Current Happenings

A paper titled “Organic food preferences: A comparison of American and Indian consumers” has been published by Prof Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran, Dean- SEAMS, SRM University-AP, Kirubaharan Boobalan (SSN College of Engineering), and Margaret Susairaj (Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai) in the journal Food Quality and Preference having an Impact Factor of 5.6.

This research tests a nomological model predicting organic food attitudes and purchase intentions in USA and India. Data were collected from India (n = 687) and the USA (n = 632) using Amazon M Turk and were analyzed using structural equation modelling and multi-group moderation technique. Results revealed that over and above attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control, response efficacy and self-expressive benefits significantly affect consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward organic food among American and Indian consumers. Findings reveal that response efficacy and attitude matter more in the USA while subjective norms and self-expressive benefits exert a greater influence in India. Therefore, marketers may reinforce belief-related elements while selling organic food products in the USA and societal-related elements while selling in India. Theoretically, this work adds to the Theory of Planned Behavior by adding self-expressive benefits and develops a common model for organic food across samples in USA and India.

Employee wellbeing and productivity of the organisation are closely interlinked concepts mutually impacting each other in the long run. The idea of workspace wellness and health promotion has been making rounds in recent times, and the outset of the coronavirus pandemic has given added importance to the topic. Having conducted intense study in this regard, Prof AVS Kamesh and his PhD scholar Ms Ashrafunnisa Mohammed from the Department of Management have authored a chapter titled ‘’Evaluating the Role of Workplace Well-Being in Enhancing Employee Productivity in the 21st Century’’, in book Transforming Lives through Mindfulness published by IIM Bodh Gaya AND Excel India Publishers.

Their study tries to evaluate the unique role of workplace well-being in enhancing employee productivity in the 21st century. The contemporary business world is characterised by organisations competing against each other. In a dynamic and complex business environment, the main aim of modern corporate organisations is to retain talented employees by ensuring mindfulness and workplace well-being because these employees are the main sources of competitive advantage from a strategic point of view. Thus, an enhanced level of workplace wellbeing is an effort to create happy and productive workers so that they work optimally and happily. Work is a key social determinant of population health and well-being.

Workplace well-being in India is often focused on changing individual health behaviours through employer wellness programs. The Covid-19 health crisis brought into focus, some of the limitations of present approaches revealing structural conditions that intensify the physical and psychosocial problems of employees and their family members. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic augured the new dimension of workplace well-being by converting home into a happy place to work. This perspective leads management experts and human resource managers to think about a combined model of work and home as a place of well-being.

This chapter is significant in the times of Post Covid-19 with new perspectives evolving to discuss work-life balance and well-being at workplace which are significantly related to the productivity of the employees. The article mainly targets management educators, corporate managers and personnel managers from public sector companies in India, calling for a comprehensive renovation in the workplace environment.

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