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This paper aims to analyze the interaction among the major variables of reverse logistics seen in automobile industries.

In this research, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) has been used to understand mutual influences among identified variables of reverse logistics. The advantage of the ISM methodology is that variables can be categorized depending upon their driving power and dependence.

Regulations make it mandatory for automobile companies to own responsibility of products manufactured throughout their life cycle by collecting and reusing products, reducing volume of waste generated, increasing the use of recycled materials, etc. For example, End-of-Life Vehicle Directive had directed manufacturers to take back their vehicles at the end of their usefulness and responsibly dispose them. In this research, regulation has appeared at bottom of the ISM model, indicating that it has high driving power to influence other variables. Also, financial limitations are a significant inhibitor faced by the top management for implementing reverse logistics programs.

The ISM methodology relies upon expert opinions for developing contextual relation among identified variables. Thus, an expert’s knowledge, his familiarity with industry and its operations may have affected the final results of the ISM model. One of research implications of this study is that variables identified in this ISM model are quite generic, and thus, with marginal adjustments, these can be used in the context of any other supply chain for increasing its productivity and performance.

The ISM model reveals that regulations affect a significant number of enabler variables of reverse logistics like support of policy entrepreneurs, green purchasing by companies, information and communication technologies that are seen at the upper level of ISM. This indicates that regulations force companies to be proactive towards product recovery actions that lead to initiation of reverse logistics programs by them.

This research has tried to analyze the interaction among the major variables of reverse logistics typically seen in automobile industries which could be useful to logistics managers for taking strategic-level decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively assess the essential trends of existing research on “puffery in advertising” through bibliometric analysis.

This study uses citation data collected through Scopus and Google Scholar for the research area “puffery in advertising” to investigate the most productive journals, top countries of affiliation and prominent years with maximum citations. The study analyses the 87 articles related to “puffery in advertising,” published during 1840 to 2018. Moreover, this study also presents graphical analysis through network maps.

“Puffery in advertising” has remained an under-researched area. However, records of past ten years indicate marginal growth in the number of publications. USA dominates this research area with most numbers of articles published till date. Through clustering of subject areas, it is found that majority of articles have been published under the subject area of “Business, Management and Accounting.” Interestingly, the results of the network maps slightly differ from that of citation table.

This paper is useful for any reader or researcher who wants to understand the trends of “puffery in advertising” in terms of citation analysis, authors and affiliation countries, and prominent years with maximum citations, which would further enable them to discover emerging research areas, potential research collaborations and publications.

To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first ever bilbiometric study on “puffery in advertising” providing a bird’s-eye view of the essential trends.

Transformation and involvement from every organizational function are essential in creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. The paper explores the role of training and development (T&D) interventions in building a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Through the review of existing research studies, the authors report and discuss how T&D function supports fostering a diversity and inclusion (D&I) mindset in the workplace and propose an organizational schema that facilitates the systematic design and implementation of T&D interventions for D&I.

Based on the literature an organizational schema was developed which indicated that to foster a D&I mindset in the workplace, it is important that diversity training is designed after considering established diversity theories. Further diversity training can be conducted in two phases, where phase 1 would focus on awareness training and phase 2 on skill training. This would lead to an increase in employee competency development including knowledge, skills, behavior, and a positive attitude toward a D&I mindset.

HR and training managers can benefit from the paper indicating that for achieving effective results from diversity training, it must draw insights from established diversity theories. Through the organizational schema discussed in the paper, organizations can minimize the negative attitude and behavior that emerge from social categorization with the help of systematic T&D where employees are made self-aware of their prejudice and discrimination and further equipped with relevant skills to manage diversity.

A positive mindset incorporated by employees at a workplace with reference to Diversity & Inclusion through structured D& I training can percolate beneficially to the society as a whole.

The study is a rare one that explores the impact of T&D on D&I. The novelty of the research lies in the organizational schema presented in the study exploring how HR practitioners must systematically design T&D for D&I combining both theory and practice to achieve long-term organizational diversity management objectives.

World over organizations are focusing on sustainable goals, where along with economic success their role in protecting the planet and people are becoming important. Whilst transforming the supply chain into a sustainable one, there would be some barriers which might hinder this process. This paper aims to study these barriers in the context of the electronics industry so that organizations can better implement sustainable supply chain programs.

In this research, barriers affecting sustainability implementation in the electronics supply chain are shortlisted from literature review and experts’ opinion. Using the combined methodology of Grey DEMATEL, the causal factors, the effect factors and degree of prominence of barriers is found out. The overall relationship among barriers is established by a diagraph. Sensitivity analysis is performed to check the robustness of the results.

It is found that lack of regulation and guidance from authorities is the primary causal barrier affecting operations of sustainable supply chain management. There are five barriers which fall in the influenced group and among them, complexity in measuring and monitoring sustainability practices has the largest net effect value on the implementation of a sustainable supply chain. The barrier having the highest correlation with other barriers is the high cost for disposal of hazardous wastes. The implications of these findings on managers and academicians is explored in the study.

In this research, the number of barriers shortlisted is limited to 11 in the context of the electronics supply chain. More factors could be added in future research based on the industry being studied.

The research analyses 11 barriers under categories of policy, technology, financial and human resources in the Indian electronics industry by evaluating the cause and effect group of barriers. These results can guide policymakers of the electronic sector and industry for mitigating barriers during the implementation of sustainable programs.

The research methodology used for this case study follows a comprehensive approach, combining both primary and secondary sources to ensure a well-rounded understanding of the subject. Primary sources include in-depth interviews with the founders of the company, providing valuable firsthand insights into their experiences and decision-making processes. Multiple company visits were also conducted, enabling a closer examination of the operational aspects and allowing for a more holistic perspective on the case. Complementing these primary sources, secondary sources were used, consisting of a diverse array of articles from leading journals, newspapers, magazines and other reputable sources. These secondary sources offer a broader context and perspective, enriching the case study’s content and ensuring a robust foundation for classroom discussion and analysis.

True Elements was a clean health food brand that emerged from the vision of Mr Sreejith Moolayil and co-founder, Mr Puru Gupta, who recognized the potential of promoting healthy foods in India inspired by the health-conscious lifestyle that they observed during their work tenure in China. The co-founders began their entrepreneurial journey in 2011 with “Healthy World” kiosks inside IT company campuses in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. However, early challenges surfaced as the target market narrowed. Undeterred, the founders sought innovative solutions to expand their reach and created “True Elements” – a brand that resonated with health-conscious consumers given its positioning as a clean and minimally processed food brand devoid of chemicals, preservatives and added sugars. True Elements excelled in the online market and catered to a few offline markets. To sustain and augment their success, the entrepreneurs sought a strategic partnership and succeeded with Marico Ltd. However, challenges remained on the horizon. One was the need to appeal to a new target group: the 25–45 age group with a lower monthly income of INR 30,000. Another pressing question was exploring the entry into the modern trade sector.

This case can be taught in undergraduate and post-graduate business management programs for marketing, strategy and innovation and entrepreneurship related courses. Apart from that, this case can also be discussed in incubator programs as cases highlighting entrepreneurship can facilitate discussions among early-stage founders, providing practical insights and lessons for their ventures. This case also can be discussed very effectively in management classes for working executives.

This paper aims to propose an innovative blockchain-based system enabling implementation of a bond-pays model in credit rating industry. Issuer-pays model has led to conflict of interest resulting in rating shopping and inflation. Alternative business models have their own problems, e.g. investor-pays model suffers from “free rider” and public dissemination challenges, whereas government-controlled business models can lead to market distortion. Bond-pays model has been difficult to implement owing to operational difficulties in managing co-ordination amongst multiple entities involved, often with conflicting goals. Blockchain technology enables inter-organizational systems that foster trust amongst non-trusting entities, facilitating business functions such as credit rating to be carried out.

This paper outlines current processes in credit rating business that has led to repeated rating failures and proposes a new set of processes, leveraging capabilities of blockchain technology to enable implementation of an arms-length bond-pays model.

A proof-of-concept system, namely, rating chain has been designed to implement a small part of the proposed model to establish technical feasibility in a blockchain environment.

A fully functional blockchain-based system on bond-pays business model, if built and adopted, could impact how credit rating market functions currently and could contribute to a reduction in rating-related challenges.

The proposal to adopt blockchain technologies in implementing a bond-pays model in credit rating industry is a novel contribution.

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to investigate the mediating role of attitude toward advertising for the relationship between the exogenous constructs – advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness, and an endogenous construct purchase intent.

This paper has proposed a conceptual model based on the previous relevant studies and conducted a survey of 223 youth respondents from India. Further, structural equation model with the help of AMOS software was used to test the relationship among the proposed constructs.

This paper has considered advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness as exogenous constructs, attitude toward advertising as a mediating construct and purchase intent as an endogenous construct. The results revealed that advertising puffery influenced purchase intent and attitude toward advertising inversely, whereas celebrity trustworthiness positively influenced both purchase intent and attitude toward advertising. Additionally, attitude toward advertising was found to be a significant predictor of the purchase intent. Moreover, attitude toward advertising is found to have significant partial mediation between the constructs, celebrity trustworthiness and purchase intent.

This paper is useful for the marketers of soft drinks and other low-involvement products in India to understand the perceptions of the youth toward advertising with puffery content and celebrity endorser.

This study is a unique attempt to build a framework involving a combination of advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness to analyze the mediating effect of attitude toward advertising on the purchase Intent.

Supply chain digitalization (SCD) facilitates a competitive advantage and is equally challenging. A literature analysis reveals that research related to SCD is available, but analysis of key barriers and their interrelations for effective SCD is limited. This paper aims to identify and find out interrelationships among the key barriers affecting SCD in the electronic supply chain (SC).

Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to identify the contextual relationship among the SCD barriers. The model is validated using MICMAC analysis.

The findings of this study have implications at both theoretical and practical levels. The proposed ISM model can help organizations analyze and interpret interrelationships among barriers to SCD. It can lead to better insights and understanding for minimizing the dominant barriers to effective SCD.

This study tries to bridge the gap in identifying and finding the interrelationships among the key barriers to effective SCD in an electronic SC. The result assists practicing managers and academicians in effective decision-making on the SCD process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current status of reverse logistics practices used on four sectors of Indian manufacturing industry, namely, auto, paper, food and beverage processing, and electronics.

A nationwide questionnaire-based survey has been used to assess reverse logistics practices in Indian context.

It was seen from the survey that Indian companies considered implementing reverse logistics programs in their organization as a strategic-level decision. Volume of products entering the return stream is a key driver of reverse logistics activities. One of the important observations of this research is that Indian companies have primarily adopted reverse logistics due to the economic benefits associated with them.

The results reported in this research are the bird’s eye view of reverse logistics practices in the Indian context only. The low level of questionnaire responses is also one of the limitations of this study. Numerical data related to companies could not be reported in this research as companies were reluctant in giving sensitive data.

The present research would be useful for benchmarking professionals/managers for understanding strategic, tactical and operational-level issues of reverse logistics with respect to Indian context. Also, logistics managers can evolve suitable strategies for successful implementation of reverse logistics programs.

The literature review indicates that only a few frameworks available give a holistic perspective of the current status of reverse logistics operations in an Indian context. This research is an attempt in this regard.

Supply chain efficiency can be enhanced by integrating the activities in supply chain through digitalization. Advancements in digital technologies has facilitated in designing robust and dynamic supply chain by bringing in efficiency, transparency and reduction in lead times. This research tries to identify and prioritize the customer requirements and design requirements for effective integration of supply chain through digitalization.

The key nine customer requirements and 16 design requirements applicable for an electronics company were shortlisted in consultation with the experts from the company and academia. An integrated analytic network process (ANP) and quality function deployment (QFD) methodology has been applied for prioritizing the customer and design requirements. The relative importance and interdependence of these requirements were identified and a House of Quality (HOQ) is constructed.

The HOQ constructed has prioritized and identified interrelationships among customer requirements and design requirements for effective supply chain digitalization. These findings could be effectively used by managers for planning the objectives on long-term, medium-term and short-term basis.

This study tries to bridge the gap of identifying and prioritizing the design and customer requirements for effective supply chain integration through digitalization. The results could aid practicing managers and academicians in decision-making on supply chain digitalization process.