Search results

This case will enable students to understand the operations and business model of an international retailer. The case offers enough insights and learning on a retailer who enters a different market and collaborates with the local players to gain market access; and to understand the marketing techniques and strategies of an international retailer to capitalise on market opportunities.

The case is about a third largest US-based multinational Costco Wholesale corporation which is a giant retailer. The company operated at 803 locations with a revenue of $166.7bn, which makes it the third largest global retailer in 2020. The case offers comprehensive insight into Costco Wholesale’s business model, distribution strategy, marketing techniques and internationalisation. The authors further discuss that how Costco put forth its model among different range of customers and provided them with high-quality products at a comparatively lower price. The focus of the case is towards the Asian expansion of Costco. In subsequent parts, the strategies and challenges of Costco with respect to its Asian competitors have also been discussed. After generating experience in Asian markets, Costco has considered China as its next destination. The case also discusses the foreign retailers’ success, failure and retail format.

This case is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate classes of management and business administration.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

While rapid increase in demand for foods but limited availability of croplands has forced to adopt input-intensive farming practices to increase yield, there are serious long-term ecological implications including degradation of biodiversity. It is increasingly recognised that ensuring agricultural sustainability under the changing climatic conditions requires a change in the production system along with necessary policies and institutional arrangements. In this context, this chapter examines if climate-smart agriculture (CSA) can facilitate adaptation and mitigation practices by improving resource utilisation efficiency in India. Such an attempt has special significance as the existing studies have very limited discussions on three main aspects, viz., resource productivity, adaptation practices and mitigation strategies in a comprehensive manner. Based on insights from the existing studies, this chapter points out that CSA can potentially make significant contribution to enhancing resource productivity, adaptation practices, mitigation strategies and food security, especially among the land-constrained farmers who are highly prone to environmental shocks. In this connection, staggered trench irrigation structure has facilitated rainwater harvesting, local irrigation and livelihood generation in West Bengal. However, it is necessary to revisit the existing approaches to promotion of CSA and dissemination of information on the design of local adaptation strategies. This chapter also proposes a change in the food system from climate-sensitive to CSA through integration of technologies, institutions and policies.

The study identifies the challenges of developing the “electric vehicle (EV)” charging infrastructure in India, having an ambitious target of 30% EV adoption by 2030.

First, a systematic literature review determined EV adoption and challenges in the EV charging infrastructure development globally and specifically in India. Secondly, a focussed group study in which 10 domain experts were consulted to identify additional challenges in India's EV adoption involving EV charging infrastructure.

Accordingly, 11 significant challenges of EV charging infrastructure development in India have been identified–seven through the comparative analysis of the literature review and four from the focussed group study. Secondary data provides insight into the situation around developed countries and in developing countries, specifically in India. Finally, the Government of India's measures and priorities to facilitate such a development are emphasised.

The study can help policymakers/researchers understand the gaps and align measures to address the challenges. A focussed group study may have its limitations due to the perception of the experts.

The systematic literature review of 43 articles using comparative analysis and subsequently a focussed group study of experts to verify and add challenges has made the study unique.

Soy beverage is becoming more and more popular because it is touted as a healthy food containing useful phytochemicals and is free from lactose and cholesterol. The purpose of this paper is to optimize the spray drying process parameters for obtaining soy beverage powder with good reconstitution and handling properties.

Pre-concentrated soy beverage was dried in a laboratory model spray dryer, and the effects of inlet air temperature (180-220°C), feed rate (20-40 ml/min) and feed solid content (15-25 per cent) on some physical parameters and reconstitution properties (wettability and dispersibility) of spray-dried soy beverage powders were investigated. Second order polynomial response surface model was selected for the analysis of data and optimization of the process.

Spray drying of soy beverage at different processing conditions resulted in powders with particle size (volume mean diameter) in the range of 86 to 156 µm. Dispersibility and wetting time of the spray-dried soy beverage powders was found to be in the range of 56 to 78 per cent and 30 to 90 s respectively, under various drying conditions. Inlet air temperature was found to be the main factor affecting most of the quality parameters, followed by solid content of the feed. Temperature significantly affected the wettability, dispersibility, colour parameters, particle size and flowability of the powder at p ≤ 0.01. Lower temperature and higher feed solid content produced bigger-sized powder particles with better handling properties in terms of flowability and cohesiveness. A moderate inlet air temperature (196°C), higher feed solid content (24 per cent) and lower feed rate (27 ml/min) were found suitable for drying of soy beverage.

The study implied the possibility of producing powder from soy beverage using the spray-drying method and optimized drying conditions for obtaining soy beverage powder with good reconstitution properties.

The finding of this study demonstrated for the first time how the inlet air temperature, feed solid content and feed rate during spray-drying influenced different quality parameters of soy beverage powder. Further, an optimized drying condition has been identified.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the future of trading on volatility as well as the efficiency of the stock market of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries. This study also investigates the presence of day‐of‐the‐week effect in BRIC countries' stock market.

This study uses closing prices of IBrx‐50 for Brazil, RTSI for Russia, Nifty for India and CSI300 for China to represent the stock market of BRIC countries. The Run and ACF tests are used to see impact on market efficiency. GARCH M model is used to see the impact on volatility and day‐of‐the week effect.

The insignificant coefficient of variance in the conditional mean equation of GARCH M implies that the market doesn't provide higher returns during the high volatility period. The results of the Run test showed that the Russian stock market became efficient after introduction of future trading. However, ACF showed no effect of introduction of future trading on autoregressiveness of stock returns. The result of GARCH M indicates that future trading led to reduction in the volatility of the Indian stock market. There are some evidences of presence of day‐of‐the‐week effect in the Indian stock market.

This paper will help regulators to form appropriate policies as the market would have to pay a certain price, such as loss of market efficiency, for the sake of market stabilization. This will also help investors to make investment decisions, especially investing in these indices as the existence of the significant day‐of‐the‐week effect and the inefficiency in the stock market would be very useful for developing investment strategies.

This paper will be useful for both investors and regulators in decision making.

Laser land leveling (LLL) is a climate-smart technology that improves water use efficiency and reduces risk in crop cultivation due to weather variability. Hence, this technology is useful for cultivating water-intensive crops in a sustainable way. Given this background, the state government of Karnataka initiated to promote LLL in drought-prone districts and selected Raichur district for implementation. Moreover, farmers in this district had observed drought situation during monsoon paddy growing season in 2018. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the importance of LLL technology for paddy cultivation under drought conditions.

A primary survey with 604 farmer households had been conducted in Raichur in 2018. Among them, 50% are adopters of LLL who have been selected purposively and rest 50% are non-adopters who have grown paddy in the adjacent or nearest plot of the laser-leveled plot. The adoption and causal impact of LLL has been estimated using propensity score matching, coarsened exact matching and endogenous switching regression methods.

The result reveals a positive and significant impact of LLL on paddy yield and net returns to the farmers. The results indicate an increment of 12 and 16% in rice yield and net income, respectively, for LLL adopters in comparison to the non-adopters of LLL.

The major limitation of the study is that it does not adopt the method of experimental study due to certain limitations; hence, the authors employed a quasi-experimental method to look at the possible impact of adoption of LL.

There have been various agronomic studies focusing on the ex-ante assessment of the LLL. This study is an ex-post assessment of the technology on the crop yield and farmers' income in a dry semi-arid region of India, which, according to the authors, is the first in this approach.

This article attempts to understand the pattern of credit (loan) among agricultural households and identify the correlates of their access to institutional credit for policy imperatives. It also focuses on the inclusivity of institutional credit and debt pattern in terms of outstanding loan in the southern region of India.

This study employs the Tobit model along with the Heckman selection model to study the impact of various factors on the institutional borrowing and the amount outstanding.

The findings reveal that the access to credit is strongly associated with the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of agricultural households in South India. Asset position of households and size of holding are positively related with the probability of household having access to institutional credit. Education and family size are also found to be associated with higher access to formal credit. On the other hand, the socially disadvantaged households have lower access to formal credit. Similarly, other variables – assets, holding size and education – are associated with higher credit per household.

The findings indicate that the strategies to develop agriculture in southern India must encompass efforts to bring the small and marginal farmers under the coverage of institutional credit.

There are very few studies that have explored the credit access in South India from the perspective of land class despite the government’s attempts to include small and marginal farmers in the ambit of formal financial services.

This paper is an attempt to explore the awareness and attitude of the management students towards corporate social responsibility (CSR). Students are perceived as future managers of the corporate world and their perception about CSR is deemed important to business organisations. The students can make companies understand their responsibility towards various stakeholders. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

By doing a review of past literature, an appropriate scale consisting of forty-one items has been developed to measure the dimensions of CSR. Data were collected from 294 students of various business schools situated in Rajasthan (India). The data collected was subjected to exploratory factor analysis to extract the main dimensions that would bring out the attitudes of the students towards CSR.

Results revealed that the companies should pay attention to accountability towards stakeholders, corporate governance, ethical commitment and humanitarian concerns besides fulfilling other responsibilities as covered under the eight factors identified in the study.

This paper used survey data from small sample of management students in a limited geographic area. Hence, it might be difficult to generalize the results to a larger, more representative population. The research also suggests how corporations can make CSR an integral part of the business organisation.

The dimensions identified in the study if incorporated by the business in its day-to-day operations can make it socially responsible as well as socially acceptable in the true sense.

This research makes an empirical contribution to identify the factors which management students expect business enterprises should do to be justified as socially responsible corporate citizens.

This paper is an attempt to understand the pattern of credit among agricultural households in Eastern India and to identify the correlates of their access to institutional credit for policy imperatives.

The study uses unit-level data from the All-India Debt and Investment Survey of the 59th and 70th rounds of the National Sample Survey Office for the years 2002–2003 and 2012–2013. Cragg's double-hurdle model and the Heckman selection model are used to estimate the determinants of access to and the amount of institutional loans taken by households. These models also account for potential selection bias in the findings.

The study reveals that access to credit is strongly associated with the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of agricultural households. However, about half of the farmers in the eastern states of India lack access to institutional credit despite the government's attempts to include them in the ambit of formal financial services. Thus, strategies for developing agriculture in Eastern India must include efforts to bring small and marginal farmers under the coverage of institutional credit.

These data are based on the responses given by the sample households and not the experimental data. The data pertain to the year 2013.

The findings emphasize that strategies for developing agriculture in Eastern India must give special push to enhance small and marginal farmers' access to institutional credit.

This paper finds the returns from soil conservation practices and examines whether the welfare implications of adopting the conservation practices are heterogeneous across the farming groups in Indian agriculture.

The study uses an endogenous switching regression (ESR) method on the data collected from the 77th round of National Sample Survey (2019–21) to quantify the returns from adopting soil conservation practices.

It finds that farmers adopting soil health conservation practices would have reduced their crop yield by 13% if they did not implement them. Similarly, smallholders who have not adopted soil health management practices would have increased crop yield by 16% if they had adopted the practices. The authors also observed that the returns from adopting soil health management practices vary across farming groups, where marginal and large farms tend to gain higher yields. Finally, the authors find that regardless of farm size, smallholders who did not adopt soil health management practices would benefit from adopting these with increased crop yields of 29%–31%.

More data could have been better for drawing policy implications, since the number of soil card users are relatively less.

This research work uses nationally representative data, which is first in nature on this very aspect.