COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions and Small Business Survival Strategy: Government Supporting Schemes

From antiquity to the present day, the contribution of small businesses to the economic development of a country is overwhelming. Nowadays, COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have exerted an outrageous impact on small businesses survival. In developing countries where government-supporting capacity is low, the severity is substantial. The present study predicts the impact of COVID-19 lockdown restriction and government supporting schemes on small business survival. To meet this purpose, the study primarily used PLS-SEM and binary logit models. The results confirmed that over 44% of small businesses would fail in the first month of lockdown restriction. Moreover, only 6% have cash reserve to survive twelve months. In this regard, the present study suggested that the government should have to abstain from total lockdown measures, without government-supporting schemes. As such, the study has examined the relative importance of COVID-19 based special loan, suspension of payments, withdrawal of restricted funds, and exemption of tax and penalty payments. Among these supporting schemes, COVID-19 based special loan is the most important government-supporting scheme followed by the suspension of interest and principal payments. However, the exemption of tax payments and withdrawal of restricted funds were not significant.

Employee Voice, Employee Involvement, and Organizational Change Readiness: Mediating Role of Commitment-to-Change and Moderating Role of Transformational Leadership

This study explores the antecedents for organizational change readiness for altering the status quo and empirically validates few potent tools which facilitate change. By drawing on change management literature, this study examines the influence of employee voice (EV) and employee involvement (EI) on commitment-to-change (CTC), considering the latter as a mediating variable in the relation between antecedent human resources practices (EV and EI) and organizational change readiness (OCR). Subsequently, the moderating role of transformational leadership was analyzed on these posited relationships. The hypotheses proposed in the research model are tested on a sample of 516 employees from an Indian public sector organization, applying Baron and Kenny’s (1986) technique for establishing mediation and Ping’s approach to moderated structured equation modeling for moderation. The findings suggest that CTC partially mediates the relationship between EV and OCR, but it does not mediate between EI and OCR. Likewise, the study results also empirically validate that the relationship between EV and CTC is enhanced if leadership is transformational, also the hypothesis positing the moderating role of transformational leadership between EI and CTC was supported.

Impact of Sustainable Tourism on Tourist’s Satisfaction: Evidence from India

The tourism business is the most effective means to strengthen the economic and financial stability of a country. In a developing country like India this business acts as the backbone to improve the level of happiness of its residents. Sustainable tourism provides equal opportunity to every stakeholder to contribute their part in the development of the society as well as the site. The main purpose of the study was to explore the four dimensions of sustainable tourism, which involve “economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, sociocultural sustainability, and institutional sustainability,” and to study their impact on tourist’s satisfaction. This study involves a survey conducted on tourists visiting selected travel destinations from various states in India. The travel destinations selected for the study involved 26 destinations from 8 states of India. The results suggested a positive relationship of three (environmental, sociocultural, and institutional) sustainability dimensions on tourist’s satisfaction. Findings indicate that the dimensions of environment, sociocultural, and institutional sustainability are important for tourist’s satisfaction and should be included for a holistic approach to planning and monitoring sustainable tourism development.

Perceived Risk, Trust, and Online Food Purchase Intention Among Malaysians

The food distribution industry is proliferating significantly and contributing to the economies. The spread of technology enhances the consumption patterns as young and educated consumers are attracted to use the online food purchase systems. This study investigated the perceived risk of consumers and the impact of perceived risks on the purchase intention of the takeaway online ordering model. Google Form was used to obtain the target respondents through various online social media platforms such as WeChat, WhatsApp groups, and Facebook to collect data from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, Malaysia. A total of 350 valid responses were utilized for partial least square structure equation modeling based data analysis. The study results confirm that financial risk, time risk, and psychological risk can significantly influence the trust in online food sellers. However, time risk, psychological risk, and trust in online sellers can significantly influence the intention to purchase online food. Trust in online significantly mediates the relationship between the associated risk in an online purchase and the intention to purchase online food. The most significant contributor to the intention to purchase food is the trust in online sellers than time risk and psychological risk. Research findings offer practical insights into the process of online food purchases. This study provides practical suggestions, study limitations, and future research opportunities.

Does Credit Rating Revisions Affect the Price of Common Stock: A Study of Indian Capital Market

The current investigation aims to assess the effect of credit assessment changes on the share prices of Indian companies from 2009 to 2019. The data of top 100 companies listed on National Stock Exchange (NSE) across 10 industries stem from CMIE databases. The excess stock return is compared with the market in a 15-day window around credit rating changes. The event effect on share prices is more in the pre-event window compared to the post-event window. Positive abnormal stock returns around upgrades through downgrades are statistically significant compared to upgrades. Credit ratings are not significant across industries, and agency nationality is a critical factor for calculating the intensity of price reaction.

Factors Determining the Exchange Rate Exposure of Firms: Evidence from India

Exchange rate exposure is a strategic decision in finance and risk management at both the micro and macro level of business operations. Literature on the measurement, and management of this risk, has had no consensus on the factors affecting it as these factors seem to be dynamic. In an effort to consider a comprehensive study at the firm level, this article examines the exchange rate exposure of 271 constituent firms from the BSE S&P 500 index. The study period was 2001 to 2020 divided into sub-periods around the financial crises of 2008. The study uses two contemporary approaches (the capital market approach and the cash flow approach) and five relevant exchange rates (USD, EURO, GBP, JPY, and REER) to measure the foreign exchange. The sample firms were divided into 10 industrial sectors to identify the factors that lead to exposure of firms to exchange rate volatility. We use multinomial logistic regression to regress the select factors with the measured value of exchange rate exposure. The findings of the article suggest that multinationality, fixed asset utilization ratio, hedging activities, industrial sectors, size, and age of the firms are the significant determinants of such exposure. The results varied during the sub-periods and across industries.

Decomposing the Effect of Brand Image in Influencing Information Adoption: The Case of Online Travel Agents

The availability of information in the form of online reviews offered by online travel agents (OTAs) is playing an important role in the travel decisions of today’s consumer. Considering the huge amount of attention given to behavioral dimension in decision making literature and the popularity of the information adoption model, the present study aims at exploring the direct and indirect effect of information quality (IQ) and information credibility (IC) on attitude toward information usefulness (AT). The study specifically bridges the gap in the literature of information adoption by using brand image (BI) of the OTA as a mediator. The research also examines the subsequent effect of attitude toward information usefulness on information adoption (IA). Convenience sampling technique has been used to gather responses and structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the data. The results confirm the presence of partial mediation effect in the proposed relationships between IQ, IC, BI, and AT and posit a significant effect of attitude toward information usefulness on the adoption of information. The study concludes that it is imperative for marketers in the travel industry to understand that perception of their brand plays a very important role in positioning their information as a useful one.

Marketization of Public Universities: Lessons from a Developing Economy

This study investigates the marketization of public universities in a developing economy with the aim of providing findings for repositioning public universities for global attraction. It adopts a qualitative approach, and the sample population comprise undergraduate and postgraduate students from four public universities (two federal- and two state-owned) in Nigeria. Purposive sampling was used to identify the students selected from each of these universities, and focus group interviews were conducted. We employed content and thematic template analysis techniques to analyze the generated data with NVivo 11. The findings show that the key themes that shape interviewees’ experiences include: infrastructure deficit, poor tutor commitment, unprofessionalism, and inadequate training. Policy recommendations were suggested for the tripartite work relationship between the government, university leadership and the academic staff union for repositioning public universities. The study is limited to a single research paradigm but offers future research opportunities using alternative strategy for strengthening emerging themes and new findings.