Profile of injury cases admitted to a tertiary level hospital in south India

Injuries now rank among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality the world over. Injuries are steadily increasing in developing countries like India. Systematic and scientific efforts in injury prevention and control are yet to begin in India. Data on injuries are very essential to plan preventive and control measures. The objective of this study is to know the profile of the injury cases admitted to M S Ramaiah hospital, Bangalore, India, using a cross-sectional study design for six months, i.e. from Oct 2008 to April 2009. The mean age of the study population was 35.3 years (SD = 15.38), 69.1% were injured in road traffic accidents (RTA), 28.7% due to falls and 2.2% due to burns. Nearly 14.4% were under the influence of alcohol. Nearly 73.6% of RTA cases were two-wheeler users, 48.5% had not followed sign boards and 56.5% had not obeyed the one-way rules, 63.5% of the two-wheeler users did not use helmets. Also, 38% of two wheelers had two pillion riders, whereas 57% of four-wheeler users had not used a seat belt. Among falls, 58% occurred at home, 49% occurred due to slippery surface. Road traffic accidents were the most common cause for injuries, in which two wheelers were most commonly involved. Strict enforcement of traffic rules and education on road safety are very essential to prevent injuries.     

A Time-Series Investigation of the U.S. Real Health Expenditure: Evidence from Nonlinear Unit Root Tests

This paper contributes to the literature on health expenditure studies by applying the non-linear unit root tests formulated recently by Kapetanios et al. (Journal of Econometrics 112(2):359?C79, 2003) to empirically test whether the U.S. real health expenditure time-series are non-stationary or non-linear and globally stationary during a relatively long period from 1965 to 2009. For comparison purposes, it also reports the results of a battery of traditional linear unit root tests and the Lee and Strazicich??s minimum LM unit root (Review of Economics and Statistics 85(4):1082?C1089, 2003) test for structural breaks. The empirical findings of the paper show that in the United States during the period under investigation, the real health expenditure time-series are non-stationary in levels. Policy implications of the empirical findings are discussed.     

Nature of Buyer–Supplier Relationship: Small Businesses in a Small City

If the proposition of Williamson that “highly standardized transactions are not apt to require a specialized governance structure” (1979, p. 248) is to be accepted, then a discrete transaction market between small business owners and their suppliers can be easily organized in the market. This view essentially nullifies the possibility of there being a relational transaction. In this backdrop, this research attempts to explore the small buyer–supplier relationship in the context of a small city. Keeping embeddedness (Granovetter, Am. J. Sociol., 1985; 91: 481–510) as a theoretical foundation, we explore the social content in an apparently pure economic exchange. Although, earlier attempts (Khoja and Kauffman, J. Small Bus. Manag., 2012; 50: 20–40; Uzzi, Am. Socio. Rev., 1996; 61: 674–698) conformed to embeddedness in transactions between a buyer and a supplier among businesses of various sizes, they largely ignored very small‐size buyers and suppliers owing to the miniscule size of business transactions and less frequent interactions between buyers and suppliers. Based on the grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research‐Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques, 1990), in this study, we conducted in‐depth interviews with 57 very small business owners to develop detailed narratives. These narratives were organized under four themes: Contractual relationship, Strategic information sharing, Caste as a proxy, and Trust Factor. The findings clearly indicate that small business owners foster continued relationships with their suppliers, owing to social conditioning factors.     

The impact of bilateral tax treaties: A multi-country analysis of FDI inflows into India

This paper models the role of tax treaties in promoting foreign direct investment (FDI) with the help of panel data for 14 countries for the period 1993–2011. A fixed effects (least squares dummy variable) model is developed that captures macroeconomic factors such as gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income (PCI) in ratio form of home to host country. It also includes bilateral tax treaties as a determinant of FDI inflow. The results show that GDP is a major determinant that is demand driven and per capita income is a major determinant that is supply driven. FDI openness of the home countries and population are also significant determinants. The introduction of the treaty had a positive impact on FDI inflows into India. We get largely significant and positive results for the ‘age of the treaty effect’, especially, in the case of Germany, Switzerland and Japan. The main contribution of the paper is to show that both presence and ‘age of treaty’ are important determinants of FDI flows to India. Further, fundamentals like GDP and PCI are major variables that influence FDI inflows.     

Allocating a Promotion Budget between Advertising and Sales Contest Prizes: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective

This paper develops and analyzes a normative model for allocating a fixed, short-term promotion budget between product advertising and prizes of a rank-order sales contest for a homogeneous sales force when sales are driven by both personal selling effort and advertising. The model provides insights into how the optimal budget allocations vary with the synergy between advertising and selling effort, sales force size, salesperson risk-tolerance, perceived cost of effort, selling effectiveness and sales response uncertainty. The analysis highlights the need for and value of close coordination between marketing and sales management in designing a promotion program involving both advertising and sales force incentives.     

The effects of reward structure,media richness and gender on virtual teams

This study explores the dynamics of virtual teams. We hypothesize that the use of a mixed-incentive reward structure will increase team member satisfaction, affect group cohesion and decrease perceived social loafing in a virtual team environment. We also hypothesize that team member satisfaction and team cohesion will increase and perceived social loafing will decrease with the use of a richer technology medium in a virtual team environment. In addition, we hypothesize that in a virtual team environment, team member satisfaction, group cohesion and perceived social loafing will differ between males and females. Using eighty-nine MBA students at a large southeastern university as participant's for our study, we find that perceived social loafing decreases with the use of a mixed-incentive reward structure in a virtual team environment. We also find that perceived social loafing decreases with the use of a richer technology medium in a virtual team environment. Finally, we find that perceived social loafing differs between males and females and that females perceive more social loafing when there is not a mixed-incentive scheme. The results shed light on the role of gender in virtual teams.     

Some extensions to a stochastic model for technological forecasting

In this article we propose and analyze two stochastic models for technological forecasting. These models are extensions of the simple model proposed by the author in an earlier article.