Prithwiraj Nath

Performance Benchmarking and Strategic Homogeneity of Indian Banks

Explores the linkage between performance benchmarking and strategic homogeneity of Indian commercial banks. Devises a method of benchmarking performance of Indian commercial banks using their published financial information. Defines performance by how a bank is able to utilize its resources to generate business transactions and is measured by their ratio, which is then called the efficiency. The concept of efficiency is critical from a marketing perspective. Methodologically, in order to overcome some of the shortcomings of simple efficiencies obtained through self‐appraisal of individual banks, a more “democratic” concept of cross‐efficiency evaluated with the process of peer‐appraisal has been brought in to benchmark the banks. Clusters banks based on similarity in business policy which offers a framework for competitive positioning in the target market and serves as a basis for long‐term strategic focus. Finds that the public sector banks generally outperform the private and foreign banks in this rapidly evolving and liberalizing sector.

The Impact of Organizational Pressures on Environmental Performance of Firms

The role of various organizational pressures in influencing performance of firms has been an interesting research topic in a variety of fields and has received the attention of researchers working in the field of environmental strategy. Although there are previous studies that have looked at the influence of various pressures in influencing firms’ environmental strategies, our study provides a more holistic analysis considering a variety of such pressures in a single framework. We discuss a research study to analyze how pressures from internal and external stakeholders of a firm, economic pressures, environmental regulations, and pressures of environmental compliance have affected environmental performance of firms using data collected from manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. We have found that internal stakeholders provide the greatest impact in shaping environmental performance of firms, closely followed by economic pressures, environmental regulations, and external stakeholders in that order. Fears of penalties due to environmental compliance have the least impact, although this pressure also has a positive and significant impact on environmental performance.

Complementary effects of relational bonds in information asymmetry contexts

Purpose – The marketing literature theorizes the adoption of the relationship marketing paradigm to foster stronger customer relationships. However, empirical evidence is scarce on how consumers ability to judge the service influences such relational exchange. This paper aims to examine how information asymmetry influences a service firms initiative to build customer relationships. The relationship marketing literature proposes conceptually that relational bonds and their interaction influence relationship outcomes. However, there is no empirical study to verify such an interactive effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence on how interaction effects between relational bonds can act as buffers in developing customer relationships.Design/methodology/approach – In the first stage, this study classifies financial services offered by retail banks into search, experience, and credence (SEC) categories. In the second stage, this paper uses survey data from 452 UK retail bank customers to understand...

Green competence framework: evidence from China

Recently human resources management functions such as recruitment, selection, training and performance evaluation are expected in considering environmental management issues. Environmental protective acts with adequate ecological knowledge and socio-economic behavior and skills are referred to in this paper as green competencies (GCs). However, a systematic approach for developing and understanding key factors that enhance individuals GCs is lacking. This study contributes to green human resource literature by integrating environmental consumer behavior literature with traditional skills and competencies literature to help firms to select the right individuals to achieve their environmental goals. Using Roberts competencies framework and structural equation modeling, this paper empirically examines the influence of individual GCs on organizations green practices and performance objectives. Our model is tested using a sample of 1230 employees working in key industries in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo. The results indicate that acquired GCs are more positively associated with individuals GCs and green behavior. The study empirically demonstrates that verifying acquired GC attributes such as environmental knowledge, green purchase attitude and intention during employee selection would certainly be helpful for firms to identify individual green performance potential.

Expectation Formation in Case of Newer Hotels: The Role of Advertising, Price, and Culture

Advertisement and price cues are important sources of information that influence tourists’ service expectations, particularly in the case of newer, less-established hotels. However, it is not clear if such hotels benefit from promising more or less through their advertisements; or price high or low through their price cues. Extant research is also uncertain about the role of culture in moderating the impact of advertisement and price cues on expectations. Using an experimental setup with 218 tourists from three different countries, this study finds that a newer hotel is likely to be better off by offering more service promises through its advertising and high price cues to its prospective visitors. The results suggest that culture influences how tourists process advertising cues but has no influence on price cue influence. The study provides insights for managers on how to develop a segmentation strategy using the cultural profiles of tourists.

Effects of new-to-market e-store features on first time browsers

Understanding the effects of website design features on website usage is complicated when buyers differ in their willingness to process information to make decisions. However, it becomes more difficult for a new-to-market e-store with no established familiarity. While extant literature suggests the use of interactivity and personalization features offered by e-stores to reduce consumers risk perceptions and improve trustworthiness of such stores, there is little guidance on the level of feature provision required to enhance consumer satisfaction in making product selections from a new and unfamiliar e-store. The authors explore this issue in an online experiment with 273 subjects browsing 4 websites offering identical products but with variable levels of interactivity and personalization features. Findings reveal a positive association between the level of feature provision and browser decision-making outcomes. However, interactivity features are more effective for maximizers, whereas personalization ones are more effective for satisficers. We examine the case of first time visitors encountering a new e-store.It shows how website features of a new e-store shape their browsing outcomes.We test the impact of task-facilitative tools for utilitarian browsing purposes.Users respond differently to a fixed choice set when we change levels of the tools.Usage of tools also varies according to their individual maximizing tendencies.