Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

About: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore is a education organization based out in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Emerging markets & Corporate governance. The organization has 491 authors who have published 1254 publications receiving 23853 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMB.

Redesigning Midday Meal Logistics for the Akshaya Patra Foundation: OR at Work in Feeding Hungry School Children

Abstract: Midday meal programs at schools are prevalent in countries such as India. The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, operates such a program in India for about 1.3 million children in more than 9,000 schools in nine states. The foundation faced a logistics problem in efficiently distributing food within the available time window. This paper discusses the challenges it faced, how we used OR modeling to overcome them, and how we designed, developed, and implemented a software solution. To address the logistics problem, we proposed a three-stage decomposition heuristic solution, which consists of clustering schools, assigning appropriate distribution vehicles to clusters, and routing vehicles within the clusters. We implemented our solution, AMRUTA, on a pilot basis in one location. Based on this pilot, the projected annual cost savings are US$75,000, which would enable the foundation to add 2,400 more children. When the program is fully implemented, we estimate that the annual cost savings will be about US$1.96 million. This project demonstrates how operations research can be useful for solving social sector problems in a developing country such as India.

Evaluation of peak detection algorithms for social media event detection

Abstract: We evaluate the effectiveness of three peak detection algorithms when applied to collection of social media datasets. Each dataset is composed of a year's worth of tweets relating to a topic. The datasets were converted to time series composed of hourly tweet volumes. The objective of the analysis was to identify abnormal surges of communication, which are taken to be representative of the occurrence of events relevant to the topic under consideration. The ground truth was established by manually tagging the time series in order to identify peaks apparent to a human operator. Candidate algorithms were then evaluated in terms of the precision, recall, and F± scores obtained when their output was compared to the manually identified peaks. A general-purpose algorithm is found to perform reasonably well, but seasonality in social media data limits the effectiveness of applying simple algorithms without filtering.

Business and society: Creating shared value: In conversation with N. R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys

Abstract: With corporations playing a dominant role in society today, the centrality of the role of business to society is being researched from multiple perspectives ranging from moral, legal, economic, strategic, social, and environmental. Several approaches to and theories on the subject have emerged in the literature over the years, such as corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management, shared value, corporate citizenship, and corporate environmentalism, and have found acceptance in practice as well. This paper surveys the changing approaches to the role of business in society and reflects on some of the practices in a conversation with NR Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys.

Satyam Failure and Changes in Indian Audit Committees

Abstract: Audit committees have received considerable attention globally in recent years. We examine the effects of the Satyam failure on changes in the composition and functioning of Indian audit committees. A corporate collapse that shook India’s markets and regulators, and widely noted of as “India’s Enron,” should have led to major improvements in the functioning of audit committees of Indian companies. Our empirical results show that the Satyam failure had a limited effect on Indian audit committees. We discuss implications for Indian audit committees as India seeks to harmonize its accounting and governance standards with international benchmarks.