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Stable high growth in the service sector has made India free from the stigma of slow and steady ‘Hindu rate of growth’ of about 3.5% per annum during the first three decades of independence. Service-led growth has placed India among the top performing giant economies in the world. India is now a 3 trillion USD (United States Dollar) economy in terms of Nominal GDP (IMF, 2020). Under this milieu, the chapter aims to examine whether the growth in the service sector in India is inclusive or not. The observations of the study have shown that the service sector has been growing at fast pace compared to the other two sectors, which makes the system into jobless status. The sectoral contribution of service sector to the GDP is increasing after the new economic reform of 1990, but the employment contribution is going down. So the country is now in the grip of ‘jobless’ growth, and the grip is strengthening because of some structural issues such as changes in consumers’ demand with rising per capita income. Further deepening of finance capital in the savings sphere of service sector has made the wide disconnect between the real economic activity and growth of finance capital. Revival of high linkage sectors with higher potential for employment growth, such as agriculture and manufacturing, can be game changer towards the goal of inclusiveness.

This research aims to establish the applicability of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 18404 standard to the service sector, identify any required amendments and identify the critical success factors and barriers to deploying the standard within the service sector.

The study used a qualitative approach by interviewing operational excellence (OPEX) professionals who work in the service sector.

The findings indicate a significant lack of knowledge about the existence of the standard and a general scepticism regarding the applicability of the current ISO 18404 standard to the service sector.

Limited examples of the application of ISO 18404 in organisations exist, as only a few organisations have adopted the standard. Therefore, the research focussed on the challenges and obstacles that experienced OPEX professionals perceived could be an issue.

The study will aid service sector organisations in understanding the standard and, subsequently, determine whether to pursue it as part of an OPEX programme. This research is the first study on the application of ISO 18404 to the service sector.

The present study aims to comprehensively examine the impact of the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) takeover of Credit Suisse on the banking and financial services sector in the Indian stock market. To fully comprehend the impact of the event, the study separately investigates the response of private sector banks, public sector banks, overall banking companies and financial services companies to the takeover of the second-largest financial institution in Switzerland.

The study employs event study methodology, using the market model, to analyze the event's impact on Indian banking and financial services sector stocks. The data consists of daily closing prices of companies included in the Nifty Private Bank Index, Nifty PSU Bank Index, Nifty Bank Index and Nifty Financial Services Index from the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Furthermore, cross-sectional regression analysis has been conducted to explore the factors that drive abnormal returns.

The empirical findings of the study suggest the event had a heterogeneous impact on the stock prices of Indian banks and financial services companies. While public sector banks experienced a significant negative impact on select days within the event window, the overall Indian banking sector and financial services companies also witnessed notable declines. In contrast, Indian private sector banks were relatively resilient, exhibiting minimal effects. However, the cumulative effect is found to be insignificant for all four categories across different event windows. The study also observed that the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) were significantly influenced by certain variables during different event windows.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the present study is the earliest attempt that investigates the impact of the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse on the Indian banking and financial services sector using event study methodology and cross-sectional regression model.

The global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of thousands of village-owned enterprises (VOEs), which are community-managed enterprises that operate in the hostile rural areas in emerging economies. Thus, considering that a Schumpeterian view of economic downturn sees recessions as times where old products/services decline while new products/services emerge, this paper aims to explore the specific innovation-based diversification strategies that matter for the survival of emerging economy VOEs in recession periods to develop new theoretical insights.

The study is based on multiple-case studies of 13 leading VOEs operating in the rural areas of Java Island in Indonesia, an emerging economy. The data was analysed using within-case and cross-case analyses.

Overall, a number of major novel findings have emerged from the analysis, based on which the authors developed several new propositions. First, from the perspectives of both new product and new service diversification, “unrelated diversification” is the primary resilience strategy that seems to be associated with the survival of VOEs in the COVID-19 recession, over and above “related diversification”. Second, from an industrial sector diversification perspective, the most dominant resilient strategy for surviving the recession is “unrelated diversification into tertiary sectors (service sector)”, over and above diversification into the primary sector (agriculture, fisheries and mining) and secondary sector (manufacturing and construction).

The authors contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship in emerging economies by identifying the resilience diversification strategies that matter for the survival of VOEs in recession.

This chapter addresses the potential for knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures in public sector organizations. Public sector organizations are among the most complex for introducing or nourishing a KLC approach because there are multiple levels of cultures with varying levels of influence. We describe these complex cultures as tiers. First, we define public sector organizations’ business goals, purpose, and strategies. Then, the authors translate and interpret all five levels of culture for public sector organizations. The chapter also details the nature of cultural complexity, namely the four tiers of public sector cultures: (1) the company culture (Tier 1); (2) the public service culture (Tier 2); (3) the culture of the external environment (Tier 3); and (4) the internal KLC cultures (Tier 4). This chapter establishes a framework for describing an organization’s complex culture and determining the best KLC approach for the context.

In times of strong global competition and worldwide economic downturn, there is an imperative need for public services organizations to reform and improve their quality. These organizations can base their improvement efforts on Lean philosophy. The purpose of this study is to assess the employees’ perceived degree of adoption of Lean principles by public services organizations in Greece. Determining the differences in the perceptions of groups of employees with regard to the adoption of Lean principles by public organizations is also an aim of the study.

A questionnaire survey was published online, inviting employees of Greek public services organizations to assess the degree of Lean adoption by their organizations, specified on the basis of general principles. A total of 1,022 employees completed the structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were applied to assess the degree of adoption of Lean principles by public organizations. The nonparametric Mann–Whitney U Test and Kruskal–Wallis Test were also applied to determine whether there are statistically significant differences in the perceptions of groups of employees with regard to the adoption of Lean principles by public organizations.

According to the perceptions of employees, Greek public organizations adopt Lean principles to a high extent. However, there is room for further improvement in the degree to which Lean is adopted. Statistically significant differences are observed in the perceptions of groups of employees from different sized organizations, hierarchical levels, skill sets and service subsectors, with regard to the degree of adoption of Lean principles by their organizations.

The employees of the public sector who were invited to respond to the survey through social media, the subjective nature of the data collected and the fact that this is a country-specific study constitute the main limitations of the present study, based on which future studies can be designed.

By determining the strong and weak points of the adoption of Lean principles by Greek public services organizations, suitable managerial initiatives can be undertaken by these organizations to fully adopt Lean, eliminate waste and enhance quality management.

Understanding and improving the current status of the adoption of Lean principles by Greek public organizations will influence the services provided to the citizens in terms of time, quality and delivery.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which provides insights, based on employees’ perceptions, into the adoption of Lean by the public services sector.

The aim of this study is to determine the most critical success factors (CSFs) of lean adoption in a specific Greek public services subsector namely citizen's service centers (CSCs) and to define their underlying structure (latent constructs).

In this study an online structured questionnaire survey was distributed to all the Greek CSCs and six hundred and seventy-two employees responded and fully completed the questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were applied to assess the reliability and validity of the latent constructs of the Lean CSFs.

Data analysis revealed that the latent constructs of the lean CSFs, namely communication, top management commitment and leadership, organizational culture, training and education, change and project management, availability of resources, teamwork, and employee involvement and empowerment are of major importance for the adoption of lean in the CSCs.

The small percentage of the responding employees of the Greek CSCs, given their large population and the subjective nature of the data collected constitute the main limitations of the present study.

The findings of this research can guide managers and decision makers of CSCs in recognizing the key factors that potentially will influence the successful adoption of lean, and the enhancement of the quality management initiatives of these services organizations. Moreover, the formulated model can also serve as a reference for academics and researchers to generate new research ideas. Finally, the results may offer guidelines to managers of public services organizations of other countries with a similar structure of the public sector.

The present study is stimulated by the existing gap identified in the literature in the field of the public sector. Building on the public sector literature, this is the first study that evaluates the importance of the CSFs of lean in the Greek CSCs and defines their underlying structure.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationships between Lean adoption and organizational performance in a specific Greek public services subsector, namely, citizen’s service centers (CSCs).

An online structured questionnaire survey was distributed to all the Greek CSCs, and 672 employees responded and fully completed the questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to assess the measurement model’s reliability and validity. The relationships between the latent constructs were examined through structural equation modeling.

The study revealed that Greek CSCs adopt at a medium to high extent the following principles: understanding customer needs, establishment of value streams, creating flows within the value streams and value perfection. The data also revealed a valid latent factor reflecting the Lean application, namely, “Lean adoption,” which, according to the findings, contributes to the organizational performance of Greek CSCs.

The small percentage of the responding employees of the Greek CSCs, given their large population and the subjective nature of the data collected, constitute the main limitations of the present study.

The findings of this research will serve as a reference source for managers and decision-makers of CSCs in order for them to set the foundations for successfully adopting the Lean principles and therefore improve their organizational performance in terms of operational performance and satisfaction with employees and citizens.

Building on the public sector literature, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the adoption of Lean principles in the Greek CSCs and defines the relationships between Lean adoption and organizational performance.

This study aims to explore the relationship between tourism and women’s employment in 32 South American and Caribbean countries from 1996 to 2020.

In this paper, both static (fixed effects and random effects) and dynamic panel data models (system and differenced generalized method of moments) are used. In addition to gross domestic product, trade, education and urban population are also considered in this study.

According to the findings, a boost in tourism led to an increase in women’s engagement in the economy and service sectors. This paper also explores the efficiency of alternate methods to deal with various models of women labor force (WLF) involvement in various sectors. Women’s employment opportunities in the service sector expand as a result of tourism, but in the agricultural and industrial sectors, that employment opportunity is reduced.

This study investigated the impact of tourism on WLF participation and found that it had a significant impact. This study, on the other hand, specifically contributed to the tourism sector in some specific study areas, such as tourism and agriculture, service and industry sectors. This study also displays that female participation in South America and the Caribbean countries is increasing and women are shifting away from traditional economic sectors.

This is the pioneering study to discover tourism and female participation in employment in South American and Caribbean countries. The findings of this study have important implications for future studies and policy debates examining the consequence of the tourism industry on WLF.

This study aims to dissect firm knowledge into two main types: internal firm knowledge (knowledge workers) and external firm knowledge (relational knowledge with other firms). This study aims to investigate how each type affects the productivity of the firms. This study also examines how this effect differs among Egyptian firms in the agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors.

The authors use firm-level data in Egypt on the sectoral level. The properties of instrumental variables regression using two-stage least-squares estimation are adopted to overcome endogeneity and omitted variable bias in the empirical estimations.

The study’s findings reveal that the effects of internal and external knowledge on the firm productivity are sector-specific; knowledge-workers and relational knowledge are two times more effective for agriculture than manufacturing and service firms; external knowledge plays a vital role in increasing productivity relative to internal knowledge for the manufacturing sector; finally, internal and external knowledge has the same effect on the service firms.

This research adds to the body knowledge-based theory of the firm by examining the effects of internal and external knowledge on the firms’ productivity. In particular, the paper differentiates this effect across three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and services. This paper also suggests a novel empirical methodology to address endogeneity and omitted variable bias in this literature of firm knowledge and productivity.