Showing papers by "Indian Institute of Management Calcutta published in 1976"

Modeling for the Management of Library Collections

Abstract: This paper presents a general model for approaching the problem of control of the active collection of a library through the acquisition and weeding processes. It assumes that age of book and size of holding are important in this process and recognizes constraints related to shelf space and the acquisitions budget. It then discusses three special cases of the model with shelf space the binding constraint as well as certain empirical work that tends to support a negative exponential form for demand as a function of age.

Application of a collection‐control model for scientific libraries

Abstract: This collection-control model is based jointly on book age and collection proportion in each of several classes of a subject matter classification system Application of the model to the physics bookholdings of the Mathematics-Physics Library of the University of Pennsylvania indicates that the same number of home uses as actually occurred in 1968 could have been generated by a physics collection 602 percent the size of the actual collection It also provides estimates of the number of books to be acquired and weeded during the succeeding year Opinions of subject-matter experts should be incorporated into the decision to determine titles to be removed from the active collection

Stratified simple random sampling and prior distributions

Abstract: The problem of stratification with proportional and optimum allocations in the case of simple random sampling has been examined in the light of an appropriate super-population model and a formal proof has been provided here for arranging the auxiliary character in increasing order of magnitude for stratification in the case of proportional allocation and also it is shown here that the same may not be necessary in the case of optimum allocation. However, if the coefficient of variation with respect to the auxiliary variate is same in each stratum the necessity of arraging the auxiliary character in increasing order of magnitude for stratification is established. The results are illustrated with respect to empirical examples. Also, some comparisons among different estimators have been made under the super-population model.

The social background of rural trader entrepreneurs: A pilot study

Abstract: This is a pilot study among the retail trader entrepreneurs in a rural region of West Bengal. In rural traditional society, some people have dreams, wishful hopes, even concrete plans to start a bu...

Organization Development for Improving Public Enterprises

Abstract: Organization Development with its process focus, as developed in the West, may not be able to deal with several problems of social reality like alienation from work and life, tension ridden culture of consumerism, effects of future shocks, etc. The picture is complicated in deve- loping countries where bureaucratic-work orientation with concomitant values and attitudes dominate public enter- prises. The need for the establishment of an effective system for the continuous rise in the quality of life is quite important in public enterprises. A new culture has to be developed. There is a need to internalize a larger "appre- ciative system" with OD strategies in terms of the pro- cess and design. This may lead to "eco-system,' a mean- ingful linkage of the past and the future through the present, an ideal-seeking approach to the future. Such an approach may free 00 from its narrow confines. Nitish R. De is the Dean of the National Labour Institute. He started his career in the Indian Police Service and later joined industry where he worked in several roles. Then at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, he was Parle Professor of Management and for sometime Interim Director of the Institute before moving over to the Nil. He has done pioneering work in Orga- nization Development, application of behavioural sciences to problems of industrial relations, and managing conflicts. He is on the board of directors of several organizations as well as member of the Committee of the International Committee on the Quality of Work. His current interests are in Organization Development, designing appropriate structures and policies for worker participation, and improving quality of life in rural and urban systems. A recent pursuit among serious action- research oriented social scientists is to esta- blish an organic linkage between different strategies of organizational effectiveness and the relevant larger environment. The contextual or environmental forces that impinge on an organization system are receiving more and more attention, and the organization change strategies are getting modified, if not enriched, by these efforts to link the two. Churchman (1968), for example, has criticized the approach of efficiency-prone information system analysts as a mechanical-technical exercise and suggest- ed that unless the management information system — computer based or otherwise — is conceived in terms of total system needs it will not be really effective. Similarly, Emery and Trist (1965) and Terreberry have developed criteria for organizational effectiveness in terms of a matrix of exchange relationships with relevant environments. This paper, therefore, emphasizes the effec- tiveness of organization development as a process of planned change in the context of environmental realities.