PurposeThis paper aims to study the perception of school students towards online classes via virtual meeting applications and to unravel the teachers' preparedness and students' preparedness for running synchronous online classes and its impact on student's engagement and their satisfaction during the period of lockdown due to COVID-19.Design/methodology/approachOn the basis of focused group discussions with teachers and students of top 10 private CBSE affiliated schools (National capital Region, Delhi, India), survey instrument was constructed. Further, 489 valid responses were finally analysed through partial least square (PLS) method and structural model was tested.FindingsAll the six independent variables such as teachers' structured approach, teachers' technical readiness, teachers' self-efficacy, students' technical readiness, students' autonomy and students' self-efficacy influenced students' engagement and satisfaction towards synchronous online classes significantly. The result of the structural model also reveals that students' engagement is a significant predictor of students' satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper outlines the scope for future research in ascertaining more critical success factors other than satisfaction and engagement. Scope of this research suggests inclusion of not only schools but framework is also important for college and university level educational bodies. Data collection was confined to students only whereas viewpoint of teachers and parents may also be included.Originality/valueThis study devised a collaborative form of learning where both the parties learnt while making continuous interactions and also co-created value in terms of new skills. Provision of autonomy given to students can't be overlooked as an important indicator for his/her preparedness. As a result, students feel motivated to get engaged in the whole process which makes them satisfied and will be able to identify the learning outcomes equal to or greater than in physical classroom settings.

Purpose Women experience insurmountable work life balance challenges, which are the reasons a large percentage of women leak out of the workforce pipeline. Flexible work systems empower women to contribute in meaningful ways to their personal and professional lives. Job sharing is one such strategy of flexible work system, which is proposed as an empowering management practice. This paper aims to create a model of empowerment for housewives. Non-working housewives are the most neglected lot of society in terms of getting their dues. Design/methodology/approach For the purpose of this study, qualitative study was conducted and data were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Focus group discussions with 266 housewives were conducted to find out their reasons of not joining the full-time workforce, and their willingness to contribute, if they have any. In-depth interviews of nine HR managers were also conducted to assess the openness of the corporate side toward job sharing as a work design. The paper has significance for the corporate as well as for the social and government agencies. Findings Qualitative data collected from 266 housewives presented three core themes – the bottlenecks to employment, the available opportunities of employment and growth and their preferred status of employment. The qualitative data further revealed that though they can easily do with some more money at their disposal, they cannot join in the full-time workforce as they have family responsibilities. They were willing to put in half a day’s work. Thus, the investigators recommended job sharing for them, which would engage this talented human resource and give them back their due for selflessly giving in their most productive years to their families. The interviews of nine HR managers from three multinational companies revealed the skillsets of these housewives as the major concern for putting them back on work. Originality/value The paper has significance for the corporate, women as the contingent workforce and social and government agencies.

PurposeThe objective of this research is to explore factors that influence interns' satisfaction (is) toward the e-internship program, an alternate adopted by management institutes in lieu of the regular summer internship amidst the global pandemic, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional research design with a self-reported questionnaire was conducted on business school (B-school) interns to rate the factors that contribute to their e-internship satisfaction. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the responses obtained from 203 B-school interns with a diverse demographic background belonging to a government university of North India. Convenience sampling was employed to get valid responses from interested respondents.FindingsResults revealed that although all the four factors under consideration, faculty mentors' preparedness (FMP), industry mentors' preparedness (IMP), interns' readiness toward online internship and interns' Internet efficacy (IIE) are significantly related to IS, industry mentors' role was found to have a major impact on the IS. The study unravels that industry mentors' interaction has a potential role in the successful implementation of e-internships.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has implications for the university as well as the companies to ponder on factors that satisfy interns during the virtual internship and designing an effective internship program by having a collaborative approach.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of empirical studies on internships in general and e-internship in particular, so this study fills the gap and contributes to the existing literature and provides ways to satisfy B-school interns toward e-internship by addressing the key factors.

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