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: Context (language use) & Emerging markets. The organization has 1828 authors who have published 4011 publications receiving 59269 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMA & IIM Ahmedabad.

An integrative location-allocation model for humanitarian logistics with distributive injustice and dissatisfaction under uncertainty

Abstract: Humanitarian logistics is an integral part of disaster relief operations, which involves the phases of preparedness, disaster operations, and post-disaster operations. Integrating the planning and execution between phases minimizes the gaps in providing relief to the affected population. This paper presents a two-stage multi-objective mathematical model for integrated decision-making during the preparation and response phases. The proposed model is developed to jointly optimize the location of emergency shelters (and/or depots) and coordinate the movement of relief vehicles between the disaster site and emergency shelters. Focusing on the optimal distribution of relief supplies to the emergency shelters, the proposed model aims to minimize the operational, distributive injustice, and dissatisfaction costs. To address the computational complexity of the introduced model, two multi-objective meta-heuristics, namely multi-objective vibration damping optimization and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), are used. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis is conducted to study the impacts of variations in key parameters on model output under different scenarios. Our results suggests that the employed solution algorithms outperform the traditional optimization methods in achieving the Pareto-Front solutions.

Caregivers' Experiences of Informal Support in the Context Of HIV/AIDS

Abstract: Social support is an important buffer for family caregivers of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV/ AIDS) With limited formal support options, these caregivers have to rely increasingly on informal networks Yet, accessing this avenue is also fraught with difficulty due to the stigmatising nature of HIV infection Research in this area is not just not sparse, but focusses largely on sources of support and the circumscribing effects of stigma To further our understanding, a qualitative study was conducted using various concepts from social support theory Twelve family caregivers in Mumbai, India, were interviewed, using the in-depth interview method An iterative, thematic analysis was done through which themes and major themes were identified Major themes included sources of support, types of support received, spontaneous support, soliciting support, caregivers' perceptions of support experiences and reciprocity The findings raised several issues for intervention

I complain for your good? Re-examining consumer advocacy

Abstract: Marketplace helping behavior such as opinion leadership, market maven, and purchase pals that benefit others has been extensively studied. A diverse but similar to other marketplace helping behaviors is the concept of consumer advocacy. Extant review of literature reveals that customer advocacy and consumer advocacy are conceptually different. The former is an organization level construct, and the latter is an individual consumer's ‘generalized tendency to share market information’. It is argued that a following dissatisfactory service encounter, consumer advocates would indulge in market placing helping behavior such as negative word of mouth to prevent other consumers' from having similar marketplace disappointments. Hence, prior studies link consumer advocacy to ‘altruistic tendencies’. On the basis of self-construal theory, this study investigates the motivations for consumer advocacy. Using a scenario-based experimentation implemented in survey method; we establish that consumer advocacy is motivated...

Reconciling Dichotomous Demands: Telemarketing Agents in Bangalore and Mumbai, India

Abstract: Though outsourcing has created enormous employment potential in India’s information technology enabled services/business process outsourcing (ITES/BPO) sector, the implications for employees remain to be understood. The present paper describes employee experiences in telemarketing outbound call centers in Bangalore and Mumbai, India. Following van Manen’s (1998) hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through unstructured conversational interviews with 18 telemarketing agents identified via snowball sampling and were subject to holistic and sententious thematic analyses. Reconciling dichotomous experiences at work was the label used to capture participants’ core experiences and indicated that while participants’ simultaneous positive and negative experiences contributed to a sense of concomitant stress and well-being, they employed various strategies to maintain a balance between positive experiences/well-being and negative experiences/stress.