretical framework would provide an understanding of the available delay sources, their risks and use for project delay assessment and classification.

This study grouped delays based on the shared characteristics and four main sources were identified and analyzed. There may be other sources or factors, yet would be dependent or aspect of the 4P.

The study informs project teams to reduce delays in the construction industry.

The paper is an application of risk assessment tool to conceptualize delays in the internal project environment.

The overall purpose of this research paper largely depends on developing an easy method to synthesis a material suitable for supercapacitor application. This paper includes the synthesis of, α-Co(OH)₂, its structural, elemental and morphological properties and its supercapacitor properties.

Firstly, the electrolyte is prepared using binder free method, then electrodeposition is used to synthesize α-Co(OH)₂ at 2 V. X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) are used to study the structural, elemental and morphological characteristics. The supercapacitor properties are investigated by using cyclic voltammetry, charging-discharging graph, stability test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).

Synthesis of α-Co(OH)₂ is a tedious job as the temperature and use of weak base plays an important role. However, throughout electrodeposition, temperature is maintained using a water bath and weak base as the precursor. The presence of nitrate anions shows more interlayer space than that of ß-Co(OH)₂ because of which free diffusion of the electrolyte is possible. Sheets structures are more visible in SEM images. Nanosheet like structure is observed in the film and such kind of structure provide higher surface area and higher specific capacitance. Usually, the surface morphology of cobalt hydroxide shows flower-like, spherical and nanocubes particles. The cross-section of the deposited film and it is found to be approximately 100 µm. In the forward and backward scan, oxidation and reduction peaks are clearly visible. However, such a behavior is reported as stable because of no further peaks of oxidation.

XRD and EDS confirms the growth of α-Co(OH)₂. SEM images shows the porous nature of the film. Specific capacitance and energy density has been estimated at 5 mV s⁻¹ is 780 F g⁻¹ and 82 W h kg⁻¹, respectively. The film was stable for 600 cycles showing 75 per cent capacitance retention. The voltage drop is 0.02 V for 0.5 A cm⁻², indicating low resistance and good conductivity of the film. The specific power is estimated to be 15 W kg⁻¹ for 1 A cm⁻². The value of R_ESR, R_CT, C_DL and W is 4.83 Ohm, 1.273 Ohm, 0.00233 C and 0.717, respectively. Thus indicating α-Co(OH)₂ to be better candidate for supercapacitor applications.

Recently scholars have been interested in examining social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and cultural intelligence, but none have examined all these in a comparative study of cultures. Here an empirical examination is conducted of a high-context culture, India, versus a low-context culture, the United States. Linear regression was conducted and findings indicate that the hypothesized relationships, that high-context cultures will have a higher social, emotional, and cultural intelligence, are not supported. In fact, social intelligence was found to be higher in the U.S. sample. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are presented.