ABSTRACT
With COVID-19 paralyzing street food businesses, street food vendors are trying to sustain their operations. The current study helps them by identifying the importance of five prominent stimuli viz. authenticity, quality, staff-service, ambience, and value for money in developing desire for street food in individuals in India. Furthermore, the study contributes by identifying the role of street food nostalgia (as a mediator) and perceived risk of COVID-19, age, and gender (as moderators) on the direct impact of each stimulus on the desire for street food. The study uses partial least squares path modelling to validate the hypotheses using SmartPLS. The findings are comparable to other developing Asian countries, as the proposed associations are validated with perceptual responses from three prominent cities and well-known street food destinations in India. The study showed the relative importance of the five-stimuli based on the stimulus-organism-response framework in developing a desire for street food. The findings suggest partial to complete mediation of street food nostalgia across the three samples. Lastly, the perceived risk of COVID-19 along with age and gender emerged as prominent moderators for many of the direct effects of stimuli on desires for street food. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ABSTRACT
This is an exploratory research highlighting the concerns and reactions of Indian working-class people towards the COVID-19. It was observed that most of the Indian working-class people were seriously concerned about the pandemic and responded well to the measures suggested by the Governments and other agencies in a big way. Most of the respondents believed the pandemic will be effectively controlled across the globe within one year. Word cloud and other data visualization techniques were used to analyze the reactions of the Indian working class towards the Central and State government's initiatives to contain COVID-19. In the word cloud of the top 150 popular words for both central and state governments Lockdown, People and Government have taken the central stage. The word streaming analysis suggests the intense relationship among the most frequent words in the dataset. For the central government, it was social distancing and for state government, it was social distancing and relationship between central and state governments. The sentiment analysis for both central and state government was neutral, mostly. The researchers are of the view that the research will provide a deeper insight into human perception and behavior towards the measures initiated by the Central and State Governments in any similar difficult situations. Further the concerns identified may be taken into consideration by the Government while designing the policy measures and other interventions by the Government.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the interplay of various measures used by different governments around the world in combatting COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: The research uses the interpretative structural modelling (ISM) for assessing the powerful measures amongst the recognized ones, whereas to establish the cause-and-effect relations amongst the variables, the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is used. Both approaches utilized in the study aid in the comprehension of the relationship amongst the assessed measures. Findings: According to the ISM model, international support measures have the most important role in reducing the risk of COVID-19. There has also been a suggestion of a relationship between economic and risk measures. Surprisingly, no linkage factor (unstable one) was reported in the research. The study indicates social welfare measures, R&D measures, centralized power and decentralized governance measures and universal healthcare measures as independent factors. The DEMATEL analysis reveals that the net causes are social welfare measures, centralized power and decentralized government, universal health coverage measure and R&D measures, while the net effects are economic measures, green recovery measures, risk measures and international support measures. Originality/value: The study includes a list of numerous government measures deployed throughout the world to mitigate the risk of COVID-19, as well as the structural links amongst the identified government measures. The Matrice d'Impacts croises-multiplication applique and classment analysis can help the policymakers in understanding measures used in combatting COVID-19 based on their driving and dependence power. These insights may assist them in employing these measures for mitigating the risks associated with COVID-19 or any other similar pandemic situation in the future. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.