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The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.

The relationship of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) with home country's exports has significant implications for policymakers as well as business managers of MNEs. Since BRICS nations have emerged as important sources as well as destinations of FDI, this paper aims to study the impact of OFDI from these countries on home country exports by using panel data for BRICS for time period 1993–2015.

The author use panel unit root tests, panel cointegration, VECM and causality tests in the study.

The results reveal that OFDI has a negative and significant impact on home country exports indicating that outward FDI is a substitute for exports in these countries. It also indicates long-run causality from exports towards OFDI. There is no long-run causality running from OFDI to exports, suggesting that MNEs do not “connect” with home economies' firms through forward and backward linkages in value chain.

From the point of view of policymakers, it implies a net outflow of capital as the outflow of foreign investment would not be matched by any incremental export earnings since exports are getting substituted by production abroad. For business managers, it is indicative of a growing foreign market that warrants large scale production and justifies the high cost and risk involved in FDI as a mode of entry compared to exports.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first attempt to deal with the relationship between home country exports and OFDI, for an important group of emerging market economies, i.e. BRICS. The understanding of this relationship allow us to identify whether factors contributing to OFDI from emerging economies are “tied” to their home economies thereby making exports necessary or are rather based on firm specific competencies which are leveraged in different locations to cater to expanding markets.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a practitioners' perspective on financial challenges prevalent in the Indian hospitality industry. The paper also makes an attempt to give useful insights into possible solutions to the issues raised.

The study assimilates data from senior finance professionals from a spectrum of hotels in India. The study involves the collection of primary data through structured interviews.

The study highlights that some of the financial challenges faced by the Indian hospitality industry include high financing costs, multiplicity of taxes charged, licensing and legal issues, working capital issues and eroding margins. The study also gives some useful insights to the possible solutions to the challenges identified.

This paper provides some very useful qualitative analysis of the contemporary challenges and their possible solutions prevalent in the Indian hospitality sector. The findings will be useful for hoteliers, policy makers and researchers to deliberate on the issues raised. However, it does not involve any quantitative analysis.

This study makes a sincere attempt to bring forth some real life issues, challenges and solutions which would be a good value addition to the existing literature.

The study examines how firms may transform big data analytics (BDA) into a sustainable competitive advantage and enhance business performance using BDA. Furthermore, this study identifies various resources and sub-capabilities that contribute to BDA capability.

Using classic grounded theory (GT), resource-based theory and dynamic capability (DC), the authors conducted interviews, which involved an exploratory inductive process. Through a continuous iterative process between the collection, analysis and comparison of data, themes and their relationships appeared. The literature was used as part of the data set in the later phases of data collection and analysis to identify how the study’s findings fit with the extant literature and enrich the emerging concepts and their relationships.

The data analysis led to developing a conceptual model of BDA capability that described how BDA contributes to firm performance through the mediated impact of organizational learning (OL). The findings indicate that BDA capability is incomplete in the absence of BDA capability dimensions and their sub-dimensions, and expected advancement will not be achieved.

The research offers insights on how BDA is converted into an enterprise-wide initiative, by extending the BDA capability model and describing the role of per dimension in constructing the capability. In addition, the paper provides managers with insights regarding the ways in which BDA capability continuously contributes to OL, fosters organizational knowledge and organizational abilities to sense, seize and reconfigure data and knowledge to grab digital opportunities in order to sustain competitive advantage.

This article is the first exploratory research using GT to identify how data-driven firms obtain and sustain BDA competitive advantage, beyond prior studies that employed mostly a hypothetico-deductive stance to investigate BDA capability. While the authors discovered various dimensions of BDA capability and identified several factors, some of the prior related studies showed some of the dimensions as formative factors (e.g. Lozada et al., 2019; Mikalef et al., 2019) and some other research depicted the different dimensions of BDA capability as reflective factors (e.g. Wamba and Akter, 2019; Ferraris et al., 2019). Thus, it was found necessary to correctly define different dimensions and their contributions, since formative and reflective models represent various approaches to achieving the capability. In this line, the authors used GT, as an exploratory method, to conceptualize BDA capability and the mechanism that it contributes to firm performance. This research introduces new capability dimensions that were not examined in prior research. The study also discusses how OL mediates the impact of BDA capability on firm performance, which is considered the hidden value of BDA capability.

This paper aims to explore authenticity as a multidimensional construct from both consumer and service provider perspectives in the context of culturally themed restaurants in Kolkata, India.

Utilizing a phenomenological design, data have been collected through participant observation, photographs and semi-structured interviews in Bengali-themed restaurants over a two-year period.

By articulating the processes and dimensions that operate behind the narrative of authenticity, the findings display the interaction between market/cultural forces and the perception of authenticity. These reveal that authenticity embraces four major categories, namely, traditional, staged-form, postmodern and constructivist.

This study provides insights into the collective role of both consumers and service providers in mediating perceptions of authenticity. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by articulating four dimensions of authenticity.

Practically, this study assists marketers with insights into the balance of authenticity and the commoditization of culture.

As globalization weakens cultural boundaries and jeopardizes regional identities, there is a need for reassuring cultural continuity that upholds ethnic legacy for local consumers. Thus, this study provides theoretical and practical insights for both researchers and practitioners concerned about maintaining authenticity in a global marketplace.

The paper aims to propose and validate a process-based model to enhance managerial effectiveness among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). It has been observed that business uncertainties and inadequate financial resources that MSME entrepreneurs and managers face require them to constantly engage in strong self-awareness and self-regulating behavior to enhance the efficacy in their roles and, henceforth, their role performance effectiveness.

The approach for data collection was based on the clustering of MSMEs belonging to the clusters machine tool, pump manufacturing, foundry, textile and auto-component clusters in India. The respondents to the study were MSME entrepreneurs and managers who oversee and manage multiple functions like operations, quality, marketing, sales, supply chain management, procurement, personnel and administration and general administration.

The self-efficacy of entrepreneurial managers of MSMEs is observed to play an integral role in enhancing the efficacy of their roles, thus highlighting the use of a process-based perspective while dealing with constant resource constraints and excessive dynamism in their business contexts. The ability to handle multiple tasks effectively and resilience to manage challenges enhances their role-making process, which is significant in achieving and sustaining goal-oriented behavior among MSME entrepreneurs and managers.

This paper would serve as an effective model for entrepreneurs and managers to enhance their efficacy in the individual and interdependent role context, which would help achieve their individual and organizational goals. The model emphasizes a process-based perspective that thrusts the need to relate to the organizational context, enhancing individual confidence for goal-related behavior and fulfilling their role-related expectations.

This paper presents a model of enhancing managerial effectiveness that discusses self-efficacy as antecedent behavior. Here, personal and environmental factors aid cognition to one’s capability to construct reality, self-regulate, encode information and engage in effective managerial action.