Showing papers by "Indian Institute of Management Calcutta published in 2004"

Women as policy makers: evidence from a randomized policy experiment in india

Abstract: This paper uses political reservations for women in India to study the impact of women's leadership on policy decisions. Since the mid-1990's, one third of Village Council head positions in India have been randomly reserved for a woman: In these councils only women could be elected to the position of head. Village Councils are responsible for the provision of many local public goods in rural areas. Using a dataset we collected on 265 Village Councils in West Bengal and Rajasthan, we compare the type of public goods provided in reserved and unreserved Village Councils. We show that the reservation of a council seat affects the types of public goods provided. Specifically, leaders invest more in infrastructure that is directly relevant to the needs of their own genders.

An Empirical Investigation of Collaborative Conflict Management Style in Group Support System-Based Global Virtual Teams

Abstract: Virtual teams cut across national, organizational, and functional boundaries, often resulting in diversity in team composition. This paper presents the results of a laboratory study involving groupware-supported, culturally homogeneous, and heterogeneous virtual teams where collaborative conflict management style, a team's cultural orientation as measured by the degree of individualism-collectivism, and group diversity affect several group performance variables. Collaborative conflict management style was positively related to performance, group diversity was found to have a moderating influence between collaborative style and group performance, and collaborative style was influenced by the individualistic-collectivistic orientations. Consistent with prior research, we found that collectivistic orientations help enhance the level of collaborative conflict management style prevailing in teams. Our research also indicates that the process to motivate team members may differ depending on their orientation.

Homeownership, community interactions, and segregation

Abstract: The authors consider a multi-community city where community quality is linked to residents' civic efforts, such as being proactive in preventing crime and ensuring the quality of publicly provided goods. Homeownership increases incentives for such efforts, but credit market imperfections force the poor to rent. Within-community externalities can lead to segregated cities-with the rich living with the rich in healthy homeowner communities, and the poor living with the poor in dysfunctional renter communities. The pattern of tenure segregation across communities in the United States accords well with the study's prediction. The authors analyze alternative tax-subsidy policies to alleviate inefficiencies in the housing market and identify the winners and losers under such policies.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO): Emerging Scenario and Strategic Options for IT-enabled Services

Abstract: The paradigm shift that the Internet has brought about in communication has opened up a plethora of opportunities for outsourcing business processes (BPO) across continents. Success lessons in manufacturing sub-contracting are found to be relevant for understanding the logic of BPO. Outsourcing involves transferring certain value contributing activities or processes to another firm to save costs and for the principal to focus on its areas of key competence. The possibilities of disaggregating value elements for the purpose of creating value in them at the sub-contractors’ premises and final aggregation and synthesis at the parent organization are determined by the nature of industry, limitations of coordination and control, product maturity, and level of inter-firm competition.

An assessment of a Biomass Gasification based Power Plant in the Sunderbans.

Abstract: A continued thrust towards wider use of renewable energy devices at domestic, commercial and industrial levels not only resulted in greater awareness but also significant installed capacities. The energy requirement in India is steadily increasing and this requirement is met both by commercial and renewable energy sources. India being a tropical country, renewable energy is seen as an effective option for ensuring access to modern energy services. So the objective of the present study is to evaluate the socio economic and environmental impact of the Biomass Gasification based Power Plant (BGBPP) in Chottomollakhali islands of Sunderbans set up by West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Authority (WBREDA). Four villages of Chottomollakhali Island are benefited with electricity from the power plant, which serves 225 consumers comprising household, commercial and industrial sectors. A simple cost benefit analysis has been used to estimate the impact of BGBPP. The findings of the study indicate that BGBPP has made a very positive impact on the life of the villagers of Chottomollakhali Island. This has led to increased economic activities and more profitable turnover for the commercial consumers and improves quality of life for the household sector. All of them have showed willingness to pay a higher price to get 24 h of power supply. From the cost benefit analysis it has been found that the benefit cost ratio, internal rate of return and pay back period of the project are 1.68, 19% and 7 years, respectively. But environmental awareness is very poor among the villagers.

User satisfaction with system,decision process,and outcome in GDSS based meeting: an experimental investigation

Abstract: Performance of groups using group decision support systems (GDSS) has been an issue debated over the last two decades. Yet, there is need for more focused research on subjective variables such as the satisfaction of team members with the experience of using a GDSS. This research focuses on different types of user satisfaction in GDSS based meetings: system satisfaction, process satisfaction, and outcome satisfaction; and explores interrelationships among them. The findings from a laboratory experiment demonstrate that group members? satisfaction with system impacts the satisfaction with decision process and outcome. Satisfaction with decision outcome is also influenced by satisfaction with decision making process. Another interesting set of findings is the relationships between performance of groups members engaged in GDSS based meetings and their satisfaction with system, process, and outcome. Decision time has negative effect on system satisfaction and positive effect on process satisfaction. Thoroughness of decision making has positive effect on outcome satisfaction. The findings of the research have major implications for planners and facilitators of GDSS based meetings.

Personality, Organizational Climate and Job Involvement: An Empirical Study:

Abstract: Job involvement as an attitude is an important variable that helps in maximizing organizational effectiveness. The higher the degree of job involvement of the members of an organization, the greater its effectiveness. In order to improve the degree of job involvement, one must have a realistic view of what determines it. Among the various views on job involvement, the most realistic one would be that it is a function of personality and organizational climate. Therefore, an attempt is made to study on the relationship of personality, organizational climate and job involvement. To identify the personality types, an inventory is developed based on the Indian theory of psychological forces—the guna dynamics. Based on the analysis of the data collected, the concluding observation of the study is: ‘the less tamasic a person, the more will he be involved in his job’.

An approach for location area planning in a personal communication services network (PCSN)

Abstract: This paper deals with an approach for planning location areas (LAs) in a personal communication services network (PCSN) to be overlaid on an existing wired network. Given the average speed of mobile terminals, the number of mobile switching centers (MSCs), their locations, call handling capacity of each MSC, handoff cost between adjacent cells and call arrival rate, an important consideration in a PCSN is to identify the cells in every LA to be connected to the corresponding MSC in a cost effective manner. In this work, while planning a location area, we present a two-step approach, namely optimization of total system recurring cost (subproblem I) and optimization of hybrid cost (subproblem II). The planning first determines the optimum number of cells in an LA from subproblem I. Then, it finds out the exact LAs by assigning cells to the switches, while optimizing the hybrid cost which comprises the handoff cost and the cable cost, in subproblem II. This divide-and-conquer strategy provides a practical way for designing LAs. As our approach toward LA planning takes into accounts both cost and network planning factors, this unique combination will be of great interest to PCSN designers. It develops an optimum network planning method for a wide range of call-to-mobility ratios that minimizes the total system recurring cost while still ensuring a good system performance. Our study shows that acceptable results are achievable with a reasonable computational effort, which supports the engineered planning of a PCSN.

MARP: A Multi-Agent Routing Protocol for Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract: Supporting mobility in a multi hop wireless environment like the MANET still remains a point of research, especially in the context of time-constrained applications. The incapacity of ad hoc networks to offer services of the likes of static or infratructured networks may be attributed to two major reasons. One, unpredictable mobility of hosts cause location-transparent-packet-delivery to be implemented only at the expense of large control overhead. Two, the lack of central control causes connection management and scalability to be major problems in the multi hop environment. In this paper we propose an efficient agent based routing mechanism that not only incurs minimal overhead, but also lays the foundation for additional functionalities as network management and real time applications. In other words, we show that the agent framework makes the MANET robust and survivable under stringent system constraints.

Adoption of electronic commerce by organizations in India : strategic and environmental imperatives

Abstract: In recent years many developing nations have been exposed to significant external changes such as economic deregulation and globalization. Evidence suggests that this has resulted in the adoption of EC by organizations in these countries. It is important to understand the strategic and environmental imperatives for EC adoption. Such understanding is required for anticipating necessary changes in EC adoption, to keep in tune with the impending and emerging changes in the environment. It is also needed for formulating business strategies in alignment with the organization?s IS strategies and IT capabilities, and for addressing managerial challenges in EC adoption. This paper is based on a study of EC adoption in eighteen companies from eleven industries in India. It is aimed at examining the different factors, related to strategic and environmental imperatives, which lead to the adoption of EC by organizations in developing countries. The results, based on interviews with close to a hundred people in these organizations indicate that there are broadly three conditions under which an organization adopts EC. These are related to the external environment, organizational performance and specific internal management compulsions. Each of these conditions describes a specific aspect of EC adoption and leads to imperatives for changes in processes and products. These imperatives in turn, result in the adoption of EC in different critical organizational processes. This study is one of the first detailed empirical studies on EC adoption in Indian organizations.

Echelon stock based continuous review (R,Q) policy for fast moving items

Abstract: The superior performance of echelon stock based policies for multi-stage serial and assembly inventory systems has been well established in literature. De Bodt and Graves [1] were the first to develop an echelon stock based continuous review ( R , Q ) model for a two-stage serial system. In this paper, we examine their model for fast moving items from the implementation point of view, and suggest a modification that not only takes care of implementation but also leads to improvement of the model under certain conditions. The results are demonstrated with the help of a numerical example.

Feature Significance in Geostatistics

Abstract: Geographically referenced data are routinely smoothed using kriging or spline methodology. Features in the resulting surface such as peaks, inclines, ridges, and valleys are often of interest. This article develops inference for the significance of such features through extension of methodology for univariate features known as SiZer. We work with low rank radial spline smoothers. These allow the handling of sparse designs, large sample sizes, and simulation-based critical value approximation. We illustrate the methodology on two geostatistical datasets.

An Approach Towards a Decentralised Disaster Management Information Network

Abstract: The existing Disaster Management (DM) approaches are quite unstructured and are usually centralised in nature with the instructions following some sort of fixed hierarchy. This results in poor resource management and hence inefficiency. Since Disasters themselves are unstructured in scope and hence can’t be managed centrally, there is a need for a user centric decentralised hierarchy independent approach wherein even the end user is empowered accordingly for quick and effective results. This working paper addresses the novel approach by underlining the need for a decentralised Information Network whose main objective is to match the available resources at any time with the needs, at the right time and to the right people. Our network uses concepts of multi mobile agents, mobile/AdHoc networking, real time operations, etc. The paper also presents a descriptive implementation setup of the network with the benefits accruing like efficient & effective resource management, real time networking, user centric and enabler decentralised operations, etc. Given the canvass and time-critical aspects of disasters, by this approach the level of success could be exponentially increased leading to an efficient, real time, and effective Disaster Management.

Economic liberalisation and R&D and innovation responses of Indian public and private sector industries

Abstract: Based on published secondary data, the study found that R&D and innovation responses of Indian public and private sector industries were similar in certain areas while they were quite different in certain other areas. Following economic liberalisation, growth rates of annual expenditure for in-house R&D of private sector industries increased but that of public sector industries came down. Barring a few exceptions, the R&D intensity of most industries decreased. The total annual innovation output of both public and private sectors came down after economic liberalisation. However, these changes in the rate of annual output of different types of innovations have been different for public and private sectors. Following economic liberalisation, there are signs of different only comparative advantages of R&D of public and private sector industries for the development of different types of innovations.

An adaptive media access control protocol and system performance of wireless ad hoc network using smart antenna

Abstract: A smart antenna can increase the number of simultaneous transmissions by reducing interference and improving the throughput performance. In this paper, we propose an adaptive media access control (MAC) protocol that periodically updates neighboring node information in a distributed network, such as a wireless ad hoc network, and uses smart antennas to achieve simultaneous communications by directionality control to neighboring nodes other than those currently communicating. We also verify that the overhead for updating the neighboring node information can be reduced to 15% or less than in conventional schemes and the number of simultaneous communications can be 2 to 3.5 times higher than when using omnidirectional antennas. Furthermore, we considered the effects of the overhead accompanying neighboring node updates, node density, beam width, and moving speed on the communication efficiency when using the proposed MAC protocol. The communication efficiency was improved by controlling the transmission power to shorten the transmission range, lower the node density, and widen the beam width more than by extending the transmission range and increasing the node density. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 87(3): 50–58, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.10140

Inventory management in distribution systems - case of an Indian FMCG company

Abstract: Managing inventory in distribution systems involves taking decisions on the quantity of inventory to be placed at different stages so that a desired customer service level can be achieved at minimum cost. In this paper, we present the case of the distribution system of an Indian FMCG company, which despite having centralized control takes replenishment decisions based on local stock information. The objective of the study is to develop single period representative models based on installation stock and echelon stock, and show by simulation that had the company taken decisions based on system stock information, it would have saved money in terms of investment in inventory.

Internet diffusion in India and China - comparison based on feedback loop dominance

Abstract: Many developing countries have recognized the need to enhance their Internet infrastructure to participate competitively in the global economy. However, these countries have distinctive socioeconomic characteristics that impact the assimilation of any new technology, including the Internet. Their interactions are complex, making it difficult to deduce the underlying mechanics informally. This, in turn, makes it hard to assess the impact of efforts to stimulate Internet diffusion. To get more formally grounded insights, this paper compares the mechanics of Internet diffusion in two developing countries - India and China - using the system dynamics methodology. The results show a basic similarity in the underlying mechanics, in that the behavior of major feedback loops is similar in the two cases. Specifically, infrastructure capacity shortage and absorption of the technology in different industry sectors drive two counteracting diffusion mechanisms in both countries. However, it also appears that policy actions can impact the timing and duration of dominant behavior. Based on this comparison, we surmise that developing countries, despite the different specific circumstances, do share some common mechanics for Internet diffusion. Moreover, policy actions need to be designed to stimulate sectoral absorption of the technology in parallel with expansion of the physical network infrastructure.

The Internet and the Organizational Adoption of Electronic Business: A Research Agenda

Abstract: The late nineties witnessed adoption of the Internet by organizations, on a very large scale. However, not every organization did experience an equally deep penetration of the Internet in its business. It was followed by the dot-com bubble burst. Many researchers have studied the phenomenon of organizational adoption of the Internet and the associated success factors. However, the available literature is fragmented in nature and does not take into consideration certain fundamental concepts. Therefore, there is a need for an enhanced understanding of the phenomenon. It will enable executives to plan for and implement Internet adoption in a more effective manner. This paper discusses the literature and brings out the inadequacies in the current findings. Subsequently a framework is developed to indicate directions for future research.

Learning with an Embedded Reject Option

Abstract: The option to reject an example in order to avoid the risk of a costly potential misclassification is well-explored in the pattern recognition literature. In this paper, we look at this issue from the perspective of statistical learning theory. Specifically, we look at ways of modeling the problem of learning with an embedded reject option, in terms of minimizing an appropriately defined risk functional, and discuss the applicability thereof of some fundamental principles of learning, such as minimizing empirical risk and structural risk. Finally, we present some directions for further theoretical work on this problem.

Finding pareto-optimal set of distributed vectors with minimum disclosure

Abstract: A set of alternatives along with their associated values is available with individual parties who do not want to share it with others. Algorithms to find the feasible set (i.e. common subset) X and the pareto-optimal subset of X with minimum disclosure in presence or absence of a third party are explored. These are useful in multiparty negotiations.

Organic sensor networks for pervasive computing

Abstract: This research effort presents a viewpoint with regard to employing organic sensor systems for effective and efficient pervasive computing. We deal specifically with criteria that are critical to the components used to build the underlying sensor network employing hybrid data collection and event sensing nodes, electronic as well as biological. We intend to discuss the low level sensor architecture in concord with the IEEE 4451 family of interface specifications as well as highlight a generic BIOS, easily molded to fit standard 8-bit microprocessors which may be effectively deployed for realizing data fusion points in such hybrid sensor networks.

A fair medium access protocol using adaptive flow-rate control through cooperative negotiation among contending flows in ad hoc wireless network with directional antenna

Abstract: Medium Access Control protocols proposed in the context of ad hoc networks primarily aim to control the medium access among contending nodes using some contention resolution schemes However, these protocols do not necessarily guarantee a fair allocation of wireless medium among contending flows Our objective in this paper is to adaptively adjust the flow-rates of contending flows, so that each gets fair access to the medium This adaptive adjustment will also ensure high packet delivery ratio and optimal utilization of wireless medium We use a deterministic approach to adaptively improve the performance of the suffered flows in the network through mutual negotiation between contending flows In this paper we have also suggested the use of directional antenna to further reduce the contention between the flows in the wireless medium The proposed scheme is evaluated on QualNet network simulator to demonstrate that our scheme guarantees fairness to all contending flows

The Bitter Brew

Abstract: Assam, a state in Northeast India, has been experiencing the problem of militancy for over two decades. Tea was a major industry in the state and due to its pivotal position, militants had been excessively harassing it. Tata Tea Limited (TTL), a subsidiary of a 125-year old and well respected conglomerate, the House of Tatas, was one of the largest players in the tea industry in the region. The company had never succumbed to militants' pressure of parting with money but had acted as a responsible corporate citizen by involving itself in substantial community development initiatives. Under one such initiative — the Special Medical Assistance Scheme — a leader of a militant outfit has been treated for pregnancy and accompanying life-threatening health problem in a hospital in Mumbai. After childbirth and treatment, when she was about to board a flight to Delhi, the Assam government with the help of Mumbai police arrested her on a tip off. The arrest led to the controversial allegation that TTL had been funding terrorists in Assam. Based on press and published reports, this case unfolds the whole episode with relevant background and raises debatable ethical issues that are universally relevant for business in today's environments.