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743 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2018

Effective feedback for millennials in new organizations

Prantika Ray and Manjari Singh

Human Resource Management International Digest

Purpose

This paper aims to understand aspects of feedback given to the millennial generation, particularly in new organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a review of existing literature from journals and magazines. The perspectives discussed in this paper have been substantiated with discussions with practicing line and HR managers. This paper has been further developed after conducting informal discussions with employees and their supervisors (both millennials and non-millennials). However, the synthesized perspectives expressed here are those of the authors.

Findings

The millennial generation has characteristics that relate to receiving feedback. Key aspects discussed in this paper are the purpose of feedback, formal versus informal methods, short versus long-term orientation, frequency, hierarchical relationships, and technology.

Practical implications

With the increasing entry of millennials into the workforce, organizations need to focus on the mechanisms and environments for effective feedback.

Originality/value

This paper is timely given the rising number of millennials entering the workforce. This work looks into the mechanisms for effective performance feedback, as well as creating a facilitating environment with the focus on employee development.

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Journal Articles | 2018

An integrated decision support system for strategic supply chain optimisation in process industries: The case of a zinc company

Goutam Dutta, Narain Gupta, Goutam Dutta, and Manoj K. Tiwari

International Journal of Production Research

We introduce a menu-driven user-friendly decision support system (DSS) for supply chain planning based on optimisation. The DSS is based on a multi-source (supplier), multi-destination (warehouse) network having multiple manufacturing facilities, with multiple materials and multiple storage areas. This integrated supply chain model performs multiple period planning. The use of this DSS requires little knowledge of management sciences tools. We discuss the need for an integrated approach towards supply chain modelling for the process industry. We present the integrated model in the form of a database structure. We validate the model with the real data of a zinc company and demonstrate the impact of optimisation in terms of percentage improvement. The result shows that it is possible to improve unit contribution to profit from 1.89 to 4.66%.

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Journal Articles | 2018

The effects of volunteerism on self-deception and locus of contro

Naman Desai, Sharvari Dalal, and Saurabh Rawal

International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations

This study examines whether volunteering for not-for-profit Organizations (NPOs) which are involved in providing social welfare services and which actively promote sociobehavioral factors like social responsibility, leadership, and self-confidence among its volunteers, reduces an individual’s likelihood of engaging in corrupt practices. We identify two psychological traits: propensity to rationalize (as evidenced by self-deception) and an external locus of control (as compared to an internal LOC) that facilitate unethical behavior. With the help of volunteers from two NPOs, we investigate whether engaging in social welfare activities organized by such NPOs would create awareness about the adverse consequences of corruption faced by large segments of the society, which in turn would make it difficult to rationalize unethical and corrupt acts. Additionally, most NPOs actively strive to develop self-confidence and leadership skills among its volunteers. Prior literature indicates that individuals possessing such qualities are more likely to have an internal LOC and also that individuals possessing an internal LOC are less likely to act in a corrupt manner. The overall results indicate that greater experience with such NPOs leads to a significant reduction in propensity to rationalize and leads to a higher likelihood of having an internal LOC.

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Journal Articles | 2018

How effective are disability sensitization workshops?

Mukta Kulkarni, Ansgar Richter, K.V. Gopakumar, and Shivani Patel

Employee Relations

Purpose

Organizations are increasingly investing in disability-specific sensitization workshops. Yet, there is limited understanding about their hoped outcomes, that is, increased knowledge about disability-related issues and behavioral changes with respect to those with a disability. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness and boundaries of disability-specific sensitization training in organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This is an interview-based study where 33 employees from five industries across India were interviewed over the span of a year.

Findings

The findings suggest that sensitization workshops are successful with regard to awareness generation. Paradoxically, the same awareness also reinforced group boundaries through “othering.” Further, workshops resonated more so with individuals who already had some prior experience with disability, implying that voluntary sensitization is likely attracting those who have the least need of such sensitization. The findings also suggest that non-mandated interventions may not necessarily influence organizational level outcomes, especially if workshops are conducted in isolation from a broader organizational culture of inclusion.

Originality/value

The present study helps outline effects of sensitization training initiatives and enhances our understanding about how negative attitudes toward persons with a disability can be overcome. The study also indicates how such training initiatives may inadvertently lead to “othering.” Finally, this study offers suggestions to human resource managers for designing impactful disability sensitization workshops.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Does the diversification – Firm performance relationship change over time?

Monika Schommer, Ansgar Richter, and Amit Karna

Journal of Management Studies

We study the relationship between diversification and firm performance in the context of the decline in levels of diversification over time. We argue that the pressure to reduce diversification may have more strongly affected those firms whose diversification strategies were most detrimental to firm performance. We employ meta-analytical regression (MARA) in order to test our hypotheses, using a total of 267 primary studies containing 387 effect sizes based on 150,000 firm-level observations from over 60 years of research on the diversification–firm performance relationship. The findings suggest that levels of unrelated diversification have decreased, whereas levels of related diversification have increased since the mid-1990s, following an initial decrease in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, we find that the relationship between unrelated diversification and firm performance has improved significantly over time, whereas the relationship between related diversification and performance has remained relatively stable.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Children's media socialisation: Parental concerns and mediation in Iran

Melika Kordrostami, Akshaya Vijayalakshmi, and Russell N. Laczniak

Journal of Marketing Management

Children’s media socialisation, parental concerns, and mediation styles have been studied mainly in the US and Europe. The present research aims to extend media socialisation theory by investigating children’s media behaviour and parental concerns and mediation styles in Iran, and then to compare the findings with the research based on parents in Western countries. Based on in-depth interviews with parents from Iran, we put forth propositions and a media socialisation model. We find that parental concerns and behaviour are influenced by their cultural practices and expectations, government regulations, and media dominant in the local region.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified soy feed in Sweden

Mattias Eriksson, Ranjan Ghosh, Emma Hansson, Shyam Basnet, and Carl-Johan Lagerkvist

Journal of Cleaner Production

Most environmental assessments of soy production and trade do not distinguish between genetically modified (GM) and non-GM soy. In reality though, soybean imports to European Union maintain identity preservation through segregated supply lines. We, therefore, perform an attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) of the global soy chain separately for the GM and non-GM imports. First a detailed mapping of the soy-feed supply chain is done, beginning from the farm in Latin America to the animal farmer in European Union. Subsequently, life cycle is assessed to calculate the environmental impacts of each supply line for 14 impact categories, including global warming potential. Since non-GM soy based compound feed is expensive, in countries such as Sweden where there is zero tolerance for genetically modified organisms, animal farmers face a higher cost of production. As a result, there exists the possibility for a policy shift towards use of only GM soy. Hence, a consequential life cycle assessment (CLCA) is performed that includes the market effects for a scenario of shifting from GM to non-GM soy. This also ensures robustness in our estimation of the differential environmental impacts. Results from ALCA reveal that there are no significant environmental gains from importing non-GM soy over GM soy. Global warming potential and freshwater ecotoxicity are very high from non-GM imports while GM soy imports have a larger effect on land uses and terrestrial eutrophication. Increased transport distances due to segregation for non-GM soy is a major contributor to the higher negative environmental effects. Results from the CLCA, however, show that GM soy has a higher negative impact in most of the impact categories including global warming potential and freshwater and terrestrial acidification. This is possible when high demand for low cost GM triggers greater production in Latin America and substitution of locally grown protein, such as rapeseed cake, in Sweden.

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Journal Articles | 2018

The tree structure - A general framework for food waste quantification in food services

Mattias Eriksson, Christine Persson Osowski, Jesper Björkmanb, Emma Hansson, Christopher Malefors, Emelie Erikssone, and Ranjan Ghosh

Resources Conservation and Recycling

Food waste in the food services industry has been identified as an important unsustainability hotspot, but standardised methods for food waste quantification are lacking. Existing studies on waste quantity assessments have several limitations, such as short and infrequent quantifications times, large methodological variations ranging from physical measurements to visual observations, and lack of comparability across catering unit types. Since lack of comparable waste figures can lead to error-prone analysis, a general framework is needed for waste quantification in food services. This paper presents one such framework that allows data comparisons when overlapping observations are included. The framework was tested in six case studies in professional (public and private) catering units in Sweden. Data were collected from different schools, elderly care homes and hotels and fitted into the framework. The results from these case studies indicate that the framework enables catering units to focus waste quantification on their individual problem areas. It also provides the possibility to extend waste quantification over time without any loss of generalisability. A graphical representation of the framework fits the traditional tree structure and was found to act as a suitable foundation for food waste quantification in food services by structuring collected data. In order to fully utilise the potential of the tree structure, it should be supplemented with precise definitions to create a catering food waste quantification standard.

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Journal Articles | 2018

A burnout model of job crafting: Multiple mediator effects on job performance

Vijayalakshmi Singh and Manjari Singh

IIMB Management Review

Studies establish that job crafting, i.e. the proactive changes made in one's work through balancing available job demands and resources, results in various positive outcomes at the individual, job, and organisational levels. This study examines how employees proactively craft their jobs to avoid stress and burnout, and become better performers. We ground our study in the occupational health context of knowledge workers. Structural equation models on data from 268 Information Technology (IT) management professionals demonstrate the coping effect of job crafting in decreasing role stress and burnout, and increasing one's psychological availability, along with multiple mediation effects in improving job performance.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Promoting and managing FPOs in India for efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability: Challenges, policies and best practices

Sukhpal Singh

Cooperative Perspective, Spl Issue(September)

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IIMA