Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

About: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is a education organization based out in Ahmedabad, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Emerging markets & Population. The organization has 1828 authors who have published 4011 publications receiving 59269 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMA & IIM Ahmedabad.

Professional Competencies among Librarians and Information Professionals in the Knowledge Era.

Abstract: The paper justifies that information professionals will be better off to discharge their role as effective knowledge managers in today's knowledge era, provided they are equipped with professional competencies. Illustrating with suitable examples, the paper highlights a set of professional competencies that need to be developed by information professionals in their various areas of operation and service such as, knowledge capture, knowledge processing (and dissemination) and knowledge application.

Comparing between Product-specific and General Impulse Buying Tendency: Does Shoppers’ Personality Influence their Impulse Buying Tendency?

Abstract: The sudden urge to buy, referred to as impulsive buying, is triggered by both a gamut of extraneous, market-related stimuli and internal psychological factors. The extant literature on this has majorly focused on the antecedents of impulsive shopping, prominent among these include traits (like sensation-seeking and impulse buying tendency or IBT), motives (utilitarian, hedonic), shoppers’ resources (time and money), and marketing stimuli. Although personality is a key determinant of consumer decision-making, the role of personality traits, specially extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, in impulse buying is not conclusive. Also, there exists a need for analysing impulse buying behaviour with respect to product-specific situations rather than general IBT. The present study fills this gap by analysing the role of three personality traits on impulse buying. A scenario-based online experiment was conducted, and the sample respondents were randomly categorised into two groups. The former group had respondents with an instrument to measure their IBT in general, while the later had respondents for whom the instrument was shared with a scenario built around the product category of apparel. With the data set of 386 respondents, the study reveals that the relationships between the two personality traits—extraversion and neuroticism, and IBT—are independent of the product category. However, the influence of conscientiousness on impulsive buying tendency depends on the product category. The study concludes with managerial implications.

Theories of capital structure: evidence from an emerging market

Abstract: Although extensive empirical studies have been conducted on capital structure in the context of developed countries, few have been carried out on emerging markets using large pools of data with comprehensive modeling techniques. This paper examines the financial characteristics of Malaysian companies and their debt policies using data of 106 firms from 1992 to 1999. The results of pooled GLS regressions show that all types of debt (short‐term, long‐term, and total) are influenced by the variables for profitability, size, and tangibility—but not by growth, risk, and investment opportunity (market‐to‐book‐value ratio). Thus, the latter results are contrary to evidence from developed markets. However, when the data are classified into two sub‐periods, only in the first (1992–95) does the risk variable reveal the hypothesized positive influence on all debt ratios, reflecting Malaysia's economic uncertainty in the throes of the Asian financial crisis and implementation during the second sub‐period (1996–99) of the domestic capital control policy. Profitability has a persistent and consistent negative relationship with all types of debt ratios in both periods; this confirms the capital structure prediction of the pecking order theory in an emerging capital market.