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Access to pure drinking water is considered as a basic human right and part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. India ranks poorly in terms of providing universal coverage of potable water to its citizens. This case highlights the challenges faced by the private sector in providing purified drinking water for a diverse country like India with many geographical regions (and their corresponding water impurities) and differing levels of economic prosperity (making sustainability tougher for private companies) by focusing on Waterlife India Private Limited (WLIP). WLIP is a for-profit social enterprise that sells drinking water in rural hinterlands and urban slums at a very affordable price of US$0.006 per liter. Since its inception in 2008, WLIP has evolved to become a major player in the fragmented Indian affordable drinking water industry. Sustainability of the WLIP business model is based on a unique public–private partnership template in which three parties come together—a corporate sponsor who bears the cost of the water filtration equipment; community governance bodies like panchayats or municipalities, which give a sense of operational legitimacy to the model; and WLIP as the driving force of the network. This business model is unique for three reasons: suitable incentive mechanisms with proper alignment of interests among various stakeholders; optimization of the water-filtration plant equipment to community demand; and achieving the delicate balance between standardization of processes and customization in offerings to the operating context. Alignment of partner interest is the principal differentiator that also ensures accountability and impact.

Retailing has developed from independent merchants to multinational giants operating through global value chains, which has profoundly shaped consumption patterns in Western economies. This constant development currently consists of three global-scale change trajectories – climate change, online consumption, and technological development – that affect the retail industry. Based on this, this chapter concentrates on connecting the development paths of consumption and retailing and identifies various factors that affect the future of international retailing. The authors analyze the changes in institutional logics of international retailing by mapping the past, present, and future of the retail industry and consumption using content analysis of secondary data. The authors pay special attention to the effect of the current Covid-19 crisis on the future development of the retail industry. In the findings of this chapter, the authors recognize institutional logics changes in organizing the position of retailing as a connector of customers and producers, and the authors suggest blockchain to be an emerging new institutional order.

With India becoming world’s second largest user of smartphones (Ming, 2017) and with more users adopting mobile devices for online shopping, Indian online retailers now have to manage mobile channel in addition to existing traditional channel (of computers). Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the mapping of product characteristics with individual channel capabilities and its effect on online consumer behaviour, so that e-tailers can create enhanced online shopping experience for consumers.

A comprehensive research model is developed on the basis of the knowledge gained from multichannel retailing and e-commerce literature. Then, the model is empirically tested, with primary data collected from 344 customers, using structural equation modelling. The data are collected from customers across two product categories: electronics and fashion.

The results reveal that perceived usefulness, perceived risk and perceived self-efficacy are important drivers of online consumer behaviour for continued usage. The multi-group analysis confirms the moderation influence of platform type for some relationships across electronics and fashion.

The findings underline the importance of multichannel complementarity across electronics and fashion. The preference of mobile devices for fashion and traditional devices such as computers for electronics provides valuable insights for online retailers towards management of multichannel e-commerce ecosystem.

In Indian context, this is the first empirical research on online multichannel retail setting, studying the impact of diverse channel formats on different product categories. The study’s findings give empirical basis to online retailers to look out for right product–channel fit strategy for engaging consumers in the long run.

This paper attempts to develop and validate a service quality instrument called HiEduQual to measure the perceived service quality of students in higher education institutions. This paper aims to propose a structural model by examining the theoretical and empirical evidences on the relationships between students’ perceived service quality (SPSQ), students’ satisfaction (SSt), students’ loyalty (SL) and students’ motivation (SM).

The paper uses survey research design to gather data regarding attitudes of students about quality of service, satisfaction, motivation and loyalty from seven public universities in India and tests the relationships between these variables using structural equation modeling.

The paper identifies a model with six-structured dimensions containing 23 items for HiEduQual. It proved the direct positive effect of the perceived service quality of students on satisfaction, loyalty and motivation. The paper also supports the partial and complete mediation role of students’ satisfaction between perceived service quality of students, their loyalty and motivation toward services being provided by the universities. The competing Model 1 (M1) with partial mediation role of students’ satisfaction between students’ perceived service quality, loyalty and motivation was proved as the best among the alternative models.

The paper developed and tested a new measurement instrument that covers all the service aspects experienced by the student as primary customer in higher education. Further studies can also measure service quality of the universities in the perspective of other key stakeholders. The authors would recommend studying other possible antecedents which would have influence on satisfaction motivation and loyalty.

The findings suggested that it would be worthwhile for university leaders to make proper allocation of resources, to provide better educational services including support services and facilities. It is believed that this paper has a significant competence for engendering more precise applications related to quality of services, especially concerning students’ satisfaction, loyalty and motivation.

The changing nature and need of higher education services and increase in competitive intensity necessitates higher performance levels in the Indian higher education (universities). These can only be achieved through a better understanding of the expectations of students and the importance placed by them on aspects such as teaching, administrative services, academic facilities, campus infrastructure, support services and internationalization. The paper identified that student perceived service quality is a key antecedent to student satisfaction, motivation and loyalty, which conveys that service quality is an important construct.

Previous studies have primarily focused on the relationship between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. Along with the above, this paper includes students’ motivation and assesses the effect of service quality and satisfaction on motivation which was not previously used in services marketing research, especially in higher education sector. Higher education service holds some unique features like customers’ (student) cognitive participation in the service process, requirements of the students to be fulfilled by different parties and long-term continuous services. All these features require student participation. The results indicate that quality of academic and non-academic services play a vital role in motivating students to perform better in their academics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of brand experience on hospital brand equity; also to assess the effects of different brand equity dimensions on overall customer‐based hospital brand equity.

Measurement items for each variable are developed by integrating existing literature and qualitative in‐depth interviews with patients who have either used, or are using hospital services in India. Face‐to‐face interviews with patients were conducted to obtain 902 usable data points. Psychometric properties of the measurement instrument were satisfactory. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling to test the influences of different dimensions of brand experience on brand equity dimensions and on overall hospital brand equity.

The study found that brand experience is an important factor influencing hospital brand equity. The study provides evidence that the brand experience dimensions (sensory, affective, behavioural and intellectual) positively influence the five brand equity dimensions (brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, brand trust and brand loyalty). The study also confirms the influence of brand equity dimensions (brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, brand trust and brand loyalty) on customer‐based hospital brand equity.

The distinctive contribution of this research is that it examines the effect of brand experience on customer‐based brand equity in the context of a credence‐based service in an emerging economy. Such a work is essential in understanding the importance of experiential marketing in an emerging economy for building a strong service brand.

Supply chain risks (SCRs) have uncertainty and interdependency characteristics that must be incorporated into the risk assessment stage of the SCR management framework. This study aims to develop SCR networks and determine the major risk drivers that impact the performance of the sago starch agro-industry (SSA).

The risk and performance variables were collected from the relevant literature and expert consultations. The Bayesian network (BN) approach was used to model the uncertain and interdependent SCRs. A hybrid method was used to develop the BN structure through the expert’s knowledge acquisitions and the learning algorithm application. Sensitivity analyses were performed to examine the significant risk driver and their related paths.

The analyses of model indicated several significant risk drivers that could affect the performance of the SSA. These SCR including both operational and disruption risks across sourcing, processing and delivery stage.

The implementation of the methodology was only applied to the Indonesian small-medium size sago starch agro-industry. The generalization of findings is limited to industry characteristics. The modelled system is restricted to inbound, processing and outbound logistics with the risk perspective from the industry point of view.

The results of this study assist the related actors of the sago starch agro-industry in recognizing the major risk drivers and their related paths in impacting the performance measures.

This study proposes the use of a hybrid method in developing SCR networks. This study found the significant risk drivers that impact the performance of the sago starch agro-industry.

In this study, the authors investigate the effect of big data analytics capability (BDAC) on supply chain performance (SCP) to assess the mediating effect of supply chain innovation (SCI) and the moderating effect of a data-driven culture (DDC).

The authors collected the primary data through an online questionnaire survey from the manufacturing sector operating in Jordan. The authors used 420 samples for the final data analysis, which the authors performed via partial least squares structural equation modelling using SmartPLS 3.3.9 software.

The results indicate that BDAC has a strong relationship with SCI and SCP. SCI shows a positive relationship with SCP as well as a mediating effect on SCI. The authors confirmed that DDC moderated the relationship between SCI and SCP.

The authors developed a conceptual and empirical model to investigate the relationship between BDAC, SCI, DDC and SCP. The authors contributed new theoretical and managerial insights that add value to the supply chain management literature through testing the moderated-mediated model of these constructs in Jordan’s manufacturing sector.

This paper aims to determine a scale for measuring psychological factors of apparel-buying intention for young Indian online shoppers.

Churchill’s three-stage systematic scale-development methodology is used to develop a psychometric scale. Items were generated and selected in Phase I, followed by scale refinement in Phase II and scale validation in Phase III.

The final scientifically validated scale has 36 item scales that measure 10 psychological factors of apparel online-buying intention for online shoppers, from which “perceived value” emerged as the most significant factor.

This scale is a sector-specific scale that cannot be generalized to other sectors; therefore, further iterations/customizations should be made in future studies for applicability in other sectors.

This reliable and valid scale will help marketing managers to understand online shopper behavior and formulate effective strategies for online shoppers.

This paper, to the author’s knowledge, is the first attempt to develop a validated tool to measure the psychological factors of apparel-buying intention for young Indian online shoppers. This scale encompasses all important touch-points in measuring psychological factors influencing online buyer behavior for apparel products.

The purpose of this study is to test the theoretical framework of lettering case, color temperature, perceived trustworthiness and investment intentions. First, it aims to test whether the effect of lettering case on investment intentions is mediated by trustworthiness. Second, the study will examine if this process is moderated by color temperature.

Following the behavioral research method, this study employed a 2 (the fully-lowercase slogan vs the initial-uppercase slogan) by 2 (warm-color design vs cool-color design) full factorial between-subject design. Two hundred participants were recruited for the experiment to test the hypotheses.

For the lowercase slogans (vs uppercase slogans), we found that people tended to have a high level of perceived trustworthiness, which led to a high level of investment intentions. In addition, the indirect effect of the lettering case on investment intentions through the perceived trustworthiness was moderated by color temperature. Specifically, the visually warm advertisement (vs visually cool design) would strengthen the effect of lowercase slogans on customers' investment intentions.

When people make a financial decision with limited, incomplete or overly complex information, simplified visual heuristics, rather than rational algorithmic processing, play a significant role in their decision-making process. However, only a limited amount of research has addressed the effect of the lettering case on customers' perceptions and the consequent decision-making process from a financial advertising perspective. This study tries to supplement and extend the visual heuristics theory, highlighting the role of simplified heuristics, rather than rational algorithmic processing, in financial customers' decision-making process.