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2757 items in total found

Working Papers | 2011

A Framework of Project Risk Management for the Underground Corridor Construction of Metro Rail

Sarkar Debasis and Goutam Dutta

In this paper, we discuss a method of measurement of project risk, based on the expected value method (EVM). Project risk management primarily comprises cost and schedule uncertainties and risks associated with each activity of the project network. We have identified the major risk sources and quantified the risks in terms of likelihood, impact and severity in a complex infrastructure project for the construction of an underground corridor for metro railways. A case study of the underground metro corridor in the capital city of an emerging economic nation of South Asia has been considered for this research work. The methodology for this work was the response from the experts associated and involved in this and other similar projects in metro rail. The risk analysis for the determination of risk cost, risk time, expected cost and expected time of the project has been carried out by the expected value method. Based on this study we find that the project cost overrun and time overrun can be about 22.5 % and 23.4 % respectively, if we use the expected value method.

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Working Papers | 2011

Back to the Drawing Board: Exploring Gestalts of Work Design in BPO Firms

Kirti Sharda

This paper formulates a conceptual framework that proposes that certain work designs could contribute to better organizational performance within a sample of outsourcing firms. It explores this proposition using data collected from 60 outsourcing firms across India through survey and semi-structured interviews using principal components factor analysis, wards minimum variance method and K-means cluster analysis, four dominant patterns or gestalts of outsourcing firms are identified, namely, involvement, directed intervention, embedded control and containment.

This research makes some important contributions towards understanding outsourcing firms. It demonstrates that work designs can take a variety of forms. While involvement and containment designs have been studied in prior literature, two new work designs emerge, namely, directed intervention and embedded control. This paper also contributes to the academic realm. It follows research precedents set in general organizational literature, but which have not been used in the context of outsourcing firms. Just as the theoretical foundation of this study draws from the areas of outsourcing, organization theory and strategic human resource management, so also can the findings of this study be used in research in these disciplines.

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Working Papers | 2011

Status of Common Service Center Program in India: Issues, Challenges and Emerging Practices for Rollout

Rajanish Dass and Atashi Bhattacherjee

The Common Service Centre is a 1.2 billion USD initiative by the Government of India. It is an integral pillar of the Government's National e-governance Plan. The project was started in the year 2004 with the vision to develop these centres as the front-end delivery points for government, private and social sector services to rural citizens of India in an integrated manner. However as on 31st May, 2010, six years after the initiation of the project, only about 50 percent of the States had reported success in achieving 70 percent rollout status of these centres. Even the successful States were being plagued by issues which were hindering the operation and threatening the sustainability of these centres.

In this paper we have discussed the current status of implementation of the CSCs across the nation and the pertinent issues that are being faced by the various stakeholders in the project. It was interesting to find out that though the country wise rollout had not yet reached the cent percent mark there were some states that were doing well, compared to others, despite the fact that some of these failing states were the first to initiate the exercise.We have also conducted field studies in the states of Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya in order to understand the ground level issues and challenges hampering the implementation of these centres. This paper is an attempt to understand the various challenges and bottlenecks that are being faced in making these common service centres sustainable. Given that the CSCs are designed to provide the last mile linkage to G2C and B2C services, the importance and impact of these centres are immense and the program has the potential to overturn the issues related to accessibility that pulls back the sizeable percentage of the populace. It is however, noteworthy that these perceived benefits to the citizens from this project can only be accrued when these centres are operational. Thus it becomes imperative to study the factors that are hindering the setting up and the functioning of these centres. The study also reveals that there was lack of fool-proof planning at the government's end in terms of having no structured framework for roll out and no risk mitigation plan in place for a project of this dimension. Moreover, the study shows that there has been a substantial evolution in the business model (based on PPP) that was being used initially across various states in the country to a business model (based on PPP) that is emerging to be more successful and sustainable than what was initially planned for.

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Working Papers | 2011

Adoption of Mobile Financial Services among Rural Under-Banked

Rajanish Dass and Sujoy Pal

During the last decade, there has been tremendous growth in mobile penetration in many countries across the globe and most interestingly in a number of developing countries. On the other hand around, half of the world's population is deprived of banking and financial services. This paper is based on a study that was aimed to identify drivers and inhibitors for adoption of MFS among the rural under-banked population and to compare the same with that of the existing studies. During the study, an extensive review of literature was conducted to identify the factors that were studied and found significantly affecting the adoption of mobile financial services. This was followed by an exploratory qualitative research conducted among the rural under-banked population of three distinct states in India. The findings of the study indicate that the demand for banking and financial services and the amount of hardships faced in availing these services through the existing channels of delivery can act as strong drivers for MFS adoption among the rural under-banked. On the other hand, factors like lack of trust on technology and lack of technology readiness were found to act as barriers to the adoption of MFS.

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Working Papers | 2011

Emergence of Informal Sector Firms in International Business

Rao Indu

This paper highlights the emergence of Informal Sector Firms (ISFs) in international business. Due to increasing size and significance of the informal economy in the global context (particularly emerging markets), we attempt to understand the characteristics and relevance of the ISFs. The globally distributed diamond industry thrives in the atmosphere of secrecy and informality that envelops the diamond trade and has for long been labeled as an unorganized sector of the world economy. However, it resembles a close-knit community, composed of thousands of informal sector firms (ISFs) which exports cut and polished diamonds worth USD 20 billion annually while the collective output of ISFs in an emerging economy (India) enjoys a 95 percent market share of net global exports. It is suggested that due to lack of formal systems, ISFs may be largely influenced by their societal cultures which in turn plays a role in the internationalization of ISFs.

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Working Papers | 2011

Co-mingling Contrasting Institutional Logics: Exploring the Dialectics of Institutional Change through an Indian-based ES Implementation

George Kandathil, Sue Newell, and Erica Wagner

In this paper we explore how the implementation of an Enterprise System (ES) is related to organizational change, using an institutional theory lens. Our paper responds to institutional theorists' recent calls to first, better understand the ways in which macro, field-level logics of action are framed and applied in micro practices within an organization and second, to understand how material objects contribute to institutional stability and change. We do this through the interpretive exploration of a rich case study of an ES implementation in India. This is an ideal case to examine because the institutional logic inscribed in the ES is developed within one organizational field, but is applied in a very different organizational field, thus allowing us to explore the macro-micro dynamics as well as the role of technology as a carrier and stabilizer of institutional structures and practices.

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Working Papers | 2011

Agglomeration Economies and Productivity Growth in India

Astha Agarwalla

Agglomeration economies have been analyzed in the literature as drivers of economic growth, as these contribute to productivity enhancement. The primary objective of this paper is to ascertain the existence of agglomeration economies, and to examine the extent to which these have contributed to productivity growth in India. Two sources of agglomeration economies are distinguished-(i) at the industry level-localization economies of intra-industry linkage; and (ii) at the regional level-inter-industry urbanization economies. Growth accounting framework is used with agglomeration parameters included in the shift term of a general production function, coefficients of which are estimated through panel data regression. I employ state level data for 25 state economies in India for the period 1980-81 to 2006-07. There is evidence that urbanization economies tend to exist; however, there is considerable variation in the sources and magnitude of agglomeration economies across sectors. Results indicate that for service sector, the economies of urbanization exist on a lower level of urbanization, whereas for manufacturing, these economies are present at higher levels. Results support regional diversity more than localization, even if some differences can be seen across sectors.

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Working Papers | 2011

Private Label Brand Choice Dynamics
Logit model involving demographic and psychographic variables

Abhishek

Research on private label brands started with focus on explaining the choice of private label brands by simple demographics variables which later expanded into work on attitudinal and behavioral characteristics of customers. However, all these studies had never tried to integrate demographic and psychographic variables to achieve a higher explanatory power, even though researchers had suggested that such a combination is likely to have a higher explanatory power. This paper, after a review of literature, identifies the variables for private label brand proneness. This is followed by mathematical explanation which provides the mathematical model using discrete choice modeling. The paper also provides operationalization of integrated model in current Indian retail scenario and concludes with explaining the limitations.

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Working Papers | 2011

International Migration, Remittances and its
Macroeconomic Impact on Indian Economy

Sunny Kumar Singh and K.S. Hari

This paper tried to study the impact of remittances on various macroeconomic and developmental aspects for the Indian economy. For this, the data regarding remittances and some of the macroeconomic variables like GDP, PFCE, GDFC, savings, FDI, FII, export, import and balance of trade deficit etc have been analyzed for the period 1971-2008. The study shows that remittances have been consistently increasing at very fast rate for the last 15 years which have significant implications on the above mentioned macroeconomic variables. Through this study, the importance of remittances as a source of external development finance has been discussed. At last, some of the regulatory frameworks governing the flow of remittances have also been discussed.

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Working Papers | 2011

A Meta Analysis on Adoption of Mobile Financial Services

Rajanish Dass and Pal Sujoy

During the last decade, there has been tremendous growth in mobile penetration in many countries across the globe including a number of developing countries. The total number of mobile subscription 5 billion by the end of 2010 and is further expected to grow multi-folds. On the other hand, around 2.5 billion adults worldwide do not have a savings or credit account with either a regulated bank or alternative financial institution (such as a microfinance institution). Around one billion people in emerging markets have a mobile phone but no access to banking services. This scenario has opened immense opportunities for organizations including banks, insurance companies and telecom operators to strengthen their customer base and increase revenue by providing various financial services to the consumers through mobile technology. Hence, it becomes very important to understand the factors that would act as drivers or inhibitors towards the adoption of mobile financial services (MFS). Quite a few studies have been conducted across the globe to determine the factors affecting adoption of MFS. This paper provides a Meta analysis of the existing academic literature on MFS and determines the strength of the factors and their linkages through a scoring model based on the type of publication. The findings of the study would be beneficial for further research in understanding the dimensions to be considered for developing adoption model for MFS. The findings can also be used by the practitioners involved in MFS in understanding the factors affecting demand for such services.

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