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743 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2017

How to answer some tricky interview questions?

Asha Kaul

HBR Ascend

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Journal Articles | 2017

Financial fluctuations anchored to economic fundamentals: A mesoscopic network approach

Kiran Sharma, Balagopal Gopalakrishnan, Anindya S. Chakrabarti, and Anirban Chakraborti

Scientific Reports

We demonstrate the existence of an empirical linkage between nominal financial networks and the underlying economic fundamentals, across countries. We construct the nominal return correlation networks from daily data to encapsulate sector-level dynamics and infer the relative importance of the sectors in the nominal network through measures of centrality and clustering algorithms. Eigenvector centrality robustly identifies the backbone of the minimum spanning tree defined on the return networks as well as the primary cluster in the multidimensional scaling map. We show that the sectors that are relatively large in size, defined with three metrics, viz., market capitalization, revenue and number of employees, constitute the core of the return networks, whereas the periphery is mostly populated by relatively smaller sectors. Therefore, sector-level nominal return dynamics are anchored to the real size effect, which ultimately shapes the optimal portfolios for risk management. Our results are reasonably robust across 27 countries of varying degrees of prosperity and across periods of market turbulence (2008–09) as well as periods of relative calmness (2012–13 and 2015–16).

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Journal Articles | 2017

Emergence of anti-coordination through reinforcement learning in generalized minority games

Anindya S. Chakrabarti and Diptesh Ghosh

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination

In this paper we propose adaptive strategies to solve coordination failures in a prototype generalized minority game model with a multi-agent, multi-choice environment. We illustrate the model with an application to large scale distributed processing systems with a large number of agents and servers. In our set up, agents are assigned responsibility to complete tasks that require unit time. They request servers to process these tasks. Servers can process only one task at a time. Agents have to choose servers independently and simultaneously, and have access to the outcomes of their own past requests only. Coordination failure occurs if more than one agent simultaneously requests the same server to process tasks at the same time, while other servers remain idle. Since agents are independent, this leads to multiple coordination failures. In this paper, we propose strategies based on reinforcement learning that minimize such coordination failures. We also prove a null result that a large category of probabilistic strategies which attempts to combine information about other agents’ strategies, asymptotically converge to uniformly random choices over the servers.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Investigating a An evolutionary analysis of growth and fluctuations with negative externalities

Anindya S. Chakrabarti and Ratul Lakhar

Dynamic Games and Applications

We present an evolutionary game theoretic model of growth and fluctuations with negative externalities. Agents in a population choose the level of input. Total output is a function of aggregate input and a productivity parameter. The model, which is equivalent to a tragedy of the commons, constitutes an aggregative potential game with negative externalities. Aggregate input at the Nash equilibrium is inefficiently high causing aggregate payoff to be suboptimally low. Simulations with the logit dynamic reveal that while the aggregate input increases monotonically from an initial low level, aggregate payoff may decline from the corresponding high level. Hence, a positive technology shock causes a rapid initial increase in aggregate payoff, which is unsustainable as agents increase aggregate input to the inefficient equilibrium level. Aggregate payoff, therefore, declines subsequently. A sequence of exogenous shocks, therefore, generates a sustained pattern of growth and fluctuations in aggregate payoff.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Investigating a comparative evaluation approach in explaining loyalty

Anand Kumar Jaiswal and Jos G.A.M. Lemmink

Marketing Intelligence and Planning

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the superiority of comparative evaluation or relative attitudinal measurement approach in which the respondent evaluates one object with direct comparison with other objects. The study uses comparative and non-comparative approaches to examine the effects of service quality, value, and customer satisfaction on attitudinal loyalty in a service setting.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses the data collected from the survey of 300 customers of two large Indian banks.

Findings

The results provide partial support to the superiority of the comparative evaluation over non-comparative evaluation. Additionally, results indicate that service quality positively affects customer value, and both service quality and customer value have a direct positive effect on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction drives attitudinal loyalty which in turn leads to customers’ willingness to pay more.

Research limitations/implications

In the study, two banks were used for comparative evaluation. Since consumers’ consideration set can consist of more than two alternatives, future studies can include more than two objects.

Practical implications

Non-comparative measurements do not always adequately explain customer loyalty and superior performance of firms. This could potentially lead to misinterpretations of effects of service quality improvement programs and thus sub-optimal management decisions. Managers should use comparative evaluation approach for measuring marketing variables wherever possible.

Originality/value

Although the use of comparative evaluation is suggested in the literature (Dick and Basu, 1994), extant research has not systematically examined its superiority over non-comparative evaluation. This study empirically tests the comparative evaluation approach against the non-comparative approach by examining a comprehensive model involving the interrelationships among service quality, value, customer satisfaction, and their impact on attitudinal loyalty and willingness to pay more.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Unsustainability of sustainability: Cognitive frames and tensions in Bottom of the Pyramid projects

Garima Sharma and Anand Kumar Jaiswal

Journal of Business Ethics

Existing research posits that decision makers use specific cognitive frames to manage tensions in sustainability. However, we know less about how the cognitive frames of individuals at different levels in organization interact and what these interactions imply for managing sustainability tensions, such as in Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) projects. To address this omission, we ask do organizational and project leaders differ in their understanding of tensions in a BOP project, and if so, how? We answer this question by drawing on a 5-year study of a BOP project of a global pharmaceutical company in India. In line with the existing research, we found three kinds of frames—paradoxical, business case, and business—held differently across organizational levels and over time. We also found that the shift in frames of both project and organizational leaders was mediated by the decision-making horizon. The initial divergence across organizational levels, seen in paradoxical and business frames, was mediated by long-term decision-making horizon. However, there was an eventual convergence toward business frames associated with the shift from long- to shorter-term decision-making horizons and one that led to the project’s closure. We contribute by proposing a dynamic model of cognitive frames in sustainability, where the research has either alluded to top-down or bottom-up understanding.

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Journal Articles | 2017

The role of cluster presence and quality certification in internationalization and performance of offshore service providers

Rajesh S. Upadhyayula, Karthik Dhandapani, and Amit Karna

Journal of International Management

Offshore Service Providers (OSPs) have been a subject of research for several years now. However, there is little known about what drives the internationalization of OSPs. In this paper, we combine insights from economic geography and institutional view to investigate cluster presence and quality certification as the drivers of OSP internationalization and their performance. We hypothesize the facilitating role these two factors play in driving the performance of internationalized firms. We test our hypotheses using data from Indian software firms between 1992 and 2002. We find a positive effect of certification on OSP internationalization. Although certification contributes negatively to OSP performance, it positively moderates the performance effect of OSP internationalization. Cluster presence was found to drive OSP's overall performance, but has no effect on internationalization. Through our findings, we contribute towards the literature on OSP internationalization.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Urban common service generation, delivery and management: A Conceptual Framework

Arpit Shah and Amit Garg

Ecological Economics

Urban commons are currently not studied holistically under the rationale used by the ecosystem cascade framework. In this paper, we build on the ecosystem cascade framework to present a conceptual model that provides a comprehensive view of urban common resources and allows decision-makers to develop suitable interventions to meet objectives of sustainability and equity. The model looks at the role of and explains the linkages between urban commons' biophysical structures, user population characteristics, power dynamics, use behavior, benefits generated, and management strategies. The model adds to existing literature by focusing on direct benefits and equity and by elaborating on the role of transaction costs and management strategies in governing urban commons. Considering direct benefits allows for a complete picture of overall benefits while making governance decisions, as opposed to considering benefits received only through human effort. Focusing on power asymmetries between stakeholders highlights the inequities created in accessing benefits from urban commons. Elaborating on management strategies provides greater insight into the complexities of managing urban commons and the impacts that governance decisions can have. Finally, including transaction costs highlights the factors that influence costs of managing resources. We illustrate the use of the model with literature from urban India.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Let the people speak: Improving regional adaptation policy by combining adaptive capacity assessments with vulnerability perceptions of farmers in Gujarat, India

Ryan Stock, Trevor Birkenholtz, and Amit Garg

Climate and Development

Farmers throughout the Global South are vulnerable to extreme heat events and shifting precipitation patterns associated with climate change. This is particularly the case in Gujarat, India, which is experiencing fluctuating monsoon rains and seasons. Local institutions there are ill-equipped to assist farmers in adapting to these changes. However, farmers are adapting to climate change, largely through livelihood diversification, in the absence of formal state intervention. Using qualitative methods, we conducted adaptive capacity assessments and assessed vulnerability perceptions in 3 villages, involving 120 farmers from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Combining vulnerability perceptions with adaptive capacity assessments, we better observed the mismatch between rural development policy with the potential to aid in adaptation processes that address local needs, identifying why policy fails to increase the adaptive capacity of the agriculturalists most vulnerable to climate impacts. Decentralizing adaptation programmes to community-level institutions can increase the efficacy of climate interventions by emboldening latent institutions, while not widening the socioeconomic gap of a rapidly modernizing India.

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Journal Articles | 2017

The1.5°C target and coal sector transition: at the limits of societal feasibility

Thomas Spencer, Michel Colombier, Oliver Sartor, and Amit Garg

Climate Policy

National and global mitigation scenarios consistent with 1.5°C require an early phase-out of coal in major coal-dependent countries, compared to standard technical and economic lifetimes. This appears particularly apparent in the light of recent massive investments in coal power capacity, the significant pipeline of coal power capacity coming online, as well as upstream supporting infrastructure. This article analyses the existing and planned capital stock in the coal power sector in the light of scenarios consistent with 1.5°C. The article analyses the political economy and labour aspects of this abrupt and significant transition, in the light of domestic equity and development objectives. Firstly, the article examines employment issues and reviews the existing literature and practice with support schemes for regional and sectoral structural adjustment for the reduction of coal sector activity. Secondly, the paper surveys the domestic political economy of coal sector transition in major coal using countries, namely Australia, South Africa, China and India. A final section provides conclusions and policy recommendations.

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IIMA