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The purpose of the chapter is to explain how boys learn to mask their expression of fears and emotions. The aim is to understand how boys internalize socially prescribed masculine traits, including masking of fear, certain emotional expressions and discomfort. The sample consisted of 20 parents, 30 school teachers and 50 boy students and 50 girl students between the ages of 11 and 14 from government-funded co-education schools in Delhi, India. School observation, focus group discussion, and interviews were used for data collection. The study found that gendered social norms are enforced on boys in the form of ‘boy codes’. These boy codes are so deep rooted in daily practices that they are considered as an essential ‘ideal male’ trait. Although the ‘ideal male image’ is presented as a uniform category among boys, the masking of fears and emotional expressions is not the same for all boys. Thus, many boys internalized the ideal male images in the form of hegemonic displays of masculinity, where they are focused on conforming to rigid masculine traits. However, through challenge, negotiation and renegotiation, many boys would like to conduct themselves according to their personal masculinity. There is a shift among some boys from the internalization of the traditional male image to giving meaning to personal experiences that deviate from the ideal male figure without the fear of being judged by society.

This study aims to evaluate the current educational opportunities available to hermaphrodite (Hijra) students, analyze their difficulties while pursuing academic degrees and suggest potential approaches to address these issues.

This research used a qualitative method to analyze the challenges Hijra individuals face in pursuing education. A total of 20 interviews were conducted with two Hijra groups those who are pursuing an education and those who have abandoned it to collect primary data. The purposive sampling technique was used to identify and choose diverse sources of information. Moreover, the phenomena have been comprehended using the Access Theory and the Gender Stratification Theory.

The findings show that although every Bangladeshi has the right to a decent education, few Hijra youngsters attend schools. Numerous barriers, such as discriminatory views and remarks about third-gender people, physical and mental harassment, a lack of emotional and financial support, family issues, discrimination in the school community and hostility from classmates and teachers, make it difficult for hermaphrodite students to receive a proper education.

This research paper fills a gap in the current body of knowledge by presenting empirical evidence regarding young people’s perceptions of the third-gender, the societal barriers faced by Hijra individuals in their pursuit of quality education, their future opportunities, the root causes of these challenges and possible solutions.

Personal influence is one of the most powerful strategies to influence publics’ behaviours. Yet, there is scant attention on how personal influence is leveraged for different public relations purposes in different cultural contexts. This study empirically investigates the presence and use of personal influence among Italian public relations professionals.

A survey was conducted through a self-administrated, web-based questionnaire and was developed from earlier studies investigating personal influence in public relations literature. Survey participants included public relations professionals across public, non-profit and private sectors.

The findings empirically show the presence and regular use of personal influence by professionals from all sectors to cultivate interpersonal relationships. Personal influence is considered a personal resource and used to leverage own influencing power. The findings also document four major manifestations of personal influence, which were named: relational closeness strategy, engagement strategy, expertise strategy and added value strategy.

This study enhances our understanding of personal influence in a specific cultural context and offers strategic insights for international professionals seeking to leverage influence in the socio-political environment of Italy. It also offers elements to improve public relations education and training.

The study offers some preliminary understandings of how Italian professionals leverage their personal influence in their daily public relations activities contributing with empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in public relations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of cultural factors (concern for face and stability of attribution) in the relationships among service recovery quality, postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention. Based on the politeness theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model for understanding how concern for face and stability of attribution may affect collectivists’ consumption behavior.

Data were collected in a field survey of 600 Hong Kong consumers who had experienced a telecommunications service failure. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the theoretical hypotheses.

A cultural factor of concern for face is found to negatively moderate the relationship between service recovery quality and postrecovery satisfaction. Face also positively influences the relationship between postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention. Another cultural factor, stability of attribution, is found to negatively moderate the relationship between service recovery quality and postrecovery satisfaction and to negatively moderate the relationship between postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention.

This study contributes to the understanding of the relevance of concern for face and stability of attribution in collectivists’ consumption behavior. The findings have significant implications for managers in a position to exploit the cultural value mechanisms of collectivist consumers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this has been the first research to examine the impact of concern for face and stability of attribution among service recovery quality, postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention.

This study examines why low-wealth women entrepreneurs forgo mobile enabled money services and government supported micro finance for informal, community-based revolving loans in rural Nigeria.

Thematic analysis of 25 interviews with women in rural, south-west Nigeria. Entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, in the gendered context of micro finance and community-based lending, is employed.

This study explains the paradox of forgoing seemingly accessible mobile enabled credit, and formal credit schemes (e.g. micro-finance programs) for informal, one-on-one borrowing. Convenience and trust-based relationships with respected community members ease the burden of time scarcity and vulnerability associated with formal capital. Flexible terms, autonomy, self-reliance and knowing who one is dealing with make Esusu a preferred source of finance. Findings are discussed in the context of gendered entrepreneurial ecosystems in which participants conduct business.

The sample is not representative of women entrepreneurs in rural Nigeria. Survivorship bias is acknowledged. Further research is needed on the psychological risks of informal capital and the benefits of community-based lending.

Measures to scale mobile enabled credit, without commensurate interventions to address time management and other structural issues that confront women traders, limit their utility and impacts. Power differentials between women traders and lenders must also be considered in the design of lending products. Training of women traders and formal lenders should incorporate curricula about gender gaps in capital markets and systematic gender challenges to support entrepreneurs who seek to grow beyond subsistence enterprises.

This study documents decision criteria that motivate informal rural women traders to employ community-based revolving credit or Esusu. Findings inform measures to increase women entrepreneurs' access to capital in a rural sub-Saharan Africa contexts.

The mental health issues faced by young people can significantly hinder a nation’s development. The purpose of this study is to integrate the Self-Determination Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine the factors influencing the utilization of mental health days among young individuals.

An online survey was conducted to collect data from young people.

The results indicated that more positive attitudes, favorable subjective norms and a stronger sense of perceived behavioral control regarding mental health days are all associated with a higher intention to use them. Young individuals who have used counseling resources are more likely to endorse the use of mental health days. Satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness has a diminishing effect on both motivation and intention to request mental health days. However, there is a positive relationship between motivation and intention to apply for mental health days. When competence needs are less well satisfied, the motivation and, in turn, the intention to request mental health days are enhanced.

Shifting the leave framework from a disease-centered approach to a psychological leave model focused on mood adjustment can maximize the positive impact of mental health leave.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the relationships between needs and motivation within the framework of self-determination theory. Furthermore, it integrates components from the theory of planned behavior to examine the influence of social pressures and self-efficacy on the intention to use mental health days. Mental health days can be seen as a cry for help from young adults. The utilization of mental health days serves as an effective means of managing one's mental state.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to explore the challenges involved in growing a business during its early stages inorganically, discuss the challenges faced by start-ups in their quest for growth in an emerging market, investigate the reasons behind the mergers and acquisitions, comprehend the issues in the merger of a start-up and a conventional bank, identify the various possible synergies out of the merger and examine the growth strategies that a troubled start-up such as Slice can follow to survive and expand its business operations.

The case study discusses the challenges that Slice, a modern fintech organization, and North East Small Finance Bank (NESFB) face due to the changing business and regulatory environment. After working tirelessly to earn the trust of India’s banking regulator, Slice got the approval for its merger with NESFB. While Slice and NESFB got a new lease of life after the approval of their merger, Rajan Bajaj, founder of Slice, needed to make the merger a success by leveraging on the strength of the combined entity and meeting all the lending and other regulatory requirements applicable to small finance banks.

This case study is suitable for MBA/MS/BBA/BS students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The paper follows Jason Cope's (2011) vision of a holistic perspective on the failure-based learning process. By analyzing the research since Cope's first attempt, which is often fragmentary in nature, and providing novel empirical insights, the paper aims to draw a new comprehensive picture of all five phases of entrepreneurial learning and their interplay.

The study features an interpretative phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with 18 failed entrepreneurs. Findings are presented and discussed in line with experiential learning theory and Cope's conceptual framework of five interrelated learning timeframes spanning from the descent into failure until re-emergence.

The study reveals different patterns of how entrepreneurs experience failure, ranging from abrupt to gradual descent paths, different management and coping behaviors, and varying learning effects depending on the new professional setting (entrepreneurial vs non-entrepreneurial). Analyzing the entrepreneurs' experiences throughout the process shows different paths and connections between individual phases. Findings indicate that the learning timeframes may overlap, appear in different orders, loop, or (partly) stay absent, indicating that the individual learning process is even more dynamic and heterogeneous than hitherto known.

The paper contributes to the field of entrepreneurial learning from failure, advancing Cope's seminal work on the learning process and -contents by providing novel empirical insights and discussing them in the light of recent scientific findings. Since entrepreneurial learning from failure is a complex and dynamic process, using a holistic lens in the analysis contributes to a better understanding of this phenomenon as an integrated whole.

Are there smart ways to find heuristics? What are the common principles behind heuristics? We propose an integrative definition of heuristics, based on insights that apply to all heuristics, and put forward meta-heuristics for discovering heuristics.

We employ Herbert Simon’s metaphor that human behavior is shaped by the scissors of the mind and its environment. We present heuristics from different domains and multiple sources, including scholarly literature, practitioner-reports and ancient texts.

Heuristics are simple, actionable principles for behavior that can take different forms, including that of computational algorithms and qualitative rules-of-thumb, cast into proverbs or folk-wisdom. We introduce heuristics for tasks ranging from management to writing and warfare. We report 13 meta-heuristics for discovering new heuristics and identify four principles behind them and all other heuristics: Those principles concern the (1) plurality, (2) correspondence, (3) connectedness of heuristics and environments and (4) the interdisciplinary nature of the scissors’ blades with respect to research fields and methodology.

We take a fresh look at Simon’s scissors-metaphor and employ it to derive an integrative perspective that includes a study of meta-heuristics.

This study aims to understand client food preferences and how pantry offerings can be optimized by those preferences.

This study develops and administers customized surveys to study three food pantries within the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern North Carolina network. This study then categorizes food items by client preferences, identifies the key predictors of those preferences and obtains preference scores by fitting the data to a predictive model. The preference scores are subsequently used in an optimization model that suggests an ideal mix of food items to stock based upon client preferences and the item and weight limits imposed by the pantry.

This study found that food pantry clients prefer fresh and frozen foods over shelf-friendly options and that gender, age and religion were the primary predictors. The optimization model incorporates these preferences, yielding an optimal stocking strategy for the pantry.

This research is based on a specific food bank network, and therefore, the client preferences may not be generalizable to other food banks. However, the framework and corresponding optimization model is generalizable to other food aid supply chains.

This study provides insights for food pantry managers to make informed decisions about stocking the pantry shelves based on the client’s preferences.

An emerging topic within the humanitarian food aid community is better matching of food availability with food that is desired in a way that minimizes food waste. This is achieved by providing more choice to food pantry users. This work shows how pantries can incorporate client preferences in inventory stocking decisions.

This study contributes to the literature on food pantry operations by providing a novel decision support system for pantry managers to aid in stocking their shelves according to client preferences.