Piyush Kumar Sinha

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Rural development is a key component and main pillar of the approach towards the development of the nation. Inclusive entrepreneurship (IE) has been propounded to support development of enterprises for the disfranchised and underprivileged section of population. This article studies the IE framework, as developed by the Organisation for Economic Co...

The rural economy plays a critical role in the development of the nation. COVID-19 pandemic outbreaks have led many countries to impose lockdown. India, the world's second most populated country with more than 65% population in rural areas faced lockdown restrictions which adversely impacted enterprises particularly village level nano enterprises....

Craft industry is as much the mainstay of the rural economy after agriculture. It provides occupation to a large section of population. However, it is characterised by fragmented individual artisans on one side and dispersed customers on the other. It also suffers from market separations. Urban haats were set up with the objective to present artisa...

This paper is an attempt to analyze implementation of the Startup village entrepreneurship program (SVEP) for promotion of rural entrepreneurship through Self Help Groups (SHG’s) under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana –National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM). The paper describes how the SVEP programme is being implemented and is benefiting the rural...

Parsana Health Centre Private Limited, a part of the INR 4,500 crore ¹ fitness industry, was a fitness centre established at Ahmedabad (Gujarat) in India in December 2002, as an integral part of the organized players of the fitness industry. It had been relentlessly working towards creating and nurturing a healthy lifestyle for the people of Ahmeda...

BigBasket.com , an online supermarket established in December 2011 in Bangalore, India, had become one of the major players in the Indian online grocery market by the end of March 2016. 1 Run by Innovative Retail Concepts Private Limited, BigBasket.com was operating in more than 23 cities across the country in 2016. The online grocery market in Ind...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to understand how bottom of the pyramid (BoP) retailers adopt brands who sell to a very different set of customers and are served through long indirect channels. Design/methodology/approach In this study, 60 retailers belonging to different villages of Central and North Gujarat were int...

Natural gas is a green fuel and the Government of India is highly committed to promote green fuel like natural gas to replace more polluting fuels. The chapter provides critical insights on demand–supply scenarios, enabling factors, challenges, and opportunities to build sustainable gas business in the country. It highlights the role of global fact...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between customer loyalty and customer dependence in the context of modern format and traditional format stores. In the process, the role of switching cost and trust in this relationship has been explored. Design/methodology/approach Building on the literature, the authors have postul...

Long heritage management related activities have been studied by sociologist, heritage management experts, anthropologists and architects and artists. Researchers felt importance of using management theories in heritage management research domain. This paper tries to focus on this call for research. It aims to study the value network in heritage wa...

This paper examines the role of gratitude and obligation in customer relationships. We surveyed 398 customers exiting grocery and clothing stores in Ahmedabad and Jaipur cities in India, after they had finished shopping. We analysed their responses using structural equation modelling (SEM). We found that social and structural investments by sellers...

At the request of the Journal Editor and the author, the following article has been retracted. Koul, S., Sinha, P.K., & Mishra, H.G. (2016). Antecedents to customer dependency in buyer– seller relationship: A BOP retailer investigation. Global Business Review, 17(3), 610–629. DOI: 10.1177/0972150916630472 It was brought to the attention of the Edit...

This study explores the expenditure pattern on different commodity groups such as food, fuel and lighting, clothing and other items across Indian households. The study also explores the variables apart from income which affect the expenditure on commodity groups across rural and urban population in India. Estimates made for expenditure elasticity t...

Marketing literature has identified task definitions as one of the important situational influences. However, existing definitions of planned and emergency shopping situations are driven from practitioners' perspective and suffer from operationalisation issues. In this study, we make an attempt to understand and define the concept of task definitio...

In the light of the convenience provided by online and the omnipresent kirana (mom-and-pop equivalent) stores and low penetration of large format retailing, it is proposed that these two would be the dominant formats of retailing in the emerging economies. Four major factors have fuelled the growth of electronic commerce in emerging economies. Firs...

This case is set in June 2012 and brings out many operational issues and challenges faced by the management of Sabarkantha Gas Limited (SGL) to efficiently, effectively, and profitably market natural gas in Mehesana, Sabarkantha, and Gandhinagar districts of Gujarat, India. The company has been able to achieve some degree of success in in terms of...

Research on multisensory nature of consumption has highlighted importance of smell, taste, and touch during product evaluation and subsequent purchase decisions. However, there are very few studies in marketing which have examined role of touch in shopping. This paper builds the argument for conducting research on role of touch during shopping in I...

In the competitive era of retailing, retailers need to understand the importance of store format preferences. The study aimed to understand consumer store loyalty; in-depth interview was conducted to examine consumer store loyalty antecedents for two retail formats: specialty stores and multi brand stores. The study conceptualizes store loyalty fac...

Energy has been globally recognized as one of the most critical inputs for economic growth and development of any civilization or society. There is a linear and a bi-directional relationship between economic prosperity and energy consumption. In the global competitive scenario growth of an economy is primarily dependent on availability of environme...

The paper aims to understand the relation of customer relationship management (CRM) stages on the belief about sustainable performance, along with brand images and values as moderating factors and covariates. CRM stages have positive effect on SCP, and cause negative effect on social and environmental performance. The individual values give more pr...

Over the last two decades, we have witnessed the growing awareness of social entrepreneurship education especially in developing countries. The value of social entrepreneurship as a discipline is gaining grounds in today's world. It is incredibly complex to teach social entrepreneurship and it demands social change, innovation and development throu...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of family purchase decision making at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) using a study of BOP consumers in India. The primary objective is to identify the purchase approach of BOP consumers for Fast Moving Consumer Good (FMCG) products depending on the role of each family member and the types of roles...

There is an enhanced awareness among the firms regarding the impact of their marketing and business activities on the environment and society largely due to consumer education, the role of activists and aftermath of some disasters. The firms have started to look at these issues in a more holistic manner which is evident from the sustainability prac...

The study examines the core meaning of intrinsic shopping to understand their experimental aspects of recreational and leisure shopping. The study focus only on female shoppers of age group ranging from 25-30, and understand their mall experiences because this segment is newly transform into self dependent segment which have less social and familia...

In a country with more than a billion people, opportunities in India are abound. This has led to a rapid growth of the QSR industry. However, simultaneously, it has also created a canvass that has many failures and carcass. Several outlets have been closed, a large number are struggling, still a large number are just about surviving and a lot many...

Allowing FDI in multi brand retailing has recently generated tremendous euphoria for some and fear for others. It is based on the notion that it will open floodgates for foreign retailers to invest and will change the retail landscape forever in India. When India is the only country in the world where the top five business houses with market caps r...

Most theories of Relationship Marketing (RM) emphasize the role of trust, commitment and/or customer satisfaction in development of long term business relationships. In spite of recognition of gratitude as core of reciprocity its role in long term relationships has not been well researched. Only a few studies recently have recognized the role of co...

Distribution service outputs structurally play a pivotal role in retail and channel management. This paper critically assesses the nature of Bucklin's classic formulation, which is concerned with numerically expressible economic benefits resulting from the execution of the distribution function within a perfectly operating economic channel. It is d...

Retailing in India is receiving global recognition and attention. It is not just such global players as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco, and the METRO Group that have plans to expand in this market; even domestic corporate behemoths such as Reliance, TATA, KK Modi, the Aditya Birla group, and the Bharti group are now forging ahead in the development of...

Point of Purchase (PoP) is the place where a customer is about to buy the product. This is the crucial point where the exchange takes place. It offers us a last chance to remind or attract customers. In spite of a considerable expenditure on point of purchase material by companies, there is a lack of an established method of measuring the effective...

The proposed study aims to identify and analyse the path to purchase for shoppers. This study will attempt to understand the impact of the major factors on the purchase behaviour of shoppers by examining purchase paths across different product categories signifying different shopping orientations; across culturally distinct regions; and across diff...

Store choice has been studied extensively in the literature, but store format choice has had limited research attention. The store format choice for bulk grocery purchase being a rational context is well conceptualized in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Attitude behaviour linkages are well explored but there is rare consensus on the...

Increasingly shopping behaviour is being seen from the holistic perspective of the entire shopping experience. The experiential view of shopping takes a far more holistic approach to the consumption process, right from involvement to post purchase usage. The decision making process and value perceptions could vary depending on individual shopping o...

When one looks at the Television commercials scene in India, one easily sees three distinct patterns of communication. One is the nation-wide campaigns that are language neutral, meaning, they are purely music based. The other kind is a pure regional communications, with regional content starting from the language to the props used. The third varie...

The literature on store choice has mainly studied the store attributes, and ignored the consumer attributes in store choice. Even when, the consumer attributes have been incorporated the strength of relationship has been weak. Also, the literature on store choice has completely ignored format choice, when studying store choice. The paper argues for...

Although there has been a lot of research on learning and product/brand choice, there is a remarkable lack of linking this to store format selection. As both learning types may occur simultaneously, studying their similarity and interaction is called for. An embracing conceptual 3×3 grid is proposed, resulting from the combination of the classic st...

The store choice has been studied extensively in the literature, but store format choice has had limited research attention. The store choice modeling has been primarily done in the random utility theory framework, which however is a neo-economics based view of choice decision that ignores the psychological and behavioral aspects of this planned be...

Complexity of modern business requires managers to strive for innovative strategies to acquire and retain customers in any product market field. As acquiring new customers is getting costlier day by day, business organizations have offered continuity/loyalty programmes to retain/reward existing customers and maintain relationships. The premise of C...

There is a growing body of academic and practitioner literature on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), most of the research in this field being conducted in the Western context. In the emerging countries of Asia, the difference is not only about the level of technology adoption and infrastructure, but also about the way decisions are made the a...

The Indian retail sector is going through a transformation and this emerging market is witnessing a significant change in its growth and investment pattern. Both existing and new players are experimenting with new retail formats. Currently two popular formats -hypermarkets and supermarkets are growing very fast. Apart from the brick -mortar formats...

Case based pedagogy has become popular in most business schools today, since the pioneering efforts made by Harvard Business School, several decades ago. Although the case method approach stands firmly on grounds its effectiveness in ‘simulating reality of the business world’ in the classroom, yet it has its own limitations and cannot be used in al...

Retail Store choice has traditionally been studied from the perspective of an individual. The retail offering is however consumed more by the family than by an individual. This study questions the study of store choice by an individual and argues that the family is the relevant unit of analysis. The study draws on the extensive literature available...

This study uses observation of shopping behaviour as a method for developing shopper segments. Shoppers were observed at different stores and based on the behavioural cues they were classified into six segments. The study generated some segments that were similar to earlier studies based on attitude or psychographics. In addition, it identified new...

Distribution service outputs structurally play a pivotal role in retail and channel management. This paper critically assesses the nature of Bucklin’s classic formulation, which is concerned with numerically expressible economic benefits resulting from the execution of the distribution function, within a perfectly operating economic channel. It is...

Urban India is witnessing a rapid revolution in its commercial retail spaces. These transforming commercial landscapes constitute a rich arena for qualitative research using, among others, observational methods. In this paper, we present observations about the changing urban retail scene of India. We provide emergent themes that we have already fou...

The objective of this study is to identify, at a macro level, the drivers of store choice in various product categories, in the context of the evolving retail industry in India. The paper attempts to correlate the distinct store features as perceived by respondents with the true motivations of various consumers in patronising various stores. In the...

This case details the decision facing Cool King Limited, one of the leading businesses in India dealing with the installation of central air conditioning. So far it has had only a token presence in the window air conditioning business, but is now looking to expand into it as explosive growth in the industry is predicted in the near future. However,...

Transaction Utility theory was propounded by Thaler to explain that the value derived by a customer from an exchange consists of two drivers: Acquisition Utilities and Transaction utilities. Acquisition utility represents the economic gain or loss from the transaction. Where as transaction utility is associated with purchase or (sale) and represent...

Studies on shoppers in India have largely been limited to their time and money spending pattern, demographic profile, and preferences for a particular format. It has been found in the studies in other countries that shoppers do not differ much in terms of their demographic profile. Therefore, this study attempts to understand shoppers from their di...

This paper looks at child-retail communication interaction at the Kirana store, the Indian version of the US 'mom and pop' retail outlet, in New Delhi. The methodologies for data collection were the non-participatory unstructured observation and exit interview techniques. The results showed a high interaction between the child and retail communicat...

Store choice is a decision that a shopper is fairly involved in. It is important for a store to understand this behaviour for developing marketing strategies to attract and keep its clientele. It is found that shoppers choose the store based on many aspects that could be classified as primary and image based. It is also found that the importance of...

Historically, retailing was carried out in traditional store format, with minor non- store variation, like catalogue selling, direct sailing and telemarketing till the last decade of twentieth century. Even those non- store formats were restricted among fringe players, while big retail houses concentrated more on on-land business model. The last de...

A retail stores attracts shoppers who vary in their profiles. While some of them are serious shoppers, many of them are "visitors" to the stores. It is not possible for the store to differentiate its offerings to these segments. Classifying these shoppers on demographic and their orientation to shopping has been tried in the developed economies. Ho...

Advertising is, perhaps, as old as civilization. It has always been there in some form or other, in the ancient days the advertisers paraded down the road making announcements on the beats of drum. They are still seen mainly in village markets. Technology has helped them also. Instead of hiring a drum-beater, they use blaring speakers that send out...