Business Advancement through Technology Volume I

Technology transforms rapidly nearly every aspect of corporate life. Technological innovation drives businesses and vice versa. Businesses produce new technologies while creating avenues for progress and development. Technological evolution seems to speed up exponentially along with its capacity, accessibility, and variety. Versatile smart solutions, empowered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoTs), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain and Augmented Reality (AR), offer disruptive and game-changing advancements among markets and the broader society. In this chapter, we offer an overview of such technologies and advancements, along with their impact on markets and marketing.

Digital transformation is the process of the adoption of different digital technologies by an organisation. The main objective of digital transformation is to implement and adopt different modern technologies to improve efficiency. The partner relationship management (PRM) is an application integrated with different functions of the organisations. This system uses various methodologies, software, strategies, and web-based capability for information exchange with different stakeholders. Integration of PRM with artificial intelligence (AI) can help organisation in accurate and quick decision making. Not many studies have been conducted to understand the implications of adopting AI-PRM system. In this context, the objectives of this study are to understand the role of AI-PRM in digital transformation of the organisations and how this integration can optimize the business operations.

The study aims at investigating the factors affecting Mobile Banking Technology adoption by rural Banking customers as drivers and restraining factors from the perspective of rural people in Central Uttar Pradesh, India. The study will also assess the Covid-19 induced behavioral change in the rural banking customers spurting mobile banking technology adoption and has further analyzed if the behavioral intentions have been influenced by black swans (Demonetisation, Pandemic). Sample population is drawn from villages of six districts of Uttar Pradesh, India (Badaun, Bareilly, Sitapur, Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit, Rampur). Out of 215 responses 168 responses were fit for the research study. Data is analysed using descriptive statistics and Multiple regression model for finding out the impact of various factors on the mobile banking adoption in rural banking customers.

Technological developments have manifested into several dimensions within business and entrepreneurship. Internet finance (through peer-to-peer lending) is one such advancement which has developed rapidly in recent years and has also brought new challenges to financial management, investments, business financing and growth. However, the development of internet financing has also created some additional risks within the financial market. This chapter provides a literature review of the internet finance in China, particularly focusing on the discussion of online P2P lending and its contribution to business advancement. Meanwhile, it also reviews the previous literature on P2P lending in the United States and the United Kingdom. The findings of the chapter have important implications for managers and users of P2P lending platforms, and for policymakers.

The lockdowns and restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic were important drivers in the vastly increased digitalisation of much of business and administrative life. Likewise, in social interactions, as examined in this study through qualitative research on online dating platforms, technology had many advantages to offer. This study is about the advancement of technology during a pandemic, and specifically about the digitalisation of ‘love’ and ‘lies’, not only about ‘trust’ and ‘deception’, contrary to the extant literature. It looks at the extent of a realignment to online interactions and dating habits, from meeting in person to meeting online, of lying habits and trust propensity. It links digitalisation in dating practices to research about interpersonal trust propensity, negotiation, culture and ethical decision-making.

Recent years have been characterized by an enormous technological progress, also with reference to specific sectors like healthcare. In this respect, a peculiar interest has recently concerned new instruments adopted in neuroscientific activities, leading the scientific community to improve the field of neurosciences, with substantial developments specifically in neurological research, starting a new season of studies concerning particularly the emotional component of the consumer behaviour, arriving at neuromarketing. However, despite the increasing interest that this new field of study has recently assumed, there still remain several issues of ethical nature. This study, after a brief introduction to neuromarketing research, is focused on the theme of its ethical sustainability, proposing some possible solutions, with specific examples in the field of wine marketing.

This chapter examines the influence of online consumer discussions on Facebook on purchase intention and word of mouth (WOM). Specifically, it attempts to determine whether Facebook discussions are perceived as credible and how these discussions are linked with behavioural intentions. The first part of this chapter presents a research model linking seven constructs. In the second part, we tested the research model and hypotheses with a sample of 151 consumers from one Facebook group for children’s shoe recommendations. Of the seven hypotheses tested, we found support for six. This chapter concludes by discussing the contributions of the study to both theory and practice, outlining the main limitations and suggesting future study areas.

The study presents a process to create an integrated database of the mind concerning how people decide when presented with a topic or problem and combinations of metaphors representing solutions. The method uses an experimental design to create test combinations of solution statements (vignettes). The respondent evaluates different scenarios (or vignettes) created using the experimental design theory. Each vignette represents a metaphor for the solution to the problem, and it is presented to the respondent using a Likert scale. The data are then subject to OLS (ordinary least-square) regression at the level of the individual respondent to derive unique decision rules. Data mining and clustering technologies are used to group similar respondents into mindsets. The process is generalized so that the same experiment structure can be used for several dozen different problems. The process is illustrated by addressing 27 social issues and a set of 16 metaphors representing solutions.

COVID-19 pandemic brought up the need for more accurate assessments of health technologies. Up to now, innovative medicines, as core of evaluations, let aside relevant aspects of the medical acts. The systematisation of treatments, protocols, procedures, policies and units, poorly managed by now, claim for assessments, standards, adequate policies, correct medical flows, suitable buildings’ use, according to international requirements. The research focuses on the advantages of standardisation and multidimensional evaluation’s influence on the health sector and medical affairs as profitable businesses. Befitted procedures build resilience and give use to the added value for people, business and society. The comparative analyses show that health technologies assessment’s alignment with international requirements brings all medical businesses to conformity and assures their fair, legal and ethical regularity and consistency.

Small private clinics function in a highly competitive free market as for-profit business organisaions, but they are regulated and receive no economic support. Therefore, they must adopt competitive business models—including implementing digital technologies—to improve their business performance and client experience. This chapter presents the highlights of a qualitative pilot study of dentists who run private clinics in Israel. It sheds light on how health organisaions, such as private clinics, adapt their management structure to a competitive market in the digital age and the obstacles they encounter. The findings fill a knowledge gap in this field, enable a better understanding of the functioning of health organisations and private clinics, and are the basis for recommendations and action plans that can benefit both health systems and their clients worldwide.

Social marketing has done a lot, so far, to improve communication towards its audience in order to increase consumers’ (but simply citizens’) welfare and promote the consumeristic doctrine. Not by chance, the use of social marketing principles and techniques has been applied by some scholars also to an effective implementation of public health interventions; but in order to have an effective public health marketing communication, there is need of effective Public Service Announcements: public social campaigns useful in attracting, retaining and engaging people, and able to generate behavioral changes by stimulating interpersonal communication and word-of-mouth. In this frame, neuro-marketing can be useful in building effective PSAs—whose aim is sustaining social marketing—since it allows to understand the customers’ innermost and unconscious insights with a scientific reliability. In the last years, the emergence of neuroscience applied to marketing and economics has revolutionized the way of thinking to the customers’ insights, creating thus new languages and new challenges for the communicators and the policy makers. The present contribution aims to be a review of the state-of-the-art of the consumer neuroscience inter-discipline applied to the concerns typical of the consumerism, and tries to answer the question: is this niche methodology destined to be the next main one in the consumer and consumeristic research? What are the challenges and the difficulties to overcome in this sense?

The work aims to create a holistic design of a truly inclusive, culturally adapted, and collaborative online learning environment for Vocational Education. The literature review relates to creating a community of inquiry from diverse perspectives, cultural and group differentiation, predictors of adult learners satisfaction and/or frustration and the creation of technology tools. Knowledge gaps refer to inconsistent literature on the transition of pedagogical principles from face-to-face to online collaborative learning; a lack of recognition of the pedagogical potential of digitalization for collaborative online learning; a lack of effectiveness of educational tools; the need to further adjust the design of collaborative learning to different groups, cultures, and learner groups with specific needs. An initial framework was validated by empirical qualitative and quantitative research.