Employee service abandonment in offshore operations: A case study of a US multinational in India

Indian Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) exports industry has witnessed an exponential growth over the last few years. This has been accompanied by a shortage of talented skilled workers to serve the BPO sector. Attracting and retaining talented employees has become the chief challenge of HR departments in the BPO industry. This study examines the demographic antecedents of job abandonment among call centre employees in India using a large firm level data. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Customer-Based Valuation

Customer lifetime value (CLV) has emerged as an important metric to manage and grow customers. Marketing scholars have written many books and articles on this topic. However, most of this research has focused on tactical marketing decisions. While this is important, it is not enough to gain attention of senior managers who are concerned about firm level metrics such as stock price. To have greater impact marketing needs to go beyond brand-level profits to show the impact of marketing actions on firm profitability. In this paper we focus on customer lifetime value and its link to firm value. We discuss research that provides customer-based valuation of firms and suggest directions for future research.     

Constructing the Economy: The Role of Construction Sector in India’s Growth

On empirically examining the importance of construction sector in propelling economic growth rate in India, the study has found that in the presence of the dominant influence of capital stock, the impact of the construction sector gets blurred or neutralized. Once capital stock is dropped from the model, the construction sector emerges as a significant determinant of economic growth, while other financial variables such as interest rate and non-food bank credit including the financial liberalization dummy do not play significant roles in economic growth. However, from an investigation of the impact of the construction sector on economic growth through the channel of employment, it is seen that the construction sector might be impacting the growth rate through increasing employment and thereby increasing the aggregate output in the economy.     

Equipment-related injuries in agriculture: an international perspective

Injuries related to agricultural equipment are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, in both high-income and low-income countries. Tractors are most often associated with severe injuries and fatalities. All age groups sustain injuries. Injuries to children are also prevalent because the sites of agricultural work overlap homes in rural areas. In the majority of papers reviewed, preventive methods are mostly targeted at behaviour modification and effective medical facilities, whereas only a few authors have highlighted design changes and passive measures for injury control. The effectiveness of suggested interventions is not discussed in the majority of papers except those related to roll-over protection structures, fodder cutting machines and thresher safety devices.     

Reversing the Logic: The Path to Profitability through Relationship Marketing

Many firms have experienced greater success through implementing relationship marketing strategies. This is achieved by gaining knowledge about their own customers through database marketing and about the general marketplace through marketing research. Over time, this has led firms to adopt a general framework which we call the conventional path to profitability. This conventional framework suggests that new product innovation leads to acquisition, acquisition combined with a rich experience leads to satisfaction, satisfaction leads to loyalty and customer retention, and loyalty/retention leads to profitability. However, we show that some of the links in the framework are weak based on both academic research and marketplace realities. Consequently, we reverse the logic of the conventional path to profitability. We introduce a new approach that starts the customer relationship management strategy with customer profitability and the notion that different customers should be rewarded and satisfied differently. In addition, we outline a strategy that relationship marketing firms can implement, leading to higher levels of customer profitability and offer directions for future research.     

ARE OUTPUT FLUCTUATIONS TRANSITORY? NEW EVIDENCE FROM 24 CHINESE PROVINCES

Abstract. The fact that an occurrence of a unit root in real output is inconsistent with the notion that business cycles are stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend makes this an important topic for empirical investigation. We examine this issue for 24 Chinese provinces using the recently developed Lagrange multiplier panel unit root test which allows for a structural break. Our main finding is that real gross domestic product (GDP) and real GDP per capita for Chinese provinces are stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend.     

Organizational energy: an empirical study in Indian R&D laboratories

Analyzing the way organizations function and the processes that operate within these organizations is an important managerial responsibility. We have adopted a people–oriented approach called organizational energy to develop a simple process for diagnosing the level of satisfaction of scientists working in R&D laboratories. Psychic energy as reflected in different work activities in an organization is manifested in energy generating and energy draining activities that can be reduced to an energy count. The present study assesses the use of mental energy by scientific personnel working in three national laboratories in India with the objective of increasing the energy count for improving organizational effectiveness. We hope that the results can be used as the basis for initiating action to improve the motivation and utilization of scientists in India, to support the overall goal of self–reliance in science and technology.     

Nonlinear mapping: An alternative to multidimensional scaling for product positioning

This study tests and contrasts the ability of multidimensional scaling (MDS) and nonlinear mapping (NLM) in recovering complex data structures in attribute space, and aiding researchers and practitioners in making neighborhood interpretations. The relative merits of both MDS and NLM for product positioning are explored and discussed. A formal comparison of the performance of NLM versus MDS is presented using both simulated and actual data. The results of this study provide direction as to the conditions under which a nonlinear mapping algorithm is preferable over MDS.     

Exploring New Product Development Project Review Practices*

Most organizations use new product development (NPD) processes that consist of activities and review points. Activities basically solve problems and gather and produce information about the viability of successfully completing the project. Interspersed between the development activities are review points where project information is reviewed and a decision is made to either go on to the next stage of the process, stop it prior to completion, or hold it until more information is gathered and a better decision can be made. The review points are for controlling risk, prioritizing projects, and allocating resources, and the review team typically is cross‐disciplinary, comprising senior managers from marketing, finance, research and development (R&D), or manufacturing. Over the past four decades, research has greatly advanced knowledge with respect to NPD activities; however, much less is known about review practices. For this reason, the present paper reports findings of a study on NPD project review practices from 425 Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) members. The focus is on three decision points in the NPD process common across organizations (i.e., initial screen, prior to development and testing, and prior to commercialization). In this paper, the number of (1) review points used, (2) review criteria, (3) decision makers on review committees and the proficiency with which various evaluation criteria are used are compared across incremental and radical projects and across functional areas (i.e., marketing, technical, financial). Furthermore, the associations between these NPD review practices and new product performance are examined. Selected results show that more review points are used for radical NPD projects than incremental ones, and this is related to a relatively lower rate of survival for radical projects. The findings also show that the number of criteria used to evaluate NPD projects increases as NPD projects progress and that the number of review team members grows over the stages, too. Surprisingly, the results reveal that more criteria are used to evaluate incremental NPD projects than radical ones. As expected, managers appear to more proficiently use evaluation criteria when making project continuation/termination decisions for incremental projects; they use these criteria less proficiently during the development of radical projects, precisely when proficiency is most critical. At each review point, technical criteria were found to be the most frequently used type for incremental projects, and financial criteria were the most commonly used type for radical ones. Importantly, only review proficiency is significantly associated with performance; the number of review points, review team size, and number of review criteria are not associated with new product performance. Furthermore, only the coefficient for proficiently using marketing criteria was significantly related to new product program performance; the proficiency of using financial and technical information has no association with performance. Finally, across the three focal review points of the NPD process in this study, only the coefficient for proficiency at the first review point, (i.e., the initial screen) is significantly greater than zero. The results are discussed with respect to research and managerial practice, and future research directions are offered.