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.     

Determinants of women's financial inclusion: Evidence from India

A number of studies have analyzed the determinants of financial inclusion in India, but few if any have focused specifically on the factors that shape women's access to finance. This paper draws on the trove of women-specific data collected in the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), conducted in 2015–16 in India, to examine the factors that influence women's access to finance. The results indicate that while the forces that shape women's access to finance function at multiple levels, micro-level factors appear to be powerful drivers of inclusion. The analysis reveals that household-level economic indicators like wealth, gender of household head and their rural-urban location are crucial, but so are individual-level characteristics which explain approximately 83% of the variation in the multilevel regressions. Informal gender norms that govern women's mobility and economic activity crucially influence the ability of women to access loans and open bank accounts.     

Evaluating Agricultural Energy Policies Under Uncertainty: The Case of Electricity in South India

Farmers' attitude towards risk associated with the availability of energy inputs will influence their investment behavior and demand for energy inputs. In order to analyze policies that reduce the risk in energy availability, some modifications in methods are required. This study, using a mean-variance framework, demonstrates how cross-sectional data and time-series data on crop yields and prices can be used to analyze agricultural energy policies under uncertainty in a developing country context. It is argued that the farmers risk attitudes, their crop allocation behavior, changes in the demand for energy inputs and the stochastic relationship between various forms of energy inputs can be explained by the various energy constraints faced by them. Furthermore, using the same methods the impact of policies which affect these constraints, can be analyzed.     

Sharing Demand Information in a Value Chain: Implications for Pricing and Profitability

While it is known that information exchange (IE) in a value chain improves resource coordination, scant attention has been paid to two issues. The first issue is the effect of relative bargaining strengths of the parties on whether and how IE will be implemented. The second issue is whether a resource-based costing system is adequate to motivate the implementation of information exchange. In this paper, we model a value chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer, where the retailer gets (private) demand information that has the potential of improving the manufacturers resource decisions. In this model, it is always beneficial for the value chain to implement IE. We show that in a monopsony or in a bilateral monopoly when the retailer has sufficient bargaining power, IE can be implemented if and only if the wholesale price compensates him for the loss of the information rent that he would get without IE. Using this model as the benchmark, we also examine other settings where the retailers have less bargaining power due to competition or size. In such settings, even though the retailers are better informed, the manufacturer can implement the IE regime costlessly and appropriate the information rent partially or fully. In effect, the manufacturer benefits both by improved resource coordination and by reduced payment for information rent. In all these settings, we find the retailer will not be motivated to adopt IE solely by a resource-based costing and pricing system.     

Asymmetric effects of exchange rate movements on traditional and modern services exports: Evidence from a large emerging economy

The service sector in India has emerged as the ‘new engine of growth’ with an increasing share in output and exports. In this paper we analyse the effect of real exchange rate movements on service exports of India, incorporating goods exports, financial development, FDI inflows, world demand and the role of globalization as drivers. We find that while traditional service exports are negatively and significantly affected by the real exchange rate movements, the modern service exports are negatively but not significantly affected. By applying the asymmetric cointegration approach, the results also confirm the non-existence of any asymmetric relationship between the real exchange rate and service exports in India. Further, the results also show that the supply augmenting and demand-side factors are more dominant than the exchange rate to affect service exports from India.     

Two-period supply chain coordination strategies with ambidextrous sustainable innovations

This study considers a manufacturer with ambidextrous sustainable innovation capability selling products in environmentally conscious market through an independent retailer in a two-period game setting. We design a two-period game theoretic and dyadic supply chain (SC) model considering exploitative and exploratory nature of environmental innovations. We study five different contract types, namely, wholesale price contract, vertical Nash game structure, cost sharing contract, revenue sharing contract and two-part tariff contract. We demonstrate the impact of market sensitivity towards sustainable innovation and cost parameters on optimal level of decision parameters. The equilibrium results reveal that a suitably designed two-part tariff contract can be used to achieve coordination in a fragmented SC. The equilibrium results assist managers to optimise the SC based on the two-period contract model. The results obtained in this study can help the decision-makers to take decisions on investment in the ambidextrous sustainable innovation under different types of contract structures.     

The effect of environmental regulations,top management commitment,and organizational learning on green product innovation: Evidence from automobile industry

This paper proposes and empirically examines a model to investigate the effect of environmental regulations, top management commitment (TMCO) and organizational learning toward green product innovation (GPI). The proposed theoretical model, grounded in dynamic capabilities view (DCV) and upper echelons theory, is analyzed by Partial least squares (PLS) method using the data from Indian automotive manufacturing firms. The findings indicate the importance of TMCO and organizational learning for implementing GPI (in response to regulations), and achieve desired performance. Further, organizational learning fully mediates between commitment of top management and GPI. The findings can be useful for managers in automotive manufacturing firms who are interested toward implementing GPI. The paper contributes to green innovation literature by empirically examining the role of TMCO and organizational learning for GPI.     

OPTIMAL CONSUMPTION AND PORTFOLIO DECISIONS WITH PARTIALLY OBSERVED REAL PRICES

We consider optimal consumption and portfolio investment problems of an investor who is interested in maximizing his utilities from consumption and terminal wealth subject to a random inflation in the consumption basket price over time. We consider two cases: (i) when the investor observes the basket price and (ii) when he receives only noisy observations on the basket price. We derive the optimal policies and show that a modified Mutual Fund Theorem consisting of three funds holds in both cases. The compositions of the funds in the two cases are the same, but in general the investor's allocations of his wealth into these funds will differ. However, in the particular case when the investor has constant relative risk-aversion (CRRA) utility, his optimal investment allocations into these funds are also the same in both cases.     

A comparison of the technical efficiencies of health districts and hospitals in Botswana

An attempt is made here to construct and present relative efficiency indices for the services rendered by health districts and specific hospitals in Botswana, using Stochastic Frontier Regression analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis. The analysis indicated that three districts - Kweneng East, Kgalagadi and Boteti - have efficiency scores below the optimum level. Among the 13 hospitals considered, Tsabong Primary Hospital was found to have an efficiency score of less than one. Since the health services involve a number of factors, these indices ought to serve as indicators for further scrutiny of those units (health districts and hospitals) that fall below the optimum efficiency level. The data used for the analysis are from the published material by the Central Statistics Office, Botswana for the year 1997. Health is considered one of the major concerns of the government of Botswana. As a consequence, the authors feel that this study will be useful to policy makers and health planners in giving them some kind of relative ranking among health districts and hospitals.     

Examining CSR disclosure strategies within the Australian food and beverage industry

This study examines intra-industry variation in CSR disclosure practice. Specifically, it investigates whether companies from industry sub-sectors with different CSR profiles have varying patterns of CSR disclosure. The industry analysed is the Australian food and beverage industry. The paper finds that companies from industry sub-sectors with higher CSR profiles engage in greater ‘symbolic’ disclosures. Further, the relationship between CSR profile and disclosure strategy was found to be influenced also by the centrality of the CSR issue under examination to the company's business. While the small sample size limits generalisability, these findings have implications for both CSR research and practice.