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The learning outcomes are as follows: to analyze the driving forces that lead non-government organizations (NGOs) to develop need-based programs; to evaluate the strategy adopted by NGOs in attaining the organization’s mission and creating a social impact, corporate social responsibility, inclusion, labor market, social enterprise, strategy and vocational learning; to apply social business canvas for analyzing the business model deployed by NGOs to develop market linkages; to analyze the challenges in setting and scaling NGO programs and strategies designed to address the same; and to enable students to brainstorm in creating future growth options for scaling up and replicating NGO programs.

The case describes the journey of Salaam Bombay Foundation (SBF), a national-level NGO registered in 2002 in Mumbai, India. In March 2020, SBF had an annual budget of INR 13.98 crores (US$1.84m). It addresses the challenging environments children from economically constrained families face by engaging them in continuing school education and providing vocational training. Since its inception, SBF has launched and executed many in-school and after-school programs. To successfully transit skilled adolescents and teenagers into the labor market and help them make informed career decisions, SBF launched “DreamLab,” a stipend-based “internship” model, in August 2018. Gaurav Arora, Vice President SBF, was assigned the responsibility to scale up skills@school and DreamLab internship programs. With disruptions caused by the pandemic in March 2020, Arora struggled to operationalize DreamLab as initially planned. The case is at a crucial decision point where clouds of uncertainty have made Arora and his team anxious about their future course of action.

The case is intended for students of undergraduate and graduate programs in Business Management, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Work programs. Executives of management development programs can also use the case to analyze the effectiveness and management of the skill development program.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The emerging markets have been witnessing a remarkable revival of rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) serving as alternative informal financing and investment platforms, also known as savings-based finance (SBF) in Turkey. The purpose of this study is to present the SBF model mathematically, analyse the performance of the SBF sector and propose a new Sharīʿah-compliant SBF model for the acquisition of durables.

The paper thoroughly reviews the concept and practice of ROSCA across the globe, mathematically models and empirically analyses the performance of Turkish SBF companies using a unique data set.

The study formulates a two-person SBF model and proposes a Mudarabah-Wakalah hybrid model with a new investment feature. It is found that the concept of ROSCA is being operationalized in 105 countries across the globe under different names with slight business model modifications. The research also reveals that the demand for financing of durables in Turkey significantly increased in recent years with the demand for housing is twice greater compared to vehicles. Most importantly, a strong significant inter- and intra-comovement is observed between these durables implying that the success of the sector in one segment has attracted the customers to other SBF products. It shows that the SBF institutions can effectively serve as the alternative financing houses for pooling savings and financing the durables, and they have strong potential to capture a larger financial market share in Turkey and even globally.

The study constructs mathematical models and proposes a new investment wing to an existing SBF wealth fund.

Firms transforming from a product supplier into a solution provider need to develop entirely new organizational capabilities or re-configure existing ones. This paper aims to conceptualize solution business fitness (SBF) as a construct that captures comprehensively the capabilities necessary for a firm to operate successfully in solution business and investigates how the construct can be measured.

Based on a conceptualization of solution-specific capabilities and SBF, the development of the SBF measurement model followed a three-step procedure: domain specification and conceptual development, qualitative pre-study and quantitative pre-study. The SBF measurement model and its relevance were studied in a large scale longitudinal study using survey data from firm representatives, as well as archival data about the turnover and profitability development of the respective solution providers.

The study empirically validates solution-business-specific capabilities as antecedents of firm performance and shows how different business logics applied by firms give capabilities different importance and impact.

Managerially, firms can use the developed measurement tool to assess their current SBF and define the desired target status. When improving the SBF, managers should pay special attention to the business logic of their firm, as the required capabilities are context-dependent.

The study is the first to conceptualize and measure SBF and to empirically investigate the moderating role of business logic on the importance of the concept and its elements.

Zn has been attracting increasing attention with its biological compatibility property as a degradable implant material. Besides mechanical properties, especially for bone implant applications, wear resistance is a crucial mechanical property. The purpose of this study is to investigate HPTed Zn samples’ tribological behavior under dry and simulated body fluid (SBF) lubrication conditions.

Pure Zn powders were consolidated via the high-pressure torsion (HPT) method with 1, 5 and 10 rotations. Cast pure Zn samples were used as the control group. The wear behavior of pure Zn samples was investigated under dry and SBF lubrication conditions with a ball-on testing method. The wear tracks were observed with a mechanical profilometer and scanning electron microscope (SEM).

The application of HPT not only improved the mechanical strength and degradation performance but also improved wear resistance. However, tests with SBF resulted in higher wear rates. Besides, SBF significantly masked the positive effect of HPT on the coefficient of friction (COF). Although with SBF tests, 10 HPT rotation samples resulted in the lowest wear width and volume.

The main originality of this study is to reveal the HPT process and SBF effects on the tribological behavior of pure Zn to observe their potential usage for bone implant applications.

This study aims to investigate the evolvement of the concept and practice of the Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA) from informal fund collection for indivisible durables to real property acquisition under the interest-free SBF model by analyzing the previously conducted research that focused on the concept in terms of names, forms, and natures.

A PRISMA-compliant systematic literature review is adopted to ascertain the most relevant studies from various sources and analyze the extracted data or items to accomplish the research objective. Besides, bibliometric network, thematic, and statistical analysis are also applied to bolster the findings acquired from the systematic review. Furthermore, this study mathematically formulates and introduces the customized PRISMA systematic flowchart.

The results reveal that the concept of ROSCA has evolved over the years from informal to formal, micro to macro, individual to institutional, social to business, and fund collection for purchasing household items to real property acquisition since 1962. In this process, the focus area of the research has been shifted from characteristics, operation, and economics to law; source of funds, and history to social; benefits and contribution to digital, risk, and savings behaviour. It is noticed that the majority of the study are Africa-centric, followed by Asia; academic discussion on the ROSCA covers most of the social and economic arena, except the real property acquisition aspect. However, the SBF concept fills up this gap by introducing a real-property-acquisition-centric ROSCA model. The authors provide future agendas regarding focus areas that researchers may consider to develop the SBF concept.

The study focuses on the evolvement of a savings-based model. No study concentrates on the evolution process of the model from ROSCA to SBF; in fact, no conspicuous academic study is found regarding the systematic review of ROSCA in the literature archive.

The commercial stainless steels have been used extensively in the biomedicine application and their electrochemical behaviour in the simulated body fluid (SBF) are not uncovered obviously. In this research, the corrosion resistance of the commercial stainless steel of Fe–17Cr–xNi alloys (x = 4, 8, 10 and 14) has been studied. This study aims to evaluate the rate of corrosion and corrosion resistance of some Fe–Cr–Ni alloys in SBF at 37°C.

In this research, the corrosion resistance of the commercial stainless steel of Fe–17Cr–xNi alloys has been studied using open circuit potential, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and potentiodynamic polarization in the SBF at 37°C and pH 7.4 for a week. Also, the surface morphology of the four alloys was investigated using scanning electron microscopy, elemental composition was obtained via energy dispersive spectroscopy and the crystal lattice structure of Fe–17Cr–xNi alloys was obtained using X-ray diffraction technique. The chemical structure of the protective oxide film has been examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and metals ions released into the solution have been detected after different immersion time using atomic absorption spectroscopy.

The results revealed that the increase of the Ni content leads to the formation of the stable protective film on the alloys such as the Fe–17Cr–10Ni and Fe–17Cr–14Ni alloys which possess solid solution properties. The Fe–17Cr–14Ni alloy displayed highest resistance of corrosion, notable resistance for localized corrosion and the low corrosion rate in SBF because of the formation of a homogenously protective oxide film on the surface. The XPS analysis showed that the elemental Fe, Cr and Ni react with the electrolyte medium and the passive film is mainly composed of Cr₂O₃ with some amounts of Fe(II) hydroxide at pH 7.4.

This work includes important investigation to use commercial stainless steel alloys for biomedical application.

This study aims to propose a model to elevate the financial empowerment of Muslim women by rejuvenating the practice of Mahr in society and facilitating the affordability of men to pay that Mahr amount.

The approach of this study is to offer a model through the interest-free savings-based finance concept. The model comprises four stages; each stage of the model is mathematically formulated and graphically explained to ensure clarity and coherence. To further investigate the issue, the authors use a convenient sampling method to ask a small sample size of respondents (women) from different countries about their financial contribution and empowerment in the family.

This model enables women to turn their exclusive financial right into a source of earning without borrowing from any source or paying interest on the principal amount. Besides, it encourages accelerating men’s obligation to pay the Mahr to the women immediately during the marriage ceremony by facilitating men’s affordability. Almost 45% of respondents state that a woman’s financial contribution exalts her decision-making power and strengthens her financial position in the family.

The authors attempt to revitalize Mahr practice in Muslim society to accelerate the process of receiving a woman’s exclusive financial right and empower a family as a whole through the Mahr model.

Considering the model’s uniqueness, the developed and proposed Mahr model in this research is novel; to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted and developed such a model using the Mahr concept.

The first French context of microfinance dates from the 1980's. As a matter of fact, the “grameen bank” model was imported at this time to France by M. Nowak, through her Association for an individual right to undertake: “Association pour le Droit à l'Initiative Economique” (ADIE). But today the domestic landscape of solidarity‐based finance counts plenty of “new” actors, such as: CIGALES, la NEF among others, not to forget intermediated social finance firms: Cooperative banks and public banks with social objectives like the Crédits Municipaux. The purpose of this paper is to show how solidarity‐based finance actors try to supply banking products and services to those who are excluded from access to the banking system and to test the hypothesis of an alternative financial system that is “socially responsible” in articulation with public and private sectors.

A typology of social banking actors is proposed. The nature of responsibility of each actor of this other kind of finance is described.

Social and solidarity‐based economy needs to be recognized by contemporary economics. Solidarity‐based finance shows us that another sustainable development model is possible.

This paper provides incentive to other social economists to continue this work in cooperation.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of simulated body fluid (SBF) on biodegradation and tribological properties of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and UHMWPE stabilized with α-tocopherol.

The samples of UHMWPE and UHMWPE stabilized with α-tocopherol were prepared by a hot-pressing method, and then immersed in SBF for one year. Tribological test was performed on a UMT-2 tribometer.

The crystallinity and tribological properties increased slightly after UHMWPE stabilized with α-tocopherol, whereas the O/C ration decreased slightly. The crystallinity and O/C ratio increased after all samples immersed in SBF for one year. This resulted in the deterioration of tribological properties and the wear mechanism change. The tribological properties change was smaller in UHMWPE stabilized with α-tocopherol than that in UHMWPE, because the oxidation resistance of UHMWPE was increased by α-tocopherol.

The results of the experimental studies demonstrated and compared the biodegradation behavior and tribological properties of UHMWPE, UHMWPE stabilized with α-tocopherol, and after they immersed in SBF for one year.

This paper aims to examine the link between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication efforts of companies and their ability to obtain public procurement contracts.

The authors are exploiting a database with the number of public procurement contracts won by SBF 120 companies in France and a constructed CSR index over the period of 2007–2015. The authors provide estimates of the amount of public contracts won by those companies.

The results suggest a striking influence of CSR communication on the ability of firms to win contracts.

This study focused on the case of the SBF 120 companies under the French regulatory system and European directives, which are different from the obligations in North American countries. Second, our constructed CSR index may be too simplistic in nature, and its application is limited only to the French context. Third, we do not have any evidence about the efficiency of well-ranked firms in our study. CSR reporting is still considered to be a form of communication, even if formal, that can contain information that does not especially reflect reality, as the scandals of several companies have shown in recent years (e.g. Volkswagen, Eiffage, Enron).

Companies should consider Business-to-Government (B-to-G) market when investing in CSR actions.

This is one of the first empirical studies measuring the impact of CSR on the ability of companies to win public contracts.