Showing papers by "Indian Institute of Management Calcutta published in 2005"

Offshore Outsourcing: A Dynamic Causal Model of Counteracting Forces

Abstract: Many argue that offshoring is an inexorable trend, since a variety of information technology (IT) skills have become global commodities and they are vastly cheaper in other parts of the world. According to this view, most IT work would be drained from the United States to overseas locations. However, the loss of jobs to offshoring has increased pressure to impose restrictions. On the supply side, as IT salaries in outsourcing vendor nations increase, they become less attractive for offshoring. The literature identifies multiple factors--some enhancing, others inhib-iting--that affect the growth of offshoring. In this paper, we attempt to add to that knowledge by asking, "What are the mechanics by which these factors interact to produce the observed growth in IT offshoring?" We use the system dynamics methodology to build a two-country simulation model of offshoring growth that captures individual cause-effect relationships generated by its supply and demand drivers. Examined as a whole, these individual relationships reveal larger feedback loops that constitute the mechanism underlying offshoring growth between the two countries. Simulation experiments show how the dynamic behavior of offshoring is likely to evolve beyond the current high-growth period. The model contributes to our understanding of offshoring by offering a causal foundation for its growth pattern. It can also be used to computationally study different scenarios of offshoring growth.

Understanding Conflict in Virtual Teams: An Experimental Investigation using Content Analysis

Abstract: Virtual teams are temporally and geographically dispersed groups, which may have members from varied cultures and backgrounds. Such diversity may cause intra-group conflicts in virtual teams. We analyzed the contents of the transcripts of GSS-based virtual teams and identified the conflict episodes and the approaches followed to resolve intra-group conflicts. The conflict episodes that occurred in the early phases of decision-making were separated from those taking place in the choice phase. The results revealed that conflicts in the choice phase of decision-making were detrimental to global virtual teams. We also found that groups following an integrative conflict resolution style had better performance than those following other conflict resolution approaches, such as a distributive style. While the results contribute towards the understanding of conflict in groups, the area warrants further research.

An algorithm for the generalized vehicle routing problem with backhauling

Abstract: The Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauling deals with the supply of finished goods from a depot to a number of delivery points, and picking up returnable items and bringing them back to the depot using a fleet of trucks. Traditionally, the objective of the problem has been to determine the truck routes such that the total number of trucks and/or the total distance traveled/total route cost are minimized. Most of the papers available in the literature in this connection deal with problems where the linehaul (having a demand for finished goods) and backhaul (having items to be returned to the depot) customers are different, and a customer may be visited by at most one truck limiting demand and returns at a location by the capacity of the truck. In this paper, we allow the linehaul and backhaul customers to be the same leading to simultaneous delivery and pickup at a customer location, and also there is no restriction on the quantity demanded at (to be returned from) a customer location. As such a customer may be visited by more than one truck and more than once by the same truck. We developed a Mixed Integer Linear programming (MILP) formulation of the problem and a route construction heuristic. The heuristic averaged 80 ms for 110 problems tested, and in 78 of them the heuristic costs were either equal to the optimal costs or at most equal to the upper bounds on the optimal costs obtained after running the optimization package for 30 min. Optimal solutions were obtained for 28 problems at an average time of 295 ms. The heuristic could match the optimal solutions for 22 of these problems at an average time of 71 ms.

The Effects of Group Incentives in an Indian Firm: Evidence from Payroll Data

Abstract: This paper estimates the effects of group incentives on productivity, pay and employment in a large unionized firm in India. Using plant-level monthly time-series data from the payroll office for the period 1985-95, and controlling for both (plant) fixed effects and (contract) time effects, the paper provides econo- metric evidence on the effectiveness of both the level and intensity of incentive pay on the outcome measures. In addition, the relative performance of two types of group incentives defined on the basis of group size is also analysed. The results generally confirm predictions from theory that productivity returns to incentives are non-linear and concave in shape and that the effectiveness of incentives is decreasing in group size. It is argued that the latter is most likely due to the less- ening of the free-rider problem and the increased effectiveness of peer monitoring associated with smaller groups. The results also point to a negative relationship between the level of incentives and employment over time.

Environmental impacts of trade in india

Abstract: This article aims at contributing to environment trade debate by evaluating the impacts of international trade on emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides for the Indian economy during 90s using Input-Output techniques. The article has constructed an index of pollution terms of trade. Using the Input-Output table of 1991–92 and 1996–97 for India we have computed pollution terms of trade for the content of CO2, SO2, and NO x . Results show that the indices are below 100, indicating that India produces goods that are more environment friendly than goods it imports, thus challenging the pollution haven hypothesis for India. The article has also offered explanations for these results.

The Mechanics of Internet Growth: A Developing-Country Perspective

Abstract: The uneven diffusion of the Internet across countries reinforces social and economic inequalities. Correlation studies associate its uneven diffusion with such factors as competition, telephone infrastructure, literacy, economic development, access charges, and network reliability, but they do not reveal the mechanics of Internet diffusion because it is the interplay of different factors, not any factor in isolation, that generates diffusion behavior. This paper uses the system dynamics (SD) methodology to develop a causal model of Internet diffusion in a developing country. The SD methodology was selected because its basic construct, the feedback loop, is well suited to represent the mechanics driving dynamic processes. The proposed causal model is validated using Internet subscriber data from India. The technique of dominant loop analysis identifies the feedback loops that have the most influence on diffusion behavior. The model can be used to evaluate diffusion patterns resulting from different policy alternatives intended to foster Internet diffusion in developing countries.

Transcending Transformation: Enlightening Endeavours at Tata Steel

Abstract: It is indeed a challenge for corporations to insulate themselves from the adverse conditions around and foster an organizational culture that ensures ethical behaviour. In their effort to foster and maintain such an organizational culture, corporations through various endeavours try to institutionalize ethics. A successful strategy that aims to institutionalize ethics starts with developing/adopting and implementing codes of conduct and duly complements with ethics education and management. This paper captures the enlightening endeavours of Tata Steel relating to institutionalizing ethics and its impact on transformation within the corporation and its transcendence beyond.

Adoption & Implementation of IT in Developing Nations: Experiences from Two Public Sector Enterprises in India

Abstract: This case describes challenges in the adoption and implementation of IT in two public sector enterprises in the postal and distribution businesses respectively, in India In spite of similarities in the scale of operations and the general cultural contexts, the IT adoption processes and outcomes of the two organizations were significantly different While one failed to implement IT in its crucial processes, the other responded effectively to changes in external conditions by developing and using IT applications for critical functions The case illustrates how differences in organizational factors such as top management commitment, unions, middle management participation, capabilities of IS professionals and specific aspects of organization culture resulted in such differences The case is interesting and significant because it is representative of experiences of many government-aided organizations in India, which have undertaken IT modernization as a response to external changes and government mandates The findings can also be generalized across similar organizations in other developing countries

Supply Chain Structure Design for a Short Lifecycle Product: A Loop Dominance Based Analysis

Abstract: Designing a supply chain structure for a volatile market can be tricky. This is more so for products with a short lifecycle. A capacity constrained supply chain in such a setting impedes the product's market acceptance by limiting product availability and thereby frustrating customers. This paper presents an experimental method, which can be used by channel designers for this purpose. We use a two-echelon supply chain system to elucidate the method. The supply chain structure is represented using system dynamics formalism. Experiment on the model leads to an indication of the cost that the system would incur. Using this cost and through loop dominance analysis we identify feedback loops that primarily determine system behavior. We show that by strengthening the dominant feedback loop, significant improvement in performance can be achieved. The method we claim can easily be deployed in supply chains of other products and can also be used to justify information technology investment decisions.

Offshore Outsourcing: Counteracting Forces and Their Dynamic Effects

Abstract: Many argue that offshoring is an inexorable trend since IT skills have become a global commodity and they are vastly cheaper in other parts of the world. According to this view, most IT work would be drained from the US to overseas locations. However, opposing factors exist. The loss of jobs to offshoring has raised pressure for political action. On the supply side, as developing nations get wealthier, they become less attractive for offshoring. In short, there are multiple factors - some enhancing, others inhibiting - that interact to drive offshoring. In this paper, we use the system dynamics methodology to build a two-country simulation model of offshoring growth that captures the interaction among its major drivers. The model will help us understand the offshoring phenomenon, by identifying the main feedback effects that intensify or temper the growth in offshoring. It can also be used for policy analysis and business planning.

Asymmetric Penalized Prediction Using Adaptive Sampling Procedures

Abstract: Prediction using a multiple-regression model is addressed when the penalties for overpredicting and underpredicting the true future value are not equal. Such asymmetric penalty functions are appropriate in many practical situations. If one imposes some preassigned precision on the prediction procedure, it is shown that in the presence of nuisance parameters in the model, the sample size needed to achieve the fixed precision is unknown. Some adaptive multistage sampling techniques are discussed that offer solutions to this problem. A prediction procedure based on a purely sequential sampling scheme is introduced, followed by a batch sequential scheme. Finally, a real-life example is provided to illustrate the use of these procedures, and computational evidence is supplied to demonstrate the efficiency of the latter procedure compared to the former one.

Pervasive Computing: A Vision to Realize

Abstract: Pervasive Computing (PerCom) is “omni-computing.” It is “all-pervasive” by combining open ubiquitous applications with everyday activities. In the vision of PerCom, the environment is saturated with a host of computing and communication capabilities which are gracefully integrated with daily life so that user will be able to interact with a smart environment from everywhere using a seemingly invisible infrastructure of various wireline and/or wireless networks and communication/computing devices. Beginning with a sketch of the evolutionary path for this new paradigm of computing, the chapter discusses its functional properties, especially the engineering of its major components, and their interactions. This helps us identify the existing protocols and middlewares that have already shown the required potential to fit into this model and suggest requirements that they must meet to turn PerCom into a “technology that disappears.” For the ease in understanding, it is argued that PerCom is about four things: pervasive devices, pervasive applications (PerApp), pervasive middlewares (PerWare), and pervasive networks (PerNet). First, it concerns the way people view mobile/static computing and/or communication devices, and use them within their environments to perform tasks. Second, it concerns the way applications are automatically created and deployed to enable such tasks to be performed. Third, it concerns the intelligent environment, which comprises interface between the applications and the network. Fourth, it concerns the underlying network that supports ubiquity and pervasiveness. A novel concept of using organic living entities as sensor nodes at the bottom layer of PerNet opens up a potential way to blend the physical world with the computing world. Later part of the chapter specifies the high level principles and structures that will guide this blending. Finally, it concludes with an overview of current research initiatives on PerCom, highlighting some common requirements for the intelligent environment that PerCom demands.

Leadership Excellence: The Asian Experience:

Abstract: The globalised world needs people who exhibit courage, confidence, and vision and will to provide leadership based on holistic worldview, and cultivate flexibility, and admit diversity. Leadership excellence lies in adopting innovative approaches that foster understanding and build bridges across ethnic, racial, cultural and religious groups besides promoting social welfare, economic development, and tolerance of all religions and cultures.Asia provides one of the most inspirational role models for leadership excellence in an ancient Indian king, namely, Ashoka the Great (299–234B.C).In this paper we present a Case Study on Ashoka the Great. In order to understand his leadership excellence we focus on the vision, mission and action on which his wholesome leadership was based. The main objective of this paper is to bring out a few relevant points, which may contribute to the development of leadership excellence, which is the much focused topic in the field of management theory and practice.

Optimal monitor placement scheme for single fault detection in optical network

Abstract: This paper presents monitor placement scheme for single node fault detection in optical network. A single fault at a node may generally produce single/many alarms; as a result it becomes very difficult to detect the exact origin of failure. Our two-phased scheme minimizes the placement of the number of monitors to detect the origin of fault in polynomial time. We demonstrate the performance of our scheme on 14-node NSFnet.

Agency Costs and Foreign Institutional Investors in India

Abstract: Financial markets are the catalysts and engines of growth of any nation. Since its liberalization in 1991, India has initiated several steps to strengthen its financial system. The financial sector reforms undertaken by the Government of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), over the last few years have augmented the magnitude of FDI and FII inflows. The FDI inflow for the FY ended 1991 is US$ 97 million and the corresponding figure for the FY 2004 (P) is US$ 4,675 million. The corresponding figures for FII inflows are US$ 6 million and US$ 11.377 billion, respectively. The remarkable increase in the FDI's and FII's is due to the friendly enabling environment, significant improvement in terms of the efficiency of the capital markets and the protection of the investors. India, one of the biggest emerging markets, is currently an important destination for FDI and FII inflows. SEBI has undertaken important policy reforms to attract new investments into the country. This empirical study endeavors to find the effect of the contemporary changes in the corporate governance structures on the agency costs of the publicly traded companies; primarily to study the effect of FII shareholding on the agency costs of publicly traded companies. The results show that FII's are effective monitors in reducing the agency costs.

Economic Consequences of 'Regulation on Corporate Governance': Evidence from India

Abstract: Regulations dealing with investor protection are essential for economic development of any country. India, with more than 20 million shareholders, is one of the largest emerging markets in terms of market capitalization. In order to protect the large investor base, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has enforced a regulation requiring mandatory disclosure of information and change in the corporate governance mechanisms of Indian listed companies. The aim of this study is to empirically examine the economic impact of this Regulation on Indian stock market. The results provide evidence of significant reduction in beta of the experimental group, where beta is used as surrogate for cost of equity capital. The result is consistent with the notion that increased information and better corporate governance mechanism reduces the cost of equity capital of these companies.

A power aware routing strategy for ad hoc networks with directional antenna optimizing control traffic and power consumption

Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of power aware data routing strategies within ad hoc networks using directional antennas. Conventional routing strategies usually focus on minimizing the number of hops or route errors for transmission but they do not usually focus on the energy depletion of the nodes. In our proposal, if a node in the network has depleted its battery power, then an alternative node would be selected for routing so that not only the power is used optimally but there is an automatic load sharing or balancing among the nodes in the network. The usage of directional antenna in this scheme has some key advantages outperforming the omni-directional counterpart. The space division multiple access, range extension capabilities and power requirement of the directional antenna is itself a reason for its choice. We illustrate how directional antenna can be combined with the power aware routing strategy and using simulations, we quantify the energy benefits and protocol scalability.

Ethics Light from the Golden Quartet

Abstract: This article comprises deep structure clues to ethical issues in our lives drawn from the wisdom writings of Tagore, Vivekananda, Gandhi and Aurobindo. All of them had recognized frankly the negati...

Constraint Satisfaction Methods for Solving the Staff Transfer Problem

Abstract: The Staff Transfer Problem is concerned with the assignment of transfer postings to employees in large organizations. Staff transfers are an important issue in Human Resource Management in countries like India and China that have many large public sector undertakings. The Staff Transfer Problem can be viewed as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem, and methods such as Simulated Annealing, Genetic Algorithms, Satisfiability (GSAT), and Conflict Directed Backjumping can all be employed to solve randomly generated problem instances. Computer experiments indicate that Simulated Annealing is the best method of solution. GSAT with a tabu list yields solutions of good quality but is unable to solve large instances. Genetic Algorithms is also good, but it takes much more time than Simulated Annealing, Conflict Directed Backjumping, a deterministic search technique, is markedly inferior to the other methods. Thus for solving the Staff Transfer Problem, randomized approaches appear to be superior to deterministic ones.

An Efficient Technique for Frequent Pattern Mining in Real-Time Business Applications

Abstract: Association rule mining in real-time is of increasing thrust in many business applications. Applications such as e-commerce, recommender systems, supply-chain management and group decision support systems are to name a few. Finding frequent patterns from databases has been the most time consuming process of the association rule mining. Till date, a large number of algorithms have been proposed in the area of frequent pattern generation. However, all of these algorithms produce output only at the completion and are not amenable to the real-time need. The need for real-time frequent pattern mining for online tasks and real-time decision-making is increasingly being felt. In this paper, we describe BDFS(b), an algorithm to perform real-time frequent pattern mining using limited computer memory. Empirical evaluations show that our algorithm can make a fair estimation of the probable frequent patterns and reaches some of the longest frequent patterns much faster than the existing algorithms.

Optimal Location Area Planning for Mobile Cellular Network using Evolutionary Computing Methods

Abstract: In a mobile wireless cellular network the size of a location area (LA) could vary from one single cell to the entire service area under a Mobile Switching Center These two situations depict two extreme possibilities For the first case paging cost would be minimal whereas location update (LU) cost will be significantly high For the latter possibility, the situation will just be the reverse This work addresses the problem of designing an optimum LA within available spectrum such that total network cost, comprising of LU cost and cost for paging, can be minimized by resolving the inherent trade-off between these two cost components We have formulated a constrained cost optimization problem to find out the optimal LA size Since the optimization problem is combinatorial in nature, as solution methodologies we have presented two heuristics, based on Simulated Annealing and Genetic Algorithm The quality of the solutions obtained proves that in near future these two evolutionary methods will be strong cont

Legal Framework and Corporate Governance: Analysis of Indian Governance System

Abstract: The East-Asian crisis and the Enron debacle have drawn the attention of the scientific community on the issues of financial disclosures and corporate governance. Transparency and good governance is essential to strengthen the financial system and to withstand the any crisis, both internal and external. La Porta et al (2000) argue that the laws dealing with the protection of shareholders and the enforcement of such laws determines the financial strength of any country. In this paper we elaborate the corporate governance mechanisms in the context of the legal framework in India. The Indian legal provisions related to corporate governance is analyzed and the changes in such provisions is suggested to enable the Indian firms perform better in the new global environment.

Mobile agent based message communication in large ad hoc networks through co-operative routing using inter-agent negotiation at rendezvous points

Abstract: The wide availability of mobile devices together with the technical possibility to form ad-hoc networks paves the way for building highly dynamic communicating communities of mobile users. A challenge is how to deliver messages in such networks incurring least routing overhead. Cooperative routing is a mobile-agent assisted team approach, which utilizes a set of fixed cluster head nodes to provide proper coordination and cooperation for exchanges and sharing of messages in the team. Our routing strategy aims at reducing routing overheads, message traffic and unnecessary random node visits in the network for delivering data. The main benefit provided by cooperative routing is considerable network traffic reduction at high load. We highlight the main components of the system and discuss the agent life cycle in detail together with the parameters and strategies governing the migration of agents, their merging and termination.

An Efficient Lot-Sizing Heuristic for A Periodic-Review Inventory System under Non-Stationary Stochastic Demand

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the lot-sizing problem in a periodic-review inventory system under non-stationary stochastic demand. We propose a heuristic and compare its performance with the optimal solution given by dynamic programming for 90 problem instances. Across all the problem instances the heuristic averages 1.96% error, and is found to be at least 30 times faster than dynamic programming.

Privacy preserving decentralized method for computing a pareto-optimal solution

Abstract: Distributed methodologies to find pareto-optimal frontier with concern to privacy, of objectives and constraints, of parties is of interest in scenarios like negotiations. Adaptation of lagrangian method to solve distributed weighting method for both strictly concave and not strictly concave (e.g. linear) value functions is proposed for a maximization problem.

Analysis of internet patents on methods of electronic business

Abstract: This paper analyses patent applications for methods of electronic business as this analysis is important for firms involved in internet commerce. The contents of WIPO patent applications were examined to see the relationships between the underlying technology of the patent, its business application and the potential markets where these patents were sought. For this, classification schemes for the technology and business application of the patent were developed. We find that there is a distinct relationship between country of origin of the patent, the cluster of countries (i.e., markets) designated in the application as well as the business application and technology of the patent. The cluster of countries designated and its business application and technology type were also related to the type of applicant. Further, the business application of the patent was closely related to its technology. These results have several important implications for patenting strategies of innovators.

The Effects of Group Incentives in an Indian Firm: Evidence from Payroll Data

Abstract: This paper estimates the effects of group incentives on productivity, pay and employment in a large unionized firm in India. Using plant-level monthly time-series data from the payroll office for the period 1985-95, and controlling for both (plant) fixed effects and (contract) time effects, the paper provides econometric evidence on the effectiveness of both the level and intensity of incentive pay on the outcome measures. In addition, the relative performance of two types of group incentives defined on the basis of group size is also analysed. The results generally confirm predictions from theory that productivity returns to incentives are non-linear and concave in shape and that the effectiveness of incentives is decreasing in group size. It is argued that the latter is most likely due to the lessening of the free-rider problem and the increased effectiveness of peer monitoring associated with smaller groups. The results also point to a negative relationship between the level of incentives and employment over time.