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The objective of the study is to examine the extent to which pharmaceutical companies in India rely on traditional planning approaches rather than the new learning approach to strategic planning. In addition to that, the study also seeks to examine the perceived ability of the pharmaceutical companies in India to integrate continuous improvement goals and product quality into the overall strategic planning and success in implementing total quality management (TQM) programs examined through three particular continuous improvement mindsets.

The study collected data from select pharmaceutical companies in India through survey technique using a standardized questionnaire through online mode. A descriptive statistical analysis is performed to examine the extent of integration of strategic planning and continuous improvement in the select pharmaceutical companies in India.

The results of the study indicate that pharmaceutical companies in India still rely greatly on traditional planning methods for strategic planning. However, a shift is also observed toward adoption of best practice management and modern strategic management techniques. The study also demonstrates that continuous improvement goals and strategies are included into the corporate strategic planning.

The study employs only descriptive statistics, and no hypotheses are generated in the study because the objective is not to generalize the findings. The process of formulating quality goals and integrating them with strategy is typical to any company. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized. The findings of the study do not given any insights into the strategic quality management process due to online mode of data collection. Also, the focus on the study is on the internal management of quality in an organization and factors in the external environment or in the value chain outside the firm, influencing strategic management of quality are beyond the scope of present study.

Considering the significance of quality of products, an understanding of the link between quality and strategic goals helps the managers in pharmaceutical industry to align the strategic planning goals with quality goals ensuring that the entire organization moves in same strategic direction.

The strong focus quality in pharmaceutical industry in India has given impetus to development of well-managed quality programs on the shop-floor to remain competitive and survive in the highly competitive global markets. However, no such study is conducted so far to understand the extent to which continuous improvement or TQM practices are integrated into strategic planning in the pharmaceutical companies in India.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the characteristics of hybrid conventional complementary metal oxide semiconductor/magnetic tunnel junction (CMOS/MTJ) logic gates based on spin transfer torque (STT) and differential spin Hall effect (DSHE) magnetic random access memory (MRAM).

Spintronics technology can be used as an alternative to CMOS technology as it is having comparatively low power dissipation, non-volatility, high density and high endurance. MTJ is the basic spin based device that stores data in form of electron spin instead of charge. Two mechanisms, namely, STT and SHE, are used to switch the magnetization of MTJ.

It is observed that the power consumption in DSHE based logic gates is 95.6% less than the STT based gates. DSHE-based write circuit consumes only 5.28 fJ energy per bit.

This paper describes how the DSHE-MRAM is more effective for implementing logic circuits in comparison to STT-MRAM.

The purpose of this paper is to study, explore and rank the non-conforming factors in apparels purchased from e-shops.

Data were collected by visiting and interacting people in colleges and through the structured online questionnaires (n=222). The exploratory factor analysis was performed using “R” software. Identified factors were ranked using AHP methodology; 12 experts from various fashion institutes participated in identifying the factors.

Based upon the results of the exploratory study, non-conforming factors such as “visual variation”, “functional inconvenience”, “cloth attribute variation”, “haptic variation”, “aesthetic variation” and “fit variation” were identified. The priority ranking of factors and sub-factors was done.

The sample primarily comprised of the young adult population (19–27 years) and most of them were females (71.6 per cent). There can be other demographic factors. Research is limited to online apparel retailers. Advanced methods of prioritisation can be used.

The paper can be useful to online apparel retailers, vendors and manufacturers to understand the factors that may be important for improving their business.

There is no study that identifies the non-conformance factors related to online apparel retailing.

In the Indian context with an extended phase of high food inflation impacting the hospitality sector, there is a need for coping mechanisms to protect the business bottom line and maintain revenue growth. This need is even more pronounced within the budget restaurant segment. There is limited research that identifies the approach and innovative practices that food and beverage profit centers (hotels and restaurants) can deploy to handle the impact of the identified macroeconomic variable. The purpose of this paper is to probe the general approach and innovation that the budget segment may have used to survive the impact of a sustained increase in prices of food products and related raw materials.

A qualitative approach is adopted for this investigation, through a mix of in‐person or telephone interviews with operating managers (F&B manager, restaurant manager and chefs). The feedback from these sources provides an understanding of the responses of the budget segment to the stated issue of inflation in food products. The qualitative approach generates a spectrum of responses that helps to document some of the best practices that yielded good results, allowing the broader segment to emulate the same.

The research helps owners and operators to draw from innovative practices and approaches used to deliver improved fiscal performance in terms of managing food cost, without adversely impacting customer experience and overall business profitability.

There was a possibility that no clear indicators would emerge from the feedback, nonetheless the experiences that are documented through this research open doors for further research into innovative practices in managing food and beverage costs for improved profitability.

The budget food and beverage sector in the Indian context has been dealing with high inflation of 14 ‐ 18 per cent on the supply side. A mix of strategic choices including passing the additional cost to end users, compromises in the form of diluting product quality or quantity (portion size) or unique process changes are also possible responses.

This paper lists best practices and also evaluates if there is any commonality emerging from the segment in terms of the “right approach” to manage food cost under prevailing inflationary conditions.

Technology transfer becoming an important area especially in developing and less developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to address issue of supply chains’ benchmarking based upon their capability to mange technology transfer critical barriers mitigation efforts toward making technology transfer process implementation successful.

The present paper is based on two research stages. Initially, extensive literature review has been made to identify critical barriers. In total, 20 technology transfer critical barriers have been identified from literature review and categorized in to six criteria. In second stage, analytics hierarchy process has been utilized to rank the critical barriers of technology transfer in supply chain and provide a benchmarking framework.

Political barriers (PB) have been analyzed most significant criteria of critical barriers to technology transfer followed by socio-cultural barriers (SO) and economic barriers (EB). “Political instability,” “Difficulty in transfer and diffusion,” “Too expensive,” “Inappropriate/incompetent technology and resource wastage in technologies imported,” “Inactive role of SC members and resistance to change” and “Management attitude” have been found most hindering barrier in their respective category/criterion of technology transfer barriers.

Scope of the present study has been limited to propose framework to benchmark supply chains by analyzing 20 critical barriers of technology transfer grouped in to six dimensions using analytical hierarchy approach based on “ratings provided by experts,” which may be biased.

Benchmarking process has been proposed to calculate value of total of overall weights to a particular supply chain named as “Technology Transfer Barriers Mitigation Index (TTBMI)” useful to present capability of supply chains to manage technology transfer barriers by a single numeric value. From “provider” developed county’s view point, present benchmarking framework may be further applied to compare developing countries’ ability to absorb and diffuse new technology.

Benchmarking procedure has been dealt with using well-established methodology- analytical hierarchy process toward providing single numeric value index (TTBMI) indicating ability of supply chains to manage/mitigate technology transfer barriers.

The Indian power sector is dominated by coal. Environmental awareness and advances in techno-economic front have led to a slow but steady shift towards greener alternatives. The distributions of both fossil fuel resources and renewable energy potential are not uniform across the states. Paper attempts to answer how the states are performing in the sector and how the renewable energy and conventional resources are affecting the dynamics.

The authors employ a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to rank the performance of Indian states in the power sector. Multi-stage analysis opens up the DEA black-box through disaggregating power sector in two logical sub-sectors. The performance is evaluated from the point-of-view of policy formulating and implementing agencies. Further, an econometric analysis using seemingly unrelated regression equations (SURE) is conducted to estimate the determinants of total and industrial per-capita electricity consumption.

Efficiency scores obtained from the first phase of analysis happens to be a significant explanatory variable for power consumption. The growth in electricity consumption, which is necessary for economic wellbeing, is positively affected by both renewable and non-renewable sources; but conventional sources have a larger impact on per-capita consumption. Yet, the share of renewables in the energy mix has positive elasticity. Hence, the findings are encouraging, because development in storage technologies, falling costs and policy interventions are poised to give further impetus to renewable sources.

The study is one of the very few where entire spectrum of the Indian power sector is evaluated from efficiency perspective. Further, the second phase analysis gives additional relevant insights on the sector.

Organizational capabilities are crucial to achieve the objectives. A plethora of maturity models is available to guide organizational capabilities that create a perplexing situation about what stuff to improve and what to leave. Therefore, a unified maturity model addressing a wide range of capabilities is a necessity. This paper establishes that a flexibility maturity model is an unified model containing the operational, strategic and human capabilities.

This paper does a comparative analysis/benchmarking studies of different maturity models/frameworks widely used in the information technology (IT) sector with respect to the flexibility maturity model to establish its comprehensiveness and application in the organization to handle multiple goals.

This study confirms that the flexibility maturity model has the crucial elements of all the maturity models. If the organizations use the flexibility maturity model, they can avoid the burden of complying with multiple ones and become objective-driven rather than compliance-driven.

The maturity models used in information technology sectors are used. This work will inspire other maturity models to adopt flexibility phenomena.

The comparative analysis will give confidence in application of flexibility framework. The business environment and strategic options across organizations are inherently different that the flexibility maturity model well handles.

A choice is put to an organization to see the comparison tables produced in this paper and choose the right framework according to the prevailing business situation.

This is the first study that makes a conclusion based on comparative benchmarking of existing maturity models.

This paper aims to epistemologically extend and explore the present theories from prior research conducted in the area of responsiveness. Furthermore, it determines to benchmark the prominent theories, characteristics, context and methodologies (TCCM) used in the domain since its inception to advance the science and practice of marketing and logistics discipline.

A seven-step methodology (SSM) has been introduced to create a comprehensive dataset. Based upon the selection criteria of high-ranked journals and language, the research studies have been retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, Business Source Complete and journal homepage to avoid the error of exclusion. Moreover, the dataset has been compiled using manual and electronic searches without any limitation of time.

The search for a suitable dataset retrieved 642 documents by identifying “1969” as the beginning year of research in the subject domain. The analysis found that responsiveness has been prominently studied in the manufacturing industry. The results also advocate responsiveness as the vital antecedent to performance and satisfaction. Frameworks have been proposed with significant propositions for future empirical testing and theory inventiveness by researchers.

The study pioneers its utility for retailers to recognize the firms' inherent abilities and strengths, which can be promoted to create responsiveness more than ever. The analysis results can act as the compelling force to understand the driving power of various factors influencing responsiveness.

The different performance tests were conducted on diesel engine compression ignition (CI) mode and CRDi engine.

The CI engine was suitably modified to CRDi engine with Toroidal re-entrant combustion chamber (TRCC) and was run in dual-fuel (DF) mode. Hydrogen (H₂) was supplied at different flow rates during the suction stroke, and 0.22 Kg/h of hydrogen fuel flow rate (HFFR) was found to be optimum. Diesel and biodiesel were used as pilot fuels. The CRDi engine with DF mode was run at various injection pressures, and 900 bar was found to be optimum injection pressure (IP) with 10o before top dead center (bTDC) as fuel injection timing (IT).

These operating engine conditions increased formation of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), which were reduced by exhaust gas recycle (EGR). With EGR of 15%, CRDi engine resulted in 12.6% lower brake thermal efficiency (BTE), 5.5% lower hydrocarbon (HC), 7.7% lower carbon monoxide (CO), 26% lower NOx at 80% load as compared to the unmodified diesel engine (CI mode).

The current research is an effort to study and evaluate the performance of CRDi engine in DF mode with diesel-H₂ and BCPO-H₂ fuel combinations with TRCC.