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strategic alliances/collaborative strategies;

defending against global competitors;

related diversification;

entrepreneurship-organizational life cycle; and

evaluating strategies for firm growth.

MBA/PGP level programmes in management and/or entrepreneurship.

Aztec Fluids & Machinery, set up just over four years ago in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, caters to the printer hardware, spares and consumables needs of the digital ink jet printing market. The company has identified vendors principally from the UK and China for its printers and consumable sourcing and presently markets these using a hybrid channel structure of direct selling and through 12 distributors in ten cities of India. A recent development of note is the successful transformation of a flexible roll printer into a flat-bed type one by the co-founder. The experiment assumes significance since the cost of a conventional flat-bed screen printer is almost five times that of the improvised printer. The huge, fragmented, price-sensitive, yet quality-conscious market in India offers immense potential for this innovation. At the same time, Aztec's recent interactions with a couple of its UK-based vendors present other alternatives for growth.

To explore organizational life cycle: the introduction and early growth phases.

To understand alliance dynamics for early-stage entrepreneurs –rationale, management and the manifestation of trust between different types of partners: suppliers and customers.

To understand how small firms prepare for and evaluate the challenges of growth.

Teaching note.

Total quality management practices have been embraced by many quality-oriented firms around the world in order to improve performance in terms of quality, productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of TQM practices on various performance indicators specifically in the Indian manufacturing context. This paper focuses on developing an integrated model encompassing significant structural relations showing the linkage between TQM practices and multiple performance indicators – quality performance, customer satisfaction level, operating performance, employee performance, innovation performance, society results and financial performance. Apart from analyzing the direct relationship between constructs, the main purpose of this work is also to identify all the possible mediation effects of performance indicators on others using structural equation modeling (SEM).

An in-depth literature review was conducted to identify the key practices for the successful implementation of TQM in an organization as well as to explore TQM-performance effects. As a result, four TQM practices and seven performance indicators were identified. The data were collected from 260 Indian manufacturing organizations. After confirming the reliability and validity using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the proposed hypotheses were tested using SEM.

Through testing the proposed hypothesized structural model, the direct and indirect effects of TQM practices have been examined. Moreover, this work developed an integrated model showing the interrelationships between TQM practices and performance indicators identified. The findings gave an insight that the effective implementation of TQM practices assists in reaping benefits in the every facet of an organization. By implementing these practices effectively, managers can expect to realize improvement in all these performance areas.

This study is subject to certain limitations. Even if all variables were found to be reliable, valid and satisfactory non-response bias test results, the remote possibility of bias in the data might not be fully ruled out. There is a probability of occurrence of common method variance and common method bias, since the data for both dependent and independent variables were collected from the same respondents in the organization. Additionally data on performance indicators were based on the respondent’s assessment and awareness only. The mediating relationship between individual TQM practice and performance indicators can be investigated in future studies. Since society results are a necessity in future, the direct and indirect practices focusing toward this can be explored. In addition, there is a research scope to identify the moderating effect of contextual factors such as degree of TQM implementation, scope of operation and type of organization.

The findings of the research offer some potentially valuable insights into the relevance of TQM practices and its strong linkage on various performance indicators, through which the overall organization performance can be enhanced. By implementing these practices effectively, managers can expect to realize improvement in all these performance areas. Hence, the managers can adopt this approach to assess their organization’s level in the quality path and as a guideline in implementing TQM practices. They can also measure the impacts of TQM practices on multiple performance measures in order to evaluate their TQM initiatives. Especially the deployment of quality culture is a requisite to excel in the every facet of performance. The positive relationship between TQM practices and various performance indicators can motivate the managers to allocate resources in time, effort and capital for TQM implementation in pursuing quality, leading to customer retention and competitiveness. The findings of the study strongly suggest the need for the holistic implementation of TQM practices for the survival of the organization.

While there is a considerable volume of researches carried out to investigate the linkage between TQM and organization’s performance across the globe, still little is evidenced regarding the mediating effect of performance indicators on others, especially in the Indian manufacturing context. The present paper attempts to extend and add knowledge to this line of research and to bridge the gap and provide sufficient empirical evidence specifically in the Indian scenario. Thereby helps the organization to follow a guideline to improve the overall performance.

The pandemic has brought to light the importance of quickly adopting new technologies and building resilient organisations. Also, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be addressed in large part through technological innovations. The development of smart systems which are linked with the Internet of Things (IoT) can create different opportunities to strategically face the barriers linked with the SDGs and make sure that there is an environmentally sustainable, equitable and healthy society. This study has utilised secondary and qualitative data and has adopted the interpretative and deductive approaches. It has given significance to several aspects of the SDGs and has linked them with digital technology such as accessibility to safe and clean portable water, production of sustainable food along with the generation of green energy and its utilisation. This study has evaluated the advantages of digitalisation so that it can catalyse the transition towards SDGs and improve the health of the citizens by giving digital accessibility specifically to the underserved community. The research has selected the most essential themes which are linked to the context of SDGs and has deeply evaluated a lot of information obtained from authentic secondary resources. At last, it provides a conclusion and recommendations where it has suggested several initiatives which could be made for enhancing the overall scenario and has also disguised the limitations that were identified while completing the study.

This study is aimed at examining the effect of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices on the operational performance of ISO 9001:2008 certified manufacturing companies in Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to meet the purpose. Primary data was collected from the managers and senior experts working under the production and quality management units of the surveyed firms. Data was obtained from a survey of 302 participants found in 73 ISO 9001:2008 certified manufacturing organizations. Both EFA and CFA were applied to validate and confirm the instrument, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The results revealed that among the practices of TQM used in the model only supplier quality management, continuous improvement and process management were found to have significant and positive effect on the operational performance of the ISO 9001:2008 certified manufacturing organizations in Ethiopia.

Future studies are suggested to consider some contextual variables such as firm age, scope of operation, firm size and firm strategy while addressing the objective.

The study will encourage managers of manufacturing companies in Ethiopia to utilize a reliable and valid framework of TQM practices for better operational performance results.

The fact that Ethiopian manufacturing organizations are required to improve their product's quality in order to improve their productivity and enhance their competitiveness in a global market is the rationale of this study. Even though several studies have evolved to scrutinize the link between TQM and operational performance across the world, nearly nothing, is known about this linkage in Ethiopia. Thus, the study represents one of the first attempts to empirically investigate this linkage in Ethiopian context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of mobile applications on investment decisions by retail investors in stocks and mutual funds. This study focuses on how mobile technologies are applied on mobile apps by retail investors for e-trading in emerging financial markets.

The study explored predictive relevance for the adoption behavior of retail investors under the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework. Further, goal contagion theory was applied to investigate the adoption behavior of investors towards e-trading. An adapted questionnaire was used to collect the date from April to June 2021 and data analysis was performed on 507 usable responses. The methodology adopted in this study is variance based partial least square structural equational modelling (PLS-SEM). Additionally, the study explains important and performing constructs based on the response of retail investors towards mobile app usage for investment decisions.

The study shows that effort expectancy, performance expectancy followed by perceived return were the primary determinants of behavioral intentions to use mobile applications by retail investors for e-trading. Further, habit of investors determined the adoption behavior of investors towards mobile apps. Additionally, the study revealed that perceived risk is not an important aspect for retail investors in comparison to perceived return.

The study in future can address to the aspect of personality traits of retail investors for technology adoption for investment decisions. Further investigation is required on addressing unobserved heterogeneity of retail investors towards technology adoption process in emerging financial markets.

The study provides theoretical and practical implications for retail investors, financial advisors and technology companies to understand the behavioral pattern and mobile apps adoption behavior of retail investors in emerging financial market. The findings in the study will help broking firms to sensitize their clients for effective use of their respective mobile apps for e-trading purposes. The study will strengthen the knowledge of financial advisors to understand investment behavior of retail investors in emerging financial markets.

This study unfolds a novel framework of research to understand the technology adoption pattern of retail investors for e-trading by mobile applications in emerging financial markets. The present study provides significant understanding in the domain of technology adoption by retail investors under behavioral finance environment.

In recent years, significant research has focused on the question of whether severe market periods are accompanied by herding behavior. As herding behavior is a considerable cause of the speculative bubble and leads to stock market deviations from their basic values it is necessary to examine the motivators which led to herding behavior among investors. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this study, the authors performed a two-phase analysis to address the research questions of the study. In the first phase, for text analysis NVivo software was used to identify the factors driving herding behavior among Indian stock investors. The analysis of a text was performed using word frequency analysis. While in the second phase, the Fuzzy-AHP analysis techniques were employed to examine the relative importance of all the factors determined and assign priorities to the factors extracted.

Results of the study depicted Investor Cognitive Psychology (ICP), Market Information (MI), Stock Characteristics (SC) as the top-ranked factors driving herding behavior, while Socio-Economic Factors (SEF) emerged as the least important factor driving herding behavior.

The current study was undertaken among stock investors from North India only. Moreover, numerous factors are not part of the study but might significantly influence the investors' herding behaviors.

Comprehending the influences of the different factors discussed in the study would enable stock investors to be more aware of their investment choices and not resort to herd behavior. This research enables decision-makers to understand the reasons for herd activity and helps them act accordingly to improve the stock market's performance.

The current study will provide an inclusive overview of herding behavior motivators among Indian stock investors. This study's results can be extremely useful for both academics and policymakers to gain some insight into the functioning of the Indian stock market.