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Increase in competition and the strategic move of enhanced outsourcing has made supply chain more complex. Various applications and software solutions are available to better manage this complexity. It has been observed that often such initiatives may not provide the excepted benefits. It has also been reported that an unclear understanding of business needs (including perceived risks) is the main reason of supply chain failure. The present study attempts to capture enterprise level supply chain risk in an oil company (case company) in India and explore if perception of a decision maker favours use of blockchain technology project to reduce the supply chain risk. The study adopts the following methodology: in-depth semi-structured interviews and structured survey was carried out with the top management of the case company to identify various enterprise level risks for supply chain management (SCM) projects which were subsequently clustered under Operations, Finance, Human Resources, and Strategic Business Risk categories. Inputs on the probability of occurrence and impacts of the identified risks on the enterprise-wide supply chain was mapped on the risk severity matrix (heat map) to prioritize the risks. Subsequently, the second round of questionnaire was developed and a similar survey carried out again with the same sample show the change in risk perception due to potential application of blockchain technology. Interesting insights could be gained from the practitioner’s perspective on the value contribution of using blockchain for improving management of SCM risks. It could be observed that a number of the high priority risk (in the initial scenario) could now be eliminated or managed due to specific characteristics of blockchain.. One of the major limitations of the present study is the lack of generalizability of the insights as it is based exclusively on the perspective of the case company towards the blockchain.

Many research studies conducted in the recent past have found that the success of sports sponsorship depends much on consumers’ affiliation with the sport or a team. In order to understand the mechanics of the same, this study explores team–sponsor congruence, team identification and team involvement as exogenous variables to measure the attendees’ association with the team and its impact on their knowledge of the sponsor brand in order to ascertain the impact of their brand knowledge on the brand image of the sponsor and their purchase intentions. Using structural equation modelling technique, the study found that the attendees’ team association positively affects their knowledge of the sponsor brand, which in turn affects the sponsor image and purchase intention of the attendees. The study also found a weak direct association between the attendees’ product knowledge and their purchase intentions, implying the mediation of sponsor image. The study’s strength is in its sample of the respondents who were filtered for their high interest in the sport and the team (cricket and KXIP, respectively) under study. After selecting a team from the Indian Premier League (IPL) and analysing the responses of on-ground sport fans, the study provides valuable insights for the organizations which do or intend to sponsor a team in professional sport.

While extant studies have mainly investigated differences between drinkers and non-drinkers, the literature on segmenting heavy drinkers and profiling them is surprisingly scarce. This study makes a significant contribution to the social marketing literature by illustrating a novel way of targeting heavy drinkers by utilizing their health management styles and provides useful insights into understanding how segmentation could be a valuable tool for developing effective social marketing programmes that are aimed at reducing excessive alcohol consumption. Analysis of data collected through the HINTS study reveals a two-cluster segmentation model. The two segments of heavy drinkers distinctly differ in terms of the extent of reliance and trust they place on health service professionals. Hence, the segmentation analysis provides interesting and novel insights into the level of dependence of heavy drinkers on the health care system and their health management styles. The study provides an actionable perspective for future research, public policy and social marketing.

The health of people in a nation is a potential indicator of its development. Over and above that, the job performance of people involved in the delivery and facilitation of health care services within a nation reflects the actual health conditions in it. In developing countries, where a large chunk of the population lives in rural areas, the job performance of grass-roots health care workers gains significant importance in order to ensure effective and efficient delivery of health care services to the masses and marginalized communities. The present study takes the case of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in difficult rural areas of India to identify factors that affect their job performance and suggests interventions through which it could be enhanced. Fifty-five ASHAs were interviewed and five focused group discussions (FGDs) were conducted. Additionally, triangulation was done by interviewing other stakeholders, while studying relevant documents. Through content analysis of these interviews and documents, this study identifies the demands, resources and stressors that affect the job performance of these important intermediaries in the health care supply chain (in the Indian context). The study also suggests policy-level decisions that could help in enhancing job performance of ASHAs by managing demands, increasing resources and reducing stressors.Key Messages We have developed a model that delineates the demands, resources and stressors that affect job performance of women workers in rural India. We have studied Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) who are part of community health care sector. However, our findings are applicable to a wider set of similar job roles. We have studied the nuances of factors affecting job performance for a category of community health care workers who are not full-time employees, have received minimal training and work in close proximity of their residence in a closely knit society. We have looked at job performance of ASHAs who are women community health workers, with low educational qualifications, based in rural setting of a developing country. We have recommended policy implications that would aid in enhancing the performance of ASHAs and thus improve the health care situation in rural India.

Disputes in construction projects have become an integral part of the construction process. In addition to reducing their productivity, disputes create mistrust between the involved parties. A variety of reasons that contribute to the occurrence of disputes in construction projects have been discussed in the literature. One among them is the nature of the construction contract that exists between the parties. A review of the existing literature brings to the fore two schools of thought regarding the drafting of construction contracts. While the traditional school considers the contract as those documents that contain inherent incompleteness and hence prone to disputes, the liberal school believes that construction contracts can be drafted in an efficient manner to prevent disputes. In this exploratory research, we conducted semi-structured open-ended interviews with experts in contractual decision making and contract drafting in construction organizations to understand their perspective on contract drafting/redrafting process and to classify them under the respective school of thought. The study reveals some interesting insights about the perceptions and motivations of the contract drafters and the senior management of construction organizations in India, when it comes to drafting dispute-free equitable contract documents. We believe that the findings of our study will pave the way for further research in drafting efficient construction contracts that can be practicable and dispute-resistant in the Indian context.

Managing the disruptions in projects is a challenging task for project managers. In this respect, critical chain project management (CCPM) has been considered as a promising methodology in expediting projects. However, the effectiveness of this methodology is often lost in search of optimal use of project buffers to hedge against delays occurring in the critical chain. The more critical chain activity gets delayed, the greater is the likelihood of penetration of project buffer time. The resource constraints of critical chains have been considered as a major determinant of project buffer penetration. Although a project buffer is provided to protect the critical chain, to keep the CCPM project schedule competitive, it is the priority of the project manager to minimize the blatant consumption of project buffer time by multiple critical chain activities. Historically, resource constraints within the critical chain have been associated with penetration of project buffer time.The literature suggests that the productivity of resources deployed in the critical chain can predict the penetration of project buffer time. Based on the premise that delays are omnipresent and unavoidable but predictable, this research aims to consider the post-facto measures of delays instead of pre-facto measures. Pre-facto measures are resources productivity and resources availability while post-facto measures are the compensation paid by the client and the cost of liquidity damages incurred by the contractor. It is assumed that pre-facto measures are convertible into post-facto measures. A linear programming model is formulated and tested using the case of Botanical Garden Construction Project in Pune city. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the propensity of project buffer penetration on a critical chain varies with the compensation matrix. Varieties of scenario are developed and the optimal solution is validated with the case study.

Extant project management literature suggests that project benefits management (PBM) can facilitate social sustainability (SS) through benefits formulation for a wider set of project stakeholders. However, empirical evidence regarding the actual extent of SS considerations in benefits formulation is lacking, especially from large developing economies like India. To fill this gap, a SS-centric analysis of PBM plans of 80 construction projects has been conducted using content analysis to identify the benefits targeted at the internal and external stakeholders, viz., workers and project-affected community. The analysis reveals much higher occurrences of benefits for the affected community compared to those relating to the workers. The project proponents have highlighted the social relevance of projects mostly through ‘trickle down benefits’ – that may possiblyaccrue to the affected communities due to project investment – as compared to ‘co-created benefits’ – that empower the affected communities but require a deeper understanding of their needs and aspirations. ‘Local employment’ and ‘local business and economic growth’ are the most common benefits across projects. Three areas of improvement have been suggested in the benefits formulation process from a SS perspective – mandating worker-specific benefits, more focus on co-created benefits and specifying numeric measures of benefits along with timelines, to facilitate assessment of actual benefits realization during project implementation and operation phases. This study contributes to research literature on sustainable project management. Its findings offer useful implications for researchers, policymakers and project proponent organizations.

Subcontractors handle a large portion of the work in construction projects. The ability of the general contractor to deliver projects on time, within budget and with the expected level of quality are significantly dependent on the performance of subcontractors. Thus, selecting the right subcontractor for the right task is a determining factor for project success. Literature has identified several criteria for subcontractor selection that predominantly includes financial capacity, ability to complete on time and reputation and quality of workmanship. However, as projects are becoming more global and complex, ensuring selection and award through a fair and competitive formal process becomes imperative. Nevertheless, an understanding of a formal process, backing the selection criteria, seems to be lacking; more so in the context of engineering outsourcing services. Vendor bid analysis is one such service, wherein the general contractor packages the bids received from several subcontractors to a team in a different country who evaluate and enable the general contractor to select and award the subcontractors for project tasks. To this end, an exploratory case study was conducted in an outsourcing firm in India that provide services to general contractors in the USA to understand the formal process of subcontractor selection across organizational boundaries along with its inherent risks and challenges. Data was collected through a participatory research approach, supplemented with participant observation and team interviews which were analysed through inductive reasoning and cross-case comparison methods. The findings showed a formalized 5-phase process across the organizational interface that included assess, identify, evaluate, negotiateand optimizephases. Further, delving into the evaluate, negotiateand optimizephases, the nuances in outsourced projects and the firms strategy to overcome them were evident, such as selection criteria and negotiation strategy adopted in the case of a single bidder with high pricing to mitigate probable bid-rigging practices or ensuring constant training to overcome the challenges due to lack of trade and country specific know-how. In addition, through a reflective approach, the value addition services provided to the general contractor aimed to optimize the process and improve project governance. These findings are expected to provide practical implication for firms in similar business and act as a steppingstone to conduct further robust research.

Adoption of blockchain technology has been widely construed as disruptive. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology. It is secure by design because of its cryptography and distributed consensus mechanism, which also offers anonymity, persistence, auditability and resilience. The construction industry adopts a project-based approach and globally has been considered as a fragmented sector, predominantly in unorganised space. Given these characteristics, the technology adoption has been slow. This study looks at the challenges and adopts interpretive structural modelling technique to understand the linkages between these barriers. This study can provide managerial insights into designing strategies for overcoming the barriers for adoption of this disruptive technology.

In this paper, we study the milk procurement system of a private dairy firm that buys milk from two channels, namely from farmers and through intermediaries. The collected milk is processed into value-added products, such as butter, ghee, yoghurt etc. In India, milk is predominantly collected through cooperatives and most often the farmers are stakeholders of such cooperatives. Further, the intermediaries also sell their milk to the local market and hence, behave opportunistically. Therefore, availability of milk for the private dairy firm becomes critical and depends on market principles. The game played between the intermediary and the dairy has been modelled as a Stackellberg game and expressions for their optimal decisions are obtained. Based on data collected from a private dairy firm, we carried out numerical analysis to understand the behaviour of the intermediary and the dairy firm.

Dependencies over supplier for efficient functioning of firms are evident in academic literature as well as in practice. However, disruption in supplies can hinder the entire manufacturing process. This article applies a mathematical model through modifying the work of Berger et al. (2004) to determine the optimal number of suppliers required under supply disruptions and also used quantity discounts offered by suppliers on volume purchases. The model is demonstrated by means of an Indian locomotive manufacturer as a case study. We consider supply disruptions due to the probability of occurrence of super, semi-super, and unique events in the supply chain. Furthermore, the analysis has been extended to study the semi-super events, in which only a particular region of supplier is affected. Results have shown that the optimal number of suppliers is three for low cost items and two for the costlier ones. This article will be helpful for efficient managerial decision making for materials management and purchasing practitioners, besides academicians for better understanding of such concerns.

Photodetectors based on n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O/p‐Si heterojunctions are not only suitable for integration with existing semiconductor technology, but also circumvent the difficulty of stable p‐type doping in MgxZn1–xO. However, the use of Si leads to photoresponse in the visible part of the light spectrum, which renders n‐MgxZn1–xO/p‐Si heterojunction devices unsuitable for visible blind UV photodetection. Herein, it is demonstrated that the visible photoresponse in the n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O/p‐Si photodetectors can be significantly suppressed by inserting a thin interlayer of MgO at the heterojunction. The MgO layer serves as a blocking layer for the drift of photo‐excited electrons from p‐Si to n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O, thereby limiting the visible photoresponse. It is found that on increasing the thickness of the MgO interlayer from 3 to 15 nm, the UV to visible rejection ratio increases from ≈25 to 200. This enhancement in the UV to visible rejection ratio demonstrates that n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O/p‐Si heterojunction devices with MgO interlayer are promising for visible‐blind UV photodetection applications. The visible photoresponse in n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O/p‐Si heterojunction could be significantly reduced by inserting a MgO barrier layer between the p‐Si substrate and the Mg0.25Zn0.75O film. The visible light suppression is caused by the presence of a high conduction band offset at the p‐Si/MgO interface that works as a barrier for the drift of the visible excited electrons from the p‐Si to n‐Mg0.25Zn0.75O.

In this highly competitive market where the demand for the products is increasing gradually, it is essential for a manufacturing company to reduce the production cycle time and cost accordingly. One of the methods for this is to increase the availability of process. This paper attempts to identify and quantify the causes of machine downtime in a manufacturing company. For this a four-prong approach is taken: Firstly, the major causes for the low availability of process are determined, where bearing failure is found to be the major causes of low availability. Second, combining desirability function approach and data envelopment analysis are performed to identify the sensitive input variables that affect the bearing failure. Thirdly, ordinary linear regression is used to validate the results of DEA. Lastly, some managerial implications to reduce the downtime were suggested. We have considered an electrolytic tinplating line process in a tin sheet manufacturing company as a case study.