Leadership Spiritual Behaviors Toward Subordinates: An Empirical Examination of the Effects of a Leader’s Individual Spirituality and Organizational Spirituality

This study notes three research requirements in workplace spirituality namely; need for conducting empirical studies, building on the existing research, and linking spirituality to organizational topics in general and leadership in particular. It also notes that the existing literature indicates a requirement for examining the spiritual sources of a leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. To address these research requirements in workplace spirituality, this study conducts an empirical examination of the effect of two spiritual factors—leader’s individual spirituality and organizational spirituality—on leadership spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. It specifies and empirically examines a direct effects model hypothesizing direct effects of these two variables on a leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. It also specifies and empirically examines a moderating effect model hypothesizing that organizational spirituality will moderate the relationship between a leader’s individual spirituality and the leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. The results of this study provided support for the direct effects model but not for the moderating effect model. Specifically, in the direct effects model, a leader’s individual spirituality accounted for statistically significant variance in leadership spiritual behaviors toward subordinates but organizational spirituality did not.     

Improving the management of concurrent new product development using process modelling and analysis

This paper focuses on how process modelling and analysis using 'light weight' technology¹ supported by focused group discussions and workshops can improve the 'concurrence' and integration within the New Product Development process. This enables managers to improve the management of product design and development through a better understanding of the issues. The paper argues that the traditional changes in human resource management via introduction of multifunctional/collocated teams required by Concurrent New Product Development (CNPD) can be complemented by the introduction of process management, focused on the modelling and analysis of the 'softer' organisational issues. A case study of a domestic appliance manufacturer, developing a new product using a collocated product development team, is described to verify the research. The paper concludes by discussing the issues that emerge from this type of approach to performance improvement in NPD management, such as involvement of all team functions, senior management commitment, standardisation of processes, and training in the process management concept including modelling and analysis techniques. The approach proposed allows one to make both tangible benefits, in terms of cost, delivery (lead times) and quality, and intangible benefits, in terms of communication, people empowerment, motivation, and collaboration.     

Resurrection of traditional communities in postmodern societies

Modern societies seem to have recognised the importance of communities and the community capacity to be self reliant, and to reduce burden on the state, at least to some degree. Thus it is hardly surprising that several western countries’ current policies have been reverberating with the idea and vision of community responsibilities, participation and decision making. What kind of communities do these policies envision? Can western societies resurrect traditional communities in postmodern societies? To address such questions, this paper argues that though highly challenging, it is possible to rebuild some elements of traditional communities in postmodern societies. In fact, such creation is an ideal world to live in. For that to occur western societies should give adequate time, resources and commitment to it, as they did to create modern societies. Most importantly, they also need to somewhat alter their ‘life style’: “When you throw ‘individuals’ from the window, communities rush in through the door”.     

Workplace Spirituality Facilitation: A Comprehensive Model

This article specifies a comprehensive model for workplace spirituality facilitation that integrates various views from the existing research on workplace spirituality facilitation. It outlines the significance of workplace spirituality topic and highlights its relevance to the area of ethics. It then briefly outlines the various directions the existing workplace spirituality research has taken. Based on this, it indicates that an integration of the elements from various existing research works on workplace spirituality facilitation into a comprehensive workplace spirituality facilitation model could make relevant contributions to the existing workplace spirituality research. It then indicates that there are various points of focus in workplace spirituality conceptualization and facilitation views. It outlines various views from the existing research on workplace spirituality facilitation. Drawing on the elements of these various workplace spirituality facilitation views, it specifies a comprehensive model of workplace spirituality facilitation. It outlines how the various parts and linkages depicted in the comprehensive model of workplace spirituality facilitation are consistent with and are supported by the various views of workplace spirituality facilitation that it seeks to integrate. It then outlines how the comprehensive model specified can guide the future research in the area of workplace spirituality and how it can provide inputs to leadership and organization development (OD) efforts for workplace spirituality facilitation.     

The Indian exchange rate and Central Bank action: An EGARCH analysis

We analyze the impact of conventional monetary policy measures such as interest rates, intervention, and other quantitative measures, on exchange rate level and volatility, and compare these to the impact of Central Bank communication using dummy variables in the best of a family of GARCH models estimated with daily and monthly Indian data. Since India has a managed float, we also test if the measures affect the level of the exchange rate. We find variations in the Euro/Dollar rate strongly affect the Rupee/Dollar level and volatility. The interest rate differential has strong perverse effects, tending to increase variance and depreciate the Indian currency. News decreases volatility as it adds to scarce information. Domestic policy variables affect both level and volatility, and persist at the monthly frequency, but sometimes work at cross-purposes. Communication channels have potential but were not used effectively.     

A conceptualisation of design context to explain design trade-offs in the automotive industry

The paper explores decision-making rationale when making trade-offs in design. A case study of a mass-market car manufacturer was conducted using interviews, qualitative questionnaires and observation. It revealed that decision-making practices in trade-off situations depend on the way that decision makers perceive the relative importance of design targets and trade-off criteria. These practices are unformalised and embedded in the larger processes of car development and often contradict the technical guidelines for making trade-offs that exist in the company. The paper presents a conceptual framework to explain the rationale of trade-offs in different design contexts. How to apply this framework to understand design trade-offs is described with an illustration of its use in two real life examples.     

The marketing firm and co-creation: An empirical study of marketer and customer's co-creation process

This study empirically investigates the marketer and customer's co-creation process within the context of the marketing firm. Based on principles from bilateral contingencies, findings from a conjoint study (n = 98) indicate that utilitarian and informational reinforcing consequences from the marketer have a stronger impact on customers' co-creation behavior relative to informational reinforcing consequences from other customers. Consequently, analyzing the impact of important reinforcing contingencies through the lens of bilateral contingencies expands our understanding of how and why co-creation outcomes might occur. Also, a good co-creation process may increase the business companies' research and intelligence and, as a consequence, strengthen their competitiveness.     

Supply chain risk management in India – practical insights

This paper reviews the supply chain risk management (SCRM) literature to identify as well as to discuss and elaborate on the impact and origin of major supply chain risk factors in an Indian context. Through a combination of existing literature and a survey instrument, we identify major SCRM issues including underlying supply chain risks and thereafter identify gaps, issues and opportunities for further research. SCRM has become a popular research topic, in part owing to increased globalisation of business. Moreover competitive factors such as shorter product life cycles, technological innovations and changing government policies have brought this topic more sharply into focus. We carried out a survey among Indian supply chain professionals, based on supply chain risk constructs developed from a literature review. Statistical analysis utilised exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to determine the major risk factors in the Indian supply chain sector. We found a range of supply chain risks prevalent in Indian supply chains, classified here as cultural, operational, infrastructure, economic, forecasting and supplier-related risks. However, for a variety of reasons and as discussed in the paper, the implications can vary considerably. Based on the findings we provide a future SCRM research agenda from an Indian perspective. As international supply chains increasingly have Indian partners and domestic firms within India seek to be globally competitive, the risks need to be better understood. This is the first detailed study on SCRM practices in an Indian context.     

Monetary versus fiscal policy in India: an SVAR analysis

Conventionally, the policymakers relied on three policy alternatives to manage business cycles – debt-financed government spending, debt-financed tax rebate and interest rate. While the first two are fiscal policy instruments, the latter is a monetary policy instrument. This paper aims to capture interactions among Indian monetary and fiscal policy actions, and the impact of such policy actions on select macroeconomic variables for the period 1990Q1–2011Q4. The policy actions are identified using the sign restrictions approach combined with magnitude restrictions in a Structural Vector Autoregression framework, and interpreted using impulse responses and variance decomposition. The results show that Indian monetary policy responds to tax rebate shocks and spending shocks differently. In the case of a tax rebate shock, Indian monetary policy responds by reducing interest rates thereby accommodating fiscal expansion. On the opposite, monetary policy seems not to accommodate expenditure shocks. Interestingly, the monetary policy shock is accompanied by a fiscal expansion that threatens the credibility of the central bank actions, thus indicating fiscal policy dominance. A comparison of the efficacy of the policies suggests that the interest rate is more effective in stimulating output. Out of the two fiscal policy instruments analysed, the tax rebate seems to be the better option for stimulating output considering the output-debt trade-off.     

The marketing firm and co-creation: The case of co-creation by LEGO

This article discusses the marketer and customer co-creation process within the context of bilateral contingencies. Bilateral contingencies occur when the marketers' behavior is reinforced (and/or punished) by the customers' behavior, whereas the behavior of the customers is reinforced (and/or punished) by the marketers' actions. Using the example of the LEGO community, we discuss how the marketers in the organization can respond to behaviors resulting from co-creational customer–customer exchanges. This paper fills the knowledge gap by presenting a behavior analysis framework (theory of the marketing firm) for the empirical measurement of the co-creation process.