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2775 items in total found

Working Papers | 1997

Management of Intangibles in Indian Railways

Deepti Bhatnagar, Chhokar J S, and G. Raghuram

Managing intangibles is a major challenge before organizations. Increasingly there is an appreciation that for managing hard performance parameters, the softer aspects of management need to be looked into. In fact, several management thinkers believe that understanding and managing the soft aspects, for example the feelings, attitudes, and values of people, their motivation, perceptions about organizational priorities and norms, and elements of the organizational culture, offers an important key to managing the hard and visible aspects such as output, asset utilisation, turn over, and profitability. This paper describes the efforts and outcomes of a project on Management of Intangibles (MI) iin the Indian Railways, in which it was decided to underscore the significance of managing intangibles through a multipronged approach. In the first place, therefore, it was decided to explore the perceptions about the prevalence of certain key managerial attributes among the officers of Indian Railways. At a second, we wanted to assess the prevalence of certain important attitudinal variables trough self-report measures. Appropriate surveys were conducted. Next, two case studies on “Role Models' in leadership in the Indian Railways were developed. Finally, an action research on management of intangibles was carried out through a seies of workshops held for this purpose. The most important aspect of this study was its “self-driven nature”. The action research part, which formed the heart of the study in terms of managing intangibles was completely designed, executed and written about by the participants themselves, with the researchers only playing a facilitator role. Though only tow experiences have been documented in written form, some of the other experiences are expected to have an impact in the working domain of the participants. The case studies on the two role models brings out that divergent styles can also be “successful”. They offer an opportunity to reflect on what makes a leader click in his/her environment. In terms of difference in the existing and desired level of attributes, concern for external customers, and openness to others' ideas rank at the top. This is a clear reflection of the direction in which the organization needs to move.

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Working Papers | 1997

Determinants of Growth in Rice Productivity in India, 1980-95

Namboodiri N V

This paper analyses various price and non-price factors that induce rice productivity during 1980-95 using a multi-variate model. This is studied separately for states where rice is a multi-season crop and mono-season crop. The non-price factors considered here include technology, commercialization, government support programme, farm size, and rainfall. The price factors include farm harvest price, fertilizer price and wage rate. Among these explanatory factors the influence of non-price factors is more important than the price factors except that of price of fertilizer in determining rice productivity. The relative influence of these factors differed between the multi-season and mono-season states which emphasizes region specific strategies for promoting rice productivity.

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Working Papers | 1997

An Exact Algorithm for the Uncapacitated Network Design Problem

Sastry Trilochan

We describe an O(n22k + n3k) algorithm for the uncapacitated network design problem where K is the number of commodities, and n the number of nodes in the graph.

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Working Papers | 1997

Two Commodity Network Design: The Convex HULL

Sastry Trilochan

We study the uncapacitated and capacitated one facility versions of the two commodity network design problem. We characterize optimal solutions and show that we can restrict the search for optimal solutions to feasible solutions with at most one shared path. Using this characterization, we describe the convex hull of integer solutions to the uncapcitated problem using O(m) variables and O(n) constraints. We also describe how Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm can be used to solve the problem in a transformed graph with O(n) nodes and O(m) arcs. For the capacitated two commodity problem, we show that the problem can be solved either by using any standard shortest path algorithm or by the algorithm described for the uncapacitated case.

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Working Papers | 1997

An Axiomatic Characterization of the Equal Income Market Equilibrium Choice Correspondence in Non-Convex Economics

Lahiri Somdeb

A property of allocation rules (in problems involving fair division of infinitely divisible goods amongst a finite number of agents) that has received considerable attention in recent literature is consistency. The property may be described as follows: apply a allocation rule to a problem within a chosen class of problems. consistency would require that the restriction of any allocation chosen by the rule for that problem to any subgroup of agents is what this solution would recommend for the “reduced problem” obtained by imagining the departure of the members of the complementary group with what they receive, and re-evaluating the situation from the view point of those who remain. In Lahiri [1997] can be found axiomatic characterization of the equal income market equilibrium choice correspondence in economies characterized by convex preferences, and using the properties of consistency and converse consistency. The earliest known work in a similar direction is the one by Thomson [1988] followed by Thomson [1994] where consistency plays a fundamental role. In the Lahiri [1997] paper, the second fundamental theorem of welfare economics plays a crucial role. Young [1993] provides a generalization of a Thomson [1988] result, where a characterization of sub-correspondences of the equal income competitive equilibrium allocations are available (for convex preferences) using consistency and a property called replication invariance. Simply put, replication invariance says that if we replicate an allocation problem, the solution outcomes also get replicated. In this paper, we extend the Young [1993] result to economies where preferences may be non-convex. We invoke a property called Sigma optimality which Svennson [1994] uses rather persuasively to establish the existence of fair allocations in non-convex economies. The corresponding welfare theorem in terms of optimality is used to characterize the equal income market equilibrium choice correspondence in terms of consistency replication invariance, and a property called quasi-local independence. The last property is implied by local independence – a property used repeatedly in Lahiri [1997]. For a general survey of the literature concerning problems of fair division, the reader should refer to Thomson and Varian [1985].

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Working Papers | 1997

Personal Growth Laboratory a Personal Philosophy

Parikh Indira J

This paper focuses on the evolution and transformation of what is known as Laboratory Training or Personal growth Labs or PG Labs. The experience of the participants in the lab is for the self to explore the inner world of feelings and meanings around relationships and quest for purpose and meaning of existence. A lab needs to be anchored in the socio-cultural context and larger human existence. An individual explores the myths, epics, folklore, folktales, role models from family sagas, literature, history and other deeply embedded codings and experiences of his/her growing up. The personal growth lab provides a space to experience the individuals being by reflecting on the configuration of experiences, differentiating elements of being and non-being, positive energy and negative energy and giving direction to the unfolding of the being. The paper explores the four themes of (1) invitation versus compulsion to explore, (2) the lab space in time and movement versus the concept of ownership, (3) role of the participants and the role of the anchor person, (4) directionality versus specificity, (5) unfolding the person versus boundaries of growth. The lab space is the sacred space where encounters are with the infinity of the self and touching ones own magic and mystery of human existence.

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Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State: 2. Resharing the Bureaucracy

Khandwalla P N

In Virtually any king of modern state, there is a huge role for the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is intended to be a rational system of administration. But it is prone to many bureaupathologies, and increasing size tends to aggravate these bureaupathologies. Since the state in the 20th century has grown rapidly, it has become increasingly prone to malfunctioning on account of various bureaupathologies. Various attempts at bureaucratic reform have generally failed, especially in developing countries. Several pitfalls in administrative reforms have been listed. But there are also several success stories, from developed countries, newly industrialized countries, and developing countries, and the lessons of these successes can help recharge bureaucracies elsewhere. The experience of several East Asian countries that experienced rapid growth in the sixties and onwards, suggests how bureaucracy can be made growth oriented. Malaysia's experience suggests how values like quality, productivity, innovativeness, discipline, integrity, accountability, and professionalism can be institutionalized in a bureaucracy. The experience of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, etc. suggests numerous ways of substantially improving the performance of bureaucracy. Several conditions are discussed for supporting sustained public service reform, derived from a study of administrative practices in a number of Commonwealth countries.

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Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State: 3. Fragmenting the State for Innovation

Khandwalla P N

Organizational research indicates that large organizations involved in many different activities can counteract the diseconomies of size and complexity, tendency to bureaucratization, and to increasing resistance to innovation by breaking up into relatively autonomous, self-contained units such as relatively autonomous, self-contained divisions, retaining mainly policy control at the centre and a powerful MIS as a monitoring device. States too can enhance their administrative capacity and innovativeness highly by decentralizing and by fragmenting themselves into relatively autonomous, self-contained units headed by professional managers with clear accountability and clear mandate. Such unbundling must, however, be in the pursuit of an integrating, shared vision of national excellence like social justice, economic growth, and improvement in the quality of life. Several case studies from a number of countries of government departments, agencies, and projects that were decentralized along the foregoing lines under a shared vision of state excellence demonstrate the efficacy of this strategy of fragmenting the state in certain effective ways. Several additional mechanisms can institutionalize the culture on innovation in governmental bodies, such as progressively higher goals, with potential conflict among goals. The operationalziation of a strong serving the “customer” commitment, an operationlized commitment to cut costs, to make increasingly technologically sophisticated offerings, to benchmarking, to entrepreneurship, to global scanning for innovations, trends, and opportunities, to periodic diagnosis of the organization's functioning, to participative decision making and brainstorming for novel but workable solutions, to periodic, exonovation, and toa daunting developmental and growth vision are powerful mechanisms to make government bodies highly innovative.

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Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State: 1. Models of the Modern State

Khandwalla P N

In this paper the complexity of the modern state is examined with reference to the pressures under which it operates, and the mechanisms it employs of differentiation and integration. The reasons for the very large increase in the size of the state in this century, both in the developed countries and in the developing countries, are examined, as also some differences in the patterns of growth of the state in these two sets of countries. The major forces shaping the state in the 20th century are briefly discussed, resulting in the evolution of four models of the state. These are: the democratic interventionist-welfare state, commonplace in many Western societies; the developmental state that evolved in the Soviet system, and spread with some modifications to many developing countries; the liberal, market-friendly state espoused by the World Bank which has found a footing in most developing countries that have taken structural adjustment loans from the World Bank and IMF; and the businesslike, managerial state promoted by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagn and others. It is contended that innovations in any kind of state can, with suitable modifications, be adapted in any other kind of state, and that innovations in governance systems and adaptive borrowings are powerful keys to state excellence.

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Working Papers | 1997

Globalization Work and Management

Singh J P

Major changes are occurring in the sphere of work and management. While there is emergence of new time based and information based opportunities, some traditional office and business work opportunities are shrinking. Simultaneously, there is recognition of a new type of “Permanently Temporary” Employment that is a pointer to the need for employment laws that take into account new work realities. On a larger plane, changes are also occurring in trade and business world. A few truly global organizations have emerged. However, organizations that operate in 30-40 or 10-20 countries are many, and are beginning to encounter the problem of operating in international environment. Use of values and social concerns have become the new element in protection of markets in addition to the traditional concern for quality and the recent concern for environment. There is a shifting of polluting industries to new environments resulting in environmental hazards where none existed and a major shift in the job market around the globe. National economies are also shifting from industrial to service and information economies. Another major change is linked with the development of distance learning opportunities and a move towards a universal language. This is influencing not only the way education is imparted but also nature and management of educational institutions thus forcing organizations to rethink their human resource development and learning strategies. At the core of all these changes is a major technological breakthrough – in satellite imaging, communication, computing, high speed travel and transport technologies. This explosion of Technology has resulted in new competition giving older organizations very little response time. Emergence of the new slim and trim organizations have forced unions to change focus from wages and benefits to protection of jobs. Since both work and technology are changing at a fast pace, the sphere of management has also been affected. In some ways control and unity of command are under revision and calls for a reassessment of the management theory and practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges ahead before the business world and developing societies.

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