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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and evaluate the “E-Readiness” of the citizens of India which is imperative to make such large scale e-government initiatives a success. The researchers tried to compare India with some developed and developing countries where the e-government model have been implemented successfully, looking at the prime factors for the successful implementation.

The methodology adopted for this study is exploratory in nature. A comprehensive questionnaire was adapted and the survey was conducted mostly in online format. The data were found reliable for further analysis. Exploratory factor analysis provides us five factors covering approximately 50 per cent of the variance explained. So, the authors can infer five dimensions to be the major constituents of e-readiness as per this study.

The findings are quite significant as end users and citizens were found to be quite involved in the usage of technology. Thus, user’s proactive participation in technological assimilation also augurs well for the e-readiness of the society. But people are worried about the safety and security of the automated and online services.

The questionnaire was developed by the authors and the data analysis was also done on the basis of responses received. The paper adds value to the existing literature by capturing the issues behind the acceptance of the several technologies backed government initiatives. The authors believe that the findings will help the government to implement digital initiatives with more success.

Legacy organizations, particularly government departments, have always remained focused on technology acquisition at a low cost. However, they must balance their quest for better financial performance with a commitment to social obligations and inclusiveness. This study aims to analyze the issues faced by a public sector department, India Post, in its digitization process.

This study takes a case-based approach to analyze India Post’s digitization journey through the theoretical prism of the technology, organization and environment framework.

The organization’s ability to benefit from innovative technology is constrained by its outdated structure and business processes. The other constraints include the limited technological know-how within the organization and the lack of intricate organizational process knowledge of today’s vendors.

This study portends important implications for policymakers and provides a base for several inquiries for future research. This study attempted to identify the facilitators and inhibitors of digitization initiatives of a legacy government organization with extensive outreach in rural economy which policymakers can consider while rolling out digitization initiatives for public sector organizations.

There are very few studies available as published literature which examined the digitization journey of a legacy government organization in a developing economy. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there was no published literature available on India Post’s digital transformation process.

Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) are internet-native self-governing enterprises where individual groups, communities, agencies, consumers and providers work together using blockchain-led smart contracts (SCs). This study aims to examine the role of DAO marketplaces in technology-led autonomous organisation design for enterprise technology sourcing industries, with algorithmic trust and governance.

The authors examined the importance of an enterprise marketplace governance platform for technology sourcing using DAO as a decentralised/democratised business model. A total of 98 DAO products/services are evaluated across 11 industries that envisage DAO as a strategic choice for the governance of decentralised marketplace platforms.

The research findings validate how a DAO-led enterprise marketplace governance platform can create a cohesive collaboration between consumers (enterprises) and providers (solution vendors) in a disintermediated way. The proposed novel layered solution for an autonomous governance-led enterprise marketplace promises algorithmic trust-led, self-governed tactical alternatives to a strategic plan.

The research targets multiple industry outlooks to understand decentralised autonomous marketplace governance and develop the theoretical foundation for research and extensive corporate suitability.

The research underpinnings boost the entrepreneurs’ ability to realise the practical potential of DAO between multiple parties using SCs and tokenise the entire product and service offerings over immutable ledger technologies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is unique and the first of its kind to study the multi-industry role of algorithmic trust and governance in enterprise technology sourcing marketplaces driven by 98 decentralised and consensus-based DAO products across 11 industries.

Platform-driven business models have witnessed a significant proliferation in emerging economies. Such initiatives bring cost-effective services to a larger section of the population, given the reach of mobile phones. Drawing insights from the institutional theory and theories on the multisided platform, this paper aims to examine the impact of institutional intervention and platform competition on the initial adoption and continuance intention of platform-based payment services.

The research model is empirically developed through a unique single-case study covering the high-value banknote demonetization in India that was initiated in November 2016. The research is primarily based on archival data and is supported by a limited number of interviews.

The research finds that institutional interventions (in multiple forms) have increased people’s eagerness to use mobile payment. Supportive institutional environment and common citizen’s increased eagerness for mobile payment usage resulted in the emergence of multiple mobile payment platforms. Moreover, competition among multiple payment platforms positively impacts the continuance intention of users to use mobile payments.

The research supplements the present understanding of the technology adoption challenges. The study highlights that the relative success of technology adoption cannot be attributed only to the users’ economic or technological motives, as embodied in the adoption models. Carefully designed interventions by the institutions can reduce users’ inertia in using new technology and positively influence the emergence of multiple platform-based service providers.

This study aims to explore the linkage between organization climate, politics and enterprise system implementation in context to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational climate and politics play a significant role in determining the outcome of enterprise implementations. Adequate focus on such factors can help resource-starved MSMEs to ensure a positive outcome of their enterprise system implementation exercise.

Primary data used in this study were collected from the users in 62 MSMEs who have been part of the implementation process in their organization. Responses were collected by means of validated questionnaires and personal interviews given by end-users. The study presents the reduced factors after analyzing the responses through exploratory study followed by a confirmatory study.

The results highlight that in addition to factors like project execution and management competency, package and vendor competency, top management support and leadership factors, organizational politics and organizational climate factors play a significant role in ensuring success of an implementation process. Organization climate in the form of organization politics emerges as a major inhibitor in context to MSMEs. The analysis also showed a statistically significant relationship between the identified factors like technical, project management competency and vendor- and package-specific competency.

MSMEs are resource-constrained and hence cannot afford any failure in the implementation of processes running within the system. For enterprise system implementation, not only financial commitments are required but a successful execution of processes is also required, otherwise there are chances of failures, which can adversely affect the business continuity of many MSMEs. Thus, the finding of this study can provide an insight into the management of such organizations, so that they can plan properly to ensure a successful implementation.

Some published studies have reported the role of top management in the enterprise implementation process but have not been able to provide specific evidence of the factor “organization climate” in the implementation process. Also in context to a developing economy, few published studies are available exploring this linkage in context to MSMEs, as attempted by this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the facilitators and impediments of business sustainability of the microenterprises. The study also proposes a framework of social sustainability through women microentrepreneurs in India.

In order to fulfill the objectives, primary data have been collected and analyzed by employing binary logit model. Additionally, in-depth interviews and focus group interviews were conducted to get more precise insight on the issue.

The study finds out the factors determining sustainability of microenterprises. The economic, political, demographic factors along with family contribution are found to be important factors in determining sustainability and success of microenterprises. The study also show that microenterprises emerging from self-help groups (SHGs) are adding value to the society by overall women empowerment.

The study will pave the way for further research about the sustainability factors of microenterprises in emerging economies.

The finding of this paper will give directions to policy makers as well as to stakeholders as small businesses are becoming way of life in all developing countries.

This study contributes to the literature by identifying how microentrepreneurs emerging from SHGs are achieving societal goals of poverty eradication. It determines the indicators of business sustainability for small businesses run by women. Empirical and in-depth study explores the issues those have policy implications.

Interaction and communication through social networking sites (SNSs) has witnessed exponential growth every year. The rising popularity of this platform has made researchers take a deeper look at this phenomenon and try and study it in a structured fashion. The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating role of SNS usage intensity on the relationship between social capital and social identity. There are very few published literature studies available and none in the context of a developing economy, which is undergoing enormous digital transformation. While studies like this have been done in abundance in the Western world, it is still a new approach in this part of the world. Even though the variables that are being studied have been adapted from the work done earlier by other researchers, the application and interpretation are very different, primarily because of the context.

A primary online survey was conducted to collect data for this study. A majority of 258 respondents were in the age group of 20–40 years. Most of them had an undergraduate and/or a postgraduate degree and spent an average of 70% of their weekly time on social media. The sample size was balanced in terms of gender (male/female) as well. To validate the research model and test the hypotheses of the study, through two analysis phases including measurement model and structural model, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), correlations and hierarchical multiple regression were deployed. The CFA was applied to assess the validity of the four factors under study.

Factors that were studied in this article were checked for content validity and reliability. Cronbach's alpha values were <1.0 indicating the reliability of the factors taken for the study. Hierarchical multiple regression showed that with the increase in bridging and SNS usage intensity, social identity also increases at a high level of bridging. Similar results were observed when regression was conducted for bonding and SNS usage intensity. Thus, the hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that SNS usage intensity positively moderated the effects of social capital on social identity. Hence, the two hypotheses were supported.

The results of this study are significant for business organizations and society as well. A similar type of study in the context of an economy, which has embarked on the path of digitization as a state-sponsored policy has not been reported.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to understand and reflect upon issues, which can help in producing better industry-ready students graduating from business schools.

The paper examines research conducted in the area of knowledge management (KM) and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used by academic institutions to engage students and prepare them for industry needs so that they are better industry-ready graduates. A case study based approach has been adopted in this study.

In line with the literature-based analysis, a framework for better industry ready students has been proposed, illustrating the linkage between KM, learning from organization-based projects, industry feedback and inputs from international accreditation bodies in higher education.

This paper has provided a comprehensive framework that contributes to the understanding and refining the academic processes in a business school setting with the help of learning from academic KM process. Such a framework has not been previously developed by previous researchers.

The purpose of this study is to report the apparent linkage between knowledge management (KM) practices in a semi-structured sector and business sustainability. Micro, small and medium scale enterprises in developing economies are constrained by accessibility to resources and have not been able to reap the benefits of structured KM practices to fine-tune their business processes. Insights derived from business operations of such enterprises can be formalized into relevant knowledge creation. An effective KM can help in revival strategies for many traditional organizations like handloom that operate as a co-operative. Such business has come under immense challenges from new-age organizations in that particular sector. This study reports the brand revival and business sustainability journey of a handloom co-operative through effective knowledge assimilation and dissemination.

In this paper, the authors have assessed the governance of small co-operative units in handloom and their supervision, which pose serious challenges for business sustainability. Their business data pertaining to productivity, sales and income for the period from 1997-1998 to 2015-2016 have been analyzed for business sustainability. A time-series analysis has been done on the above data set to track business sustainability of the handloom co-operative. The findings have been analyzed through a case-based study approach.

Over a period of one and half-decade, the handloom co-operative has been able to improve its product offering, which, in turn, led to the revival of the brand. Such transformation has resulted in revival of decades old brand through effective knowledge sharing, which is mainly tacit in nature. This case study based paper showcases that despite their inherent constraints, micro, small and medium enterprise organizations (many of which are semi-structured or unstructured in nature) can reap huge benefits by making efforts to put in place an effective KM mechanism.

There are very few reported studies, which have explored the linkage between tacit KM practices and business sustainability. Studies in context to a semi-structured small- and medium-scale enterprises are not available in published literature.

This paper posits a critical analysis of digitalisation initiatives of emerging economies with a focus on India. It suggests granular policy measures towards realising the dream of a competitive, empowered and knowledge-based society. To this extent, the paper juxtaposes and compares policy measures undertaken by several governments to facilitate digitalisation in their country. The policy measures embarked upon have been critically analysed in terms of their relevance, challenges for their implementation and adoption at the back of the prevailing social and economic fabric of the country. At the same time, attempts have been made to benchmark it against the best practice standards weighed in by the industry studies. The paper has also laid down a robust agenda for future research that can be replicated for any country.

This is a viewpoint study based upon public data and documentary sources within India as well as publications of several countries and international agencies. Research projects of numerous multinational companies working in the area of digitalisation has been accessed and analysed as well in the study.

The findings of this study have policy implications for governments in several emerging economies who have embarked on the path of digitising their economy with the larger objectives of reaping its larger benefits but have to deal with the challenges of inadequate resources to create an effective ecosystem to facilitate such a transition.

The study highlights the implications of challenges of gaps of physical and socioeconomic infrastructure in driving digitalisation, highlighting granular policy measures for public managers and policy makers to address them.