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Businesses across the globe are facing significant challenges and are forced to change their systems to navigate a pristine environment. Our economy and organizations are being assessed like never before; most successful organizations are coming out of the turbulent time due to their ability to quickly adapt and pivot into a new system to sustain their business practices. During the disruption, it is critical to have alternative plans to deal with sudden and unexpected growth and market changes. Organizations must lead through unpredictable changes; business leaders must be actively engaged, think, explore, and learn to adapt how they do things to ensure their business is required to survive and thrive.

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An eclectic approach applied to the interaction happened (between March 2020 and January 2022) with several experts helped highlight the concerns, understand perspectives, and develop insights. The respondent profile ranged from ex-Chief Economist of the World Bank, Economic Advisor of National Banks, Top bureaucrat in the Central Government of India, Union Minister, Niti Ayog top brass officials, CEOs, Managing Director, HR Head of a big conglomerate, Healthcare leader, lawmakers, policymakers, and academicians from top universities of the world. These experts were called during the pandemic. They discussed multifaceted aspects and reflected on resolve, resilience, return, reimagining, and reform needed to manage a crisis and its aftereffects. Experts emphasized on government’s role in mitigating the risk and hedging the affected population from the economic meltdown trauma of losing health and life amidst COVID-19 times. The government should enable the population by providing necessary health facilities; enhancing transportation facilities; emphasizing insurance regulations and affordability reflecting the disruptions – job loss, health coverage, travel insurance, etc. World leaders should work more ardently while addressing environmental concerns. The pandemic intensified the gap between haves and have-nots. Digitization has helped a lot in combating the novel coronavirus and kept several services (telemedicine, digital content, digital transaction) available to the large population. The digital divide affects the vulnerable population; this needs to be addressed by corporations, government institutions, scientists, and policymakers.

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The pandemic scenario caused due to the Covid-19 virus has changed the political leadership landscape of how the leaders of various nations created the right resilience to combat the unpredictable and unforeseen crisis. Different nations witnessed different approaches to managing the crisis, providing an in-depth and comparative analysis of global leadership showcased by national leaders. It would be based on both the developed and developing economies, namely, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China, Australia, and European nations like Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. But the extent of the success achieved, and the level of loss incurred differs across nations. These differences can be attributed to the leadership style and qualities portrayed by the political leaders and also the repercussions that were witnessed. The chapter will deeply analyze the leadership process and decision-making undertaken by the various nations in managing this global crisis that would help in creating a future academic area in the field of leadership studies. Crisis leadership has been existing in academic literature for a very long, but the crisis management showcased during the pandemic times by national leaders provides an opportunity for further research on how political ideologies and mindsets differ in political leadership. It would also help in evaluating the successful traits of a leader that are important to be acquired in managing such crises in the future also. Even when the leadership style of leaders may differ, how they react and manage the crisis situation needs to be unlearned and relearned as each crisis may be different. The chapter would also aim to develop a conceptual framework of leadership in crisis in the global context, as future crises are also unpredictable that may be influenced by political, economic, social or even technological changes.

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Organizations have been fascinated by crisis and crisis management for a long time. Research has found a number of conclusions, whether focused on crisis antecedents, consequences, or crisis management. The current pandemic-related financial crisis has had a significant influence on the banking and financial sectors, resulting in an inability to deliver smooth services and tailored experiences to clients. In response to the current scenario, regulators and banks have already implemented a number of steps, the most of which are targeted at making it easier for banks to continue providing services. On the other hand, customers have been encountered with multiple operational issues with the banking services. Against this background, it was felt essential to understand the customer perception and attitude toward the chatbots. The present study also discusses the adoption of chatbots and virtual assistants by different category of banks inIndiaand its importance especially in the time of crisis wherein the contactless chatbots are encouraging social distancing and Covid appropriate behavior. In total 282 responses were collected using a questionnaire and to determine and understand characteristics of the chatbots the weighted average and ranking method have been employed using SPSS. The findings of the study have greater implications for the regulators, policy makers and service providers. As the results of this study will serve as a roadmap to design new strategies for improving their customer satisfaction and the usage of chatbots.

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The business environment is going through a metamorphosis and structural change. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has not only upended the society and business dynamics but has also changed consumer behavior significantly. Though COVID-19 has brought about the crisis, it has also offered multiple opportunities for entrepreneurs by escalated the use of technology in business processes and distribution. This study aims to evaluate the key macro-environmental factors such as government laws, policies and support, enabling institutions, market-entry factors and their conduciveness for e-commerce start-ups in India. Focused group interview method is adopted to explore the conduciveness of factors influencing the establishment of start-ups in India. A semi-structured interview is designed to collect data from 5 owners of different start-ups like online vegetable supply, household supplies, safety and health products/services and home grooming services, covering questions around the influencers. Content analysis is done to analyze the data. The preliminary analysis indicates that market entry factors, government laws, and policy support distinctly impact new ventures. Many entrepreneurs are not aware of the financial and policy support provided by enabling institutions. Availing financial aid is a significant challenge for start-up entrepreneurs in India.

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The covid-19 pandemic has forced people to limit their physical interactions, which has led to explosive growth in online grocery shopping. This paper seeks to understand the facilitator and barriers associated with online grocery shopping. The study used a qualitative approach to get insight from millennials on online grocery shopping. The in-depth interview method was used as a primary data selection method. The paper’s finding highlights the facilitator and barriers of online grocery shopping. The finding suggests that online grocery shopping offers convenience and safety but presents challenges regarding product selection, delivery, and customer service. The study will help all online grocery service providers to build their services and strategies based on the tastes and needs of their customers.

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According to Bhushan (2019), India currently positions tenth amongst world’s fastest growing market for specialist coffee and tea retail chains valuing Rs 2,570 crores in 2018. Café chains in India, such as Tata Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Cafe Coffee Day, are some of the key growing segments of the consumer foods service business, with revenue predicted to expand at a rate of 6.9% per year to Rs 4,540 crores by 2023. Having said that, the Covid-19 pandemic has posed the biggest challenge to the restaurant industry till date; also posing as detrimental to public health. Post Covid-19, India’s hotels & restaurants are seeing just 20–30% business of what they used to get before Covid-19, reports K. Sunil Thomas (2020). The present paper investigates the factors/dimensions which trigger the status consumption of luxury restaurants post covid-19. Considering the stand points presented in the signaling theory, the paper evaluates the role of need for uniqueness (NFU), materialism, consumer susceptibility to normative social influence (CSNSI), self-esteem needs in impacting the status consumption needs for luxury restaurants post covid-19. Further, the paper also investigates whether the status consumption of luxury restaurants leads to an affective response among individuals, in the post covid times. Based on a sample size of 102 respondents collected from Delhi/NCR, the study concludes that status consumption is affected most by need for uniqueness (NFU), followed by materialism, consumer susceptibility to normative social influence (CSNSI) Also, affective responses of consumers get significantly impacted by status consumption of luxury restaurants, in the post covid times.

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The current research study attempts to assess the pharmaceutical market crisis during the COVID-19 era; This research study focuses on the impact of the global pandemic on the pharmaceutical industry both in the long term and the short term. To calculate and establish the long-term relationships among the various variables time series model is created, which can be done with the help of cointegration. Cointegration is an econometric term that analyses and explores the long-term relationship between the two variables. We used Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), which are available to test cointegration among the variables. ARDL term means autoregressive-distributed lag. The dependent variable can be explained by its own lagged values or defined by the successive lag values of the explanatory variables. For example, CNX Pharma is a dependent variable in our model, and total COVID-19 cases and total COVID-19 deaths are the explanatory(independent) variables. Several studies are based on the relationship between COVID Pandemic and returns of stock indices. Some studies have proved the impact of the global pandemic on stock returns with the help of GARCH models. Some have shown this with the help of the Bai and Perron test or by the two-regime Markov switching model or some have used the structural break model to explain the impact on stock market returns before and after the outbreak of COVID 19. The study is unique and an addition to the existing literature. We have not found any study that has used ARDL model to find out the cointegration between the returns of stock indices of Pharma companies and total number of cases and death due to COVID 19 in India.

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Despite growing body of research on employee well-being during the global crisis of Covid-19, there is a lack of research that empirically examines its antecedents. Based on the concept of subjective well-being (SWB), the purpose of our study is to examine the crucial role of self-esteem, optimism and mastery toward employee well-being, with a particular focus on the IT sector of India. The current study examines the drivers of worker’s well-being. Uncovering the links among self-esteem, optimism, and workplace well-being can form the basis of the productivity of the workforce. We used cross-sectional survey data gathered from 274 workers from the IT sector in India and followed a linear regression approach to set up the link among antecedents of subjective well-being. To assess the association among variables, a regression analysis was done. We hypothesize that self-esteem, optimism, and mastery impact the SWB of employees. The findings revealed a positive effect of Self-Esteem, Optimism, and Mastery on SWB.

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A generic understanding of the role of HR officials is that they recruit, train, maintain the promotional policies and curtail the attrition rate in an organization. However, the concept of human resource development has not only revolutionized the HR environment and increased the responsibilities of HR professionally but has also angled an emotional spot in the organizational environment to have an understanding toward the employee needs and its fulfillment. HR in a decade’s time is held responsible for keeping the manpower happy and motivated and employees stick to an organization where they find an efficient HR department. Pandemic such as COVID-19 has challenged not only the survival of corporate but its manpower too. Concepts like organizational citizenship behavior, employees as family are made to keep in hollow when decisions of retrenchment had to be taken due to such global crisis. The aim of thischapter is to explore the role of HR in crisis like COVID-19 and to endeavor to understand the difficulties of the HR and how HR can resolve employee problems upkeeping the employee and organizational expectations.

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Globally, supply chains have increasingly become more uncertain, vulnerable, and complex. The global COVID-19 pandemic worsened such uncertainties and complexities. Firms have, therefore, been left with no choice except to get more innovative and imaginative. Traditional supply chains are increasingly combining with disruptive technologies; thus, smart decisions and automation capabilities have become more intelligent. This chapter assesses innovative technologies’ contribution to smart global food supply chain management through a sequential extant literature review and analysis. This chapter further evaluates smart supply chain management in the context of seven central areas: information management, process automation, Information Technology, supply chain integration, advanced analysis, supply chain integration, and intelligent supply chain risk management. The chapter concludes by examining how smart supply chain management can be fully utilized in the global food industry to benefit from cost reduction, supply chain integration, and increased operational efficiency. To this end, two theoretical frameworks are proposed – one for the application of smart technologies in the implementation of smart supply chain management in the food industry; and another for cooperation and participation in the context of smart food supply chain management.

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The study examined the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on bank performance, focusing on banks’ financial stability and stock market performance. A quantitative research approach was implemented based on banks internal stability indicators, and regression of bank stock returns against a Covid-19 lockdown variable and support measures. The study findings showed tier 1 capital decreased for both countries during the Covid lockdown, while impaired loans increased in the South African market and decreased in the Zimbabwean market. Liquidity coverage ratios were greater in South Africa, while bank stock returns in both markets underperformed the market during the Covid lockdown periods. Regression estimates showed the Covid lockdowns negatively impacted bank stock returns in South Africa but had no significant impact in Zimbabwe. Liquidity support interventions positively impacted returns in both countries, while borrower support measures positively impacted stock returns in South Africa but had no significant impact in Zimbabwe. Study findings point to the need to reform bank regulatory and supervision policies to protect financial institutions more during crises.

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Believers in the efficient capital market hypothesis claim that stock prices are fundamentally random and hence there is no scope for profitable speculation in the stock market. “Things always become obvious after the fact. A black swan event is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences”. These are rare and unexpected events with significant consequences; they can be defined as outliers, can have severe impact on society (positive or negative) and can be predicted only after they occur, so they are unpredictable. Example of few events are: October 28, 1929, October 19, 1987, 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 2000 Dot-Com Crash, 2001 Twin Tower crash, 2008 Global Financial Meltdown, 2009 European Sovereign Debt Crisis, 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, 2014 Crude Oil Crisis, 2015 Black Monday China, 2016 BREXIT and COVID-19 pandemic situation. Hence, this chapter attempts to capture the past Black Swan events where NIFTY 50 is selected as an instrument (as it serves as the benchmarking fund portfolios, index-based derivatives and index funds) in verifying the movement of this event. Hence, the following objective is framed to (i) apprehend the trend of NIFTY-50, (ii) to capture the black swan event in the selected sample set, (iii) to view the universal effect of black swan event in respective stock markets of five countries and (iv) to forecast the future NIFTY values. The theoretical occurrence of event is tested empirically using Dummy variable regression models and graphically by data visualization techniques. Secondary data on monthly NIFTY from NSE website is collected for the period October 1995–May 2021 (308 observations). The result of this pre- and post-regression model using daily and monthly data reveals that the daily data captures the crisis effect than monthly data in most of the events. Also, an attempt had been made to capture the black swan event by exploring the data visualization techniques for five major market indices – NIFTY, New York Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The daily closing prices of all indices were collected from respective stock market websites for a period from October 1995 to May 2021, and the result over here reveals that when different countries’ stock indices are compared, the crisis effect is universal. Finally, SARIMA model is used to forecast the future NIFTY prices. The analysis reveals that the stock prices will rise slowly after the (pandemic 2020) downfall. Hence, the above study suggests that at times of financial crisis like these, the planned investments may be canceled or postponed by the shareholders.

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The COVID-19 crisis is an international outbreak spreading to numerous nations, severely affecting economic growth and threatening the survival of leading business organizations. Indonesia is one of the countries suffering from this crisis, leading to disruptions that have penetrated the worldwide economic system and created uncertainty in business. In the face of the global economic crisis, various measures for the company’s actions to survive the corona virus pandemic have begun to be adopted. Many businesses need help preparing a survival strategy in an emergency, thus losing direction to adapt to the new business environment. However, many companies show resilience and the ability to seize opportunities quickly and survive in a situation full of challenges. Various industrial sectors have felt a huge impact on marketing. This study explores business companies in Indonesia that have innovated marketing strategies by critically identifying the typology of marketing innovation, the use of dimensions, specific motivation, and the joint degree. Further, it explores an attempt to examine the role of market firms in Indonesia and the implementation of their specific marketing innovation strategies by aligning external environmental factors, internal profits, and overall company characteristics. The study provides important insights for businesses to adjust to similar crises in the future and can assist businesses in addressing specific challenges.

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In January 2021, Alstom announced the completion of its acquisition of Bombardier Transportation (BT), a deal worth €5.5bn first announced a year earlier, just before the global COVID-19 outbreak. The success of Alstom’s large-scale cross-border acquisition of BT is a remarkable demonstration of corporate resilience. This case study contributes to the literature by examining corporate resilience, in particular Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) in the context of various risks and uncertainties such as macroeconomic and regulatory risks, as well as the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 crisis. In the face of these risks and uncertainties, Alstom managed to build resilience by successfully implementing a range of strategies and effectively leveraging key capabilities which enabled it to complete its acquisition of BT.