Proposed Research Framework Research Articles

The Valuation of Water Quality: A Conceptual Framework for Households’ and Producers’ Willingness to Pay in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Restoring the freshwater ecosystems has drawn global attention, governmental and non-governmental organizations around the globe incorporating several strategies to revive the last remaining free-flowing rivers and other high priority freshwater ecosystems. Rivers in urban setting have social, economic and ecological importance and demise of such rivers might affect many of its inhabitant’s life and living which has been established, survived and flourished over the years. Often, restoration of the river ecosystem seems challenging to the policy makers because the river ecosystem services have no price tag. Improving water quality program requires precise information about the costs and benefits which in urban areas needs to incorporate an integrated approach that implement necessary societal and technical measures. This study provides a conceptual framework using both households’ and producers’ willingness to pay for the river water quality improvement to acquire maximum information for successful restoration program. This study provides useful information which may help for further improvement of the water quality in an alike problem of developing countries. Future studies should validate empirically the proposed research framework. Keywords: Urban River Restoration, Households’ WTP, Producers’ WTP, Conceptual Framework DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-2-18

A Qualitative Investigation of Antecedents, Mediators, Moderators, and Outcomes of Brand Equity.

One of the most critical marketing topics which have been discussed extensively by both academicians and practitioners over the past decades is brand equity. This study aims to integrate previous literature and developing a comprehensive framework to identify the antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences of brand equity. In order to verify the appropriateness of the proposed research framework and research design based on literature review, this study first adopted a series of in-depth interviews to collect data from experts. The research framework was developed based on the comments of the experts. The results indicated that three major dimensions of variables, including cognitive factors, experiential factors, and marketing factors have significant influences on brand equity. Brand personality, brand trust, and brand loyalty have served as three of the mediators that can mediate the influences of cognitive, experiential, and marketing factors on brand equity. Furthermore, brand equity can be a significant indicator of brand preference, behavioral intention, and word of mouth toward the brand. Two major aspects of moderators, including relational moderators and psychological moderators, can amplify the influence of brand equity on brand preference, behavioral intention, and word of mouth. Eventually, 28 research propositions were developed to integrated the antecedents, mediators, moderators and outcomes of brand equity. Since most of the previous studies do not integrate into a more comprehensive framework of brand equity, the results of this study have provided as an important reference for academicians to conduct further empirical validations on the research of brand equity. The results are also very useful for professionals to identify their marketing and promotion strategies to enhance brand equity and the profitability of the firm.

Is Governmentality the Missing Link for Greening the Economic Growth?

The new concept of “green growth” appears to be an economic growth model, which balances environment sustainability and fostering of economic growth. Yet, much of the green growth research has failed to address the real extent of interconnections and complexity of the relationship between governance and economic, social, and environmental structures. Furthermore, current green growth research tends to focus on the country level, such as the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development indices, which risks ignoring the additional impacts on micro industrial economies. The lack of connection between green growth and good governance—known as environmental governance—is a crucial gap in practical adoption. Therefore, this study uses Foucault’s governmentality lens to view green growth as a technique of government, seeking an environmentally focused eco-governmentality. We examine the transformation, differential definitions, and critical dimensions of green growth in relation to particular case studies taken from China and South Korea and frame them for future sustainable studies. The findings of this study highlight the significant role of interdisciplinary research, as well both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, on enabling the transition to green growth. The proposed research framework and implementation strategy also identifies new avenues for future research and practices in the field of sustainable development, making it one of the study’s key contributions to the literature.

Development of social sustainability index for freight transportation system

A sustainable business organization need to consider the importance of economic, environmental and social sustainability. Although researchers and practitioners focus their attention on the economic and environmental dimension of sustainability, less attention is paid to the social dimension of sustainability, particularly in developing countries. Nonetheless, these researchers and practitioners do not consider the social sustainability issue faced by freight transportation companies. To answer this issue, this article proposes a framework for computing social sustainability index, which is based on the freight transportation social sustainability enablers, dimensions, and attributes. To validate the proposed research framework, multiple freight transportation companies and eight industry experts were selected in the region of North India. Appropriate freight transport social sustainability enablers, dimensions, and attributes were identified based on literature and validated with multiple rounds of discussion with industry experts. The proposed framework considered four enablers, 16 dimensions, and 74 attributes including 17 new attributes of social sustainability. All the levels of social sustainability involve qualitativeness and incomplete information, so the fuzzy logic based methodology is more suitable to compute the overall social sustainability index. Freight transportation social sustainability index (FTSSI) has been computed as (4.472, 6.017, 7.591) and industry practices said to be “very socially sustainable”. Also, 21 poorer social sustainability attributes were found. The fuzzy logic based result was validated with the conventional crisp approach. The findings of the study will help transport industry managers, decision-makers, and government policymakers to take appropriate actions to improve the freight transport social sustainability performance attributes.

Enablers to implement sustainable initiatives in agri-food supply chains

Due to rapid agricultural industrialization, increased global food demand, and, increasing concerns related to food quality and safety, the concepts of sustainability and supply chain transparency are becoming critically important to the agriculture and agri-food sector. The new focus on sustainability performance objectives emphasizes the effective utilization and consumption of natural resources to balance ecological, economic and societal aspects of agri-food businesses. The management of sustainability adds a new demand on business managers who often have small profits and receive stringent requirements from large powerful customers and retailers. In this paper, we recognize and analyze the key enablers in implementing sustainable initiatives for Agri-Food Supply Chains (A-FSCs). Ten important sustainability driven enablers were considered from a rigorous literature review and phase of expert consultation. The identified enablers were then analyzed using a combined Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) - fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) based framework. The ISM approach enabled an appreciation of the contextual relationships among the enablers and to classify the enablers based on their driving and dependence potential. The fuzzy DEMATEL technique supported the determination of the influential and influenced enablers and also to categorize them into cause and effect groups. An empirical case study, drawn from a vegetable and fruit retail supply chain in India, is used to focus and test the applicability of the proposed research framework. The paper facilitates professional management practice and researchers to uncover and explore the enablers for the real execution of sustainability oriented initiatives in the agri-food business sector.

Role of consumer traits and situational factors on impulse buying: does gender matter?

PurposeWith the growing acceptance of organised retail in Central India, it is important to understand the impulse buying phenomenon and how it is influenced by consumer traits and situational factors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the combined effect of three consumer traits and four situational factors on impulsive buying.Design/methodology/approachUsing confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SmartPLS 2.0 software), responses from 417 hypermarket and supermarket consumers of Central India in the proposed research framework were analysed and validated.FindingsThe resulted values for the construct impulse buying tendency, shopping enjoyment tendency, materialism, person’s situation, motivational activities by retailers and product attributes show positive significant influences, whereas the construct store environment having relationship with impulse buying shows negative influence. Importantly, the findings also demonstrate that the gender moderates the relationship between various factors of consumer traits and situational factors with impulse buying.Research limitations/implicationsThe study develops a research framework with three specific variables of consumer traits and four variables of situational factors, triggers impulse buying. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate some other variables, such as interpersonal influence, consumer involvement and consumption patterns, so that more affluent insights can be obtained. The study presents useful insights to retailers, academicians and researchers, regarding impulse buying behaviour of Indian consumers in a still developing organised retail sector in Central India.Originality/valueThe study focussed on the combined effect of consumer traits and situational factors on impulse buying for the first time in Central India, as earlier studies focussed on impulse buying behaviour at the USA and metro cities of India.

Complexities’ day-to-day dynamic evolution analysis and prediction for a Didi taxi trip network based on complex network theory

Didi Dache is the most popular taxi order mobile app in China, which provides online taxi-hailing service. The obtained big database from this app could be used to analyze the complexities’ day-to-day dynamic evolution of Didi taxi trip network (DTTN) from the level of complex network dynamics. First, this paper proposes the data cleaning and modeling methods for expressing Nanjing’s DTTN as a complex network. Second, the three consecutive weeks’ data are cleaned to establish 21 DTTNs based on the proposed big data processing technology. Then, multiple topology measures that characterize the complexities’ day-to-day dynamic evolution of these networks are provided. Third, these measures of 21 DTTNs are calculated and subsequently explained with actual implications. They are used as a training set for modeling the BP neural network which is designed for predicting DTTN complexities evolution. Finally, the reliability of the designed BP neural network is verified by comparing with the actual data and the results obtained from ARIMA method simultaneously. Because network complexities are the basis for modeling cascading failures and conducting link prediction in complex system, this proposed research framework not only provides a novel perspective for analyzing DTTN from the level of system aggregated behavior, but can also be used to improve the DTTN management level.

Expanding the work–life balance discourse to LGBT employees: Proposed research framework and organizational responses

Relying on a gender neutrality rhetoric, the work–life balance (WLB) discourse has challenged gendered roles, but has failed to expand “gender neutrality” to aspects of gender identity and sexual orientation. In turn, WLB research has systematically excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees. We build on stakeholder theory and the resource‐based view of the firm to propose extending the WLB discourse and associated policies and practices to LGBT employees as key internal stakeholders who can possibly contribute to organizational performance, either directly or indirectly. We further combine these perspectives with institutional theory in an integrative research framework that relies on the critical realist structured ontology and denotes the institutional embeddedness of organizations. Adopting this institutional perspective, we propose that explanations regarding the adoption of LGBT WLB policies in organizations go beyond the organizational level to include higher level institutional characteristics. Similarly, we posit that the relationship between LGBT WLB policies and organizational performance outcomes is influenced by such characteristics. Drawing from this framework, we put forth a typology of organizational responses that postulates the possible outcomes for organizations given their re(actions) to institutional pressures and their attitude toward LGBT employees as stakeholders.

Factors Affecting Mobile Payment Adoption Intention: An Indian Perspective

This study aims to identify the factors affecting mobile payment (m-payment) adoption intention in India by proposing a conceptual framework based on technology acceptance model (TAM). In addition to construct of TAM, four user-centric constructs have been added to evaluate m-payment adoption intention in India. The proposed research framework was empirically tested by data collected from 381 potential m-payment service users, through online and offline survey. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The results exhibit that perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), trust, and self-efficacy (SE) have a significant positive impact on m-payment adoption intention. However, subjective norms (SN) and personal innovativeness (PI) have no significant impact on m-payment adoption intention. Findings of the study have important theoretical and practical implications, particularly to understand important user-centric factors affecting m-payment adoption.

Emotional Intelligence and Extended Service Profit Chain in Telecom Industry in Oman – An Empirical Validation

A research study was initiated to investigate the influence and impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on extended Service Profit Chain (SPC) model in a telecom service industry in Oman. The operations management literature frequently exhorts that in addition to quality compliance, customer satisfaction, retention some attention to be devoted to attributes like employees satisfaction and loyalty as well. Accordingly, the SPC integrates EI as a pivotal component and has been in wide use for studying mutual linkages between employees and customers. The present study empirically examines the suitability and usefulness of this model in telecommunications industry, by collecting feedback about various attributes associated with from entities in both upstream and downstream paths viz. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), Service Providers (SP) and Customers. Using a battery of carefully-crafted, inter-linked hypotheses by thorough statistical analysis of the survey data was made to validate the assumptions and the soundness of three-tier architecture of SPC. The proposed research framework demonstrated that Service Quality (SQ) of upstream OEMs increases in proportion to the SQ and employee loyalty of SPs, which in turn generates satisfaction and loyalty among downstream customers. Interestingly, loyalty among downstream customers diffuses or propagates upward, translating into higher sales and performance for upstream OEMs. These findings suggest that EI is a benevolent, binding force and plays an invisible hand, in enhancing internal performance of an organization. By embracing extended SPC model, service industries are bound to gain competitive advantage and unleash firm profitability.

Effect of Experiential Teaching Methodology on Personality and Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Proposed Framework

Personality has been found to be a primary antecedent to gauge entrepreneurial intentions of an individual. A holistic view of personality is better at understanding this relationship, and may be of more benefit to the individual and assessor. Among students of higher education institutions, entrepreneurial intentions are declining. Individuals with higher entrepreneurial intentions respond better to experiential teaching methodology. In this was higher education institutions may be able to increase the entrepreneurial intentions of the students by using experiential teaching methodologies. This study proposes the use of experiential teaching methodology as a moderator to better understand the relationship between; entrepreneurial proactivity, entrepreneurial creativity, entrepreneurial opportunism and entrepreneurial vision with entrepreneurial intentions. This study also elaborates on the use of entrepreneurial event model as the underpinning theory and human capital theory as the supporting theory to build the proposed research framework.

Impulse Buying: A Consumer Trait Prospective in Context of Central India

Impulse buying occurs when a consumer perceives an impulsive and persuasive stimulus to buy something immediately. The main objective of this study is to figure out the relationship between consumer trait and impulse buying. The studied constructs were refined and validated by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Using SmartPLS 2.0 statistical software, responses from 267 consumers of central India in the proposed research framework were analysed and measured. Resulted findings for the constructs, impulse buying tendency, interpersonal influence, emotional attachment and materialism show significant positive relationship with impulsive buying, whereas, the construct shopping enjoyment tendency having significant relationship, showed negative effects. The study findings also support the past research efforts in this field by validating through the results, especially by considering the significant relationship between consumer traits and impulse buying for the first time in central India. Thus, the study presents useful insights to marketers and academicians regarding the buying behaviour of Indian consumers in a still developing retail sector.

Perceived ihsan, Islamic egalitarianism and Islamic religiosity towards charitable giving of cash waqf

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model explicating Muslims intention towards charitable giving of cash waqf. Drawing from altruism theoretical paradigm, the present study investigates the role of perceived ihsan, Islamic egalitarian and Islamic religiosity on cash waqf contribution.Design/methodology/approachThe survey method using Islamic banking respondents were exploited for data collection. A total sample of 264 completed questionnaires were analysed.FindingsThe results of exploratory factor analysis indicate strong constructs nomological validity. The structural equation modelling using path analysis was also performed to estimate the proposed research framework. The result of model testing shows significant relationship between perceived ihsan, Islamic egalitarian and Islamic religiosity on cash waqf contribution.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that perception of ihsan and notion of equality significantly influences Muslims’ sense of religiosity, which subsequently encourages the generosity giving behaviour of waqf. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.Originality/valueThe study introduces two new dimensions of perceived ihsan and Islamic egalitarian. Specifically, the present study offers fresh new insights of charitable giving of cash waqf behaviours from Islamic perspective.

The Relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation, Business Networks Orientation, Export Market Orientation and SME Export Performance: A Proposed Research Framework

This study proposing a research framework of the relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), Export Market Orientation (EMO), Business Network (BNO) and SME export performance in Pakistan. This framework developed based on extensive literature. There are few studies have attempted to investigate the combined effect of EO, EMO and BNO in a framework with SME export performance, especially in the context of Pakistan. Literature failed to find the consistency relationship between EO, EMO, BNO and SME export performance. This study delivers useful information and adds knowledge to the literature pointing to increase their business performance.

A Hybrid MCDM Approach for Strategic Project Portfolio Selection of Agro By-Products

Due to the increasing size of the population, society faces several challenges for sustainable and adequate agricultural production, quality, distribution, and food safety in the strategic project portfolio selection (SPPS). The initial adaptation of strategic portfolio management of genetically modified (GM) Agro by-products (Ab-Ps) is a huge challenge in terms of processing the agro food product supply-chain practices in an environmentally nonthreatening way. As a solution to the challenges, the socio-economic characteristics for SPPS of GM food purchasing scenarios are studied. Evaluation and selection of the GM agro portfolio management are the dynamic issues due to physical and immaterial criteria involving a hybrid multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approach, combining modified grey Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), Multi-Attributive Border Approximation area Comparison (MABAC) and sensitivity analysis. Evaluation criteria are grouped into social, differential and beneficial clusters, and the modified DEMATEL procedure is used to derive the criteria weights. The MABAC method is applied to rank the strategic project portfolios according to the aggregated preferences of decision makers (DMs). The usefulness of the proposed research framework is validated with a case study. The GM by-products are found to be the best portfolio. Moreover, this framework can unify the policies of agro technological improvement, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and agro export promotion.

Satisfaction, loyalty and repatronage intentions: Role of hedonic shopping values

Today the Indian traditional retail shopper visiting various hypermarkets formats for purchasing and enjoying their valuable time with their family members and friends, as these formats offer hedonic shopping values. Therefore, this research paper focused on hypermarket shoppers of central India and the main objective of this study is to identify the role of hedonic shopping values on creation of satisfaction, loyalty and repatronage intentions with the help of proposed research framework based on 329 responses. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) is use to analyze and validate the proposed research framework. The result supports the relationship between hedonic shopping values with customer satisfaction, loyalty and repatronage intentions. The study also demonstrate the moderating role of gender on these relationship, which shows that both male and female consumer have different level of shopping behavior when it comes to see the influence of hedonic shopping values. Therefore, this research paper would help hypermarket retailers to design their retail store environment more attractively to maintain the optimum customer satisfaction level that enhance the loyalty and repatronage intentions in the customer in this current competitive retail scenario.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN SCRM WITH KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR SYSTEM

Customer relation management is a significant feature in the business development which assists for business peoples to get the knowledge about the customer's opinions and can establish the profitable environment. Customer opinions were utilized to enhance the product, so that customer fulfilment and profit will rise desirably. So it is necessary to execute the functional design of customer opinions regarding the products which depends on the time duration. In the earlier work, Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) is established to raise the profit level of industries by tracking the entire regarding the product which is demanded by the customers. Nevertheless, creating and managing the CKM for the huge volume of the customer is a complex task. It results in inaccuracy, if in case it is done manually with less customer information. This issue is rectified in the proposed research methodology by bringing-in the methodology such as Neural Network based Social Customer Relation Management (NN-SCRM). This algorithm is utilized to examine the following factors by gathering the knowledge of the customer review information: Predict the future, most profitable customers, maintaining quality of product development, customer life time value, identify customers and their products. This is done according to the information of the customer review, which, in turn, obtained from the customers opinions disclosed by their comments regarding the product. This proposed research work is executed and examined in the MATLAB simulation environment from which it is confirmed that the proposed research framework tends to give the best output than the current CKM frameworks.

Total productive maintenance and manufacturing performance improvement

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the multidimensionality of total productive maintenance (TPM) and its relationship with manufacturing performance improvement in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. Specifically, this study evaluates the contribution of each TPM success factors in improving manufacturing performance.Design/methodology/approachData from 89 employees who participated in the survey were used to test the proposed research framework. A structured questionnaire adopted from Ahuja and Khamba (2006) was used to assess the Malaysian context.FindingsThe analytical results reveal that traditional maintenance initiatives and TPM implementation initiatives significantly affect manufacturing performance, but not top management leadership and maintenance organisation. Top management roles and commitment are critical in the early stage to determine the master plan and initiate the implementation of the whole programme. However, traditional maintenance and TPM implementation initiatives gradually enable engagement, proper planning, right execution and continuous improvement, ultimately improving the manufacturing performance indicators significantly. The findings further unveil that TPM is not sustainable in Malaysia’s manufacturing organisations in the long run.Practical implicationsThis analysis is vital for senior managers of manufacturing organisations that have implemented TPM or are considering introducing TPM in their organisations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by examining beyond the introduction and stabilisation phase of TPM to provide an insight of whether TPM is sustainable in the long run.

Developing a research framework for the green maintainability of buildings

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to present a research framework for the green maintainability of buildings. This study makes the case for the development of a new concept called “green maintainability”. The paper also identifies and discusses the knowledge gap concerning green facilities management (FM). As an integral part of green FM, the economic, environmental and social impacts and opportunities of green maintainability throughout the total life cycle of the facility are also highlighted.Design/methodology/approachThe little attention paid to the maintainability of green buildings has resulted in losses of lives due to occupational health and safety hazards as well as high operation and maintenance costs. To address this issue, this study has conducted a literature review to determine the relevant background knowledge and provides a conceptual framework that will aid in conceptualizing the green maintainability of buildings and the development of a research framework for the furtherance of this concept.FindingsThis paper finds that there is little research on the maintainability of green buildings, and the studies about the maintainability of green features are nonexistent in current research. This study confirms the knowledge gap of this little-researched area and draws from it the formulation of a research framework for the green maintainability of buildings to ensure green FM. Emerging literature on green practices and methods is currently receiving attention from academia, as well as building and construction practitioners, and can valuably contribute to the existing theories, practices and methods concerning building maintainability and facilities management.Originality/valueThis study develops the novel concept of green maintainability, which integrates maintainability and green FM at the planning/design stage. The proposed research framework is the first attempt to investigate the green maintainability of different typologies of buildings and especially green building technologies.

Beyond students’ perceptions: investigating learning presence in an educational blogging community

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an integrated framework for designing and investigating students’ engagement patterns and learning presence in educational blogs. The framework was grounded on the ideas of self-directed and reflective learning, and was applied to analyse students’ blogging activities in the context of an undergraduate course.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed research framework was organized along three dimensions: content artefacts, blogging processes and community building. With regard to the methodological tools used, this study integrates content analysis of students’ posts using the framework of community of inquiry, the representation of learning mapping and social network analysis methods.FindingsThe results have revealed important information about the different ways of students’ engagement and learning presence within the blogging groups, the contribution and the influence each student had, as well as the structure and the cohesion of the learning community developed around the blogging project.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study are limited by the blended course features, the specific sample and the context of implementation. Future research needs to consider and analyse students’ lurking or invisible presence in educational blogging communities.Practical implicationsThis study has yielded promising results with regard to the design of educational blogs in higher education that aim to enhance students’ engagement, reflection, collaboration and self-directed learning.Originality/valueThe originality concerns the proposed conceptual framework which can guide the design, monitoring and analysis of blogging processes in order to reveal students’ learning presence within self-directed communities of blogging.