FIIB Business Review

Behavioural economics grew to prominence by challenging the foundational assumptions of standard economic theory, raising questions about the future trajectory of economic thought. This study presents arguments to reinstate trust in the assumptions of consumers’ rationality and their optimizing behaviour. The study brings out how this criticism is inappropriate. Perspectives of leading behavioural economist such as Dan Ariely, Richard Thaler, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are critically synthesized and startling gaps are spotted. The study motivates researchers to evaluate the impact of technology on rationality of consumers. On one hand, technology has enhanced access to information and processing capability, but on the other hand, it has brought data deluge and confusion. Contemporary innovations such as GenAI-enabled smartphones, e-commerce platforms, chatbots and robots tend to increase consumers’ access to information and processing ability. Thus, aiding humans in achieving full rationality against popular belief of humans having ‘bounded rationality’ which implied inability of humans to possess optimising behaviour. The aid received from technological prowess has been named ‘Aided Rationality’. The study argues for resurgence of faith in standard economic theory and prompts the researchers to study the interaction of ‘Aided rationality’ with ‘data deluge’ and concludes by identifying compelling questions for future research.

The 2022 sanctions against Russia created a profound exogenous shock, putting the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to the test. While SME resilience is widely studied, the specific strategic responses of family firms remain unclear. Using a multiple-case-study design, we explore how family and non-family firms in Russia develop resilience under severe sanctions. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with CEOs, triangulated with archival data, we uncover a critical divergence in the strategic pathways of family and non-family SMEs, driven by the type of CEO commitment. Specifically, affective commitment in family firms fosters a resilient rebound through ‘wait-and-see’ tactics and revived supplier relationships. In contrast, calculative commitment in non-family firms leads to a fragile decline characterized by ‘immediate response’ and revived employee relationships. This study contributes to strategic leadership and organizational adaptation literatures by conceptualizing CEO commitment as a micro-foundational mechanism that explains divergent resilience outcomes in family and non-family firms facing institutional crises.

Over the last two decades, an increasing number of studies have examined the concept of life satisfaction. Since the concept is deeply related to multiple facets of an individual’s life, it has attracted researchers’ interest from different domains. However, the life satisfaction literature is still fragmented and heterogeneous in terms of theoretical and contextual paradigms. This study aims to deconstruct the literature from the last 31 years and (i) identify distinct research clusters, (ii) reveal some major shifts in the research over time and (iii) derive some directions and ideas for future research. Using bibliometric analysis, the article identifies four clusters, and further analysis revealed a shift in theoretical perspective in life satisfaction research. Also, emerging trends within the clusters are detected. Finally, the directions for future research conclude the article.

Employee turnover intentions have emerged as a significant research topic in social sciences as well as a challenge for corporates in Indian settings in past decade. This article presents a systematic literature review of employee turnover intention in India, providing an in-depth analysis of 198 empirical research articles on employee turnover intentions in Indian cultural settings published between 2010 to October 2022 in 126 academic journals listed in Scopus and Web of Sciences and proposes a heuristic model of turnover intention. The study reveals: 53 distinctive correlates of turnover intention which have been grouped into nine broad categories; research being conducted on a few antecedents of turnover intention in isolated pieces without taking a comprehensive approach; lack of attention to testing recent turnover models in Indian settings; too much preference on turnover intention as a proxy for actual turnover. The proposed model was tested on 481 respondents belonging to various industries across service sector in India employing Smart PLS software for validating path analysis provided encouraging results. Taking a note of trends and rifts, this article presents an inclusive approach along with suggestions and recommendations for future employee turnover intention research in India.

Despite the fact that organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is unprompted by the organisations, it supports the effective running of organisations throughout a discretionary entity of employees’ behaviour. OCB contributes to the organisation in several ways and helps organisations in achieving sustainable competitiveness. Though, owing to individual behaviour and cultural differences, the magnitude of OCB possibly will change across the countries. This research article intends to validate the instrument for assessing OCB in an Indian context. A sample of 549 employees working in public and private organisations situated in the northern part of India was collected. The study has applied a descriptive research design and the quantitative approach. Five constructs for the OCB assessment were selected for their reliability and validity, using first-order and second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results show that there is no reliability and validity issue in this particular scale, and the confirmatory factor analysis of OCB signified that there was a good fit of CFA model data. Findings of this article add to the theoretical and practical legitimacy of OCB measure from an emerging country context.

The article investigates mindfulness mechanisms and leadership attributes as reflected by performing artists. This qualitative study analyses major categories to develop a theoretical framework of mindful leadership development employing performing arts. The present study uses interpretivism to explore respondents’ experiences and unique phenomena. The grounded theory (GT) methodology aided in exploring grounded data and theory construction. Abstract core category ‘immense concentration and self-control’ captured the abstract and inclusive meaning as understood by the participants in this study. The qualitative coding analysis helped explore the data-driven abstract phenomena. Results of the present study exhibited that all performing artists require high concentration and self-control to exemplify mesmerizing Koodiyattam performing arts. Theoretical reflections on the relationships between the relevant categories are provided in depth. The connections of five major categories between mindfulness mechanisms, leadership attributes, motivation components, values and beliefs, and personality dispositions are particularly intriguing.

This study investigated the mediating effect of trust and self-confidence on the effects of both conscious processes (coping strategies) and unconscious processes (defence mechanisms) on risky investment intention. In this context, data were collected from 832 participants using an online survey. Exploratory factor and correlation analyses were performed on the collected data, and the research model was tested using structural equation modelling. According to the results of the analysis, both coping strategies and defence mechanisms have an effect on risky investment intention, and self-confidence has a mediating role in this relationship. This study is unique because it explores the effects of both conscious and unconscious processes on financial decisions.

Religiosity is the spine behind a consumer’s mental makeup, directing towards a core need to explore the effect of religiosity on a consumer’s decisions. The study aims at analysing the path between consumers’ religious commitment (RC) and their quality conscious decision-making (QCDM) through fashion conscious and price conscious decisions as serial mediators. The sample was collected from 400 respondents belonging to the Hindu religion in India. Data were analysed and hypotheses were tested for probable relationships using structural equation modelling (SEM) and bootstrapping through the PROCESS macro. The study reflected a positive relationship between RC (intrapersonal) and QCDM. Fashion conscious and price conscious decision-making serially mediated the path between RC and QCDM. The results clearly indicate that religiously committed consumers are fashion conscious, price conscious and quality conscious. Religiosity should be strongly taken into consideration by the companies while analysing consumers’ decision-making processes, as religion is the backbone for all major judgements. This research highlights the path along which a religious consumer’s decision moves. The findings can be incorporated into business strategies for better understanding of consumers.

The digitization of higher education (HE), particularly general and business education, is increasingly becoming a necessity in the post–COVID-19 pandemic period, forcing higher education institutions (HEIs) to switch to digital learning, with all of its accompanying challenges. This study focused on investigating the effect of digitizing HE learning on the quality of business education and the moderating influence of international accreditation bodies on this relationship. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from a convenient sample of 232 business HEI faculties in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A simple regression analysis was used to test the study’s hypotheses. The findings indicate that learning management systems, student assessment and student interaction have a significant impact on the quality of education in a digital classroom setting. It was further found that international accreditation bodies have a significant positive moderating influence in maintaining and enhancing the quality of digital business education during pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Additionally, these bodies provide support to HEIs to help overcome challenges in ensuring the quality of digital learning. The implications and potential contributions of the study are discussed along with its limitations and areas for future research.

This study identified the export antecedents that could influence the occurrence of export performance of the industry. The export antecedents are the phenomenon that acts as a backend support system for effective export performance. This study aims to build a simple linear model representing the structural relationship between the export antecedents and export performance. The model building is based on the identified antecedents and attempts to reflect the combined gist of pre-established theories, that is, contingency theory, resource-based view and dynamic capabilities. In data interpretation, second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) helps to analyse the combined impact of all studied antecedents on export performance. The identified antecedents are export knowledge, export perception, export commitment, export strategy and organizational capability as independent variables tested against the dependent variable export performance.