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Introduction: Cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are essential for new-age firms to survive and succeed in the VUCA market environment. This study examines how automobile corporations have improved cost competitiveness, productivity, and product quality.

Purpose: This study examines the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance for the long-term survival of organisations in VUCA markets, looking at the practical efforts made by automobile corporations to enhance cost competitiveness, productivity, and quality.

Methodology: The study utilises a comprehensive analysis of the strategies and initiatives implemented by the selected automobile companies. It involves a review of relevant literature, case studies, financial data analysis, and interviews with key industry experts, providing a holistic understanding of the actions taken by these organisations to achieve their goals.

Findings: The study reveals that cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are critical factors for the long-term survival and success of organisations in the automotive industry. The analysed automobile companies have undertaken practical efforts to improve cost competitiveness, enhance productivity, and ensure high-quality products, enabling them to navigate the challenges and maintain a competitive edge.

Significance: The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance in the automotive industry. It highlights the need for organisations to constantly monitor both qualitative and quantitative profit to avoid complacency and ensure long-term efficiency. The study’s insights are relevant to businesses operating in other sectors, as they face similar challenges in the VUCA market environment.

Allocation of the marketing budget has become increasingly challenging due to the diverse channel exposure to customers. This study aims to enhance global marketing knowledge by introducing an ensemble attribution model to optimize marketing budget allocation for online marketing channels. As empirical research, this study demonstrates the supremacy of the ensemble model over standalone models.

The transactional data set for car insurance from an Indian insurance aggregator is used in this empirical study. The data set contains information from more than three million platform visitors. A robust ensemble model is created by combining results from two probabilistic models, namely, the Markov chain model and the Shapley value. These results are compared and validated with heuristic models. Also, the performances of online marketing channels and attribution models are evaluated based on the devices used (i.e. desktop vs mobile).

Channel importance charts for desktop and mobile devices are analyzed to understand the top contributing online marketing channels. Customer relationship management-emailers and Google cost per click a paid advertising is identified as the top two marketing channels for desktop and mobile channels. The research reveals that ensemble model accuracy is better than the standalone model, that is, the Markov chain model and the Shapley value.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first of its kind to introduce ensemble modeling for solving attribution problems in online marketing. A comparison with heuristic models using different devices (desktop and mobile) offers insights into the results with heuristic models.

In the present study, we examined how effectively online travel agencies (OTAs) handle negative e-word-of-mouth on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We collected data from 497 participants using survey method. To test the hypotheses formulated from the existing literature, structural equation modeling was adopted in this study. The results from structural equation modeling indicate effective handling of the negative e-word of mouth (e-WOM) on social media websites significantly affects customer satisfaction and repurchase intention. The current research work provides insight into social media recovery efforts and service fairness when handling negative e-WOM. The study recommends that customers can distinguish the differences between general efforts and adaptive complaint-handling efforts, and dissimilarities may influence satisfaction, repurchase intentions, etc. Although empathy, apology, responsiveness, and paraphrasing are considered pioneer strategies in complaint handling, customers' negative e-WOM, and firms' recovery management, but the current study is among a few to categorize OTAs' handling of negative e-WOM and complaint handling efforts in the social media environment.

The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008 had far-reaching consequences for the global economy, triggering widespread economic turmoil. We use the event-study method to investigate whether investors priced the effect of significant events before the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in European and Asia-Pacific banks. Abnormal returns on the event days range from −4.32% to 5.03% in Europe and −5.13% to 6.57% in Asia-Pacific countries. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 15, 2008, abnormal returns averaged the lowest at −4.32% in Europe and −5.13% in Asia-Pacific countries. The significant abnormal returns show that Lehman Brothers' collapse was a turning point, and investors paid attention to the precrisis events as warning signs of the oncoming crisis.

Land value in urban areas in India is influenced by regulations, bylaws and the amenities associated with them. Planning interventions play a significant role in enhancing the quality of the neighbourhood, thereby resulting in a change in its value. Land is a distinct commodity due to its fixed location, and planning interventions are also specific to certain locations. Consequently, the factors influencing land value will vary across different areas. While recent literature has explored some determinants of land value individually, conducting a comprehensive study specific to each location would be more beneficial for making informed policy decisions. Therefore, this article aims to examine and identify the critical factors that impact the value of residential land in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India.

The study employed a combination of semi-structured and structured interview methods to construct a Relative Importance Index (RII) and ascertain the critical determinants affecting residential land value. A sample of 36 experts, comprising property valuers, urban planners and real estate professionals operating within the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India, were selected using snowball sampling techniques. Subsequently, rank correlation and ANOVA methods were employed to evaluate the obtained results.

Location and stage of urban development are the most critical determinants in determining residential land values in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. The study identifies a total of 13 critical determinants.

A scenario planning approach can be developed to achieve an equitable distribution of values and land use entropy. A land value assessment model can also be developed to assist professional valuers.

There has been a lack of emphasis on assessing the impact of planning interventions and territorial regulation on land values in the context of Delhi. This study will contribute to policy decision-making by developing a rank list of planning-based determinants of land value.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the impact of corporate culture on sales order backlog.

The authors use regression analysis to examine the relation between corporate culture and the level of sales order backlog, an important leading indicator of firm performance.

Using a large panel sample of US firms for the period of 2003–2021, the authors find a significant and positive relation, suggesting that firms with strong corporate culture have a higher level of sales order backlog.

The study findings contribute to two separate areas of research: corporate culture in management literature and sales order backlog in accounting literature. Prior study has focused on the impact of corporate culture on current firm performance. This study extends prior research by investigating the impact of corporate culture on order backlog, an important leading indicator of future performance.

In the backdrop of an increase in market-based banking activities, this paper aims to study operational efficiency of Indian banking sector during 2009–2010 through 2017–2018 considering Capital Gain and Gain from Forex Market (as desirable outputs) and Slippage (as undesirable byproducts) simultaneously, along with Advances – a desirable output considered in the traditional banking performance assessment literature. This enables to have an assessment of performance (as captured by the measured efficiency scores) of Indian Banks following an alternative viewpoint about the banking activities. The authors also explain such efficiency scores in terms of bank-specific factors, banking industry competition scenario and interest rate channel.

Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, the authors estimate six alternatives but interlinked operational efficiency scores (TES) of the Indian domestic commercial banks. In the second stage, they explain such TES in terms of bank-specific factors, banking industry competition scenario and interest rate channel.

The authors observe that the private sector banks as a group outperform those under public ownership. Moreover, although the private sector banks could maintain somewhat consistency in their operational efficiency performance over the sample period, public sector banks clearly show a declining tendency. The second stage econometric estimation results show that the priority sector lending has a negative effect on efficiency. Interestingly, the authors get varying results for the relationship between maturity and efficiency score depending on banks’ strategies on stressed assets management. Furthermore, the analyses result that banks are not so efficient in managing relatively larger-volume loans. It is also observed that banks’ efficiency positively depends on the Credit-to-Deposit (CD) ratio. It is found that the overall operational efficiency of the banks to manage their credit risk portfolio improves with a reduction in the lending rate (LR). However, the interaction of lending activities and capital market shows that with the increase in LR, corporate borrowers may switch to capital market to explore for desired funds, which may induce the banking sector to investment in capital markets and create a positive market sentiment.

Literature, although scanty, is there dealing stressed assets of a bank as some undesirable byproducts of its operational and business activities. However, such literature mostly done within the traditional framework of banking business activities and modern market-based business activities are almost absent in the literature. The authors have done it in the present study.

The study aims to deepen existing knowledge on the specific role of soft total quality management (TQM) practices in the ferry sector. Over the last decade, TQM practices have been thoroughly restructured, allowing us to develop an appropriate framework through which the relevance of each practice to this particular sector can be explained.

A narrative case study has been conducted to enhance the quality orientation and soft TQM practices adopted by a medium-sized company in the ferry sector.

The study identifies five soft TQM practices that offer valuable contributions in terms of quality orientation. These are organised into a configurational and systemic approach according to a three-level framework. At the macro level, a customer-orientated approach is paramount, as this orientation clearly points out the fundamental values of TQM. Coherently, at the micro-level, employees should be trained, involved, and empowered to truly internalise and behave according to a quality orientation. At the meso-level, dedicated leadership should support these practices and foster their effectiveness across the organisational structure.

The main limitation of this study is related to its narrative analysis. More empirically-grounded research should be used in the future to test the validity of the model.

TQM practices can leverage soft aspects, finding mutual integrations and offering reciprocal support if a bundle of practices is enforced and co-present across several layers of an organisational structure.

The model offers a configurational approach to help the ferry sector in leveraging soft TQM practices to implement TQM initiatives successfully. This is subject to external contingencies and thus requires adaptability and flexibility.

The lateral feedback seeking literature has primarily examined lower-level employees’ feedback seeking from peers. Thus, the authors still know very little about feedback seeking when the leader is the “seeker” and peers are the “targets” of such seeking. The purpose of this paper is to expand existing discussions on lateral feedback seeking by discussing the types of feedback leaders may seek out from their peers.

The views presented here have been derived from the authors’ personal opinions on the topic of feedback seeking and a review of the academic and practitioner literature on feedback seeking.

The viewpoint suggests that leaders may engage in two forms of feedback seeking from peers – performance and growth feedback seeking – with each type of feedback seeking holding relevance to leader effectiveness.

Challenging previous research that argues that leaders may avoid seeking feedback from peers, this viewpoint suggests that leaders may seek feedback from peers because they stand to benefit from doing so.

This study aims to investigate the consumer behavior toward telemedicine services in India during the COVID-19 pandemic onset. With lockdown restrictions and safety concerns in visiting brick-and-mortar clinics or hospitals during the pandemic, Telemedicine had emerged as a potent alternative for seeking redressal to health issues. Based on theory and focus interviews with the telemedicine users, the researchers proposed a model to understand the intent and actual usage of telemedicine in India.

The cross-sectional study undertaken used a questionnaire designed on a seven-point Likert scale and administered to respondents with the objective of identifying the determinants of intent and actual usage of telemedicine services. Simple random sampling was used to collect primary data. The data was cleaned and finally a sample of 405 responses complete in all respects was considered for analysis. The questionnaire comprised of 34 items and following the recommendation of Hair et al. (2016), which says the minimum sample size in structural equation modeling should be ten times the number of indicator variables, a sample size of 405 was deemed adequate.

The research paper finds that performance expectancy, attitude, credibility and self-efficacy positively impact the intention of consumers to use telemedicine services. As the effort expectancy or risk perception toward telemedicine increases the intent and actual usage of telemedicine decreases. The intention to use telemedicine emerged as a strong predictor of the actual usage of telemedicine. Intent to use telemedicine was explained 81.4% by its predictors of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, attitude, risk, credibility and self-efficacy, and actual usage was explained 79.9% by its predictors. This study also reports that telemedicine was found to be popular among chronic as well as episodic patients though the preference was skewed in favor of the episodic patients. One of the advantages of telemedicine is its availability round the clock, and the study found that 8 a. m. to 12 noon time slot as the most preferred slot for seeking telemedicine services.

Chang (2004) opined that telemedicine can fulfill the needs of all stakeholders: citizens, health-care consumers, medical doctors and health-care professionals, policymakers, and so on. Considering the promise telemedicine holds, this realm must be studied and leveraged to the full potential. The study found that patients were using telemedicine even for their day-to-day aliments. This indicates a growing popularity of telemedicine and as such an opportunity for telemedicine companies to leverage it. In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot give commercial advertisements for medicines, and the same can only be sold through a registered medical practitioner’s prescription. As such there is total dependency on the medical practitioner for the sale of medicines. Telemedicine companies offer services of home delivering medicines clubbed with medical consultation thus giving them forward integration in their business models. Using telemedicine the patients had control over the timings of the services offered, and as such the waiting time to get a consultation and subsequent treatment was reduced considerably. Best medical advice from across the globe is available to the patient at less cost. Medical practitioners also stand to benefit as they can treat a variety of cases, collaborate among the medical fraternity and give consultation safely in case of fatal contagious diseases.

This study points to a definite growing popularity of telemedicine services not only in episodic patients but also chronic patients. Telemedicine with its unique advantages holds the promise to grow exponentially in the future and is a compelling health-care segment to focus on for delivering health-care solution to the geographically distant consumers.