Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

About: Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is a education organization based out in Kolkata, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supply chain & Context (language use). The organization has 415 authors who have published 1354 publications receiving 21725 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMC & IIM Calcutta.

Producing the Aesthetic Self: An Analysis of Aesthetic Skill and Labour in the Organized Retail Industries in India:

Abstract: Drawing on the concept of aesthetic labour, this article examines how skill training programmes in the organized retail industries in Kolkata modulate underclass female service worker-bodies to ali...

Managing human resources in dynamic environments to create value: role of HR options

Abstract: HR options as firm investments in human assets in uncertain environments to create the capability to flexibly respond to future contingent events have been recognised as valuable. However, the black box of causal interlinkages between environmental uncertainties, HR options and firm performance is yet to be explored in strategic HRM literature. Based on the data obtained from 108 IT software firms in India, this study empirically explores these linkages using a multi-level causal model. The results suggest that the use of HR options positively mediates the effects of environmental uncertainties on firm performance. The mediating influences of different types of HR options, used by the firms to manage various types of uncertainties affecting their human assets, on the operational and the financial performance of the firms are found to be different. Implications of findings of the study for managing investments in human assets under uncertainty have been discussed.

Optimal (2, n) visual cryptographic schemes

Abstract: In (2,n) visual cryptographic schemes, a secret image(text or picture) is encrypted into n shares, which are distributed among n participants. The image cannot be decoded from any single share but any two participants can together decode it visually, without using any complex decoding mechanism. In this paper, we introduce three meaningful optimality criteria for evaluating different schemes and show that some classes of combinatorial designs, such as BIB designs, PBIB designs and regular graph designs, can yield a large number of black and white (2,n) schemes that are optimal with respect to all these criteria. For a practically useful range of n, we also obtain optimal schemes with the smallest possible pixel expansion.

Determinants and impacts of subcontracting: evidence from India’s unorganized manufacturing sector

Abstract: There are two divergent perspectives on the impact of subcontracting on firms in the informal sector. According to the benign view, formal sector firms prefer linkages with relatively modern firms in the informal sector, and subcontracting enables capital accumulation and technological improvement in the latter. According to the exploitation view, formal sector firms extract surplus from stagnant, asset-poor informal sector firms that use cheap family labour in home-based production. However, direct, firm-level evidence on the determinants and impact of subcontracting is thus far lacking in the literature. We apply a modified Heckman selection model to Indian National Sample Survey data on informal manufacturing enterprises (2005–2006). We find that home-based, relatively asset-poor, and female-owned firms are more likely to be in a subcontracting relationship. Further, we perform selectivity-corrected Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition and calculate treatment effects to show that subcontracting benefits smalle...